SEO Wash-up Monday 16th January 2023

Google Updates

Google local panel has added disclaimer to appointment providers links – Google has now added a disclaimer to the appointment provider links that you find in the Google Search local panel and in the Google Maps business listings. The disclaimer sits under the “about these providers,” and mentions that providers are listed in random order.

Google mentions that Third-party providers can link from a business’s Business Profile on Google Search and Maps. These are called local business links. You can use these links to book an appointment, make a reservation, and place a food or shopping order with a provider. These are called local business links. You can use these links to book an appointment, make a reservation, and place a food or shopping order with a provider.

If multiple providers supply links for the same business, then Google lists them in random order. If the business specifies a preferred provider, that provider shows first. For food orders, Google also lists providers in random order

Google maps displays “Offer Available” under business profile pins – On Google Maps, you can now display an “offer available” label under a business profile listing’s map pin in the maps interface. Businesses that add offers in their Google Business Profile may see the “offer available” label or pin below their map listing in the maps interface.

Google now gives official names of some search features with visual elements gallery – Visual elements are the building blocks of the Google Search results page that a user can perceive or interact with. The Visual Elements gallery is an illustrated guide to the most common UI elements of Google web search: it explains what the elements look like, what they’re called, and whether you can optimize your website for each element.

Google has rolled out new visual elements of Google Search gallery that documents some of the more popular search features in Google Search. Google no longer needs to guess or make up names for some of the Google Search features. Google has started with 22 of these search features but plans to keep adding more. Below are some of the features:

• Attribution – The elements that help people quickly identify the source behind the search result with visual identifiers like the name of the site, the URL, and favicon.
• Text results – Historically called “10 blue links” and “web results”, text results are the elements that have been with us since 1995, when we were still called Backrub. We believe that the name “text results” represents more precisely what the results are based on—the textual content of the indexed pages.
• Video and image results – Historically called “image and video universal results”, the video and image results are based on the respective media indexed in the context of their respective landing pages.
• Exploration features – Commonly called “People Also Ask”, these visual elements help users broaden their search journeys.