Industry Update for June 24, 2015

Industry Update for June 24, 2015


This Week’s Industry News

Compiled by the Rocket Clicks Team

Top Stories

DuckDuckGo Cracks 10 Million Searches in a Day

Not long after news broke about DuckDuckGo’s astronomical growth over the last couple of years, the privacy-focused search engine has announced that they recently facilitated over 10 million searches in a day. Despite this growth, DuckDuckGo maintains that their biggest challenge is raising the general awareness of their brand. Source: Search Engine Journal

New Integration for AdWords in Megalytic

Analytics reporting product Megalytic has recently unveiled a new integration with AdWords. Marketers can now connect multiple AdWords accounts to Megalytic and create reports specifically for AdWords reporting. The platform can currently pull data from Google Analytics and Webmaster tools as well as data from uploaded CSV files.  Megalytic CEO Mark Hansen states that the company’s goal is to “revolutionize digital marketing reporting by streamlining the process and making it less time consuming.” Source: Search Engine Land

Emojis Have Finally Disappeared from Google SERPs

To no one’s surprise, Google has made good on its promise to remove emojis from their desktop and mobile SERPs. This, however, won’t effect a large percentage of the web as very few websites took the time to add emojis. Source: Search Engine Land

BingAds Update to Allow Saving Column Settings

Rolling out next week, Bing Ads will be releasing a few new updates. The most important note from the update will be the ability to save columns in the order you want to see them while using the Bing Ads interface. With this new update, users will no longer have to redo their specific column views time and time again. Another small update that will be released will have column options grouped by category rather than having them grouped in a large list of metrics. Source: Search Engine Land

Full, Text & Source Views Now Available in Google Cache

Google’s updated cache landing page now includes the option to view a full (which is the same as the former default view), text-only, and source code version. This update means that webmasters will have another thing to be mindful of when considering what searchers will or can see when stumbling upon their website. Source: Search Engine Land

Twitter to Release Product and Place Pages & Collections

Starting this week, Twitter will be testing the ability to organize tweets about products or places on a dedicated page. These dedicated pages will feature images or videos with information on the product as well as a description and price with buying options. Also to be tested is a collection page which will allow users to browse collections of products or places that they find interesting. Source: PPC Hero

Instagram Implements New and Improved Place Search

Instagram users now have the ability to search for photos of locations all over the world. For example, searching for the term “Yosemite National Park” will take the user to a page filled with photos that have been tagged accordingly. In addition to searching by location, users can search for specific events or trending topics to view relevant photos. Source: Search Engine Watch

Specific Consumer Ratings for Airlines Now in AdWords

New consumer ratings are being added by Google AdWords that are similar to traditional consumer ratings for ads, only more tailored to the airline industry.  Several cases were found in which consumer ratings for airlines ads featured ratings for check-in, in-flight experience, bagging handling, and service and ease. These specific consumer ratings are only available for AdWords, with no word from Bing Ads about releasing anything similar. Source: The SEM Post

Content Carousel Added to Google’s Mobile Search Results

About a week ago, Google began experimenting with content carousels in mobile search results. These carousels make it possible for websites to potentially land more than 2 pages from their domain on the first page of the search results. This could be Google’s way of rewarding websites that have more relevant content than could normally be shown on the first page. Source: The SEM Post

Additional Commentary

Most Expensive US States for Paid Search

Larry Kim presents an article that covers research by WordStream data scientist Mark Irvine where he attempted to find the highest and lowest average CPC per state based on specific PPC cost data. Alabama turned out to be the most expensive, where advertisers can expect to pay 78% above the average CPC. South Dakota was the least expensive, coming in at 65% below the average CPC. Research found that rural areas tend to have higher CPCs and that population doesn’t have a correlation to CPC. Analysis: Larry Kim, Search Engine Watch

Best Practices for Adding a Store Locator to Your Site

In this article, Jennifer Slegg details a laundry list of things that businesses get wrong on their “Store Locator” page and then explains what the best practice is in each situation. Some of the more notable mistakes she lists are not including an embedded map, not having a mobile friendly store locator, and offering locations only by zip code. Analysis: Jennifer Slegg, The SEM Post