Bing Announces 2015 Plans, New Google Maps Features, A Look At Online Reviews, & More

Study Reveals Which Tweets Get Indexed

Stone Temple Consulting conducted a study to look for indexing trends by Google for tweets on Twitter. Those with more than one million followers had the highest indexation rate. Meanwhile, news oriented tweets were the most common types of tweets content-wise that were indexed.

Source: Search Engine Watch

Distance Measuring Feature Available From Google Maps

It was announced on Google+ that there will be a new option for measuring distance on Google Maps. Users can now add multiple points to a map to see distance between each point, with units of measurement going all the way down to a foot. This feature will likely take off for measuring biking and running routes by users.

Source: Search Engine Land

Bing States Plans for 2015

In a recent interview with Search Engine Land David Pann, General Manager for the Microsoft Search Network stated recently that he is ‘more excited about FY 2015 than he has ever been’. Pann also mentioned new features coming to Bing Ads such as faster data accessabilty for advertisers through more devices, new ad formats, among others.
Source: Search Engine Land

New Editor Update Supports Shopping Campaigns

Google has released a new version of their desktop editor just as the deadline for PLA transition comes up in August. The new version of editor is said to support editing of shopping campaigns and more display targeting options. Google says they will not be prompting users to update within editor so users will have to download it manually.

Source: Search Engine Land

Nielsen Survey Reveals Most Influential Review Site

In a survey of 1,000 Nielsen users, it was revealed that Yelp is the most trusted local reviews website. Right behind Yelp was Angie’s List and Citysearch. It was revealed however, that the survey included 668 Yelp users. This has caused many to question the legitimacy of the survey results. Unfortunately, the full survey results were not made public which has lead to skepticism from critics.

Source: Search Engine Land

AdWords To Replace “Delete” With “Remove”

Google has announced that in about two weeks they will be replacing the use of “delete” as a campaign, ad group or keyword status with “remove”. They believe this switch will help clear up the meaning of the status, since advertisers can’t completely delete anything; items remain in the account as inactive so any historical data can still be accessed.

Source: Search Engine Land

Additional Targeting & Reporting Available for AdWords Location Extensions

New updates have been spotted in the AdWords interface, specifically for Location extensions. Advertisers can now see performance segmented by distance from business. Distance reporting can then be leveraged to set location extension settings individually. With distances ranging from under a mile to 40 miles away, these could be quite useful for advertisers with brick and mortar locations
Source: Search Engine Land

1 Billion App Links Served Through Facebook

Facebook’s new App Link program has become popular since its April release. The cross-platform program allows apps to be linked through facebook ads to streamline the purchasing process for customers. Facebook has recently announced that they have been able to enable more than 1 billion links within ads. Big name apps such as Spotify and Hulu are among them. This could mean an increase in conversion rate in Facebook ads for advertisers.

Source: Marketing Land

No Cutts Until November

Gogle’s Matt Cutts has announced that he is taking a leave from Google. Don’t worry, he’ll be back in November. But during his time away he will be unplugged from work and not checking his email. Cutts provided a number of resources for webmasters to use while he is gone. Cutts plans on using the time to spend time with family and take ballroom dancing classes with his wife.

Source: Search Engine Watch

Majority Of Consumers Trust Online Reviews

BrightLocal have released the results of their Local Consumer Review Survey, which is taken annually. They discovered that 88% of consumers have relied on reviews to determine the quality of local businesses. 88% of consumers also say they value online reviews as much as they would personal recommendations. Finally, it was discovered that each year fewer respondents claim to not use reviews at all.

Source: Search Engine Land

Social Sharing On Mobile Continues To Rise

It was reported by sharing tool provider ShareThis that sharing on smartphones and tablets have increased over 30% in quarter two of this year. Recent reports have shown that close to 60% of digital media time was spent on mobile, making it clear that mobile is continuing to grow with great momentum.

Source: Marketing Land

60% Of Direct Traffic Could Really Be Organic Search

Groupon recently deindexed their entire site for six hours and then monitored organic and direct traffic hour by hour during that time. They found that organic dropped to nearly zero and direct dropped 60%. Since Groupon was monitoring new, long tail URLs, it is unlikely they could have been bookmarked or found using auto-complete. This has lead to the conclusion that roughly 60% of direct traffic actually comes from organic.

Source: Search Engine Land

Filmmaker Takes Legal Action Against Google

Director Dinesh D’Souza’s new movie “America” is not showing up in Google’s search results for showtimes in the same way most popular movies do. As a result, D’Souza’s lawyers sent a letter to Google demanding a fix to the issue. They claim it has lead to complaints and confusion about if the movie is actually in theaters. Google has already attempted to fix the problem but blames the generic title for the issue.

Source: Search Engine Land

Segmenting Brand Traffic Through Analytics

Segmenting brand and generic for AdWords traffic is easier than you think. An Anlalytics help entry has been added to help advertisers use analytics to separate brand traffic from generic traffic in three relatively easy steps. This could be useful for advertisers to get a better understanding of what is going on in accounts.

Analysis by: Google Support

What To Expect From Future Ad Standards

Peter Minnium from Marketing Land has recently posted an article discussing what he thinks is in store for advertisers when it comes to ad standards and formats. He uses data from the IAB to support and explain his ideas on responsive and native ads and their components.
Analysis by: Peter Minnium, Marketing Land

6 Essential Traits Of An SEO Analyst

We don’t often talk about what kind of general skills and aptitudes make for a good SEO Analyst. After all, it isn’t something you can major in. Razvan Gavritas of Moz offer his 6 essential characteristics of a good SEO professional.

Analysis by: Razvan Gavritas, Moz

Removing Author Photos And The Value Of Authorship

Late in June Google announced they would be removing all authorship photos. What once looked like a new and increasingly important part of search moving forward was called into question. Mark Traphagen of Moz examines how this has impacted the value of authorship.

Analysis by: Mark Traphagen, Moz

How to Diversify Your PPC Campaigns

There is “inherent danger lurking” in PPC campaigns only being managed by the 80/20 rule says Joseph Kerschbaum from Search Engine Watch. In his recent article he explains how advertisers can avoid fluctuations in traffic by testing new things in their PPC campaigns. He also discusses how trying new things can diversify your skills as an advertiser at the same time.

Analysis by: Joseph Kerschbaum, Search Engine Watch

How To Recognize & Avoid CPC Creep

It is not uncommon for advertisers to experience CPC creep, the gradual increase in cost per click over time, in campaigns. John Lee form Search Engine Watch explains seven ways to help advertisers avoid or fix problems with CPC creep.

Analysis by: John Lee, Search Engine Watch

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