This Week’s Industry News
Compiled By Rocket Click’s Staff
Yahoo Continues To Lose Search Market Share
In a recent comScore report showing monthly search market shares for the United States, Yahoo has fallen to 10.1% of the market. It isn’t a drastic change from the 10.3% they were at in February. The bigger news is that this is a new low for Yahoo. Google remained steady at 67.5% of the market share.
Source: Search Engine Land
Zuckerberg Explains Graph Search’s Long Term Plan
In a recent interview with New York Times, Mark Zuckerberg has said that Graph Search is a five-year investment. Graph Search was introduced a little over a year ago to improve search on Facebook. Zuckerberg noted that the next big push would be for Graph Search to expand to mobile platforms.
Source: Search Engine Land
Millennials Heavily Trust User-Generated Content
Crowdtap performed a recent study to see how Millennials get their news. The study found that Millennials trust user-generated content 50% more than other media. An infographic analyzes the study and shares even more statistics that show the connected generations reliance on user-generated content.
Source: Mashable
Bing Has Added Cortana To The Web
Microsoft’s Cortana Assistant Personalization tool is coming to Bing via its search results. Early adopters of Cortana will see personalized cards at the bottom of their Bing home page. The cards contain personalized information based on interests the user adds to Cortana. Bing reminds users that Cortana is still a few weeks away from a consumer release.
Source: Search Engine Land
Beta Analytics Diagnostics Coming To Google
A limited number of users will have access to Google’s new beta Analytics Diagnostics feature. The new feature will inspect your site tagging, account configuration, and reporting data for potential data-quality issues. When doing so, it will look for filters that conflict, missing or malformed analytics tags, and more.
Source: Marketing Land
Cutts Believes Secure Sites Should Receive Better Rankings
A new blog post from the Wall Street Journal claims that through “private conversations,” Cutts would like to reward sites that have better security by ranking them higher in search results. So far, these conversations have all been internal but Heartbleed has lead to the topic being discussed even further.
Source: Search Engine Land
Cutts Addresses How Google Treats 404 and 410 Status Codes
In another Webmaster video, Cutts answers a user question on whether Google treats these codes differently. The short answer is basically no. If Google crawls a site and finds a 404 code, it will protect the page for 24 hours in the crawl system to see if it is fixed. If it sees a 410, it converts to an error. Cutts emphasizes that webmasters don’t get caught up in the details as it has very little effect.
Source: Google Webmasters on YouTube
Rich Snippets From LinkedIn Showing On SERPs
Google and Bing users will notice rich snippet data coming from LinkedIn for well-known people if a user searches their name along with the word “LinkedIn.” On Google the data contains their job title, employer, and location. Bing results are slightly modified and will show up for all users.
Source: Search Engine Watch
+Posts Ads Now Available to All Advertisers
After launching +Post ads in December to a limited number of advertisers, Google has announced that their +Posts will now be available to all advertisers that meet the minimum threshold of followers. Other new features to the platform include, promoted Hangouts on Air and automatic post promotion. Early tests showed that these creative campaigns saw a 50% higher engagement rate than the industry average for rich media ads.
Source: AdWords Blog Spot
15 New Types of Twitter Ads May Be Coming
Twitter is holding its own in the advertising world. According to multiple reports that surfaced last week, Twitter is planning 15 new ad types in the coming months. One of the most anticipated ad formats will be the app install ad that will be function with Twitter Cards. They are also experimenting with “click-to-call” buttons as well as shoppable ads.
Source: Mashable
Google Teases with April 22 AdWords News
April 22 seems to be the talk of the AdWords town lately. In an exclusive early blog post given to Search Engine Land this week some subtle hints were given away about the upcoming AdWords announcements. The main thing mentioned was to not expect another game-changing update like Enhanced campaigns. Other hints included in-app ad features, new measurement metrics and bid strategies.
Source: Search Engine Land
More Functionality for Agencies Using Bing Ads
Bing has announced that it will be revamping the way agencies manage their customer accounts in Bing Ads. Some new features will include, linking and unlinking of accounts from a list of accounts managed, linking of individual accounts instead of an entire client, and specification of billing to the client or agency. The update will occur automatically so users will no longer have to switch to the old interface.
Source: Search Engine Land
Google Testing In-Store Conversions
Brick and mortar businesses using AdWords may soon be a part of something very exciting. Google has launched a pilot program called “In-Store Attribution Transaction Reporting” in AdWords in order to help bridge the gap between online activity and in-store purchases. With the program, Google will be able to tell advertisers which ads generated in-store purchases and how much revenue they generated. The program is said to be designed in a way that does not connect the identity of the user with the purchase.
Source: Search Engine Watch
Facebook Update Targets News Feed Spam
Facebook has been encouraging advertisers to do paid ads by reducing their visibility for a while now. Now the social network seems to be directly targeting marketers that are overusing certain strategies such as asking for likes and shares of posts. Facebook responds to many business complaints by saying that those post strategies lead to less enjoyable user experiences. So what should you do with your Facebook posts to reduce losses in visibility? Don’t ask for likes, comments etc, don’t share content repeatedly, and don’t use misleading links!
Notable Commentary
That’s Bringing In Spring
Sleuthing: A Skill PPC Managers Should Have
As advertisers, we have all had those times when we see significant changes in account performance and we can’t seem to figure out why they are happening. Joseph Kerschbaum from Search Engine Watch has shared one example of how he taps into his inner Sherlock Holmes to solve his account issues.
Analyis by: Joseph Kerschbaum, Search Engine Watch
Is Big Data A Big Mistake?
Everyone from marketers to scientists is thrilled about the vast pools of data streaming out of apps, websites, and even smart running shoes. But Tim Hartford at Financial Times Magazine argues that big data does not always lead to big insights; the basic rules of statistical sampling can’t be thrown out the window.
Analysis by: Tim Hartford, Financial Times Magazine
Google Is No Stranger To Politics
In an informative Washington Post article, Tom Hamburger examines how Google is transforming power and politics. A startup that was once opposed to government lobbying has now mastered the craft and is devoting resources to appeal to all parties.
Analysis by: Tom Hamburger, Washington Post
Tips For Protecting Large Websites From Google Panda
Glenn Gabe of Search Engine Watch performed a case study on how Panda has affected large websites with over 1 million pages. Based on his experience, he has put together a list of 6 tips to protect complex websites from Panda hits. Tips include continually auditing the sites and educating clients.
Analysis by: Glenn Gabe, Search Engine Watch
Is Big Data A Big Mistake?
Everyone from marketers to scientists is thrilled about the vast pools of data streaming out of apps, websites, and even smart running shoes. But Tim Hartford at Financial Times Magazine argues that big data does not always lead to big insights; the basic rules of statistical sampling can’t be thrown out the window.
Analysis by: Tim Hartford, Financial Times Magazine
The History of AIM
If you had the Internet in early 2000s America you probably had an Instant Messenger account. Mashable has an interesting piece on it’s rise and fall. Basically, AOL helped kill it because they had very little interest in offering part of their platform for free.
Analysis by: Jason Abbruzzese, Mashable
