Daily Search Forum Recap: October 10, 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.

Google Search volatility is heating up between these two big Google search algorithm updates. Google SGE will use your content even if you say not to with the new Google-Extended robots.txt directive. Google people also ask has card carousels. Google local results has an expandable refinement option.

Search Engine Roundtable Stories:

Google Search Volatility Heats Up As Core Update & Spam Update Rollout

We are now a few days into the two October Google Search updates, the October 2023 spam update and the October 2023 core update and the Google search results are getting heated. The tracking tools are finally all showing large volatility and the chatter has been heated with both of these updates.

Google-Extended Robots Directive Does Not Work For Search Generative Experience

A couple of weeks ago Google released a new robots.txt directive to tell Google not to use your content for Bard or other AI Google projects. The Google Search Generative Experience does not currently use Google-Extended, Google told me. That means SGE’s AI-generated answers can and will continue to show unless you block Googlebot fully.

Google Lens Can Trigger Search Generative Experience AI Answers

Did you know that a search through Google Lens can trigger an AI-generated response in the Search Generative Experience? I guess it makes sense, Lens is generally just triggering a query and if you are in the SGE beta, why wouldn’t it show an SGE response in that case?

Google People Also Ask Card Carousels

Google Search’s people also ask is now showing cards in carousels. This has been going on for several weeks, I believe, but I never covered it.

Google Search Local Results Expandable Refinement Feature

Google can show local pack results in the mobile interface with these expandable refinements section. So if Google is not sure if you want one type of business category, it might show two or more for you to click on and reveal matching local businesses.

White YouTube Jump Suits

YouTube had some event at the Google Pier 57 NYC offices and they had some staff in YouTube branded white jumpsuits. It reminds me of the Google looking jumpsuits from some time ago.