Google is testing a new card style of news results in the regular Google search results on desktop. These cards are somewhat similar to what you see on mobile, except that they are not a carousel. Here is what it looks like: The title above the news card results translates to “headlines”, as in news […]
Archives for November 2016
Google Updates Site Move Recommendations for Webmasters
Google has updated their site move recommendations for those who are moving sites to new domains, to https or to a new URL structure. The new recommendations are specifically about when to move a site at once and when to do it in steps or phases. The new section reads: Decide how you will move […]
Google & Bing Increase Size of Sitemap Files to 50MB
Bing has announced a change to the sitemap file size limit, increasing it from 10MB to 50MB. Google has also confirmed they are honoring the new sitemap size increase too. It is important to note that the change doesn’t increase the actual number of URLs in the sitemap file. That is still limited to 50,000 […]
Google Removing “Content Keywords” from Search Console
Google will be removing the “Content Keywords” section from Google Search Console, removing Google’s tracking of the keywords they see as most popular on your pages and site overall. Content Keywords is a combined report that lists the most common keywords within a site, including variants, and reports it within Search Console. This feature will […]
Google Testing Alert to Inform Searchers That AMP Means Fast
Google is testing a way to help searchers understand what exactly an AMP result is. They are testing a notification that shows underneath an AMP result, alerting the searcher that an AMP page is a really fast web page. Here is how it looks: It says “AMP delivers a lightning-fast experience” and can be closed […]
Google Testing New Version of “Back to Top” at Bottom of Search Results
Google is testing another variation of “back to top” in the mobile search results, to make it easier for searchers who want to quickly jump back to the top of the search results page, rather than continuing on to the second page of results. Here is how it looks: Google was earlier testing a version […]
Google Rewrites Titles & Adds Headlines for Some Featured Snippets
Sometimes Google has a perfect featured snippet for a query, but the page’s title doesn’t quite match. So Google will create a new title for a featured snippet to reflect the changes. The headline appears at the top of the featured snippet, which is different from the usual featured snippet without a headline. Here is […]
Bing Adds Instant Messenger & Chat to Local Business Results
Bing has added a new feature that allows searchers to connect to the chat or messenger feature for local businesses. This makes it easy for searchers to find the chat feature for any business, saving them hunting around on the website to find it. Here is what it looks like when linked to their own […]
Bing Now Shows Holiday Hours for Local Businesses in Search Results
Bing is finally showing holiday hours in their local pack and local business knowledge panel results. They began showing up yesterday to show holiday hours and closures for Thanksgiving Day. They are also detailing special hours for events such as Black Friday. Here is how it looks showing holiday closures in the local pack: And […]
Bing Ads Launches New Black Friday Flyers Carousel
Bing Ads has launched a new design of their Black Friday flyers carousel this year. This new carousel gives searchers quick access to Black Friday flyers from well known brand advertisers. These flyers are paid ads, but unlike last year’s flyers which were done through Flipp, these flyers are from the brand advertisers directly. Here […]