Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today…

This is just a reminder, since I covered this back last April but I forgot myself, there is really no top stories eligibility requirements in Google Search anymore. It use to be that you needed to have AMP pages to be eligible in top stories on mobile. But that went away and you also do not need to have good page experience to be in top stories either.

Taylor Kurtz (@realtaylorkurtz) is the Founder of Crush the Rankings and he stopped by my office to talk SEO. Crush the Rankings is now about four years old and he started this company based on him working on a site that was ‘black listed’ in Google…

Google has posted a new legal requirement policy that blocks search ads related to what is going on with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The policy says that entities and individuals who are restricted cannot create or use a Google Ads account or have Google Ads used on their behalf for those who are located in or reside in so-called Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) and Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR).

I am seeing multiple reports of Google placing the search bar filters, you know, the bar that says “all, videos, news, images, more, etc” which is normally placed under the search box, is being tested on the right hand side of the search box. It doesn’t look like a bug but Google has had many weird quirks recently.

David Mihm pointed out on Twitter that Google is hosting a partner workshop event named “Drive Traffic to Your Website with SEO.” The interesting bit is that the workshop says it is “hosted by one of Google’s internal SEO experts, this workshop will give you a behind-the-scenes view into how Google approaches SEO for its own sites.”

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. I am seeing signs of an unconfirmed Google search ranking update…

Is there a speed difference between using absolute versus relative links and if so, does it matter to Google. I am pretty sure there is no speed difference and I am confident that either way, it won’t matter for Google SEO reasons.

Google’s John Mueller if a claim found on an SEO website that says “recognized by Google as an agencies as SEO specialists in SEO for Real Estates” is legit. The answer is no, Google does not provide certification or approvals for SEO agencies.

Google is testing an ad format, that I think is new, where it has three images in the ad, all that link to different landing pages. So if you click on one image, it takes you to one unique URL, if you click on a different image in the ad, it takes you to a different unique URL.

Google seems to be testing a form of messaging between businesses and merchants that use Google Merchant Center. Google said in an email to some Google Merchants that it is testing a “new messaging pilot to help you connect with customers and improve your sales through Google Shopping.”

I am seeing new signs of a possible, but yet, unconfirmed Google Search ranking algorithm update that seemed to touch down on Thursday, February 24th. To be honest, this is most likely unrelated to the desktop version of the page experience update that started on Thursday, February 22nd.

This week was packed with algorithm and ranking topics but not the typical unconfirmed Google updates. We had Google officially begin rolling out the desktop version of the page experience update…

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today…

Google’s John Mueller posted on Reddit about when he thinks one should pursue starting down the journey of a blog. Of course, I know something about blogging and I have to say, his advice is dead on with something I’d agree with.