This Week’s Industry News
Compiled by the Rocket Clicks Team
Top Stories
AMP Content Not Limited to News Carousels
Earlier this week, when discussing the roll out of their new AMP feature, Google’s VP of Engineering Dave Besbris revealed that AMP content will eventually show up in various places throughout the SERPs. As of right now, AMP content has only been seen in news carousels. The fact that AMP will eventually show up elsewhere in the SERPs could be a big deal for those focusing on local search as local searches typically won’t return a news carousel. Source: The SEM Post
New AdWords Editor Update Introduces Additional Feature Support
Three big additions were recently made with an update to the AdWords editor. Now, you can edit your in-stream and in-display TrueView video campaigns within the editor as well as manage your callout extensions. Also, the new version of editor supports HTML5 ads as Google continues to shift away from Flash. Source: Search Engine Land
Search Console’s Search Analytics Not Updating
Currently, the Search Analytics data (i.e. clicks and impressions) in Google Search Console is well over a week behind. Those that have used Google Search Console over the years have grown accustomed to there being delays in the data being reported. However, this is a much longer delay than normal. According to John Mueller, Google is aware of the issue and is working to resolve it. Source: Search Engine Roundtable
Smart Goals Expands to More AdWords Advertisers
Smart goals, the product that helps advertisers create conversions when an actual conversion hasn’t been set up has recently had its eligibility requirements changed to allow a new set of advertisers to get in on the action. Required website visits has been halved to 500 instead of the original 1000. The “ceiling” has also been increased to 10 million visits for eligibility. Although this change will allow for more advertisers to take advantage of smart goals, it’s still only meant for those who are not able to set up their own website goals. Source: Marketing Land
65% of User-Generated Spam Reports Are Acted Upon by Google
Google’s Juan Felipe Rincon recently revealed that Google takes manual action on about 65% of the 35,000 user-generated spam reports they receive monthly. Rincon also explained that they prioritize which reports they deal with based on how impactful they might be on their users. Furthermore, he said that they will process reports submitted by users that have a strong history of sending in legitimate reports. Source: Search Engine Land
Additional Commentary
How to be Proactive on a New Account
Nate Hollander shares 3 simple tips on how to be proactive when you inherit a new PPC account. First and most obvious, Hollander recommends filling up your negative keyword list when testing broader keywords. Secondly, the author recommends creating remarketing lists to target audiences that make sense for your client, specifically demographics, social media sources, and time on site. Finally, Hollander suggests creating an IP exclusion for those pesky clients that like to search for themselves and muddy your metrics. Analysis: Nate Hollander, PPC Hero
Going over to the duck side: a week using DuckDuckGo
In the interest of better understanding the DuckDuckGo experience, Rebecca Sentance of Search Engine Watch recently took a week to immerse herself in the up-and-coming Google competitor. Sentance lauded DuckDuckGo for its customizability and privacy, but ultimately found herself going back to Google every now and then when she couldn’t find what she was looking for. Analysis: Rebecca Sentence, Search Engine Watch
