Google announced that over the coming weeks it’s going to be changing the way it sends messages in Search Console (formerly Webmaster Tools) and to whom it sends them.
Google Webmaster Trends analyst Gary Illyes announced this in a post on Google+ on Tuesday morning (via Search Engine Land). Here’s how he described the changes:
After the change, we will send messages only to the direct owners of a particular site; owners of parent properties will no longer be sent messages for their child properties.
For example: Currently, if the site https://example.com/dont/panic/have/a/towel triggers a message, all of the following sites will be sent the message:
https://example.com/dont/panic/have/a/towel (the site triggering the message)
https://example.com/dont/panic/have/a
https://example.com/dont/panic/have
https://example.com/dont/panic
https://example.com/dont
https://example.com
With the upcoming change, only the owners of https://example.com/dont/panic/have/a/towel will receive the message triggered by their own site.
Illyes says the change will affect most messages, but notes that critical messages like hacked site alerts “might” still be sent to all parent site owners.
The change, he says, is designed to lighten they email loads of users.
Early last month, Google provided webmasters and SEOs with an update on what was going on with Panda and Penguin. The former was said to be coming in two to four weeks from that time, but that never happened. It’s still expected soon, but appears to have been delayed for technical reasons.
Penguin, on the other hand, is still quite a ways off. This is of course contradictory to the message Google has given people in the past in that Penguin would run more quickly.
Google’s Gary Illyes indicated on Twitter that a Penguin refresh is still months away (via Search Engine Roundtable):
The last Penguin update came in October, so we’re approaching a year.
Penguin had its three-year anniversary in April. As we noted at the time, the algorithm continues to frustrate webmasters, and incredible amount of time it takes Google to do refreshes is a major source of that frustration. It no doubt sucks having to wait a year to try to recover your search visibility.
Earlier this year, after we learned that Google and Twitter had partnered on tweet indexing again, but before any integration was actually announced, Stone Temple Consulting studied how many tweets Google was indexing. Now that the partnership has been in effect for a while, the study has been updated.
“We saw a massive 466% increase of indexation of tweets less than 7 days old comparing June 2015 vs. February 2015,” a spokesperson for Stone Temple tells WebProNews. “While this represents a leap from a mere 0.6% percent of Tweets from the 900+ Twitter accounts we studied to a still small 3.4%, it does show significant progress in Google’s rollout of Twitter results to its search pages. We also expect the indexing to continue to grow.”
in May, Google and Twitter made the official announcement and the integration came in the form of a new tweet section in mobile results:
This was, however, likely only one way Google is utilizing the deal. The updated study shows that at the very least, more tweets are making their way into Google results in less time.
It also shows a significant bias towards Twitter accounts with more followers:
In addition to that, it looks at Followerwonk Social Authority, which takes into account the engagement level with a person’s tweets:
Stone Temple says it believes this is a better metric to look at.
Check out the following video from Stone Temple talking about the study:
I recommend taking a look at the whole thing here.
Stone Temple will continue to update the study periodically. It will be interesting to see the rate of growth in percentage of tweets Google is indexing. Keep in mind that Twitter sees roughly 6000 tweets per second.
Do you think Google’s deal with Twitter will make search results better? Do you expect it to help you get more traffic? Let us know what you think.
It’s nothing new for Google to try to get webmasters to stop focusing on getting links to help their search rankings. Buying links has long been a major no-no, and has hurt plenty of sites over the years as Google catches on and penalizes them in search results.
Now, the company is saying not to even ask for a link. Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Land points to a new blog post on Google’s Portuguese webmaster blog. The relevant quote says:
Para concluir, deixamos um conselho simples para garantir que você não está infringindo as diretrizes do Google: não compre, venda, troque ou peça links. Se seguir esse conselho, a grande maioria dos links que o Google considera problemáticos não chegarão a ser criados.
The part bolded above is actually bolded in the blog post as well, so Google is going out of its way to emphasize it.
Here’s that relevant section as translated by Google Translate (again with the same bolded part):
Finally, let some simple advice to ensure that you are not violating Google’s guidelines: do not buy, sell, exchange or ask for links . If you follow this advice, the vast majority of links that Google considers problematic not come to be created.
Your first reaction might be to wonder if this is simply a translation issue, but Schwartz says he spoke with “native Portuguese speakers,” who say that it is not. In other words, Google means exactly that. Don’t buy, sell, exchange or ask for links.
I don’t believe it says outright that you will get a penalty for asking for a link, but the language would seem to suggest that it’s a possibility. Buying and selling links will certainly get you one.
It wouldn’t be easy for Google to enforce this, but that doesn’t mean it couldn’t do so if it were to find out about certain cases in which links were explicitly asked for.
According to a recent study by Ascend2, relevant link building search marketers polled found relevant link building to be the fourth most effective SEO tactic behind relevant content creation, keyword/phrase research, and frequent website updating. They found it to be the most difficult tactic to execute.
Google has been scaring people about their linking practices for years, and this latest blog post will likely serve to add to that. That’s a shame considering that linking is basically the foundation of the web.
Google wants to know if webmasters would find it useful to combine different sites in Search Console (formerly Webmaster Tools). The company has a survey out inquiring about the subject.
“For example, to view a combined Search Analytics report that includes different URL versions of your site (http and https) and different subdomains (mobile and international subdomains),” Google explains in the survey.
