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The Featured Snippet: October 2022

The Featured Snippet is the official SEO newsletter of Performics and is dedicated to keeping you up to date with the latest SEO industry news, trends, and events—all in an easy-to-read, summed-up format. See below for the latest version of The Featured Snippet:

In the October 2022 issue of The Featured Snippet: 

  • October 2022 Spam Update
  • Google Introduces Site Names on Mobile
  • Google Search Console Mislabeled Structured Data Errors
  • Google Replaces Google Webmaster Guidelines with Google Search Essentials
  • Google Data Studio Rebrands to Looker Studio

October 2022 Spam Update

On October 19, Google began rolling out a new algorithm update targeting “spammy” results. The update is intended to target sites that violate Google’s guidelines against spam content. This is the fifth of the Google spam updates, the most recent being in November 2021. This rollout took 48 hours to complete, finishing on October 21.

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Google Introduces Site Names on Mobile 

On October 14, 2022, Google began introducing site names in mobile search results to easier identify the website associated with each result. Website names will now appear more prominently rather than just the URL. Favicons will also be displayed more prominently.

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Google Search Console Mislabeled Structured Data Errors

On October 25, Google posted that “Some structured data issues were mislabeled as errors, when in fact they are warnings.” The issue has since been resolved, so users may see several errors change status to warnings. This was a reporting error only and did not impact search results.

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Google Replaces Google Webmaster Guidelines with Google Search Essentials 

After 20 years, Google has renamed Google Webmaster Guidelines and changed it to Google Search Essentials. Google announced that it has also updated the guidelines to better mirror the the state of Google Search, as the guidelines haven’t been refreshed since 2002. Some of the changes include making the guidelines more simplified, updating spam policies, creating key best practices when creating a site, etc. 

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Google Data Studio Rebrands to Looker Studio

Google Data Studio is now known as Looker Studio. With this name change, Google is also merging the two to become one more integrated business intelligence platform. Google also announced that there will be a paid version called Looker Studio Pro, offering team collaboration tools, new enterprise management features, and more.

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