This Week’s Industry News
Compiled by the Rocket Clicks Team
Top Stories
Google’s Search Results Now Being Partially Processed by RankBrain
Google recently revealed that its artificial intelligence system, RankBrain, is now handling a “very large fraction” of its queries. According to Google’s Greg Corrado, “RankBrain uses artificial intelligence to embed vast amounts of written language into mathematical entities – called vectors – that the computer can understand.” Although classifying RankBrain as a ranking signal seems a bit strange, Corrado also revealed that it is one of “hundreds of signals that go into an algorithm” and that it is now “the third-most important signal contributing to the result of a search query.” Source: Search Engine Land
Cross Device Conversions Now Available In Conversions Column
Cross-device conversions will no longer be separated from single-device and single-browser conversions and will now be included in the conversions column in AdWords. This data can now be used for conversion-based bid strategies. To include cross-device conversions in your automated bid strategies, it will first need to be enabled in AdWords. Source: Search Engine Land
Revamped Wayback Machine Will Offer Keyword Search
After receiving a hefty grant from the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, the Wayback Machine will now offer users a keyword search function. Previously, the Wayback Machine required that users enter a specific URL to see older versions of websites. In addition to offering keyword search, the Wayback Machine’s new code base will allow it to crawl the web more deeply and pay more attention to higher quality pages. Source: Search Engine Land
Halloween Costumes Dominated by Jet.com in Google Shopping
An Amazon competitor that launched in July called Jet.com has been making a huge push with their PLAs for the Halloween season. Insight from AdGooroo found that Jet.com has been dominating other retailers in costume related-keywords, just ahead of partycity.com. Jet.com is pushing their products almost entirely in Google Shopping while almost ignoring text ads. Source: Search Engine Land
Penguin Update Coming Before End of Year
In a rare move, Google’s Gary Illyes recently confirmed that Penguin – the algorithm that aims to rid the search results of spam – will be receiving an update before the end of 2015. This update will be a welcome one for webmasters that have had to disavow spammy links and have subsequently struggled to regain their spot in the rankings. Source: The SEM Post
AdWords Celebrates Its 15th Birthday
Google has recently celebrates AdWords 15th birthday and has taken a look back on all of the amazing features at launch, including: instantly appearing ads, unlimited ad creation, and even ad performance feedback. Back in 2000, Google stated they had about 20 million searches per day on Google.com, with AdWords only having 350 advertisers. These numbers have since risen to one million advertisers using Google AdWords. Source: The SEM Post
Additional Commentary
The Most Important Thing SEOs Overlook: Internal Links
Search Engine Land guest author Patrick Stox argues that many SEOs are not paying enough attention to their internal linking structure. Stox explains that strong internal linking can lead to the establishment of relevance in the search results and signal to search engines that your site is an authority in its competitive space. While he admits that most SEOs do a good job of interlinking pages when publishing new content, he says that many don’t think to circle back to older content to update it with internal links. In addition to being an advocate for internal linking, Stox also explains that building links to your social media profiles is an often-forgotten strategy. Analysis: Patrick Stox, Search Engine Land
The Impact On Lead Quality By Simply De-Selecting One Checkbox
Diane Anselmo covers the simple changes to your PPC account that can have a profound effect on lead quality. Anselmo gives an example from personal experience of poor lead quality due to having search partners enabled. As search partner traffic increased, lead quality decreased. With search partners turned off, lead volume steadily began to increase and Anselmo was receiving positive feedback from the sales team on those leads. Analysis: Diane Anselmo, PPC Hero