First, it asks if Search Console allowed you to group together sites to view a combined report, would you use it? Answers respondents can give include:
– No
– Yes, I’d use it to combine different URL versions of my site (i.e. https/http and www/non-www)
– Yes, I’d use it to track my subdomains (i.e. desktop/mobile sites and international subdomains)
– Yes, I’d use it to track my entire brand (i.e. all subdomains and apps)
– Other (with a form for explanation)
Respondents are asked to state their role, choosing from SEO, Webmaster, Developer, Marketer/advertiser, website owner, or other. They can also provide Google with the websites they manage. Google says it can use this information to understand different use cases for sites of different sizes.
The next section of the survey asks respondents to explain why they wouldn’t need a feature that groups multiple sites together. Possible responses include:
– I only have one verified site
– I only monitor my primary/canonical site
– Other people manage the remaining sites for my company
– Other (with a form for explanation)
That’s pretty much the entirety of the survey.
It would seem like the best solution for Google would be to give people the option to combine sites if it works for them. It seems likely that this will become a feature based on the company’s interest in feeling out the community. That is unless there is just little to zero interest in it. Still, I would guess that most webmasters (and other roles noted) would at least like to have the option even if it’s not something they immediately need.
Ahead of Google’s mobile-friendly update in in April, there was talk around the SEO industry that interstitials (content that appears over top of a page, which impedes the process of getting to the desired page) could be looked upon as hurting the mobile user experience, and therefore hurt webmasters in in rankings as Google started to take into account the mobile experience.
Eric Enge at Stone Temple Consulting posted a new interview with Google Webmaster Trends Analyst Mariya Moeva. They talk about a number of topics related to mobile apps and Google’s treatment of them. At one point, Enge asks if implementing an interstitial to drive people to sign up for your app will negatively impact mobile rankings, and if that’s something people should stay away from. Here’s Moeva’s response:
Speaking as a user myself, I have yet to see an interstitial that brought me some useful info and was more important than what I was originally trying to do. They’re disruptive and can be frustrating, especially if you show them right on the first page the user ever sees from your site. Apparently, I’m not the only one who thinks so (:
We see app install interstitials bother users, so we’re looking into ways of addressing that; stay tuned for more news.
As Enge points out in an editor’s note, Google’s Maile Ohye talked a little about this at the recent SMX Advanced search conference. Here’s an excerpt from a blog post by Jennifer Slegg about Ohye’s comments:
We have known for a couple of months that Google was planning to add interstitials as a negative ranking factor in an upcoming mobile friendly algo, but it appears that the same will be coming to the regular search results too.
Maile Ohye from Google warned webmasters at SMX Advanced that they will also be bringing up the issue of interstitials and how pages that use them will be affected. “Interstitials are bad for users, so be aware this is something we are thinking about,” she said.
She then continued on to say that content hidden behind interstitials would be devalued.
“Many websites show interstitials or overlays that partially or completely cover the contents of the page the user is visiting,” it says. “These interstitials, commonly seen on mobile devices promoting a website’s native app, mailing list sign-up forms, or advertisements, make for a bad user experience. In extreme cases, the interstitial is designed to make it very difficult for the user to dismiss it and view the real content of the page. Since screen real-estate on mobile devices is limited, any interstitial negatively impacts the user’s experience.
It is strange then that on its Think With Google Site, the company touts “Interactive Interstitial Ads,” which it says can “Make your brand stand out” as the ad “appears inside apps and gives users a full screen experience.”
That page tells you that you’d use interstitials for two reasons:
– Rich media ads engage more uers than basic text or image ads
– Google’s app interstitials offer mobile advertisers great interactivity in eye-catching placements.
Another mixed message from Google.
Either way, interstitials are employed by many websites and apps. They can help the viewability problem in advertising and are a key component in getting sign-ups. If businesses have to worry about losing their search visibility as a result of using them, it could be a major blow to those who have seen significant results from them in the past.
Interstitials are often directly linked to monetizing content – particularly higher quality content as it’s more expensive to produce. Sometimes they actually go so far as to provide the entry to that content by way of logging in for sites that require subscriptions. Sites like this, at least when it comes to media publications, tend to have high quality content, because if they didn’t, users would have no reason to subscribe. Google is supposed to be all about the high quality content, right?
Google has just given content marketers another reason to make sure Pinterest is a part of their strategies. Now, when users search for Pinterest content on Google from a mobile device, it will display a carousel-style section on the search results page letting them swipe through various content from Pinterest before clicking through to the app or mobile site.
Here, you can see how Google displays results for “4th of July ideas Pinterest”:
The carousel appears in the middle of the results page for that particular query. On others it appears right at the top. Interestingly, it will also display multiple Pinterest carousels if it thinks ore than one collection is relevant. Behold the results for “flamin hot cheetos recipes”:
That shot actually shows results further down on the page. “Flamin hot” Cheetos recipes were actually at the top.
It’s worth considering that optimizing for Pinterest can potentially lead to more visibility in Google search, which is surely a welcome bonus.
The Pinterest carousel is actually just one new integration of this type Google is now including. It’s including similar results from Vine, Houzz, and Food Network.
“Whether you are looking for Pinterest pins, Vines, Houzz idea books or Food Network recipes, you can now browse through more content from your favorite websites within Google search results on your mobile device,” Google said in a Google+ update. “Simply swipe through links within a carousel and tap any link to read or watch exactly what you are interested in.”
Google’s former head of web spam Matt Cutts will not be returning to the company this year from the sound of it. He reportedly said on an internet talk show that Google has extended his leave throughout the remainder of the year.
Cutts appeared on Leo Laporte’s Twit.tv show, and according to Search Engine Land, he talked about this during the pre-show, which wasn’t recorded, so we can’t provide the video of what he actually said. However, according to the report, Cutts indicated that he’ll be gone through 2015, and that Google is not paying him for his time away, but it is still providing him with health benefits.
