Google has added a section on indexing shareable pages to its user-generated spam prevention guide and now allows restaurants to directly disable certain ordering providers from their Google Business Profile listing. The group also published its third-quarter results, where Google Search & other revenue grew 12% year-on-year.
Shareable Pages: Indexing as the Default Setting
In a section added on October 26, Google’s guide recommends that platforms apply a noindex directive or a crawl block by default to pages created to be shared directly. Titled ‘Only index content meant for Search,’ this section targets pages designed ‘for direct sharing, collaboration, or utility rather than for discovery in public search.’ Two options are suggested: the noindex directive, which prevents a page from appearing in results, or a block in the robots.txt file, which tells crawlers which pages not to crawl.
Google, however, highlights a nuance. According to its introduction to the robots.txt file, it ‘is not a mechanism for keeping a web page out of Google.’ A blocked URL can therefore still be found and appear in results if another site links to it. The noindex directive is only effective if Googlebot can crawl and read the page. The guide also recommends checking Search Console and the Page Indexing and Search Performance reports to spot any ‘unexpected spikes.’ Neither the guide nor the changelog specifies any change in how Google will apply these rules.
Restaurants: Disabling Ordering Providers
Restaurants can now disable third-party ordering providers directly from their Google Business Profile dashboard, Google’s Lisa Landsman announced on LinkedIn on October 28. The post includes a screenshot of the pickup and delivery buttons, located under the heading ‘Show provider to customers.’ When asked about the countries covered, Google Product Lead Michael G. indicated that all countries are included.
Until now, a restaurant could request the removal of a provider, but the action had to be carried out by the provider itself. According to Google’s help page, providers had up to 5 business days after the request to remove the link. The providers’ rules also state that ‘all partner integrations are enabled by default.’ It may therefore be useful to check the list of providers displayed on each managed listing.
In the same spirit of verification, a user who reported on Reddit that their indexing report had not been updated since October 16 received a response from Google’s John Mueller. He explained that it was not relevant to constantly comment on the freshness of data in all reports, which is why dates are included in these reports. He added that ‘indexing doesn’t change quickly’ and that when it does, the change appears first in performance reports. On October 29, Search Engine Journal’s property report indicated a last update on October 22.
Finally, Alphabet’s third quarter shows revenue of $63.35 billion for Google Search & other, compared to growth of 19% in the first quarter and 17% in the second. When asked about the effect of fewer ads in AI Overviews and AI Mode, Chief Business Officer Philipp Schindler first cited currencies, then developments in retail and media. He also stated that ‘the strong growth in queries in AI Mode had an impact, due to lower monetization we were observing in AI Mode.’
