2021 - Latest News, Headlines at Peter Zmijewski

DuckDuckGo Grew by 46% in 2021, Averaging 100 Million Daily Searches

December 31, 2021 news

DuckDuckGo is making major headway in the search market, growing by 46% in 2021 and averaging more than 100 million daily searches. DuckDuckGo is a privacy-focused search engine that does not track or profile its users, unlike Google or Bing. The company does rely on advertising, but those ads are based solely on the keywords and content of a specific search. While the company’s market share pales in comparison to Google, it is solidly in fourth place, behind Google, Bing, and Yahoo. According to Bleeping Computer, DuckDuckGo saw its searches go from…

Bing

Bing Adds FanSnap Ticket Inventory Into Search Results

December 30, 2021 news

Just in time for the opening round of the NFL playoffs (coughGOSEAHAWKS!cough), Bing has followed through on its plans to integrate ticket inventory from FanSnap into its search results. This FanSnap integration was first announced as part of Bing’s December search event. FanSnap isn’t a ticket seller; it’s one of several ticket aggregators that displays […] Just in time for the opening round of the NFL playoffs (coughGOSEAHAWKS!cough), Bing has followed through on its plans to integrate ticket inventory from FanSnap into its search results. This FanSnap integration was first announced as…

google

Google Ads Was Down Tuesday Evening

December 29, 2021 news

Google Ads was down Tuesday evening, impacting a large number of users. Users started experiencing issues with Google Ads Tuesday evening. The company acknowledged an issue impacting its users. We’re aware of a problem with Google Ads affecting a significant subset of users. Just under three hours later, the company said the problems was fixed. The problem with Google Ads has been resolved. We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience and continued support. The affected users are able to access Google Ads, but may not have access to…

SEM

PPC 2021 in review: Privacy and automation force advertisers to adapt

December 27, 2021 news

From the deprecation of broad match modified keywords to FLoC to RSAs becoming the default, PPC professionals dealt with a lot of change in 2021. In 2021, PPC professionals navigated changes in keyword match types and automated bidding, scratched their heads at the prospect of a future without third-party cookies and navigated their role in an increasingly automated industry. Prompted by the vision that platforms, like Google, have for their services as well as increased concern over user privacy, these changes underscored adaptability as one of the traits that define…

SEO

Messy SEO: Fixing site structure while a Google title change sinks clickthroughs

December 23, 2021 news

In Part 5 of our Messy SEO series, we look at the results from Google’s title tag changes and other SERP issues affecting MarTech. Messy SEO is a column covering the nitty-gritty, unpolished tasks involved in the auditing, planning, and optimization of websites, using MarTech’s new domain as a case study. This installment of “Messy SEO” details my process of working with our marketing, content and development teams to further clean up the search engine results pages for MarTech. In Part 4, we discussed the issues arising from Google’s title changes and…

Microsoft Buying Xandr Ad Business From AT&T

December 22, 2021 news

AT&T has agreed to sell its ad marketplace, Xandr, to Microsoft as the ad industry tries to adapt to a post-cookie world. The ad industry has been working to cope with changes to online advertising, including initiatives to replace the web browser cookies that have formed the backbone of the industry for years. AT&T says Xandr compliments Microsoft’s current efforts in the context of the open web. “Microsoft’s shared vision of empowering a free and open web and championing an open industry alternative via a global advertising marketplace makes it…

Marketing

YouTube TV May Lose Disney Channels

December 21, 2021 news

YouTube TV may lose access to Disney-owned channels as the two companies work to hammer out a new deal. YouTube TV is one of the premier streaming TV services, offering a good blend of channels, price and industry-leading cloud DVR. Unfortunately, for its customers, YouTube TV may be on the verge of losing one of its most appealing channel packages. The company is warning that it may lose all of Disney-owned channels once the current deal expires on Friday, December 17. We’re now in negotiations with Disney to continue distributing their content…

Bing

Bing Integrates Facebook Likes Further Into Its Search Results

December 20, 2021 news

Bing announced that it has integrated Facebook Likes within its regular search results, similar to a move that Google made with social “shares” from Twitter and other services last week. Facebook Likes Previously Separated In October, Bing added Facebook Likes to the bottom of its search results page. If you searched for something that one […] Bing announced that it has integrated Facebook Likes within its regular search results, similar to a move that Google made with social “shares” from Twitter and other services last week. Facebook Likes Previously Separated…

google

Google also had a local search update from November 30 through December 8

December 18, 2021 news

This overlapped other ranking updates and a Google map and local pack update design change. Google has confirmed that it ran a local search ranking update between November 30th and December 8th — it is calling the November 2021 local search update. Google said this update was about “rebalancing of various factors we consider in generating local search results.” Why we care. You may have noticed significant local ranking changes in the Google Maps and local pack results. This, along with the new local interface update, may have resulted in traffic changes to your…