Barry Schwartz reports: “Matt added that this gives him a lot of options that he is considering. Including staying with Google at the end of his leave.”
This isn’t the first time Matt Cutts has appeared on Laporte’s show to talk about his potential future with Google. Last fall, he said:
Well, I really have been impressed with how well everyone else on the team is doing, and it’s created a little bit of an opportunity for them to try new things, explore different stuff, you know, approach problems from a different way, and so we’ll have to see how it goes,” Cutts responded. “I loved the part of my job that dealt with keeping an eye on what important news was happening related to Google, but you know, it’s not clear that having me as a lightning rod, you know for, you know unhappy black hat SEOs or something is the best use of anybody’s time compared to working on other things that could be making the world better for Google or in general. So we’ll see how it all works.
Laporte asked him if he has the ability at the company to just do something different if he wants to. Cutts responded:
The interesting thing is that at Google they try to get you and go do different projects, so the product managers, they encourage you to rotate every two or three years, and so it’s relatively rare to find people who have been around forever in a specific area. You’ll find Amit [Singhal] in search, Sridhar [Ramaswamy], you know, some of these people that are really, really senior, you know – higher ranking than me for sure – they do stick around in one area, but a lot of other people jump to different parts of the company to furnish different skills and try different things, which is a pretty good idea, I think.
Jeff Jarvis was on the show too, and asked Cutts what other things interest him. He said:
Oh man, I was computer graphics and actually inertial trackers and accelerometers in grad school. At one point I said, you know, you could use commodity hardware, but as a grad student, you don’t have access to influence anybody’s minds, so why don’t I just go do something else for ten years, and somebody else will come up with all these sensors, and sure enough, you’ve got Kinect, you have the Wii, you know, the iPhone. Now everybody’s got a computer in their pocket that can do 3D sensing as long as write the computer programs well. So there’s all kinds of interesting stuff you could do.
Last month, Google said it had replaced Cutts as the head of web spam, but declined to name who the replacement was. They indicated that the person wouldn’t be the public face Cutts has been over the years, though John Mueller has pretty much taken over that part of Matt’s duties. In fact, Ignite Visibility President John Lincoln, who contributes to Search Engine Land on occasion, created a comic about Cutts and his leave which reveals that Mueller has actually been Cutts in disguise the whole time!
On June 17, Google’s algorithm seemed to get a mysterious jolt with a mysterious update that Google deemed a routine, non-major change. Google specifically said the update was not related to Panda, Penguin, or HTTPS. They wouldn’t comment further.
They just said, “We’re always making improvements to our search algorithms and the web is constantly evolving. We’re going to continue to work on improvements across the board.”
According to MozCast, which measures the “temperature” of patterns of the Google algorithm, the update came in at 101.8°F. For comparison, the first Penguin update only registered at 93.1°.
Since initial reports on the update, Searchmetrics has analyzed it a bit, and found that news sites are benefiting most, and that it appears to be related to trending keywords and real time hot topics. Top winners, according to the company, were WSJ.com, USAToday.com, Dailymail.co.uk, BusinessInsider.com, Time.com, NBCNews.com, LATimes.com, NYPost.com, TechCrunch.com,FoxNews.com, Steampowered.com, BizJournals.com, TheVerge.com, Fortune.com, Gizmodo.com, Dict.cc, HollywoodLife.com, TechTarget.com, and WindowsPhone.com.
Most of these sites publish “fresh and newsworthy” content on a regular basis, as Searchmetrics notes.
The update coincides with a major refresh of Google Trends, which now provides data in real time, and takes into account trends on YouTube and Google News. Google hasn’t confirmed the connection here, but it seems like the most likely explanation at this point.
As Searchmetrics notes, Google also has the Twitter fire hose now, so that’s more real time data it can use. It’s unclear whether or not that’s connected. The only use of this data that has actually been announced comes in the form of tweets appearing in Google’s mobile results, but it’s probably safe to say that Google can tap into this for other reasons, that have bigger implications than that specific feature.
When the update was spotted by Moz, they dubbed it the Colossus update. Searchmetrics is calling it the seemingly more fitting “News-wave” update. I don’t know if either name will stick, but it does appear that freshness is once again a major priority of the Google algorithm. This has been taken too far by Google in the past, in my opinion, so we’ll see how it goes this time.
Interestingly, Searchmetrics reports that Wikipedia has seen a bit of drop in SEO visibility as a result of the update. There was some speculation initially that the shakeup in tools like Mozcast was related to Wikipedia switching to HTTPS. Since Wikipedia is usually the top result for many pages, it any changes with the site could significantly change SERPs in general. According to Searchmetrics, however, Wikipedia’s placement has dropped a little due to news sites ranking for some terms.
Ignite Visibility President John Lincoln, who contributes to Search Engine Land on occasion, created a comic about Matt Cutts and his leave from Google. I hate to spoil it, but on the other hand, I don’t really care. It turns out that John Mueller has really been Matt Cutts all along.
Last July, Cutts announced he was taking leave from Google. It was originally supposed to last at least through October. At the time, he wrote on his personal blog:
I wanted to let folks know that I’m about to take a few months of leave. When I joined Google, my wife and I agreed that I would work for 4-5 years, and then she’d get to see more of me. I talked about this as recently as last month and as early as 2006. And now, almost fifteen years later I’d like to be there for my wife more. I know she’d like me to be around more too, and not just physically present while my mind is still on work.
