This Week’s Industry News
Compiled by the Rocket Clicks Team
Top Stories
Google Search Analytics Report Metrics Update
If you noticed a decline in average position metrics in the Google Search Console Search Analytics report – it was not a bug.
Google updated the data anomalies page to say they made an “incremental improvement in Google’s logging system now provides better accounting for results in lower positions.” Google explained that “this change might cause increase in impressions, but also a decrease in average positions.” Of course, with any of these reporting changes, it has zero impact on your real rankings. Google explained “this change only effects Search Console reporting, not your actual performance on Google Search.” Source: SERoundtable
Google Continues Expansion of Home Service Ads
In a recent update, Google has expanded on their home service ads both by adding new metro areas on the east coast and implementing additional business categories. These new categories include painters, electricians, and towing companies. Because Google keeps investing more into this specific ad format, experts believe it is here to stay for the foreseeable future. Source: Search Engine Roundtable
Google Search Analytics Report Now Breaks Down Job Listings & Details Results
Google quietly announced they have added the ability to filter by job listings to the Search Analytics report within Google Search Console. If you have job listings on your website, you can potentially now filter your Search Analytics report to see what traffic, impressions, clicks, positions and so on those listings are bringing to your website as well as add schema markup to the job listings. This filter is available under the “search appearance” section in the Search Analytics report. You can see a way to filter by job listings or job details. Source: SearchEngineLand
Google Paid Search Spend up 23% for Q2
Google’s spend numbers were up 23 percent year-over-year for Q2 2017 which seems to largely be attributed to a rise in non-branded Shopping and Text ads. In particular, non-branded text ad spend saw a 21 percent year-over-year increase for last quarter which is a significant increase compared to last year where these ads only saw 8 percent year-over-year growth. Based on Merkle’s Q2 2017 Digital Marketing report, the rise in non-branded text ads are believed to be a result of the de-coupling of tablet and desktop bidding, increased ad load on mobile, and overall better returns from these ads. Source: Search Engine Land
Google beta Testing brand-new Google Search Console Design
Google is currently testing a new design and user interface for the Google Search Console. The new user interface takes a design look from the revised mobile-friendly testing tool that launched less than a year ago. It seems Google has been beta testing this new user interface for some time and now is starting to slowly roll this out to some users. Source: SearchEngineLand
Analysis
Amazon Prime Day’s Effect on AdWords Performance
Search Engine Land’s Andy Taylor shares his thoughts on the influence that Amazon’s Prime Day has on online shopping activity and how it effects AdWords ads. Taylor primarily noticed that there was a noticeable bump in search partner impression share during this period, particularly on desktop devices. He also noticed that phone non-brand conversion rates spiked around this time for Google Shopping. Based on the deals that Prime Day offers, Taylor also found that these phone converters were mostly interested in smaller orders, as he noted that the average order value on mobile was far lower on Prime Day. Source: Andy Taylor, Search Engine Land
How Long Does Reputation Management Take
In a recent SearchEngineLand article, columnist Chris Silver Smith discusses the factors that affect the time it takes to clean up online content that damages your name or reputation.
Unfortunately, like SEO, there is no simple answer to this. Merely publishing websites, web pages, articles, social media profiles and images may seem like it ought to be sufficient to displace a few negative items, but that’s typically not the case. The biggest thing here is to set expectations with the client. Expect your repair project to take a while, and perhaps a longer rather than a shorter amount of time. Considering that your name and reputation are some of your most important assets, the investment in improvement will ultimately be worth the wait. Source: Chris Silver Smith
