Google SEO News

Configure Your Shipping and Returns in Search Console

Google has streamlined the process of adding shipping and return information for your products directly in the Google Search Console. Previously, product-level shipping and return markups were supported, but now you can specify a general return policy for your entire business. This integration allows for managing these policies in your Merchant Center account, improving your product listings' visibility and showcasing services like free and fast shipping in Google Search results.

SEO Recommendations by Jason

Make sure to log into GSC, verify your GMC account is linked, and include your shipping and return information to be populated in the search results.

July 9th Google Search Ranking Volatility Observed

Recent data from Google Search ranking volatility tools shows a significant spike as of July 9th. However, it does not match the tools' readings, leading to speculation about whether the tools detect indexing issues or an actual algorithm update. This anomaly follows consistent weekend updates, but it is unusual for such fluctuations to appear during the work week.

SEO Recommendations by Jason

I recommend always double-checking your organic readings in GSC with your external tracking and analytics. We often see small discrepancies between GA4 and GSC on “organic-traffic” sources. These discrepancies are okay, as long as they are not above 2%-3%. If your traffic is marginally low, it's normal to get accurate readings between both platforms, but as your traffic grows, discrepancies between GSC reports and analytics can and do occur.

Bing SEO News

Bing Tests Nutritional Labels in Image Search

Bing is experimenting with adding nutritional information to images in its search results. These labels, such as "high calcium," "lean protein," and "anti-inflammatory," aim to provide users with more detailed information about food products directly from the search results.

SEO Recommendations by Jason

These updates are great at providing users with a preview of necessary information before clicking on the results; this should help CTR and overall engagement rate once the viewers click through to the result. Make sure to incorporate the contents of these labels into your schema.

Bing Search Now Shows Coupons in Explore Menu

Bing has altered the visibility of coupons within its search results. Coupons are now found under the explore menu icon, requiring users to click or hover to view them. This change from the previous display format, where coupons were shown as buttons or labels under search snippets, makes them less immediately visible.

SEO Recommendations by Jason

No update to be made here, but it's great to see Bing bring a more advanced UX in their search engines to compete with big brother Google 🙂

Bing Tests Voting Feature for Search Results

Bing is testing a new feature that allows users to vote up or down on specific search results. The results display the percentage of positive versus negative votes, aiming to improve search result quality based on user feedback.

SEO Recommendations by Jason

This new feature in search is absolutely great. This could have a very big impact on Bing organic if rolled out across the search engines and all users. I believe dynamics like this can help demystify and also allow newer websites with unique content to grow faster and gain organic visibility in search results. That being said, it would be important to understand how they will stop spammers from manipulating these results.

General Search Marketing News 

AI Overviews and E-commerce Updates in July '24

John Mueller from Google provides updates on various topics, including AI overviews, Search Console, and structured data. Notably, AI overviews from Google I/O are now available, new structured data for organization-level return policies and product variants have been introduced, and the SEO Starter Guide has been updated. Additional updates include performance reports for merchant listings in Google Images, mobile indexing completion, and a new web filter for simplified search results. Google also highlights community insights and announces upcoming events and social media updates.