So we’re going to take some time off for a few months. My leave starts next week. Currently I’m scheduled to be gone through October. Thanks to a deep bench of smart engineers and spam fighters, the webspam team is in more-than-capable hands. Seriously, they’re much better at spam fighting than I am, so don’t worry on that score.
At the end of October, Cutts revealed in a tweet that he was extending his leave into 2015:
In November, Cutts made some comments on a web chat show indicating that he might be interested in doing different work at Google when he decides to go back to work.
While Cutts has been away, the webmaster community has mostly heard from Mueller, at least when it comes to addressing Google webmasters issues in videos, which Cutts used to do on a regular basis. Here’s the comic:
In reality, Google said last month that it has someone new in the Matt Cutts position of head of web spam, but that this person won’t be “the all-around spokesperson” that Cutts was, so they’re not naming who it is.
Over on Search Engine Roundtable, Schwartz is telling people to stop harassing Mueller because it’s getting “disgusting”. Apparently a lot of people are being pretty nasty to him. I guess he did get to take Matt’s place in that department.
Last month, Google casually noted in a blog post that mobile searches have overtaken desktop searches in ten countries including the United States and Japan. It didn’t elaborate on what the other countries were.
Now, Google has mentioned another country by name. You can add the United Kingdom to that list. Matt Jackson at SocialMediaToday reports:
During a presentation at London Tech Week, Google’s Eileen Naughton said that not only are more searches conducted on UK mobile devices than on UK desktops, but that more UK YouTube searches were also conducted on mobile devices.
The YouTube part is interesting as well, as Google hasn’t mentioned that before when talking about this subject, at least to my knowledge.
The growing mobile search trend obviously illustrates why Google has put so much emphasis on websites being mobile-friendly and begun taking app indexing into account when ranking search results.
The world is going mobile, and websites that don’t follow are going to be left behind. A recent study found that the mobile-friendly update bumped down about half of pages it threatened to, but it’s still early days. It’s not as if mobile-friendliness is going to become less of a factor going forward.
Google changes its algorithm constantly, so an update is hardly newsworthy unless it causes major changes. Something pretty big apparently happened with the algorithm on June 17 – so big that Moz is calling it the “Colossus” update.
I don’t know if that name’s going to catch on or not, but according to its MozCast product, which measures the “temperature” of patterns of the Google algorithm, the update came in at 101.8°F. For comparison, the first Penguin update only registered at 93.1°.
Google has confirmed an update, and said that it’s not Panda, Penguin, or HTTPS-related. Other than that, they’re really not giving out much in the way of details.
Search Engine Land shares this statement from the company: “This is not a Panda update. As you know, we’re always making improvements to our search algorithms and the web is constantly evolving. We’re going to continue to work on improvements across the board.
@dr_pete just because you never asked me before: I love the name you came up with (Securageddon), but it's nothing to do with https AFAIK
SEL’s Barry Schwartz has an interesting theory in that the major change in temperature could have come from Wikipedia going HTTPS which the Wikimedia Foundation recently announced. The thinking is that this could have a substantial impact given that Wikipedia ranks at the top of search results for so many queries.
Either way, Google gets updated constantly, and it’s possible that they didn’t really do anything all that significant this time.
What is the Most Effective SEO Tactic? If you’re trying to gain visibility for your website, you’ve no doubt wondered about the answer to that question at some point. Well, it just happens to be the very thing that Google keeps telling you. It’s about the content.
Google has long been pushing webmasters to shoot for high quality content, especially since launching the Panda update several years ago. According to a recent survey by Ascend2 (via Marketing Charts), relevant content creation is by far the most effective tactic. That’s what 72% of SEO marketers say. This is followed by keyword/phrase research, frequent website updating, relevant link building, social media integration, frequent blogging, mobile search optimization, and website URL restructuring.
The bad news is that relevant content creation is also one of the most difficult tactics, according to those polled, second only to relevant link building (which has become much more challenging in recent years due to developments at Google). A fair amount of those surveyed also find frequent blogging and website updating to be difficult tasks. Keyword/phrase research is the easiest thing to do.
The good news is that for 71% of those polled, the effectiveness of search engine optimization tactics is improving. It’s mostly modest improvement, but that’s compared to no change for 18%, modest worsening for 9% and significant worsening for just 2%.
This is somewhat surprising given Google’s changes that put less emphasis on traditional, organic results.
It’s unfortunate that relevant link building is the most difficult tactic because another new study suggests that links are as important as ever to ranking in Google.
Moz is sharing some data based on the top 50 Google search results for about 15,000 keywords. Cyrus Shepard reports:
The correlation between higher rankings and the number of linking websites (root domains) sits at .30. This number seems small, but it’s actually one of the highest correlations the study found. (Smaller correlations are also not surprising—with over 200 ranking signals, Google specifically designed their algorithm so that one factor doesn’t dominate the others.)
Even more telling is the number of websites we found in the top results that had external backlinks, or rather, the lack thereof.
Out of the top results, a full 99.2% of all websites had at least one external link. (The remaining .8% is well within the margin of error expected between Mozscape and Google’s own link index.) The study found almost no websites ranking for competitive search phrases that didn’t have at least a single external link pointing at them, and most had significantly more links.
Check out the full report for additional insights.
Google webmaster trends analyst John Mueller was asked in a hangout if link building is, in any way, good for webmasters (start at about 55:40):
He said, “That is a good question. In general, I’d try to avoid that. So that you are really sure that your content kind of stands on its own and make it possible for other people of course to link to your content. Make it easy, maybe, put a little widget on your page, if you like this, this is how you can link to it. Make sure that the URLs on your web site are easy to copy and paste. All of those things make it a little bit easier. We do use links as part of our algorithms but we use lots and lots of other factors as well. So only focusing on links is probably going to cause more problems for your web site that actually helps.”
