SEO Wash-up Monday 20th May

Google Updates

Google My Business looking to charge – Google has been sending out a survey to some local businesses. In the survey it asks the local businesses if they are willing to pay a monthly fee in exchange for Google My Business listing services.

Google Ads and AdSense has reporting delays – There seems to be reporting delays on both Google Ads and Google AdSense. The search giant has in fact confirmed the delays with the Google Ads platform by saying there is a reporting issue and that Google Ads reporting for April 30 and May 1 is incorrect. They will update this message when the issue is resolved and the data is corrected.

Google my business rolls out short names & URLs – Google my business has rolled out a new feature that will let businesses define their short name and URLs within Google my business. This is helpful because when you share your short name, your customers can enter the short name URL in the browser’s address bar. For example https://g.page/(yourcustomname), this will then go directly to your Google my business profile.

Google rich results & mobile friendly bugs – There is an indexing issue that is going on, users have reported that Google is having issues showing their rich results in the search results and their mobile friendly pages are not mobile friendly anymore. A spokesman has responded to the recipe mark-up issues mentioning that Google is investigating them after other reports have come in, although Google is saying the indexing issue and this issue is unrelated.

Google Showing Previously Fetched Results – The search giant is testing an option for some users to refresh the search results, just as you may have seen June last year. Now they have just reworded the messaging to read “showing previously fetched results” with an update button.

Google is testing modern rendering engine for GoogleBot – The search giant mentioned that they will release an updated and more modern version of their GoogleBot, which means that it can render JavaScript and the modern web much better but this update has not been released and there is no mention of when it will be rolled out.

Bing Updates

Bing ads is now Microsoft advertising – Bing is changing their name from Bing Ads to Microsoft Advertising. They say this is because their users and partners know them as Microsoft, and that many are already tapping into the new advertising products such as the Microsoft Audience Network. They mention that over the coming months, all of their experiences and materials will be updated to reflect Microsoft Advertising. If you now try to go to https://bingads.microsoft.com/, you will be redirected using a 302, temporary redirect to https://ads.microsoft.com/.