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.
A Google data leak revealed 14,000+ ranking features, the search API docs and so many Google Search secrets. Google had ranking volatility over Memorial Day weeekend. Google’s John Mueller spoke more on recovering from core updates. Google Ads experiments without end date will be assigned them automatically. Google is testing thin deals in the search bar.
Search Engine Roundtable Stories:
Report: 14,000+ Google Search Ranking Features Leaked
Rand Fishkin along with Mike King may have published one of the biggest data leaks outside of the Department of Justice data reveal around Google Search and its internal ranking features and signals. The document was from an anonymous source but verified by Rand Fishkin and contains a ton of details on how Google Search reportedly works.
Memorial Day Google Search Ranking Volatility
While I highly doubt Google pushed an algorithmic change over Memorial Day, there was a significant spike in chatter in the SEO community and the third-party Google Search tracking tools are showing volatility. Yes, traffic can be weird and lower on Memorial Day – I get that – but there seems to be more movement than normal.
Google’s John Mueller On Recovering From Core Updates – Maybe You Had A Good Run…
John Mueller, a Google Search Analyst at Google, wrote a response to a site owner who saw their site tank in September 2023 and hired SEO, and there has been no improvement. John’s response was that it was likely not one thing but many things and that even possibly the site had a good run and it is time to move on to something new.
Undated Google Ads Experiments To End August 23, 2024
Google has sent some Google Ads advertisers email notices that any of their Google Ads experiments without an end date will now be assigned a default end date of August 23, 2024.
Google Tests Thin Top Deals Search Bar
Last November or so, Google started to roll out the “shop deals” search bar on both desktop and mobile, this was from the shop deals banner in the middle of the search results page. Now, Google is testing a thinner version of the shop deals search bar.
