This Week’s Industry News
Compiled by the Rocket Clicks Team
Top Stories
18 Months of Data Available on GMB
Google My Business now allows individual and bulk users to access up to 18 months of historical data. Allowing users access to this extended data can help businesses evaluate more month over month data and search for any trends. Source: Blumenthal’s
Google Launches Company-Specific PLAs in Mobile SERPs
Google has recently launched a new style of PLA for the mobile search results page. This new test includes a carousel that divides products by which company is selling them. While the thumbnails still show different products, a downside to these PLAs is that they only list the companies. Because of this, experts believe they might not perform as well for all brands. Source: The SEM Post
The Effect of Pages with Internal Nofollow Links
SEO’s will nofollow internal links for several reasons, but some believe that doing so will cause to devalue a page. While nofollow tags will reduce the value added to the site regarding page ranking, Gary Illyes at Google set the record straight and told SEOs that a nofollow link is not an indicator of page value to google. Source: The SEM Post
Google Strikes Deal in Lawsuit with $22.5 Million Settlement
Following a lengthy saga of disputes that began with disappointments in Google’s ad placements, Google has agreed to settle for $22.5 million. Adwordsclassaction.com, the website that provides information about the settlement, states that “The lawsuit alleges that this conduct violated California laws against unfair competition and false advertising.” The plaintiff in the case argued that Google failed to provide their customers with the value they had paid for while Google denied these claims. Source: siliconbeat
Algorithm Update: Fred Roll-Back or Something Else?
On Monday and Tuesday webmasters saw strange ranking shifts for a variety of pages. This unconfirmed algorithm update hasn’t had the impact of past Panda, Penguin and Fred updates, but did set off most automated tracking tools. Until Google provides information regarding the ranking changes SEOs will be watching traffic shifts carefully. Source: Search Engine Roundtable
Additional Commentary
Underrated AdWords Features
PPC Hero William Larcom shares three somewhat underrated AdWords features that may help improve account performance. Fist is income level targeting. Although this is not a new tactic, Larcom likes to use this feature to reduce traffic in the least efficient segments. Another underrated feature, according to the author, is Optimize for Clicks. Rotate indefinitely may offer a cleaner A/B test, but Optimize for Clicks can also offer some encouraging results when you are not busy testing new copy. Lastly is Demographic Bidding which, like Income Targeting, is an opportunity to maximize traffic for your target audience. Source: William Larcom, PPC Hero
The Battle Between Ripoff Report and Google (and Everyone Else)
It’s no secret that Ripoff Report can destroy the reputations of people and companies and will refuse any and all demands to remove the defamatory material. The subjects of such material can get a court order which will allow Google to de-index the page, effectively removing it from search results. Lately, the previously de-indexed pages are reappearing and columnist Chris Silver Smith dug into why. He uncovered that Ripoff Report is changing de-indexed URLs by one letter, negating the efforts of Google. Now the ball is back in Google’s court to find a way to permanently de-index these pages. Source: Chris Silver Smith, Search Engine Land
