In this week’s news roundup, we look at a review bug in Google’s UK Business Profile listings, an automated publication page update to Google News, and Google’s announcing it prefetches search results to speed up loading times.
From around the web, Anu Adegbola reports on Google Ads tightening its brand guidelines. And Matt G. Southern writes about a Google Product Markup update that helps merchants add various pricing to their structured data.
Google Confirms Bug Caused Business Profile Review Outage
Google confirmed an internal bug caused the Business Profiles review outage that affected the UK listing. It said it was aware of the bug and was working to fix it.
Key takeaways:
- On February 7, UK Business Profile listings began losing reviews on Google Search and Maps.
- Business Profiles reported missing reviews and incorrect review numbers.
- Victoria Kroll from Google acknowledged the problem on its Business Profile Help page and confirmed that Google was working to restore the missing reviews.
- Kroll also advised business profile owners with missing reviews to read Google’s review guidelines to ensure it hadn’t removed their reviews because of policy violations.
Google News Implementing Automatically Generated Publication Pages
Google announced that Google News’ automated publication pages would begin in March, and publishers could no longer add publications manually after that date.
Key takeaways:
- Google announced the coming update to Google News publications in April 2024 and again last week, confirming that its systems would begin choosing which articles to display.
- Google said on its Publisher Centre help page, “Following our announcement in April 2024 last year, Google News will fully transition to automatically generated publication pages in March. This change improves our existing publisher workflow and simplifies our current product experience.”
- Adding, “Moving forward, all publication pages in Google News will be generated automatically. As a result, publication pages that had been created by publishers manually will no longer appear to users in Google News.”
- Google also announced that the Google News tile would no longer appear after the update begins in March.
Google Prefetching Search Results To Speed Up Loading Times
Google confirmed it prefetches search results to reduce loading times using its Speculation Rules API. The tech giant said it prefetches the top two listings on Search but will expand to include more listings.
Key takeaways:
- Google announced on its Chrome for Developers blog that it uses the Speculation Rules API to prefetch and preload webpages from the top two search results.
- The company said in its announcement that every second counts for loading times; even milliseconds are an improvement for its Google home page and other websites.
- Google confirmed that since it had begun prefetching, “The top two search results saw significant improvements in Largest Contentful Paint (LCP).”
- Google also announced it would begin prefetching lower result pages in the coming months, “but only when the user hovers over the link, by using the moderate eagerness setting.”
Google Confirms UK Business Profile Review Outage Almost Fixed
In a follow-up to the UK Business Profile accounts review outage, Google confirmed it had mostly fixed the problem. While it is ongoing, all missing reviews and miscounts should return soon.
Key takeaways:
- Google’s bug on February 7 miscalculated the reviews on UK Business Profile accounts and Google Maps.
- On February 13, Google said the bug was “mostly fixed,” but some business profiles still had incorrect review counts,
- Google’s Victoria Kroll posted an update about the bug in the Google Business Profile Forums, where she wrote, “Most affected profiles now display accurate ratings and reviews. However, while we have made significant progress, some profiles may still experience a temporary lower count.
- Google advised Business Profile account owners who were still experiencing miscalculations and lost reviews after February 17 to contact support via the Google Business Profile help page.
From around the web:
Google Ads Tightens Brand Guidelines
Anu Adegbola of Search Engine Land reports that Google is tightening its brand guidelines. The company advises advertisers to comply by March when it will begin automatically selecting logos and business names.
Key takeaways:
- Google’s new mandatory brand guidelines require advertisers to document their business logos and names by March to avoid automated changes to their ad campaigns.
- Adegbola says, “The move represents Google’s latest effort to standardize brand presentation across its advertising platforms while giving businesses more control over their digital identity.”
- In March, Google will auto-select the “top-performing” business logos and names based on the brand’s campaign data.
Google Updates Product Markup To Support Member Pricing & Sales
Matt G. Southern of Search Engine Journal writes about Google’s updated guidelines, which allow merchants to add different pricing types to their structured data. The update will improve support for merchant listings sales, strikethrough, and member prices.
Key takeaways:
- Google’s new structured data guidelines allow merchants to showcase their sales, members, and strikethrough pricing in Google’s search results.
- Matt reports that the update lets merchants display their loyalty program pricing tiers in their product markups.
- Matt believes Google made the update for the following two reasons.
- The first is “Easier Specification Of Complex Pricing – Merchants can more accurately reflect their real-world pricing strategies, including loyalty discounts and temporary promotions.”
- And “Parity With Merchant Center – This ensures that the information customers see in search results matches Google Shopping and the merchant’s website.”
