Daily Search Forum Recap: March 11, 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.

We saw the Google core update potentially do its first drop on Friday and then into Saturday but then it went quiet on Sunday and Monday. Google will be replacing FID with INP in its Core Web Vitals tomorrow (unrelated to Core updates). Google said it is a bad idea to double down on AI content now. Google says the use of AI for some articles but not saying which articles is the lowest form of low quality content. Google Local Service Ads can show competitors in your local profile listing. Bing Webmaster Tools may go from 6 months of data to 24 months of data.

Search Engine Roundtable Stories:

Google March 2024 Core Update Ranking Changes Have Begun

Today is the first day I have seen solid evidence of serious ranking volatility and changes related to the big Google March 2024 Core Update. As a reminder, the Google March 2024 Core Update officially started on March 5, 2024 and will take up to a month to fully roll out, we are expecting numerous ranking changes during the next few weeks.

Reminder: Google Core Web Vitals Replaces FID With INP Tomorrow (March 12)

This is just a friendly reminder that Google will replace First Input Delay (FID) with Interaction to Next Paint (INP) as a Core Web Vital metric tomorrow, Tuesday, March 12, 2024. This has nothing to do with the Google March 2024 Core update that is currently rolling out at the same time, but I am confident this will confuse SEOs even more since “core” is in the name of both of these changes.

Google Explains Doubling Down On AI Content Now May Be A Bad Idea

There is a thread on Reddit asking site owners how they are dealing with the new various Google updates and the associated traffic drops. One Redditor responded that he would go from 500 articles to 5,000 articles written using AI to make up for the traffic drop. In which Google’s John Mueller responded, “this is a bad idea.”

Google: Sites Using AI For Some Articles But Don’t Specify Which Is Lowest Quality Pages

The updated Google Search Quality Raters guidelines last week and added an example of that it considers the “lowest quality pages.” In section 4.7 it states the only mention of using AI and writes, “The website terms of use states that “some articles” are generated by artificial intelligence and may have errors or be out of date; there is no indication to which pages this statement applies. The information in this article is not trustworthy and is Lowest E-E-A-T.”

Google LSAs Shows Competitors In Your Google Business Profile Listing

Imagine you pay for an advertisement, someone then clicks on that ad and is then able to see local competitors. Is that ad worth buying? Well, Google Local Service Ads that bring up your Google Business Profile can show nearby competitors in your Business Profile listing.

Bing Webmaster Tools May Provide Up 24 Months Of Data

Currently, Bing Webmaster Tools will give you up to six months of data, but Microsoft may extend that up to 24 months. Fabrice Canel from Microsoft said on X, “We will consider extending to 2 years.”

Google Hong Kong Lobby Decor

Here is a recent photo of the lobby at the Google Hong Kong office. The Google logo on the brick wall seems to be made up of some sort of wire mesh. And then there are some Chinese items around.

Other Great Search Threads:

Announcing Meridian, a new open-source MMM (Marketing Mix Model) MMMs used to be complex, cumbersome and out of reach for many businesses. Fortunately MMMs are becoming much more accessible – and just in time as observable d, AdsLiaison on X

Schema’s value to Google was based on the search features it presented based on schema, not the semantic content it could get from schema. It had to do that other ways because schema was never used universally enough to allow that, Joel Headley on X

I’m keeping tabs on ~200 sites hit by the HCU. Most of the biggest losers have essentially been wiped off Google, and it’s getting worse with this update. Declines of -90% or worse in many cases. But a small batch of sites are see, Lily Ray on X

Welp, Google’s March Core Update crushed Travel Lemming an additional 65+% already 📉 We honestly tried our best (see my tweet below for receipts) @glenngabe says the HCU is punitive. This feels like cruel & unusual punishment thoug, Nate Hake on X

Article complaining about being outranked on Google is now NOT even on FIRST PAGE, Gagan Ghotra on X

Search Engine Land Stories:

Other Great Search Stories:

Analytics

Industry & Business

Links & Content Marketing

Local & Maps

Mobile & Voice

SEO

PPC

Other Search

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