This Week’s Industry News
Compiled by the Rocket Clicks Team
Top Stories
New Sponsored Video Ads For Bing and Yahoo
Recently introduced for Bing and Yahoo are new sponsored video ads appearing within the search results. Some ads have been appearing with a thumbnail image next to their search results ad, with a play button appearing on it. When the thumbnail is clicked, the ad is expanded and a video begins to play. These ads seem to only be appearing in the US and Canada and some users report that they’ve only been appearing for pharmaceutical searches. Source: The SEM Post
Google Co-Founders Form Alphabet, Inc.
In a completely surprising move, Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin have created a new holding company called Alphabet, Inc. which will oversee all projects that were formerly handled by Google. This move will effectively allow Google to “slim down” and focus on its core competencies like Search, Maps, YouTube, Android, Ads, and Apps. Ventures like Calico, Fiber, Life Sciences and the like will now be strictly handled by Alphabet, Inc. Another noteworthy part of the announcement was that Google will have a new CEO – former Google Product Chief Sundar Pichai. Source: Search Engine Land
Online Pharmacy Warnings in Bing Not Showing for Advertisements
Last week Bing announced that they would display warnings when users click on pharmacies that the FDA has cited as a fake pharmacy. It appears as though this only applies to organic searches at the moment, since paid advertisements currently aren’t being accompanied with this warning. Even if sites have both an organic and paid listing on the page, the warning will only appear for the organic result. It’s currently speculated that Bing simply hasn’t implemented this change since it’s a relatively new policy. Source: The SEM Post
Google Experimenting with Crawling Images within PDFs
Search Engine Land has confirmed directly with Google that they are indexing images in PDFs. While this is currently just a test, many have been clamoring for Google to index images in PDFs and it would be reasonable to expect that this will become a permanent feature. Source: Search Engine Land
Updated AdWords App For Android
Google has recently released an update for their AdWords app on Android devices, allowing for users to view more performance data as well as a new billing section. Additional performance tables are now available and users can swipe left to view additional data. A newly available billing summary section is also now available on the main window for accounts. This feature allows users to view payment history as well as a way to update payment methods and to simply make payments while using the app. Source: Search Engine Land
Knowledge Graph Search Engine ‘FindTheBest’ Rebrands to Raise Consumer Awareness
Vertical search engine FindtheBest is now Graphiq. Graphiq offers its users a unique alternative to larger search engines in that it offers up its search results in the form of data visualizations and knowledge graphs. While these types of results are definitely interesting for any curious consumer, professionals in journalism, research, and publishing could potentially find a lot of value in Graphiq. Source: Search Engine Land
New Update & Beta Available For Mobile Bing Ads
Bing Ads on iOS has recently seen an update with new features being added. A long awaited update to performance graphs has arrived allowing for coverage of many different angles of performance. These graphs are also enlargeable with a zooming option. Bing Ads also announced a new beta for the Android version and is taking requests for beta testing. These are great announcements for those who like to keep tabs on their Bing Ads account through their mobile devices. Source: Marketing Land
‘Watch Time’ is Google’s Newest Patented Search Ranking Factor
The ranking factor already known to be a huge influence on YouTube search results has been added to Google’s arsenal via patent. Watch time, however, may not have to be tied only to video content. In the patent, Google says watch time “describes how a system can adjust a score for a search result that identifies a resource and was obtained in response to a search query to reflect user watch times of the resource, (e.g. the times that users spend watching video content).” Source: Search Engine Journal
Additional Commentary
Rules to Follow When Testing Ad Copy
Tara Johnson gives us five procedures to stand by when testing out our ad copy. She first recommends testing ad copy for a minimum of 30 days. She then covers the importance of considering seasonality, organizing your results with labels, testing one element at a time within your ad copy, and finally not being afraid to test something different. Analysis: Tara Johnson, Search Engine Watch
Moz Releases Biannual Search Engine Ranking Factors Study
According to Moz’s new Ranking Factors Study, links are still very important. Out of all the attributes they measured, links showed one of the strongest associations with higher rankings. Along with links, things like time until domain registration expiration and anchor text ended up correlating positively with higher rankings. On the flipside, on-page keywords continue to see a lower correlation with higher rankings. But, with all that being said, Shepard admits that “while correlation data can provide valuable insight into the workings of Google’s algorithm, we often learn much more by gathering the collective wisdom of search marketing experts working at the top of their game.” Analysis: Cyrus Shepard, Moz