After that, we spoke with prominent link building specialist Ken McGaffin about his thoughts on Google saying to avoid link building. He said:
That all depends on the type of link building you’re doing. Let’s say I’ve just conducted a great piece of research for a client and my prime objective is to get them media coverage. The research and the accompanying press release was so good that it got coverage in the NYTimes, BBC and many others – good job done!
But my secondary objective is to get links – so AS WELL as conducting the research, and writing the press release, I make sure that the journalist has something to link to, something that his readers will appreciate. That could be:
– an in-depth blog post giving much more detail than the Journalist could give space to
– a presentation or infographic of the results
– a copy of the original research so that readers can check it out.
In this case, I’m doing my client a service in getting PR coverage. But I’m also doing my best to ensure that editorial links and others links will follow. I can only see Google looking positively on my efforts – because of the value it offers. But if all I did was the ‘link building’ part then I’d be doing my client a disservice – and missing some major opportunities. This means that any online marketing/PR initiative is multi-layered – and one of those layers must be link building.
Google has made it clear that it will not tolerate any link building that violates its guidelines, and it’s become as aggressive at going after sites that do as ever.
It’s good to know that creating relevant content is still leading to significant effectiveness. Luckily, if you’re producing the right content, the links should come too. Look for ways to put out content that others aren’t creating. If others are creating similar things, look for ways to make your version better and more helpful.
Do you have trouble creating relevant content? Building links? What’s the most difficult tactic for you? Let us know in the comments.
People are spending more and more time with mobile apps, and that includes those that let them buy things. The problem for businesses hoping to break into that increasing app usage is that the number of apps people are using isn’t really growing along with the time they’re spending using apps.
New changes Google has been making could (and should) mean increased discovery for new and existing apps, and could just lead to that number of apps metric increasing as time goes on. It’s going to be challenging to make your business’ app stand out in the crowd, so you should know what kind of app content users are gravitating towards. We’ll look at that in this article.
Are you getting a significant amount of business through mobile apps so far? If not, what do you think needs to change to make it happen? If so, what are the main ways people are discovering your app and/or the content within? Discuss in the comments.
Nielsen released some research showing significant growth trajectory for the time consumers are spending using apps.
“Over the span of just a few years, the concept of app usage has transformed from a novelty to an essential part of the mobile user experience,” the firm says. “With millions of apps now available and more being rolled out every day, there is an app for everyone, regardless of age, race or interest.”
“But while marketers and app developers continue to add functionality and robustness to apps, they also must effectively position them to stand out in an increasingly competitive marketplace,” it adds. “Despite the increase in choices, the number of apps used is staying the same.”
As you may know, Google is now indexing app content in search results. Businesses who follow Google’s protocol for app indexing even get the benefit of a ranking signal. It’s in your best interest to have an app and to have it indexed. At first, Google was only offering this on Android, but has recently started to index content on iOS, though it’s still early days on that. Currently, on Android, anyone can take advantage of app indexing. On iOS, Google is only working with a handful of partners so far, but that will likely open up to everyone else eventually. Luckily, Android has a much bigger piece of the mobile operating system market share since it’s on so many different devices from various manufacturers.
With Google’s changes, users can also discover your app even if they haven’t installed it yet, which is key. They (and others) of course offer app install ads to help you convince more people to get your app on their phone to begin with.
You might want to give this presentation from Google I/O a watch. It’s a session called “Smarter user acquisition with App Indexing, AdWords and Google Analytics”.
Here’s how Google describes it: “Content discovery on mobile isn’t easy. Luckily, this is a familiar problem to Google. With App Indexing on both iOS and Android, you can engage users organically by surfacing app content in the search results page. And on Android specifically, you can even drive app installs for users who don’t have your app. Google’s smart mobile ads platform gives you access to AdWords, the world’s largest network, to find the right users who will install and engage with your app, plus you can gain insights through Google Analytics install attribution to know where your users came from. Discover Google’s variety of approaches to driving app discovery, growth and engagement in this session.”
Even if you can get people to install your app, you face the challenge of getting them to open it and interact with it regularly. Google has been working on some things that can help with that as well.
For one, it now offers app deep linking with Goo.gl. This was announced less than a month ago.
“Once you’ve taken the necessary steps to set up App Indexing for Android and iOS, goo.gl URLs will send users straight to the right page in your app if they have it installed, and everyone else to your website. This will provide additional opportunities for your app users to re-engage with your app,” explained Google software engineer Fabian Schlup. “This feature works for both new short URLs and retroactively, so any existing goo.gl short links to your content will now also direct users to your app.”
You can drive traffic to in-app content through your marketing efforts using such links.
Potentially even more helpful for driving re-engagement from users who have installed your app, is Google Now on Tap. Google announced this at Google I/O. With this feature, users can get to useful content from other apps regardless of what app they’re currently using. It’s driven by context.
An example of how it works would be pulling a movie review from IMDb if the user is looking at movie content from another app or reservations on OpenTable if they’re viewing a restaurant in a different app.
Google says Now on Tap another way to get apps in front of users at the right moment. If you have an app with content that people need to see, well, that applies to you. Luckily, beyond app indexing, there’s nothing else you really have to do to be integrated with Now on Tap. Just have your app indexed by Google.
