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The Featured Snippet: November 2022

The Featured Snippet is the official SEO newsletter of Performics, dedicated to keeping you up to date with the latest SEO industry news, trends, and events. See below for the latest version of The Featured Snippet:

In the November 2022 issue of The Featured Snippet: 

  • Google’s New Local Search Features Have Arrived
  • Google’s Guide to Current & Retired Ranking Systems
  • Google Makes it Easier to Get Products in the Shopping Tab
  • Google Restoring Missing Reviews in Business Profiles
  • Google Updates Review Snippet Structured Data
  • Links May Be Less Important for Google Ranking in the Future
  • Google Moves Universal Analytics 360 Sunset to 2024

Google Begins to Roll Out Local Search Features

On November 17, 2022, Google began rolling out several new local search features it had previewed during the Google Search On conference in September. Features include:

  • Search With Live View – enables users’ phone camera to find information about businesses, including hours, rating, etc.
  • Search For Restaurants By Dish – Allows users to search for restaurants that serve a specific dish. Can be manually typed or searched with Google Lens.
  • Find Fast Charging Stations For Electric Vehicles – Users can search for “EV charging stations” and select the “fast charge” filter to get a list of charging stations with chargers 50kW or higher.
  • Find Wheelchair Accessible Places – Google can now identify wheelchair-accessible areas worldwide.

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Google Publishes a Guide to Active & Deprecated Ranking Systems

On November 21, 2022, Google published a centralized guide to its Google Search ranking systems, which will help users understand the full scope of ranking systems in place. This new page will also differentiate between active systems like BERT and the Helpful content system and deprecated systems like Hummingbird and the Panda system. 

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Google Makes it Easier to Find Products in the Shopping Tab

Thanks  to a recent update to Google Search Console, ecommerce stores can now showcase their products more easily in the shopping tab within search results. Now, ecommerce stores can list products without submitting to a product feed or re-verifying their site. After users connect their Merchant Center account to Google Search Console, they can quickly list their products.

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Google Restores Missing Reviews in Business Profiles

Google is fixing a bug that caused reviews to drop off of Google Business Profiles. The issue may be tied to Google’s practice of changing the business listing CIDs, the identifier for the business listing, when suggested edits are applied. As of November 15, 2022, Google has confirmed that reviews are being restored.

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Google Updates Review Snippet Structured Data

Google has updated review snippet structured data to standardize how numbers are shown in the code of review snippets. It is recommended that dots are used to separate decimals instead of commas. However, if your structured data has commas, it will still be eligible for review snippets. It’s just recommended to use dots because it’s perceived as more accurate. 

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Links May Be Less Important for Google Ranking in the Future

John Mueller of Google said that in the future, links may have less weight in the Google Search ranking algorithm. Mueller also stated that Google today doesn’t weigh links the same as it has in the past, and that in the current algorithm, it has changed.

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Google Moves Universal Analytics 360 Sunset to 2024

Google has moved the last day to switch from Universal Analytics 360 to Google Analytics 4 to July 1, 2024, for the enterprise version of Universal Analytics. This extension in time was granted by Google to give more time to focus on and further develop GA4. Google has also noted that for enterprise users, performance in Universal Analytics 360 will degrade until the July 1, 2024 date.

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