SEO Last Month Update: Key Changes and Takeaways
In this article, we will cover the SEO-related latest updates that have occurred in search engine optimisation over the month. So if you are looking to optimise your website in 2024, stay tuned.
News: Reddit blocks Microsoft and AI models from crawling
Date: 01/08/2024
Reddit CEO Steve Huffman said in his latest interview that Reddit will continue to block Microsoft and other search engines and AI models from crawling its content through robots.txt without having a content licensing deal. Meanwhile, Reddit has not blocked Google because Google pays Reddit around $60 million a year for its content licensing deal.
News: Google to charge 2.5% digital service tax in Canada
Date: 02/08/2024
Google is set to implement a 2.5% digital service tax (DST) fee from October 1 in Canada. This fee is introduced to cover part of the cost of complying with Digital Services Tax legislation in Canada.
News: Google Ads adds consent settings tab
Date: 02/08/2024
Google Ads has enhanced its Data Manager feature by adding a dedicated tab for consent settings. The main purpose of this new addition is to provide advertisers with more granular control over user consent management.
News: Google launches a recommendations tab in the Search Console.
Date: 05/08/2024
The recently featured search console enables website owners with optimisation opportunities and suggested strategies to enhance their presence on Google Search.
News: Google Ads API version 17.1 released with new features
Date: 07/08/2024
The Google Ads API version 17.1 has been released with new features like better ad review sharing, enhanced offline conversion, tracking abilities, options for granular reporting, and help in asset management functionalities.
News: Google Trends gets a new look and features
Date: 14/08/2024
Google Trends has a new design for the Trending Now segment with a better user-friendly interface, expanded time ranges, better sorting, search volume insights, an increased number of results per page, and an export feature.
News: Meta Ads introduces customised ad optimisation options.
Date: 14/08/2024
To serve better, Meta has updated its ad campaign optimisation by delivering results tailored to their distinctive goals and measurement of results.
News: Google rolls out August 2024 core update
Date: 15/08/2024
Google announced the completion of its August core update. The focus is on promoting high-quality and helpful content over search optimisation strategies. To gain lost ranking, sites need long-term and consistent improvements.
News: Google expands AI overviews to six new countries
Date: 15/08/2024
Google is introducing AI-generated search AI overviews in India, Japan, Indonesia, the United Kingdom, Brazil, and Mexico with support for the local language. It will simplify the complex content from quality SERPs into concise sentences.
News: Google identifies and fixes the ranking issue
Date: 15/08/2024
Google has finally fixed the ongoing search ranking issues that kicked off during the release of the August 2024 core updates.
News: Google Ad Manager API version 202408 announced
Date: 21/08/2024
Google has released the Ad Manager API version 202408 and is set to bring several new features and reporting changes to enhance the capabilities of advertisers, such as ContentLabelTargeting VerticalTargeting and MCM (Multiple Customer Management). The video PLACEMENT_NAME has been changed to VIDEO_PLCMT_NAME.
News: Auction insights data removed from Looker Studio
Date: 24/08/2024
Google Looker Studio does not have access to its Google Ads Auction Insights anymore for sourcing new data. It will impact the competitive analysis capabilities of advertisers.
News: Google adds OG title tags for meta title generation.
Date: 26/08/2024
Google Search updated its search documentation to use the OG title metadata for the title link in the Google Search.
News: Google Search now supports AVIF images!
Date: 30/08/2024
Google announced that they now natively support AVIF image file types for Google images, Google search, and anywhere on Google.
News: Google Analytics introduces benchmarking feature
Date: 30/08/2024
Google Analytics enables users to compare their performance with industry peers. This new update also brings customisable peer groups and maintains data privacy through encryption.