These are really just potential bonuses of app indexing, but the question remains: what do you need to offer in your app to actually get people to use it and buy from you?
comScore and UPS recently conducted a study looking at what kind of content shoppers find important. The content types are product reviews, Q&A, product and brand videos, and photos submitted of consumers using products. These are good places to start.
Other types of app content shoppers find useful include communities and forums, “trending now” products, the seller’s blog content, and podcasts. You might want to think about using some or all of these things in your app. Luckily, most of this stuff is excellent for appearing in search results.
MarketingCharts put together this graph based on the findings.
That study also concluded that 55% of shoppers value consumer and peer reviews when they’re searching and selecting products to buy. Detailed product information is the most important fact in the search and selection process it found. Other important components cited include the seller’s reputation, return policy, and the use of multiple images or the ability to zoom in on products.
While the above lists what content people value from websites, MarketingCharts notes, “Similar factors are important when shopping via mobile applications. Indeed, product images (54%) and product reviews (53%) are considered the most important retail app features among users, with these followed by relevant search results (50%) and mobile coupons (50%). While the study cautions that ‘apps… aren’t a must for every retailer,’ 4 in 5 mobile shoppers surveyed reported having used a retailer’s app rather than a browser to access a retailer at some point.”
This is all very helpful to know, and can help you make your app more useful to consumers.
Microsoft announced that Bing will start encrypting search traffic by default meaning that like much of your Google traffic in Google Analytics, you’ll start seeing “not provided” for query data from Bing.
Google started doing this back in 2011. It’s a little surprising that Bing has taken this long to follow suit, but they’re doing so now nevertheless. Bing’s Duane Forrester says in a blog post:
At Microsoft, we’re committed to helping users keep their data safe and secure. That’s why we support the industry’s move to use of TLS protocols as part of our effort to expand encryption across our networks and services. Bing has already been offering users the option to encrypt search traffic for about a year and a half now. Beginning this summer, we will begin the process of encrypting search traffic by default. This means that traffic originating from Bing will increasingly come from https://www.bing.com as opposed to http://www.bing.com.
With the move to encrypted search by default we will continue to pass along a referrer string so that marketers and webmasters will be able to identify traffic as coming from Bing. However, to further protect our users’ privacy, we will not include the used query terms.
Unless you get the majority of your search traffic from Bing, this probably won’t affect you too badly as you’re probably already used to it from Google. If you do get most of your search traffic from Bing, have fun.
Microsoft says it will still provide some limited query term data through its Search Query Terms Report, Universal Event Tracking, and Bing Webmaster Tools.
Google has penalized a company that it backs financially in search results, by taking manual action on it for apparently violating its guidelines.
Last year, Google launched Google Capital, a growth equity fund to fund growth-stage businesses. The eighth company it invested in was Thumbtack, a site that introduces people to “qualified professionals” in hundreds of categories to help them complete projects. Customers answer questions about their needs, and Thumbtack connects them with these professionals.
Search Engine Land reports that it has confirmed with Thumbtack that it received a manual action for “unnatural links to your site,” and that it has seen a “huge decline” in Google referrals as a result, which has impacted the leads that the professionals in its network receive. The company also claims to have never paid for any links.
Those who have analyzed the situation believe this solicitation for links (which someone shared in the Moz Q&A forum) might have something to do with it:
As others have noted, this might fall into what Google considers a link scheme, which is against its guidelines.
It has to be embarrassing for Google when it has to penalize a site that it is directly supporting. Still, it’s not as embarrassing as the time Google had to penalize its own Chrome site.
Google released an algorithm update on April 21 that began taking the mobile-friendliness of a site into account when ranking that site in search results. It’s still just one of many signals Google uses, and it’s not as significant as relevance or quality, but it is clearly a factor Google is taking very seriously as more searches are performed from mobile devices than on desktop now.
The update was largely known as “Mobilegeddon” before it actually launched, but that name has been heavily questioned since then as the severity of its effects have been debated.
Was your site affected by Mobilegeddon? Have you seen any impact as time has gone on? Do you think the whole thing was overblown? Share your thoughts in the comments.
As Google’s John Mueller put it, “While it’s had a fairly big impact across all the search results, it doesn’t mean that in every search result you will see very big changes.”
Last week, we looked at a report from Koozai, which polled 2000 SMEs and found that 45% saw ranking changes, and 41% of those were concerned that they had seen a drop in rankings by at least three places and had noticed a drop in traffic as a result. Some of these saw as much as a 50% decline. 27% said they had seen a drop in rankings even though they had optimized for mobile. 37% were said to be concerned that the update might have an impact on sales, while 44% were not worried as they said most of their sales came from desktops.
12% were apparently completely oblivious to Google’s mobile-friendly test tool as they said they didn’t even know whether their websites were optimized for mobile or not. 49% said they didn’t know if sales on their desktops sites had initially come from visitors viewing their products or services on mobile.
Since then, we looked at a poll from Search Engine Roundtable based on a thousand responses. In that, only 11% said the update resulted in changes in their traffic or rankings, while on overwhelming 65% provided an absolute “no” response. 13% said “unsure,” and 11% said, “sometimes”.
The poll began on April 28, which was one week after the update launched.
“I don’t think the poll would change much today, in fact, I think that 65% number would be closer to 75% or 80%,” writes Search Engine Roundtable’s Barry Schwartz.
Now Eric Enge’s Stone Temple Consulting has some research out looking at the effects of the update. According to that, nearly half (46%) of non-mobile-friendly URLs that help top 10 spots on April 17 lost ranking, while fewer than 20% gained. Other findings as relayed by Stone Temple include:
– For URLs that dropped in ranking, the drop for non-friendly URLs was more pronounced – an average of 2 spots – than for mobile-friendly URLs – average of .25 spots.
