Google updated its site reputation abuse policy to clarify guidelines without changing enforcement. Site reputation abuse occurs when third-party content is published to exploit a host site's ranking signals. Violations happen when content placement is motivated by this exploitation, such as educational sites hosting sponsored reviews or medical sites featuring unrelated ads. Acceptable practices include wire service content and user-generated content.
Google has updated its review snippet guidelines, requiring ratings to include review comments and author names for better context. Key changes involve proper schema markup, ensuring visibility of review content, and management guidelines that prohibit review aggregation from other sites. For local businesses, ratings must come directly from users, and self-controlled star reviews are not allowed. These updates aim to ensure authentic review systems.
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Google Tag Manager now supports first-party mode with Cloudflare. This mode allows deploying a Google tag using your own infrastructure on your website's domain, acting as a bridge to Google's services. The setup can use your existing CDN, load balancer, or web server. Unlike standard setups where the tag is requested from Google, in first-party mode, the tag is loaded from your domain, and measurement requests are forwarded to Google.
Google updated its site reputation abuse policy with FAQs on third-party content, freelancers, affiliate content, moving content, and noindexing. Third-party content is not a violation unless used to manipulate search rankings. Freelance and affiliate content are acceptable if used correctly. Noindexing does not automatically remove manual actions; a response in Search Console is necessary. Moving content may not resolve issues if not done properly.
Google has removed the sitelinks search box documentation and archived the 'nositelinkssearchbox' rule, confirming plans to retire the feature in November. Introduced in 2014, the sitelinks search box allowed site-specific searches from Google's search results page but was discontinued due to declining usage. Google aims to keep technical documentation current by removing outdated materials, citing reduced usage as the reason for this change.
Google has updated its image search to support C2PA metadata in the "About this image" feature, providing details on image creation, AI tool usage, editing history, and source verification. Eligible signers include photo editing apps, camera devices, and content creation tools. Metadata display is not guaranteed and follows structured data guidelines. Google offers support through forums, documentation, and other resources.
Google released its November 2024 core update, impacting global search rankings. These updates happen several times yearly to ensure helpful and reliable search results. Core updates are broad and don't target specific sites. If you notice a traffic drop, use Search Console to analyze changes. Evaluate your content for helpfulness and reliability. Improvements may take time to reflect in search results, with no guaranteed impact.
Google Search updated its crawl budget documentation to emphasize link consistency between mobile and desktop website versions. This addresses indexing delays for large sites with separate HTML for different devices. Key changes include maintaining all desktop links in mobile versions and using comprehensive sitemaps. Google advises including complete link sets in mobile HTML and ensuring sitemap coverage for omitted links.
Google has released new guidelines for URL parameter structure, emphasizing standard encoding methods: equal signs to separate keys and values, and ampersands to separate parameters. Discouraged formats include bracket and colon methods and comma separation. The goal is to improve URL readability, ensure consistent parameter handling, enhance crawling efficiency, and reduce indexing issues.
