Daily Search Forum Recap: March 21, 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.

Google’s March 2024 spam update finished rolling out, it is important to note the big core update is still rolling out, those earlier manual actions were not the spam update and finally the Core Web Vitals change was also different. Those sites hit by Google manual actions didn’t seem to recover yet. Yahoo Search is still being worked on, Yahoo says hang tight. Google is investigating issues with images not showing in the search result snippets. Google Maps has this weird bug or spam attack where it places different businesses with different addresses in the same map pin area.

Search Engine Roundtable Stories:

• 
  Google March 2024 Spam Update Finished Rolling Out
  
  
  Google has completed the rollout of the March 2024 spam update after a 14-day and 21-hour period. This update started on March 5, 2024, and was completed on March 20, 2024. Remember, the March 2024 core update is still rolling out and will do so for the next couple of weeks.





• 
  Yahoo Search Wiring Up New Stuff – Hang Tight On Its Arrival
  
  
  In November we were expecting to see parts of the new Yahoo Search soon but at this point, we have not seen it yet. Brian Provost, the Senior VP and General Manager of Yahoo Search, said on X last ***** that we should hang tight, the team is still wiring up some new stuff.
• 
  Report: Sites Hit By March 2024 Pure Spam Manual Actions Not Recovering
  
  
  The days after the Google March 2024 spam and core updates were released, Google issued tons of manual actions. They were mostly pure spam manual actions that resulted in all or parts of a website being deindexed for violating Google’s search spam policies, as Google calls it. Most, if not all, of those sites that were hit have not recovered yet.
• 
  Google Maps Bug Places Business With Different Addresses In Same Map Pin
  
  
  Joy Hawkins shared a very unusual bug with Google Maps where it places businesses with different addresses in the same location in the same map pin area. It just drops these map pins in one address when they are not located by that map pin.
• 
  Again, Images Not Showing For Some Google Search Result Snippets
  
  
  Google is once again investigating issues with recipe images and other images not showing for some sites within the Google Search results. We reported on several issues with recipe sites several weeks ago and it seems to be happening again for some of these sites.
• 
  Graffiti Android Statue At GooglePlex
  
  
  Here is one of the many Android statues at the GooglePlex. This one has graffiti all over it – I suspect it was intentional but it seems to be off in the corner somewhere at the GooglePlex.

Other Great Search Threads:

• For selective results, Bing highlights specific key moments in its video SERPs. These results stand out through a time axis and blue fonts. Clicking leads to the timestamped part of the video with more key moments to choose from., Frank Sandtmann on Mastodon
• Looking for your #DoodleforGoogle submissions like… It’s the final call for U.S.-based K-12 students to send in their artwork. Submissions close tomorrow at 11:59pm PST. Get them in for a chance to win big!, Google Doodles on X
• This has been around for many years to reduce fraud and abuse. A small percentage of calls initiated by a call-only ad or call asset for some advertisers in the US are monitored and recorded. You can learn more about the data security and privacy practic, AdsLiaison on X
• Well that’s interesting… I’m sure Googlers are like, RIGHT…… 🙂 -> Perplexity CEO says they use automated systems to access data about Bing’s and Google’s ranking signals, which determine the relevance, quality and authorit, Glenn Gabe on X
• You’re probably seeing effects of the privacy filtering that’s done. The total on top covers everything, if you sum up individual items, you won’t see the filtered entries. There’s more at, John Mueller on X

Search Engine Land Stories:

Other Great Search Stories:

Analytics

Industry & Business

Links & Content Marketing

Local & Maps

Mobile & Voice

SEO

PPC

Search Features

Other Search

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