Google has launched new “buy e-books online” feature in the Google knowledge panel for books. These first showed up for book related searches on Friday morning. Here is what it looks like: The most interesting thing about these is that they seem to be organic results and NOT paid. They do not have a sponsored […]
Using Emojis in Google’s Local Pack & Knowledge Panel
Many webmasters have used (and abused) emojis within Google’s search results, and it seems there is a new way for using them in the Google search results, this time within both the local pack, map results and local knowledge panel. First, this is how it looks in the local knowledge panel, in Chrome: And in […]
Google Testing New Card Style News in Desktop Search Results
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 […]
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 […]
Google Adds Live Busy Status to Local Businesses in Search Results
Google will now show how busy a business in in the local business knowledge panel within the Google search results. The new feature is an addition to the “popular times” feature that shows how busy a specific business is on various times and days of the week. The new feature adds a “live” tag to […]