SEO Wash-up Monday 8th January

News publishers from Google news accidentally removed by Google

It seems that Google has accidentally removed a few of news publishers in the last couple days. It has been found that a number of news publishers have been complaining on Google news forums, and Google has admitted that it was by accident.

Google has stated that those publishers who have been removed will be reinstated into the Google news system shortly. Google has apologised for the issue that led to a number of sites being delisted from Google news. The removal was an unintentional technical issue and was not something that was done manually.

They are working hard to identify the sites that were incorrectly affected and they will get them back into Google news as soon as possible. If you are not sure whether you are one of the publishers that has been removed, you can check if your news site is included in Google news by conducting a site command or searching for your recent story headlines. Also, you can check the index status in the Google News Publisher Center.

If you no longer see your news site on the Google News and see a dip in traffic compared to the previous week from Google News, then you do not need to worry as Google is trying to fix their issue, which means that you should show up soon.

Google Assistant is now available on more than 400 million devices

Google has said that Google Assistant will be available on more than 400 million devices. This includes Google Home smart speakers, Android smartphones, tablets, TVs and headphones.

Google Home has roughly a 25% share of the US smart speaker market that is based on a review of data from NPR, Strategy Analytics and Consumer Intelligence Research Partners. Precisely, the Strategy Analytics has estimated that Google’s share of Q4 smart speaker sales was 24%.

There was a survey of 1,622 US adults, where it was found that about 23% of respondents owned a smart speaker. So if the results can be generalized to a broader population, then there is a high number of assistant-powered speakers are in US homes today. This survey was conducted in late Q3 or early Q4, which was before Christmas.

It was said that Google was forced to price match with Amazon, so there was a discount on the Echo Dot, Echo and Echo Show for the holidays.