– Another significant effect was that URLs being favored for mobile-friendly sites are often different from the ones that ranked earlier.
– Overall, the study found a 1.3% increase in mobile-friendly URLs in search results. While this does not approach the impact of Panda or Penguin algorithm updates, this is the first such change by Google, and we expect more changes and an increased impact over time favoring mobile-friendly sites.
Enge had this to say in summary:
In summary, I’d suggest that the impact of this release was indeed significantly bigger than originally met the eye. The trade press did not see it as large because of the slow roll out, and the intervening Search Quality Update.
In addition, this is likely just the start of what Google plans to do with this algorithm. It is typical for Google to test some things and see how they work. Once they have tuned it, and gain confidence on how the algo works on the entire web as a data set, they can turn up the volume and make the impact significantly higher.
It’s my expectation that they will do that. In the long run, don’t be surprised if the impact of this algorithm becomes even greater, and that people will stop debating whether or not it was greater than Panda or Penguin.
In other Google algorithm update news, the company says a Panda update will likely come within the next four weeks, and they’re still working on making Penguin run continuously.
Check out our recent discussion with Enge regarding Google’s partnership with Twitter here.
Now that it’s been well over a month and counting, what do you think of the mobile-friendly update’s impact on search results? Share your thoughts in the comments.
At the SMX Advanced conference on Tuesday, Google’s Gary Illyes made some comments about what webmasters will be able to expect from Google with regards to its Panda and Penguin updates in the near future.
April saw Google’s transparency being called into question again in light of mixed messages it had been sending about both updates – both of which can have devastating impacts on businesses who meet their negative sides. Google had suggested that having to wait months between the updates would not happen any longer, but later indicated the opposite. This matters because businesses and websites impacted by them have to wait until Google runs them again before they have any hope of getting their search rankings back after making changes to try to get back in Google’s good graces.
So what’s the latest?
SMX-affiliated industry blog Search Engine Land recaps Illyes’ comments on both algorithms. He reportedly said that the next Panda update will happen in the next two to four weeks. SEL’s Barry Schwartz reports:
Illyes referred to it multiple times as a data refresh, not an algorithmic change. So sites that have been suffering from this algorithm may see a recovery in the near future. However, not all sites will see a recovery: Some may not recover, and new sites may also be hit by this data refresh.
Illyes also reportedly reiterated that Panda still requires manual updates, so it won’t run by itself over time. It sounds like webmaters and businesses will just have to continue to wait on Google for a chance to recover, and it also sounds like this may never change.
Regarding Penguin, Illyes apparently didn’t indicate that an update or refresh is immediately on the horizon, but said they are trying to make that one run continuously, which would be great news for those impacted by it. Unfortunately, it will probably be “months” before that happens.
The last Penguin update was launched in Q4, and Google indicated that it would pretty much continue indefinitely. It would seem that this wasn’t quite the case, even if that is still Google’s ultimate goal.
The world of search engine marketing is ever-changing, and it’s no secret that mobile continues to take over the desktop. Google has a new feature, even beyond a related ranking signal for organic search on mobile devices, that gives businesses more incentive to have mobile apps for search marketing purposes. It essentially expands as search marketing-related benefit device-wide, as opposed to limiting it to the actual search results page.
At Google I/O, Google announced the launch of something called Google Now On Tap. It’s a new feature in the latest version of Android, which the company unveiled in developer preview. You’d be forgiven if you missed that particular announcement as the company made many of them.
Google Now on Tap is essentially a way for you to utilize Google Now on your own terms rather than in the confines of Google itself. While Google Now already served as a virtual assistant, this makes it even more so.
“Since we launched Google Now, we’ve been expanding the ways it can help and do more of the work for you,” says director of product management Aparna Chennapragada. “You can get notifications like where you parked your car, news stories based on your interests, or help with travel like your upcoming reservations. We’ve also gotten better at giving smarter answers to some of your questions (‘Is my flight on time?’) and at helping you get things done across your apps (‘Ok Google, play Sugar on Spotify’).”`
“We’re working to make Google Now a little smarter in the upcoming Android M release, so you can ask it to assist you with whatever you’re doing—right in the moment, anywhere on your phone,” Chennapragada explains. “With ‘Now on tap,’ you can simply tap and hold the home button for assistance without having to leave what you’re doing—whether you’re in an app or on a website. For example, if a friend emails you about seeing the new movie Tomorrowland, you can invoke Google Now without leaving your app, to quickly see the ratings, watch a trailer, or even buy tickets—then get right back to what you were doing.”
“If you’re chatting with a friend about where to get dinner, Google can bring you quick info about the place your friend recommends,” Chennapragada adds. “You’ll also see other apps on your phone, like OpenTable or Yelp, so you can easily make a reservation, read reviews or check out the menu.”
When the user taps and holds the home button, Google presents options for its best guess of what might be helpful in the moment. If it doesn’t provide the right thing(s), the user can say, “Ok Google” from any screen or app. If it works as advertised it’s pretty smart. If you’re listening to a band on Spotify, Google says you can simply ask “who’s the lead singer?” and it will get you the answer.
As Google notes, it shows apps from your phone that may help with what you’re doing based on context. It might tap IMDb for movie review, OpenTable for reservations, etc.
There’s an SEO element to all of this. App indexing. Google recently made App Indexing a ranking signal for mobile search results on Android devices, and announced that it’s starting to index iOS apps as well. Google Now on Tap is another reason to utilize app indexing.
