In a landmark decision, a U.S. federal judge has ruled that Google has illegally maintained a monopoly over online search and related advertising, marking a significant victory for antitrust authorities. [Read more…]

In a recent survey conducted by WalletHub, it was revealed that Google’s search engine results are heavily biased towards major brands and advertisements, raising concerns about the quality and transparency of information presented to users. The study analyzed popular search terms related to credit cards and banking, shedding light on significant issues with Google’s search algorithms. [Read more…]

Update January 26, 2024: The payment(s) for the Google Referrer Header Privacy litigation have been sent out via PayPal. I received what they estimated, which is $7.70:

Now that I’ve received the $7.70, I’m not sure what I’ll spend it on. Any ideas? Below are the original details from the June post:

 

If you used Google’s Search Engine from October 25, 2006 to September 30, 2013, you could get cash from a class action Settlement. A proposed Settlement has been reached in a class action lawsuit called In re Google Referrer Header Privacy Litigation, Case No. 5:10-cv-4809-EJD, pending in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. [Read more…]

URLs in Google’s own Google Translate tool are getting crawled, indexed, and RANKING in the Google search engine results. As a regular user of the Google search engine, I was performing some searches as any regular Google user would. And one of the search engine results, for what I would call a “regular” search query, which was a longtail one (someone’s name along with some additional words) came up with Translate.Google.com as the #1 result for that search query. As I pointed out in a recent tweet today,  Google’s search engine results have really gotten so bad nowadays–worse than it’s been in  years. And I’ve been doing SEO and using Google since it was launched in the early 2000s.

[Read more…]

New Regulations Confirm Google Will Pay Canadian News Outlets $100 Million Per Year

The Canadian government has released the finalized regulations for the Online News Act, cementing Google’s requirement to pay Canadian news publishers over $100 million annually starting next year. The act is aimed at supporting Canada’s struggling news industry by requiring tech giants like Google and Facebook to provide fair compensation to news outlets for using their content.

In a pivotal move to fortify the pillars of democracy, the Government of Canada has officially unleashed the final regulations for the groundbreaking Online News Act. Aimed at preserving the vitality of journalism and countering the digital juggernaut, these regulations underscore the significance of a free, robust, and independent press. [Read more…]

Google has released a form to help us submit spammy, deceptive, and low quality web pages. You can even bulk submit up to 5 URLs at a time that violate the same Google policies. Google’s post explains that it’s not just about spam. They say that “Now, you can report spam, paid links, malicious behavior, low quality, and other search quality issues, all in one improved form.” [Read more…]

All the talk around the water cooler nowadays, amongst SEOs, is Google’s Search Generative Experience (SGE). For a simple explanation, I asked Google Bard to explain it to me. And it wasn’t a very simple explanation. It was quite longer than I expected. [Read more…]

Starting May 3, 2023 (today), Google is integrating passkey support for Google Accounts. You will be able to create a passkey to “simplify the way you sign in” according to an email sent to eligible Google users. [Read more…]

Google is finally sunsetting their Google Glass product. They had discontinued support for Google Glass a while back, but they’re finally going to stop supporting Google Glass Enterprise Edition. The Google Glass Enterprise Edition was mostly being used by companies. [Read more…]

Okay, I get a good number of spam emails and occasionally I get some very odd emails. And I’ve come across some people who have a lot to say about Google. There are a lot of rumors out there about Google’s privacy practices, what they monitor, what they track, and soforth. [Read more…]

Sometimes Google is not very family friendly. I mean, we all know that you can turn on and turn off Google’s SafeSearch feature. Their SafeSearch feature might not apply to events, though. I don’t currently have the SafeSearch filter on, since I really do need to see what search engine results are showing up for certain keywords. [Read more…]

I recently got an email directly from Google congratulating me on reaching 100 million views on my Google Maps photos. That’s 100,000,000 views. I was particularly surprised that I reached that many views on photos I’ve uploaded to Google Maps business listings. However, I knew that I was getting close as I had recently seen that I was at about 90 million views, thinking that I needed to go out and take more photos. I thought I would go ahead and tell you how I reached this number of views. I’ll go through my process, and explain some of the benefits from doing what I do. [Read more…]

Google is sending out emails to businesses, using a type of scare tactic, to inform them that upcoming legislation could harm their business. In the email, they state that if legislative bills are passed, the changes could make it harder for customers to find your business, hurt your productivity, and cost your business time and money. In reality, the legislation is designed to ultimately protect businesses from companies like Google. [Read more…]

Add this to the list of Google services that they’ve created and then shut down. Google Cameos (also known as Cameos on Google) is shutting down on February 17, 2022, just less than a month from now. On that date, if you have access to Google Cameos, then you will no longer be able to record and upload videos.

Google is showing, and in many cases, ranking Amazon’s search results in their search results pages. If you search for a keyword in Google, such as ‘smores k cups’, one of the top ranking results in Google’s organic search results is Amazon’s search results page for that same keyword, ‘smores k cups’. This is a big deal for several reasons, but I don’t think it’s acceptable to rank search results pages in the search results pages. It’s just a bad user experience overall. [Read more…]

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…]

By Bill Hartzer, February 17, 2020 at 11:33am CST

A disturbing new extortion is being sent via email to website publishers who participate in the Google AdSense program. The publisher receives an email, telling them that if they do not pay a certain fee then they will force Google to disable their Google AdSense account. [Read more…]

By Bill Hartzer, February 7, 2020 at 9:22am CST.

