As an experiment of sorts, I decided to delete and completely removed the disavow file that I had uploaded to Google’s Disavow Tool. For the past several years, on an off (about every 3 months or so), I have been reviewing the backlinks to this website, BillHartzer.com, and disavowing links to the site. When disavowing links, I would sometimes see some good results–but nothing to write home about. Nothing that would make the website suddenly rank really well for the keywords I’m targeting on this website. But nothing negative would happen, as well–the site didn’t generally lose any search engine rankings or traffic from organic search. That’s kind of expected, though. [Read more…]

Google, LLC lost their appeal of two final written decisions of the United States Patent and Trademark Office Patent Trial and Appeal Board involving the way banner ads are cached. One of the arguments was that one of the patents did not reference blockable versus un-blockable URL requests. [Read more…]

Google has officially rolled out AI (Artificial Intelligence) auto ads for publishers in their Google AdSense program. The AdSense auto ads look at the web page, figure out where AdSense ads can be placed, and automatically insert the ads on the page. Google AdSense Auto ads use machine learning and artificial intelligence to make smart placement and monetization decisions on behalf of the publisher. [Read more…]

How did the Google Chrome web browser get a name like Chrome? Well, according to Glen Murphy, a Design Lead for Google Chrome, one of the leads on the Google Chrome project decided on the name. [Read more…]

Google has announced that they have removed the view image button from the Google image search results. That means that in order to view the images in Google’s image search results, searchers need to click through to the website in order to view a larger version of the image. [Read more…]

Google may have made a change recently that is causing some local businesses to show up less often, even when searching for the company name. In the past, Google has typically shown a knowledge panel on the right side of the search results for a business name. However, recently, some local businesses are noticing that the knowledge panel, that shows the Google My Business listing data, doesn’t show up for certain queries. [Read more…]

Photo courtesy @kr4ydnb on Twitter.

Google has a big issue with the timestamps on articles, posts, and news items, and it absolutely needs to be fixed. This week, the timestamp issue has been more visible to the public in light of recent news events. People have pointed out to Google that their timestamps were horribly wrong on news article posts. Despite ongoing breaking news, Google timestamped article as being posted 2 days prior. [Read more…]

Google, in a blog post, has announced that they will stop showing ads that they deem to be too disruptive. Beginning on February 15, 2018, Google’s Chrome web browser will stop showing all ads on websites that repeatedly display disruptive ads after they’ve been flagged. If the ads don’t comply with Better Ads Standards from the Coalition for Better Ads, then Google may deem them disruptive ads and shop showing them. [Read more…]

Google is reportedly buying the Chelsea Market Building in Manhattan, New York for $2 Billion US Dollars. However, the Google Maps listing remains unclaimed and not verified at Google’s own service, Google My Business. [Read more…]

If you are like me and have a LOT of websites in Google Search Console, you probably are getting a lot of emails lately. Google is emailing every single website owner, every verified website in Google Search Console, and telling them about the New Google Search Console that they’ve now launched. You’re getting an email like the one above. [Read more…]