Google has entered the auto industry so to speak, as they are now showing new car pricing and and trim level options right in their search engine results pages. A friend spotted these results when searching for the 2022 Chevrolet Tahoe LT. Google oftentimes runs tests like this, showing certain data or a certain configuration in the results, before they eventually roll out the feature for all users. Sometimes these search result features end up going live for all users, and in other cases they end up not being made live, as the test for the feature is not successful. [Read more…]

Have you ever searched for an address on Google Maps, checked out the Street View 360 degree photos, and found that an entire location, building, or house is blurred? Google usually uses their technology to automatically blur faces and license plates. But, did you know that upon request you can get your house or building blurred? If you’re interested in getting Google to blur the photo of your house, for example, then there is actually a way to request that they blur your house’s photo on Google Maps. Here is how to do that. [Read more…]

There is a browser add-on that, once installed in your web browser, allows you to opt out of Google Analytics. That essentially means that if you use the add-on when visiting websites that are using Google Analytics, your visit(s) won’t be recorded. This is the Google Analytics Opt-Out Browser Add-On. [Read more…]

Example of a 3d Snowman on Google Poly. Google Poly is being shut down.

Google Poly, the website created by Google for users to browse, distribute, and download 3D objects, is shutting down on June 30, 2021. [Read more…]

Google has lost an appeal to a patent infringement lawsuit that has been ongoing for several years now. The case, Google, LLC vs. Netlist, Inc., is a case where Google argued that a patent owned by Netlist, Inc. was invalid. Google claimed that part of the patent “involving the specific use of rank-selecting signals for rank multiplication” was invalid. [Read more…]

Google continues it’s attack on the URL so to speak, showing URLs less than they have been in the past. In this latest attack on the URL, Google seems to be “pressing on with new plans to hide all parts of web addresses except the domain name.” [Read more…]

Not long ago, I installed the Google Site Kit WordPress plugin, as it is an official Google WordPress plugin. When you install the plugin, it gives you an easier way to view data from Google Analytics, Google Search Console, Google AdSense, and Google PageSpeed Insights. You can view this data for the entire site or you can view it per page or per post. It doesn’t really do anything special except make it easier for you to view the data. You can see it directly in the WordPress dashboard rather than having to go to each of those sites separately: Google Analytics, Google Search Console, Google AdSense, and Google PageSpeed Insights. Well, there’s a problem with the plugin: an attacker can gain access to your Google Search Console for the site, and presumably with access they could do some harm. [Read more…]

It appears that Google has removed the www subdomain of LinkedIn from their organic, natural search engine results pages. This is commonly referred to as being banned in Google when pages are removed. Initially we didn’t know who removed the pages. We now know, as I’ll explain in this post, what really happened and what you need to know as a result of this whole incident. This was a very fluid situation, so this post has been heavily changed and updated as we learned more about what really happened.

Over the past few years, LinkedIn profile pages have typically ranked very well for personal names, especially for my personal name. Google, for some reason, has decided to remove the www subdomain of LinkedIn’s pages. There are a few reasons why pages are removed all of a sudden: the site is given a manual action (penalty) from Google. Initially we didn’t know for certain if it was a manual action from Google or if the pages were mistakenly removed by LinkedIn. In either case, all of the www subdomain pages have been removed from Google’s search engine results. [Read more…]

Google Ads Support is not currently accepting any phone calls. When you call the phone number for Google Ads phone support, which is 1-866-246-6453, you get a recorded message that they are not accepting any phone calls. The automated message (which is a computer-type voice and not a human-recorded voice) says that they are not accepting phone calls. They then go on to say that they are not accepting phone calls because they are protecting their employees from the effects of COVID-19 and the Coronavirus. [Read more…]

Every month, there are over 5 billion searches on Google for restaurants. 3 billion searches for hotels. 1 billion searches for clothing stores. 600 searches for hair and beauty salons. 5 million searches for coffee shops (Google My Business data, December 2019). These are all local businesses with physical locations. Customers visit those locations. But what if you’re NOT a local business.

What if customers don’t visit your location? Do you really need a Google My Business (GMB) listing? Probably not. Let me explain.

As you may or may not recall, I have a theory that some Google My Business listings are hurting websites and not helping. So, I removed my Google My Business listing. Not only did I remove the GMB listing once, but I removed the listing twice. Essentially with a 3-month time difference between the removing of the listing. It’s been a few weeks since the second removal of the Google My Business listing, and I have some interesting data to report. [Read more…]