• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, September 30, 2019

Google Senior Webmaster Trends Analyst John Mueller took on the role of anchorman to launch a video series on the Google Webmaster YouTube channel called Google Search News.

For those old enough to reminisce, the first segment reminded me of Walter Cronkite at CBS News, where he sometimes sat in front of a green screen as images behind him changed. He would always end his broadcasts with “And that’s the way it is … .”

As Google struggles to define its position as a news publisher, Mueller will provide recaps “every few weeks” of important releases and changes for search.

Google Search News will provide a regular and short summary of what's been happening around Google Search, specifically for search engine optimization professional, publishers, developers, and webmasters.

The first episode, released last week, focuses on recent updates to Search Console in the webmaster office-hours setup, advances to rel=nofollow and related attributes, changes in review rich results, and new metatags and attributes for pages in search previews.

When review stars serve up in search results is an example of one recent change by Google. The review rich results are only shown for certain types of items where they make sense. Search marketers may recall that Google said if a local business, organization or sub-business includes a review about itself on its own website it will not serve up. This includes reviews that a business collects, as well as those from third parties.

Another example is the new metatags announced on September 24. These tags give publishers the ability to express preferences  

The news segment also provides news about some recent Webmaster Conferences in Kuala Lumpur, Bali, Ho Chi Minh City, and Sapporo.

It’s interesting to note that Mueller also runs a weekly Google Webmaster Central Office Hours Hangout to answer questions and talk about search.

And while it is too early to tell if Mueller will develop a signature from Switzerland, in a bit of tongue-and-cheek commentary to end the first segment, he dives into a weather forecast. “A bit of sun and a bit of cloudiness, so whether or not it will be a nice day will be hard to say,” he says in closing.