Clickz says Google Now on Tap “makes app search optimization more critical than ever.” Emily Alford reports:
While the announcement comes as a boon to app developers, it also means that it’s now more important than ever for brands to think about App Search Optimization> (ASO) along with SEO, since Google is taking both into consideration for Now on Tap, according to Danielle Levitas, senior vice president of research and analysis for App Annie, which provides app ranking data and mobile analytics for businesses.
“Part of the reason Google is providing deep linking is to give developers another way to be discovered outside of the app store,” says Levitas. “SEO is still critical, but you’ve also got to think about ASO, which has to do with keywords for discoverability, how an app is described, and even its reviews. But Now on Tap actually makes mobile and the app experiences easier for brands to execute because they can think about discoverability as a continuum as opposed to these two very disparate platforms.”
Google says Now on Tap another way to get apps in front of users at the right moment. If you have an app with content that people need to see, well, that applies to you. Luckily, beyond app indexing, there’s nothing else you really have to do to be integrated with Now on Tap. Just have your app indexed by Google.
While optimizing for Google via app indexing is one thing, businesses will also need to market their actual apps in other ways to drive app installs. The more people who have your app installed, the more chances they’ll have to actually see the content within via Now on Tap. As the Clickz article points out, a lot of downloaded apps are rarely opened, and Now on Tap could be just what those apps need to get more engagement from the users who downloaded them in the first place.
In other words, if you’ve found app creation to be a waste of time in the past because you didn’t think people would really use your app, this means that people may actually use it more, provided that you can convince them of its usefulness enough in the first place to get then to download it.
Google does say it will have more details about everything once the release of Android M gets closer. In the meantime, I really can’t urge you enough to get your mobile apps indexed, and if you don’t have a mobile app, now is a better time than ever before to build one or have one built. It’s becoming a matter of visibility in Google, and that’s not even taking the Google Play Store into account, which is now doing paid search results like Google Search.
It’s actually possible that your business may be able to take advantage of Now on Tap in the future without having an app, as the company is reportedly considering including website content in the feature at some point, but that hasn’t been announced.
Does your business have a mobile app? Do you expect Google Now on Tap to make a significant difference? Share your thoughts in the comments.
Another survey has been conducted regarding Google’s recent mobile-friendly update, which prior to release, had often been billed as “Mobilegeddon”. After its release it quickly became clear that it was anything but.
Search Engine Roundtable released results from a poll it ran after getting a thousand responses. The source of the poll is worth taking into consideration as we’re talking about a widely read industry blog with readers comprised of those very much in the know about SEO and search-related happenings.
The poll found that only 11% said the update resulted in changes in their traffic or rankings, while on overwhelming 65% provided an absolute “no” response. 13% said “unsure,” and 11% said, “sometimes”.
The poll began on April 28, which was one week after the update launched.
“I don’t think the poll would change much today, in fact, I think that 65% number would be closer to 75% or 80%,” writes Search Engine Roundtable’s Barry Schwartz.
Last week, we looked at some recent findings from a Koozai of 2000 small-to-medium-sized enterprises across the United States, which indicated that most agreed the “Mobilegeddon” label was overhyped and unhelpful.
Still, 45% of businesses surveyed claimed they had experienced changes to their rankings or traffic as a result of the update, and 41% of those were concerned that they had seen a drop in rankings by at least three places and had noticed a drop in traffic as a result. Some of these saw as much as a 50% decline. 27% said they had seen a drop in rankings even though they had optimized for mobile. 37% were said to be concerned that the update might have an impact on sales, while 44% were not worried as they said most of their sales came from desktops.
12% were apparently completely oblivious to Google’s mobile-friendly test tool as they said they didn’t even know whether their websites were optimized for mobile or not. 49% said they didn’t know if sales on their desktops sites had initially come from visitors viewing their products or services on mobile.
“While it’s had a fairly big impact across all the search results, it doesn’t mean that in every search result you will see very big changes,” Google’s John Mueller said a while back. “So that is something that affects a lot of different sites, a lot of different queries, but it is not such that the sites disappear from the search results completely if they are not mobile friendly.”
While mobile-friendliness is certainly a signal you’ll want to take advantage of, Google also launched another mobile ranking factor even before that. It now uses App Indexing as a signal, and last week, announced the expansion of App Indexing to iOS after previously only offering it for Android.
Google has been experimenting with app indexing for quite a while, but in recent months it has really cranked up the significance of it. Last week, it took that to even greater heights.
App indexing is now a ranking signal in Google’s mobile search results, and last week, Google announced that it’s expanding it to iOS after previously only offering it for Android. As more Google searches are now taking place on mobile devices than on computers in ten counties, more businesses are probably going to want to consider having their own apps and making sure their content is indexed in Google’s search results.
At Google I/O, Google had a session called “Smarter user acquisition with App Indexing, AdWords and Google Analytics”. You might want to watch that one. It’s about 40 minutes long. Here’s the official description of the session:
Content discovery on mobile isn’t easy. Luckily, this is a familiar problem to Google. With App Indexing on both iOS and Android, you can engage users organically by surfacing app content in the search results page. And on Android specifically, you can even drive app installs for users who don’t have your app. Google’s smart mobile ads platform gives you access to AdWords, the world’s largest network, to find the right users who will install and engage with your app, plus you can gain insights through Google Analytics install attribution to know where your users came from. Discover Google’s variety of approaches to driving app discovery, growth and engagement in this session.
You can watch the whole thing right here:
Obviously Google I/O has provided a lot of important content for Android developers. Here’s a look at four important sessions from the event that you should check out if you get a chance. Here’s the entire opening keynote.
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