SEO Wash-up Monday 17th October 2022

Google Update

Google tests featured snippet yellow & blue highlights – Google has been testing highlighted portions of the featured snippets in the search results pages. Users have been seeing the highlights both in yellow and blue format, as well as no highlights at all. Although we cannot replicate this, there has been chatter and screenshot shared on social about this.

Google search console has added new HTTPS report – Google adds a new HTTPS report within the Google search console. This new report shows you not just which pages are not served over HTTPS but also why they are not being served as HTTPS.

Google merchant listings expanded, more structured data properties & new search console reports Google mentions that they are rolling out several new features and availability around shopping and product experiences in Google SERPs. Google has expanded eligibility for merchant listing experiences, added more structured data properties, and released new Google Search Console reporting.

• Expanding Eligibilty – Google has expanded eligibility for websites that implement structured data. This means that merchants can now be eligible for merchant listing experiences by providing product data on web pages without a Google Merchant Center account. Below are the two categories:

1. Merchant listing experiences for web pages that allow shoppers to buy a product on the site.
2. Product snippets for a broader set of web pages with product information (including pages that sell products, publish product reviews, and/or aggregate information from other sites).

• More properties – Google mentions that they have made major updates to product structured data documentation to document requirements for eligibility to Merchant Listings experiences based on structured data.
• New Search Console Reports – Google also released two new Google Search Console reports:

1. New Merchant listings report – This identifies structured data issues for free listing experiences in search results that is relevant to pages which sell products, and covers the wider range of schema.org structured data properties and types used by the Product type that is now supported for advanced cases, such as apparel sizing and energy efficiency ratings.
2. Product snippets report – This identifies structured data issues for product snippets in search results that is relevant to pages that share product review information or aggregate product data from multiple sites. Note that pages selling products may also include product reviews and replace the previous Product structured data report with adjustments related to the separation of merchant listing validations into a dedicated report. The history of prior validation errors is retained in this report.