Daily Search Forum Recap: May 1, 2020

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.

Search Engine Roundtable Stories:

• Search Buzz Video Recap: Google Algorithm Update, Mobile-First Indexing Postponed, Site Speed Tiny Factor & More SEO
  This week, we possibly had another Google search ranking algorithm update on April 28th and 29th, Google did not confirm it. Google said they may delay the September deadline to switch fully over to mobile-first indexing…
• Google Question Hub’s “What Is Your Question” Is Wider Than COVID-19 Searches
  A couple weeks ago I reported that Google said they are expanding, as a pilot, the Google Question Hub from India and similar regions (where it launched in 2019), to the US for COVID-19 related searches. But truth is, as I even said in my first report, this is beyond COVID-19 searches – it works for other searches as well.
• Site Go Down? Google May Start Deindexing URLs In Two-Days
  Google’s John Mueller said that in some cases, if your site goes down, Google may start to remove URLs from its index within two-days. This is on a URL by URL basis, so Google needs to see if the URL is not active and then try a couple more times, and if it is still not coming up, Google can remove it from its index within two days.
• Google: Have Lots Of Soft 404s In Search Console? Check Your Internal Links.
  Do you have many soft 404 errors in your Google Search Console reports? Well, that might mean that you are linking to these pages internally within your site and you should check your internal links to see if this is something you can fix.
• Google: We Exists Because Of Users, Not Advertisers
  Google’s Danny Sullivan shot down a statement where it was said that Google exists for advertisers and thus should provide basic support to those paying advertisers for issues they may have. Danny Sullivan said “no, that’s fundamentally not how we operate. Google exists because of users,” he added.
• Google Merchant Center Features To Come To Search Console? Unlikely.
  With Google Shopping becoming free, will we see the Google Merchant Center features be introduced into Google Search Console? John Mueller of Google was asked this, where he implied that this would be unlikely.
• Google Kirkland Has Clear Skies
  This might not be exciting photos from inside the Google offices but just check out those clear blue skies at the Google Kirkland office in Seattle. This was posted the other day on Instagram without

Other Great Search Forum Threads:

• Anything they can leave online won’t need to be reindexed. If they replace their site with a single page (same URLs or redircts), we’ll essentially see that page as their whole website, the rest will, John Mueller on Twitter
• You’re making a lot of assumptions. Search algorithms aren’t written in isolation and never changed — if we discover there’s a way to improve them to better serve the users & the ecosys, John Mueller on Twitter
• Backlinks are never required, AMP or not. 🙂 If you have separate AMP pages, then those are seen as equivalent to the legacy pages; there’s no need to do anything special (other than the usual cross-references), John Mueller on Twitter
• You can either submit just the desktop URLs in the sitemap file (as previously), or just submit both desktop & mobile URLs. Personally, I’d submit both, just to have it covered for all search engines (and then m, John Mueller on Twitter
• Call Now Button Disappeared on Google Posts Mobile?, Local Search Forum
• We occasionally reach out to sites based on complaints from the crawling & indexing infrastructure teams. Most of the time, these issues are due to cloaking like this which the sites don’t notice. It happens to s, John Mueller on Twitter
• Intuitively, it feels like UGC is a good kind of content to show for queries like that. Having the site review itself wouldn’t be that useful, imo., John Mueller on Twitter
• Search Console Training is back to help keep your site airtight 🔒 Keep an eye out next week for our upcoming two-episode special on the Search Console Security Issues report with @Aurora_Morales and @danielwaisberg., Google Webmasters on Twitter
• ICANN Rejects Sale of .ORG Registry by PIR, WebmasterWorld

Search Engine Land Stories:

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