Scammers are using Craigslist ads to try to gain access to your Google Account. When the victim places an ad on Craigslist, they respond, asking to call them. Once they have the phone number of the victim, they ask the victim for the Google code that they have Google send them, and they’re then able to access the Google account. [Read more…]

Google is shutting down Google App Maker, a tool that allows you to make custom apps for your business. App Maker is included with G Suite Business and Enterprise editions, as well as with G Suite for Education. [Read more…]

Starting in January 2020 (this month), Google Chrome will start warning users when they visit websites that are not using TLS 1.2 or higher on their secure website. This is a change in Google’s policy about SSL secure HTTPs websites, as they previously have said that it did not matter which type of SSL certificate that a website uses as long as it was HTTPs. We are now learning that it does matter, and the server and the SSL certificate must support at least TLS 1.2 or higher. [Read more…]

The URL Inspection Tool inside Google Search Console is down. Requests made to Inspect Any URL that is on a verified website in Google’s Search Console has a message saying that you need to try back in a few hours.

[Read more…]

Apparently Google mistakenly sent out invites to their highly-sought-after Google Cameos app, then promptly un-invited many of those same people. In the second email, they claim that they made a mistake. Google Cameos is an invite-only Google App that allows celebrities and other noteworthy people, to create videos of themselves answering questions. Those videos are then uploaded to the celebrity’s Knowledge Panel directly in the Google search results. [Read more…]

Google AdSense is getting rid of their iOS and Android apps in favor more a more favorable mobile experience. According to an email sent out to Google AdSense publishers such as myself, that means that they will no longer support the Google AdSense app. There will no longer be a Google AdSense app that you can use on your phone. [Read more…]

Google is shutting down Google Bulletin, as well as the Google Bulletin App, which will stop working in about two weeks. Bulletin is an app where you could create stories about your local community using photos, videos, and text. It was in beta in the United States and Canada, and certain metro areas were targeted. However, this Google product never got out of beta, and they have decided to shut it down. [Read more…]

Do you have a Google Account that you use frequently? I have more than one Google Account, but one that I primarily use for things like my calendar (Google Calendar), Google Drive (Google Docs, Google Sheets, etc.), and Gmail. If someone were to get access to that Google account without my permission, they would get information to those, as well as access to other data that’s tied to that Google Account. I don’t currently have Google Pay set up, but if I did and someone got access to my Google Account then it could lead to more hassles, especially if they bought stuff. [Read more…]

Google is saying goodbye to the old Google Search Console. In a post on the official Google Webmaster blog and a tweet, they said that from “now on, if you try to access the old homepage or dashboard you’ll be redirected to the relevant Search Console pages.” So, essentially this is a goodbye to the old Google Search Console, as many of the reports that we’ve been accustomed to over the years are going away. The information isn’t going away, though, as the data has been moved over to an equivalent report on the new Google Search Console. [Read more…]

Is Google required to list your business or your website in their search engine results? When I mention the word “list”, I am referring to whether they are indexing your website in their search results or whether they are listing your business in the Google Maps listings, for example. Being listed is different than ranking. Let me also explain that this post, and anything in this post (such as comments from others) in no way should be seen as legal advice, as I am not a lawyer and don’t claim to be one. You should always consult the advice of a qualified lawyer or solicitor about your unique situation. If you are a lawyer and would like to make a comment (and I can quote you), get in touch with me and we’ll talk about it. I may update this post. That said, though, let’s get back to the question: Is Google (or Bing or Yahoo!) or any search engine (or website) obligated to list you? [Read more…]

Should Google link out to SEO websites from the official Google Webmaster blog? That’s the question that is a hot topic right now: on the official Google blog, should Google link out to a website that offers search engine optimization or digital marketing services, no matter how good the resource is, and how much it will help website owners. [Read more…]

If you advertise with Google Ads (formerly Google AdWords), does it impact your website’s search engine rankings in Google’s organic search engine results? This question has been one that so many have debated over and over again for years. In fact, I even recall it being discussed back in the early days of Google. Some still, to this day, swear that you’ll get better rankings if you advertise with Google Ads. Let’s put this myth to rest once and for all: advertising with Google (giving them money) essentially has no impact on a website’s organic (natural) search engine rankings. [Read more…]

Google My Business recently rolled out a new feature called Google My Business short names. Each verified Google My Business listing can add a short name, which is essentially a URL link to their Google My Business listing, along with a link to the listing’s reviews. A sample Google My Business is one that I set up recently, which is g.page/hartzer-consulting/, which redirects visitors directly to my company’s Google My Business listing. This is certainly a welcome new feature, as it makes it easier for businesses to promote their Google My Business listings both online and offline. It’s easier to ask for reviews, as well, as g.page/hartzer-consulting/reviews/ redirect directly to reviews for the business. I analyzed these new URLs and redirects, though, and I see a few problems and potential issues. [Read more…]

Pamela Lund on Twitter described this scenario perfectly: “this is a nightmare come true. I cannot imagine waking up to find that in an account. That kind of spend in 1 day with only fake conversions could easily put a client out of business and into bankruptcy.”. Despite the fact that a Google Ads customer had their daily spend set to a maximum $500 per day budget, Google spent $225,000 (two hundred and twenty five thousand dollars) in one day. [Read more…]