Google has updated the local pack, the local results box, in the Google Search results. Now when you click on the results in the local pack, the map slides to the left, behind the local pack listings. Then the detail local listing slides to the right.

There are a ton of complaints and a lot of concern around Google Analytics missing data in the normal overview report for yesterday and today. I see it also, I am seeing no data from this site and others in my GA4 reports for yesterday or today – although the real time reports work.

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. Now we are seeing some early reports of those early August core update gains are being reversed…

I am starting to see some early reports from some site owners and SEOs that the gains they may have seen early on with the Google August 2024 core update, is slowly starting to slip away or vanish as you would… Meaning, some are noticing a surge (small relative to pre-helpful content update) increases but now some are seeing that surge slide back down.

Google has confirmed another bug with Google Ads where it accidentally attributed traffic to a match type that should not exist anymore – smart matching. Ginny Marvin, the Google Ad Liaison, confirmed the issue and said, “Advertisers will not be charged for these clicks, and we’ve reverted the change.”

After testing the blue verification icons and labels for ads in the Google Search results, now Google seems to be testing them on the free organic search results. Oh, and Google also tested them in gold, and Microsoft tested verification labels in organic free listings too.

Do you want to get links in the new Google AI Overviews that show up in Google Search? Well, a new report says all you need to do is rank well in Google Search organically and you are incredibly likely to have links in the AI Overviews.

Martin Splitt from Google said that having unanswered comments on your site or webpages does not negatively hurt your rankings in Google Search and is not a bad SEO thing. He said Google Search does not look to see of your comments get answered or do not get answered.

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 told us to wait until the August core update is done rolling out to see how we were impacted…

As you know, Google released its August 2024 core update on Thursday, August 15th, followed shortly after by a large search ranking bug hours later. SEOs and site owners are asking how we can differentiate between the two. Google’s John Mueller explained that you should not fully judge the effect of the current core update until it is fully done rolling out.

Google’s Martin Splitt posted a video in his SEO Made Easy series on the topic of the Google Search Console “Discovered – Currently Not Indexed” page indexing report status note. In short, there are three primary reasons you’d see pages in this category, they are:

Google Search has a new design for the embedded map you see for both local pack maps and knowledge panel maps. The new map has a more subtle design, with blue roads, not yellow roads and other design differences.

Google is testing a new search feature named “your related searches” that seems to be pinned to the sidebar of the Google Search results. It reminds me of the Chrome Journeys but this seems to be baked right into Google Search.

Google core updates, such as the August 2024 core update, seem to directly impact if a site shows in the Google AI Overviews or not. Google did say quality is a benchmark for showing in the AI Overviews, plus we know featured snippets and many other search features are all impacted by Google core algorithmic updates.

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

Google Search is testing a new category of search refinements named “you may also need.” These refinements show products that may be found in a specific e-commerce store.

Google has confirmed it has fixed the search ranking bug that started over four days ago. The issue was first confirmed by Google on Friday morning, August 16th at around 1:48 am ET. Google confirmed the ranking issue was resolved today, August 20th, at 8:10 am ET.