This week in search, Google finished rolling out the September 2023 helpful content update, which seemed to target SEO-first, search engine-first content in a big way. Google won’t be rolling back that update, if you were wondering. Google SGE got an update, too, with new, improved responses, safer responses, and also the “about this result” feature. Google’s Gary Illyes said links are not in the top three ranking signals anymore. He also said comments can be a good thing for websites. Google said removing content doesn’t make the other content rank higher. Google won’t stop giving advice on SEO despite some people using that advice to make websites for Google. Google said to keep the important content out of your CSS pseudo-elements. Google updated its spam policies and ranking system guides for CSAM content. Google updates its charts and content to analyze organic search traffic drops. Google Ads VP implies that they pressure the Chrome team and maybe the Search team to make ranking tweaks to improve ad revenues. Google Ads now lets you expire report sharing. Google Ads may suspend advertisers over non-fulfillment issues. Microsoft is hiding search ads in Bing again. Microsoft Advertising will launch a bunch of AI features and new AI-specific ads for Bing Chat. Microsoft said clicks on ads in Bing Chat are 1.8 times higher than traditional search. Google blocked the new Bard shared conversations from showing in Google Search. Google-Extended is a new Googlebot you can use to tell Google to stop using your site for Bard or other Google AI. Bing now offers methods to block Bing Chat from your content. OpenAI relaunched the ChatGPT browse with the Bing feature after respecting robots.txt directives. Bing Chat’s precise mode is much better now. IndexNow is now supported on Wix. Google celebrated its 25th birthday this week! And if you want to help sponsor those vlogs, go to patreon.com/barryschwartz. That was the search news this week at the Search Engine Roundtable.
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