Daily Search Forum Recap: March 12, 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 are seeing a lot of rocking back and forth between the Google core and spam updates and manual actions – it is weird – but far from done. Google Top Stories has new AI generated “more context” sections. Google Business Profiles has book buttons in services. Microsoft Advertising added Copilot section. Google hotel and restaurant listings now link to the places website in the EU.

Search Engine Roundtable Stories:

Google March 2024 Core/Spam Update Early Reversals (It’s Far From Done…)

We reported on Saturday that the Google March 2024 core update seemed to have touched down on land, and we saw a lot of sites start to report major ranking drops, and the third-party tracking tools noticed big volatility. That all calmed on Sunday through today but we also had reports of reversals.

Google Hotel & Restaurant Search Listings Tests Adding Website Link

Google is testing adding the hotel’s website link directly to the Google Search hotel listings on the main search results screen. This is instead of making you go through the Google hotel results interface to learn more.

Copilot Now In Microsoft Advertising Console

In September, Microsoft told us they would add Copilot to Microsoft Advertising to help advertisers create and optimize their ads. Now some advertisers are seeing the Copilot button within the Microsoft Advertising console.

Google Business Profiles With Bookable Services

Google Business Profiles now shows services with bookable buttons. I know Google had booking buttons on local panels since 2017 and we covered it numerous times since then but now they are on the Google Business Profiles services section.

Google Top Stories More Context Section Is Generated By AI

Google has a section under some of its top stories in search results named “more context.” This will summarize the headlines for your keyword search based on the top stories in the carousel. Google has a disclaimer under the “more context” section that says “generative AI is experimental.”

Tents Inside Old Google China Office

Here is a photo from 2016 from the old Google office in Beijing, China. You can see a bunch of tents set up for Googlers to sleep in. I am not sure if Google is still in this same building.