Daily Search Forum Recap: November 27, 2023 -

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.

The Google crawl rate setting in Search Console is going away. Google said the effort of bringing back 404 pages for links is likely not worth it. Google is testing line separators between sitelinks. Google is testing an “interview” label for news results. Google has a newish value based bidding guide for Google Ads. And I posted another vlog with Dave DiGregorio on using ChatGPT for local SEO. Oh, and Search Console went down today for 50 minutes.

Search Engine Roundtable Stories:

Google: The SEO Value Of Bringing Back A 404 Page Is Less Than The Effort

Google’s John Mueller answered a question about finding broken links that 404 and if there is SEO value in working on bringing those links back to life. John ended his response by saying on Reddit, “The SEO “value” of bringing a 404 back is probably less than the work you put into it.”

Google Crawl Rate Setting Going Away & Googlebot To Lower Minimum Crawl Speed

The legacy feature to control how fast Google crawls your website is going away on January 8, 2024. It is a feature that launched 15 years ago but Google never migrated it to the new version of Search Console. Gary Illyes from Google said, “with the improvements we’ve made to our crawling logic and other tools available to publishers, its usefulness has dissipated.”

Google Search Console Currently Down

Google Search Console seems to be down right now. If you try to access it, you will get a 500 server error. I suspect Search Console will be back up shortly but right now, if it is down for you, you are not alone.

Google Tests Line Separators Between Sitelinks

Over the past week or so, Google has been testing line separators between Sitelinks in the Google Search results for snippets. This feature test really gives a lot of screen real estate to those snippets and gives it a lot of space.

Google Tests “Interview” Label For News Results “For Context”

Google is testing an “interview” label in the “For Context” news box within the Google Search results. We recently saw a similar styled label named “by the numbers” and now I am seeing an “interview” label.

New Google Ads Value Based Bidding Guide

Google has released a new four-page PDF document named Testing value based bidding using Google Ads campaign experiments guide. This document can be useful for those who want to test Maximize conversion value or Target ROAS bidding.

Lush Google Conference Room

Here is an over the top, incredibly luxurious conference room at the Google office in Germany. You see the fancy chandelier, the special ceiling, the interesting conference room table and chairs, the

Vlog #250: Dave DiGregorio On ChatGPT For Local SEO & Being Super Process Focused

In part one with Dave DiGregorio we spoke about his journey from working in sports memorabilia to getting into SEO. Then, in part two we talked about some local pack reductions, diversifying your local SEO efforts, the services feature, and the amazing SEO community…