A lot of interesting things happened at Google this week with an updated search snippet for product review pages, recommendations on dynamic rendering, a new image preview interface in Google Search, and more.
ICYMI, here’s what happened at Google This Week.
- Google Updates Search Snippets for Product Review Pages
- GA4’s Access Logging API
- New Image Preview Interface in Google Search
- Updated Google Business Profile Posts Spam Policies
- Widespread Outage in Google Search
- Organise Keywords Into Ad Groups with Google Keyword Planner
- Updated GTIN Value in Product Structured Data
- Google’s First Cloud Region in New Zealand
- Google’s Updated Recommendations on Dynamic Rendering
- Featured Snippet Callouts, False Premises, MUM, & More
Google Updates Search Snippets for Product Review Pages
Google has updated search results for product review pages by listing an item’s pros and cons in the search snippet. Google said that you can now “tell Google about your pros and cons by supplying pros and cons structured data on editorial review pages“.
While the new pros and cons structured data is recommended, Google says it will try to pull the information into the snippets automatically. To manually tell Google about the pros and cons of an editorial product review, add the positiveNotes and/or negativeNotes properties to your nested product review.
GA4’s Access Logging API
Google Analytics 4 has introduced Access Logging API, an alpha API that supports Analytics 360 properties and provides a list of users who access the properties’ data as well as details on the access.
The Access Logging API can return the email address, IP, the access surface, the Google Analytics reportType, and the timestamp of access.
New Image Preview Interface in Google Search
Google has rolled out a new image preview pane window that overlays on top of the main search results, after you click on an image in those search results. Instead of taking you to Google Images on a new screen, Google overlays a preview box.
This update may impact how many people come to your site from image search results on Google Search.
Updated Google Business Profile Posts Spam Policies
Google has updated its Google Business Profile posts spam policies with the addition of a new line under the Avoid spam section saying “duplicate photos, posts, videos, and logos” – these are examples of content that is not allowed.
If you have duplicate photos, posts, videos, and logos on your Google Business Profile, your post may be removed.
Widespread Outage in Google Search
ICYMI: Last night, Google Search briefly experienced an issue that lead to longer page load times, errors, and empty search results. Users began experiencing issues with Google Search, with confirmed reports of errors and long loading times.
John Mueller from Google commented on Twitter about how things should come back to normal as restoration efforts are underway. Notably, other Google services like Gmail, the Play Store, and YouTube have not been affected.
Organise Keywords Into Ad Groups with Google Keyword Planner
Google has added a new feature to the Keyword Planner Tool to organise keywords into ad groups. The feature was in beta but is now currently available for everyone.
The new feature adds the ability to use an automated machine learning system where Google suggests which ad groups are the best ones for the keywords, instead of you manually doing the placement.
Updated GTIN Value in Product Structured Data
Google has updated its product structured data document, which specifies that the GTIN value must be presented in numerical form. Google said it does not support the URL form for GTINs.
You can see the updated Google help document where Google added “Make sure the GTIN value is in the numerical form; we don’t support the URL form for GTINs“.
Google’s First Cloud Region in New Zealand
Google Cloud has announced plans to bring three new cloud regions to Asia-Pacific (APAC) specifically Malaysia, Thailand, and New Zealand. This will bring Google’s total number of cloud regions to 34 — short of Azure’s more than 60.
Google says the New Zealand cloud region will give Kiwi businesses the choice to keep their data onshore, retain data sovereignty and drive their digital transformation efforts locally with speed, security, and scalability at the core.
Google’s Updated Recommendations on Dynamic Rendering
Google has updated the dynamic rendering help documentation by adding a red warning bar that reads, “Dynamic rendering is a workaround and not a long-term solution for problems with JavaScript-generated content in search engines“.
Instead, Google recommends using server-side rendering, static rendering, or hydration to solve Google Search crawling and indexing issues.
Featured Snippet Callouts, False Premises, MUM, & More
Google has launched some improvements to featured snippets, about this result and the content advisories in Google Search that focuses on improving the overall quality of the search result.
Google featured snippet callouts can now be powered by MUM to check what other sources are saying about the topic.
Thank You for Reading
Have you noticed the news on dynamic rendering, or any other changes from Google this week?
Check back next Friday for the latest from Google This Week.
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