Daily Search Forum Recap: June 24, 2024

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.

Google Business Profiles is testing using AI Overviews for local panel business descriptions. Google added carousel beta guidance on how to makeup multiple pages on category pages. Google spoke on when you should fix 404s and when you should not. Google Ads to bring Automatically Created Assets to the ad level. Google Perspectives is showing Instagram posts.

Search Engine Roundtable Stories:

Google Using AI Overviews On Business Profiles Local Listings

Google is now using AI Overviews to write descriptions for the local panels shown in Google Search on Google Business Profiles. This is weird because Google Business Profiles lets you use AI to write business descriptions if you want to (at least they tested this).

Google: When You Should Fix Pages 404 Status Codes

Google has always said that having pages that serve a 404 status code is normal; most sites have them, and when a page does not exist on your site, and someone tries to access it, a 404 is the proper response. But Gary Illyes from Google is now sharing some cases when you should fix pages returning a 404 status code.

Google Ads To Bring Automatically Created Assets To Ad Level?

There are reports that a change is coming to Google Ads ACA, Automatically Created Assets, that will bring this feature to the ad level. Anthony Higman said on X, “they are now adding them in at the ad level, to “fill the gaps in RSA’s” and they will be using generative AI to do it.”

Google Perspectives Can Show Instagram Posts

Google is now showing Instagram posts within its Perspectives feature in the Google Search results. This started a week ago or so, and I received a number of posts about this since.

Google Structured Data Carousel Guidance On How To Markup Multiple Items On Category Pages

Google has added a new bullet point in the structured data carousels (beta) help documentation around how to mark up categories with many items with that structured data. This is based on examples pages such as paginated content or infinite scroll.

Google Red Fiat Car & Street Sign At WordCamp Booth

Google had a booth at the WordCamp conference a couple of weeks ago and Danny Sullivan sat at the booth answering Search questions. He snapped this photo of the red Beetle car and Google street sign at that booth and shared it on X.

Other Great Search Threads:

Google clarified the product level return policy markup takes precedents over the organization level return policy (no surprise there) story updated at, Barry Schwartz on X

Hi Anu, More details from the HC article linked above: Starting the week of July 1, 2024: You will not have access to any current or historical Universal Analytics data and most users will lose access t, (19) AdsLiaison on X

Regarding the June spam update, this might be the first drop I’m seeing, but could be unrelated (and a manual action instead). Huge drop after increasing since the March core update started rolling out. Sistrix shows the drop as yes, Glenn Gabe on X

Should I Validate my Fixes on Search Console?, Reddit

Shopify rolled out AI tools for merchants in 2023, but that doesn’t mean merchants will use them correctly. 🙂 Here’s the snippet for this ecommerce site’s homepage. I wonder how many people are seeing that description and wondering, Glenn Gabe on X

Search Engine Land Stories:

Other Great Search Stories:

Analytics

Industry & Business

Links & Content Marketing

Local & Maps

Mobile & Voice

SEO

PPC

Search Features

Other Search

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