Google has been quite active in August – announcing one of their biggest updates in over a decade – The ‘Helpful Content Update’, along with other minor tweaks and improvements here and there. If you were too busy to catch up with the latest news from Google and other search engines, which may affect the performance of your website and business, this post is for you. This blog rounds-up all the SEO highlights from August in one place.

Product Review Structured Data Update – Pros and Cons Enhancement Released by Google

Studies have shown that consumers frequently refer to lists of benefits and drawbacks in product reviews when deciding which products to buy. Google Search may feature pros & cons in the product review snippet in search results due of their great significance to users. Consumers who are in dilemma of which product to purchase can benefit from reading the product reviews.

Source: Google

Can you use it on your page?

This enhancement can currently be used on editorial product review pages only [not merchant product pages and customer product reviews], to manually tell Google about the pros and cons of the product you are reviewing.

Instructions on how to implement this enhancement can be found in this search central documentation.

Restrict the use of Redundant Content in Posts on Business Profile – Google

Google added a statement to its Business Profile posts content guidelines under the subsection instructing the users to avoid spam content.

Among the existing guidelines of content, users should refrain posting content like Duplicate photos, posts, videos, and logos on their Business Profile.

Source: Google

Google released Helpful Content Update

The helpful content update intends to more favorably reward content where users believe they have had a pleasant experience, whereas content that falls short of a user’s expectations will not perform well.

This update adds a new site-wide signal to the comprehensive set of signals that Google use to rank web pages. Their algorithms detect content that appears to have minimal value, low value added, or is simply not very useful to users conducting searches automatically.

Release timeline

• The update started rolling out on 25^th of August 2022 as per Search Engine Land.
• In a Twitter thread from 31^st August, Google Search Liaison Danny Sullivan emphasized that the helpful content update was still being tweaked and enhanced and that it hadn’t yet been completely released.
• More recently, Google stated that – “the rollout was complete as of September 9, 2022”.

Do we need to worry?

Updates to the Google algorithm might affect your positions, visitors, and revenue. We were made to believe by Google that it would have a big effect. Although so far, it hasn’t (or at least, we haven’t heard of a significant number of sites getting severely impacted). But we can’t really overlook this specific update.

Coupon Codes now Added to Shopping Searches on Microsoft Bing

Microsoft Bing is now labeling search results for products with additional information, such as live discount codes for shops’ websites/online stores. Online shoppers no longer need to worry about missing out on any exclusive deal to save money. If there is a discount or offer available, Bing will let you know right in the SERPs.

Clinics That Provide Abortions will be Clearly Labelled – Google

Abortion-related medical facilities will now be clearly identified in Google Maps and Search. Moreover, when someone searches for local abortion clinics, Google will only display verified clinics in the local search field.

Quick Read, less than 5 Min. Read labels in Google search results

Google is experimenting with labels that indicate if a page’s content can be consumed in 5 minutes or less.

Why should we care?

This test is important to follow since any update Google makes to its SERPs may affect which websites receive hits and visitors. If this test is adopted as a feature, it might significantly affect overstuffed searches for stuff like recipe searches.

Source: Twitter

It also makes sense in instances where a concise response or definition would make more sense than content-packed with anecdotes and diversions.

Revised Article Structured Data Guidelines – Google

Google revised the image requirements in order to qualify for the Top Stories and tweaked its article structured data requirements to reflect the removal of the AMP criterion. The updated rules clearly state that more publishers are now eligible for the top stories category, which can influence the top searches.

International Targeting report to be removed from Google Search Console

Google stated that it will no longer sustain the Google Search Console’s international targeting report. Google also confirmed that it will keep supporting hreflang and adhere to its management guidelines for multilingual and multiregional websites.

Implications

You will now have to implement the necessary changes to existing SEO procedures if you used to rely on this report’s data for your international SEO projects.

New Image Preview Interface Snippet in web search launched by Google

Google recently released a new image preview snippet which pops up on top of the primary search results once you click on any image from the displayed results. This keeps you with in the primary search window rather than redirecting you to the image tab of the Google Search interface.

How it may impact?

This could affect the number of visitors who arrive at your website via Google Image search results. This significant change to the user engagement may improve or reduce your click-through rate for your photos and infographics.

That’s all the important SEO industry highlights from August 2022. Hope you found this month’s round-up helpful. Don’t forget to subscribe to our newsletter & get all the alerts for the upcoming SEO industry trends delivered directly to your inbox.

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