Daily Search Forum Recap: October 23, 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 said cumulative layout shift issues would not result in a drop in Google search rankings. Google Search Console has a hostload exceeded issues for the request indexing feature in the URL Inspection tool. Google Ads API version 15 is now out. Google is testing a “do more with search” feature and also a “by the numbers” tag in the search results. Google AdSense has new vignettes ads frequency controls. Also, posted another video with Chris Long on e-commerce SEO.

Search Engine Roundtable Stories:

Google: Cumulative Layout Shift Not The Reason For Sudden Ranking Drops

Google’s John Mueller said that an issue with Cumulative Layout Shift scores would not be a reason why your website suddenly and significantly drops in the Google search results rankings.

Google Search Console Failed: Hostload Exceeded Error

Since late last week there has been a spike in Google Search Console’s URL Inspection Tool showing a “failed: hostload exceeded” error. Google’s John Mueller said on Friday they are investigating but on Sunday, John said it was related to spamming the tool causing these errors. He said normal indexing is working fine, just this method I guess is a bit overloaded.

Google Ads API Version 15 Now Available

Google has released version 15 of the Google Ads API last week but I did not notice until over the weekend. The big updates include but are not limited to new recommendation types, updates to Performance Max, new lookalike segments and improved offline conversion upload diagnostics, plus so much more.

Google “Do More With Search” Feature

Google seems to be testing a new search feature to encourage more searches from its user base. There is this new “Do more with search” box that shows other searches the user can search for.

Google News For Context “By The Numbers” Tag

Google Search is testing a “by the numbers” tag or label in the Google News / Top Stories “For Context” section. I guess Google adds this tag if it thinks the story has a “by the numbers” section in its content?

Google AdSense Vignettes Ads New Frequency Controls

Google AdSense this morning rolled out frequency controls for vignette ads format in Auto ads. These frequency controls let AdSense publishers decide how often vignettes are shown to their users.

Vlog #246: Chris Long on E-Commerce SEO

In part one, we learned about Chris Long and his experience working with Bill Slawski. Then, in part two, we spoke about helping people with SEO on LinkedIn and using Facebook for a career change. Then, in part three, we spoke about SEO strategy and SEO testing…

Pulse Drummers At Google

Here is a photo of a musical performance company named Pulse Drummers at the Google office. Pulse Drummers are an Irish drum troupe, they explain. I guess they played at Google’s Dublin office.