Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.
Search Engine Roundtable Stories:
- Branded Searches In Google My Business Insights
Last month, Google introduced a new group of analytics data in Google My Business Insights called "branded" searches. Google defined them as "Customers who find your listing searching for a brand related to your business." Joy Hawkins met with Google and had a chance to clarify with examples what these types of searches are. - Google Beta Testers Wanted For The Search Console Performance Report
Google is once again looking for beta testers to help improve the Google Search Console Performance report. John Mueller of Google posted on Twitter saying "we're looking to make some changes and would love to get your feedback, especially if you use the report regularly & have a kinda complex site." - Google Tests Dropping The Knowledge Panel From Search Results
Google has confirmed in the Google Web Search Help forums that they are running a test where the search results page shows no knowledge panel. The knowledge panel on desktop typically shows up on the right of the page when there is a match for a name, brand, company, facts, etc. Andy from Google confirmed Google is testing not showing it to some searchers. - Google To Split Google News User & Publisher Forums
Forever, Google had a single Google forum for both Google News consumers (i.e. searchers) and publishers (news publications) to share and post their complaints in. So you would have people complaining about the quality of the Google News results and at the same time publishers complaining that their site is not showing up. - Google Releases Google My Business API v4.3
Google has released version 4.3 of the Google My Business API. Version 4.2 was released in August and this new release brings new functionality including the ability to read and respond to customer Q&A, read reviews in bulk, Identify unclaimed locations and more. - Meet The Captain Of SEO From Vietnam
Did you ever meet the captain of SEO? If not, you can, he is from Hội An in Vietnam - he has a boat named Captain SEO. Eli Schwartz, an SEO I've known for a long time shared the photo on Facebook.
Other Great Search Forum Threads:
- Global Ad Fraud Discovered and Taken Down, WebmasterWorld
- Google Update today?, BlackHatWorld
- WHOA. RAD. Report a Google-ish Spam Call: https://t.co/d1tNLbZeqh Major kudos to @GoogleMyBiz and can’t believe I’d missed this before. PERMANENTLY BOOKMARKING, David Mihm on Twitter
- You're right -- you need to treat Googlebot the same as other users from the same region, including any redirects that you'd show those users. Geo-specific redirects also make debugging issues really hard.… https://t.co/bLoOb, John Mueller on Twitter
Search Engine Land Stories:
- Bing teams up with Intent Lab to add deeper AI-powered insights to search
- Google keyword match type tournament: Place your bets on Exact
- Bing competes with Google’s Gboard with SwiftKey partnership
- Google My Business API v4.3 has been released
- Here’s how to monitor for negative SEO
Other Great Search Stories:
Analytics
- Clustering Users for Enhanced Audience Segmentation, Seer Interactive
- The Essential Google Analytics Guide for B2B Marketers, Leadfeeder
Industry & Business
- Don't miss these amazing speakers!, Yoast
- Google Shut Out Privacy and Security Teams From Secret China Project, The Intercept
- White House to Hold Roundtable With Tech Executives, Wall Street Journal
Local & Maps
Mobile & Voice
- 7 Ways the Google Assistant Can Help You Survive the Holidays, Google Blog
- Google Assistant will now be nicer if you say “Please” and “Thank you”, TechCrunch
- Google Home Mini is now available in a minty blue 'Aqua', 9to5Google
SEO
- Google Patent on Classifying Low Quality Sites, Search Engine Journal
- Google Webmaster Hangout Notes: November 27th 2018, DeepCrawl
PPC
- Predicting the consumer decision journey, Bing Ads Blog
- Training PPC Experts, PPC Hero
Search Features
- A new look for Google Translate on the web, Google Blog
Other Search
- Bing is Warning that the VLC Media Player Site is Unsafe, Bleeeping Computer
