Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.

Google won’t change how it uses a 301 redirect signal. Google says its link best practice are still good guidelines. Google Ads is testing “established in” extensions. Google is testing a tablet design for image search. Bing is testing a new lock icon. I am offline Tuesday and Wednesday for Passover, so this was pre-written and scheduled.

Search Engine Roundtable Stories:

• 
  Google: We Won’t Change The 301 Redirect Signals For Ranking & SEO
  
  
  Gary Illyes from Google said on stage at the SERP conference last week that there is no way that Google would change how the 301 redirect signal works for SEO or search rankings. Gary added that it’s a very reliable signal.
• 
  Google Image Search Tests Tablet Like Design Interface
  
  
  Google may be testing a new design for the Google Image search results. This design looks like a tablet-like interface that is more boxes, and, honestly, it seems like it is from a UX from 10 years ago.
• 
  Google: Our Link Best Practices Doc Are Still Good Guidelines
  
  
  Google’s John Mueller said the link best practices SEO documentation on its website are still “good guidelines” for both SEO and overall “accessibility & UX reasons.” The guidelines are only about 14 months old, so they are recent.




• 
  Google Ads Established In Extensions
  
  
  Google is testing placing the year the company was established on Google Ads. The ads have “established in” next to the ad description, so these seem to be ad extensions on the ads.




• 
  Bing Tests Lock Icon In New Search Snippet Location
  
  
  Microsoft is testing moving the lock icon in the Bing Search results snippets from the left of the URL to the right of the URL. Well, most of the time you don’t even see a lock but when Bing is testing it, Bing has been testing different lock locations.
• 
  YouTube Shorts Sofa & Sign
  
  
  Here is a photo from the Google office in France of a room at the YouTube office there of a red sofa with a woman holding a YouTube shorts sign.





• 
  Programming Note: Offline For Passover
  
  
  This is a programming note that I will be completely offline for the Passover holiday. Passover is on Tuesday and Wednesday, April 23rd and 24th and then again the following week on April 29th and 30th. Any stories published here will be scheduled and written beforehand and not posted live.

Other Great Search Threads:

• Just link naturally between the pages. If you don’t want them indexed, using noindex is fine too (assuming the linked items are appropriately cross-linked). No special treatment needed., John Mueller on X
• Many SEOs won’t like it but here’s my opinion: You don’t need to have coding skills to be a technical SEO. Technical SEOs are NOT REQUIRED TO CODE. Does having a tech background help in SEO? Yes. Is it absolutely required?, Kristina Azarenko on X
• New display formats for PMax will open up a lot more inventory. This bolsters Performance Max’s position in the voluntary migration of GDA to PMax. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to figure what the heck is going on a, Mike Ryan on X
• There has been a whole lot of discussion about Ad Strength lately. Like almost everything in paid advertising, there’s nuance to Ad Strength. I wrote this to help clarity and answer many of the questions I’ve received about how Ad St, AdsLiaison on X
• V3 IS HERE – We are excited to introduce our first model capable of producing radio-quality music. v3 allows you to make full, 2 minute songs in seconds and is now available to all users., Suno on X

Search Engine Land Stories:

Other Great Search Stories:

Industry & Business

Links & Content Marketing

Local & Maps

Mobile & Voice

SEO

PPC

Other Search

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Note: This was pre-written and scheduled to be posted today, I am currently offline for Passover.