In this week’s news roundup, Google wins its appeal to temporarily delay opening its Play Store app and updates its documentation for organic search results to recommend using higher-resolution favicons.
John Mueller explains the perfect content length for SEO and confirms that Google uses Core Web Vitals for search and ranking factors but says they’re not that important.
From around the web, Verge writer Sheena Vasani reports that Google’s watermarking technology makes AI-generated text easier to identify.
Search Engine Journal writer Matt G. Southern writes about Google’s Search Advocate, John Mueller, sharing insights on diagnosing widespread multiple domain crawling issues.
Google Wins Delay In Ruling Over Opening App Store
The Judge who ordered Google to open its Play Store app to competitors grants a temporary pause to his injunction.
Key takeaways:
- Judge Donato delays opening Google’s Play Store on November 1 to third parties for the foreseeable future.
- Google won’t need to modify its Play Store app to accommodate competitors, which it said could cost $2bn and threaten users’ security.
- The Judge, however, didn’t pause one element of his past ruling, which could undermine Google’s market dominance.
- Google cannot make further deals with Android device makers to block its app store competitors from preinstallation until November 1, 2027.
Google Explains Perfect Content Length for SEO
Google’s Search Advocate, John Mueller, answered questions about the ideal content length for SEO. Mueller’s answer provided an alternative way of looking at content length that should remove confusion.
Key takeaways:
- A LinkedIn user asked Mueller if there is a specific content length that performs well on Google, asking if it should be long-form or if valuable short-form content ranks equally well.
- The person also asked Muller if there were any content examples that gained Google’s love.
- Mueller said size doesn’t matter and to focus on unique value as that’s what Google’s algorithms identify.
- Mueller also advised that there is no one-size-fits-all content length and that it doesn’t work that way, giving this example to explain what he meant:
“If you count the words in best seller books, average the count, and then write the same number of words in your own book, will it become a best seller? If you make a phone that has the same dimensions as a popular smartphone, will you sell as many as they do? I love spreadsheets, but numbers aren’t everything.”
Google Says Core Web Vitals Effect On Search Rankings Is Minimal
John Mueller joined a conversation on LinkedIn about website ranking factors, providing helpful advice and debunking some misbeliefs about what plays an important role.
Key takeaways:
- SEO professional says that Google’s introduction of Core Web Vitals drastically affected his client’s website load performance.
- Mueller denies Google’s Core Web Vitals are to blame for the ranking drop.
- Mueller confirmed Google uses Core Web Vitals for search and ranking factors, but they aren’t as important as content quality.
- Mueller tells SEO to focus on providing a better user experience to reduce bounce rates and improve rankings.
Google Update Recommends Higher Resolution Favicon Images
If applied, Google’s recent organic search results documentation update could help improve how your site appears in search results and SEO performance.
Key takeaways:
- Search results documentation has two critical changes that could help increase click-through rates.
- Google recommends using a higher-resolution image for your website’s favicon.
- The recommended size of the new favicon exceeds the previous minimum standards.
- Google said it made the update to reflect favicon requirements.
From Around The Web
Google open-sourced its watermarking tool for AI-generated text
Verge writer Sheena Vasani reports on Google’s new SynthID text watermarking technology that makes identifying AI-generated text easier. Google announced on X that the tool is now open-source via its Responsible Generative AI Toolkit.
Key takeaways:
- Sheena Vasani explains why watermarks are becoming increasingly important to stop the spread of political misinformation and nonconsensual, often deepfake, sexual content.
- Google’s vice president of research says, “Now, other [generative] AI developers will be able to use this technology to help them detect whether text outputs have come from their own [large language models], making it easier for more developers to build AI responsibly.”
- Google has already integrated the SynthID text watermarking tool into the Gemini chatbot.
- Google says its new system won’t compromise generated text’s speed, creativity, accuracy, or quality.
Google On Diagnosing Multi-Domain Crawling Issues
Search Engine Journal writer Matt G. Southern reports on a LinkedIn conversation where Google’s Search Advocate John Mueller gave insights on diagnosing multiple domain crawling issues and what actions to take.
Key takeaways:
- Mueller guided senior technical SEO Adrian Schmidt, who reported that Google’s crawler had stopped accessing numerous of his domains.
- Google’s Search Advocate recommended checking shared infrastructure (like CDNs) when multiple domains are affected because it’s often the root cause.
- Mueller advised that search console data can help identify if it’s a DNS issue or a failed request.
- Finishing on a positive note, Mueller said brief crawling disruptions don’t affect search rankings.
