Category: google

Simple wins out. Image extensions and dynamic image extension betas will continue. Gallery ads, the splashy, image-driven format that Google introduced last year, will be phasing out. Instead, Google will focus its other image beta, image extensions. Google is informing Gallery ad beta testers that the format will sunset beginning in August. The ads featured a large carousel of images. The format has worked for the automotive industry with the auto ad unit, but didn’t gain enough traction with other verticals. Whereas Gallery ads required setting up a whole new ad format and…

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Local Inventory Ads gain prominence with “In store” mobile experience and “Curbside pickup” option. “Curbside pickup” badges are now appearing on eligible Local Inventory Ads in Google Shopping One area where Google has an edge over Amazon? Local retail. In response to COVID-19 restrictions, Google has been giving local businesses more messaging options such as special store hours, pickup and delivery options and more in Google My Business. Now, it has also enabled “Curbside pickup” badges for Local Inventory Ads. Curbside pickup. Google has been piloting the “Curbside pickup” feature with a small group…

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This year,the company says it has removed “tens of millions” of COVID-19 related ads. Last year, Google says it took down 2.7 billion so-called bad ads for violating the company’s ad policies, according to its annual report released Thursday. That’s up from the 2.3 billion bad ads Google reported taking down in 2018. The number of ad accounts Google terminated remained relatively flat from the previous year at nearly one million. Publisher network. Google also noted that it terminated the accounts of more than 1.2 million publishers and removed ads from over 21 million web…

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Apple’s Safari web browser joins the Tor browser as one of only two that fully block all third-party cookies. The move has been a long time coming, and Safari has been gradually adding more features that limit the overall effectiveness of third-party cookies for tracking. As a result, in a WebKit blog post, the developers downplay the change as not a big deal, although they do highlight some of the significant benefits the move brings. One of the biggest advantages is disabling login fingerprinting. Login fingerprinting is a technique that…

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Google had sought to avoid paying copyright licensing fees by getting publishers to waive them in exchange for being included in search results. Google must pay to display news content in France. That’s the decision of French antitrust authorities, according a Bloomberg report on April 9. The antitrust regulator has given Google three months to work out a deal with French publishers. No pricing or licensing framework has yet been determined. Google told Bloomberg that it would comply with the decision and that the parties have already entered into negotiations. A significant…

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A last reminder to switch to schema.org markup before April 6 to maintain rich result eligibility. Beginning April 6, data-vocabulary.org structured data markup will be ineligible for Google rich results. Site owners must switch to schema.org markup if they want to maintain Google rich result eligibility. The company announced the coming change in January. Why we care If you haven’t converted to schema markup for your structured data, your rich results will disappear from the search results page after April 6. That could mean a loss in organic visibility and traffic.…

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Although the “privacy sandbox” from Google is likely to continue to evolve, the underlying concepts and objectives certainly reveal where it’s headed. With the Chrome announcement of a two-year target timeline to kill the third-party cookie, I thought it would be useful to help make sense of Chrome’s proposals to address advertising use cases without third-party cookies. The Context First, at this time all four major browsers have publicly disclosed a privacy ideology. Chrome differs from the rest in that their position includes support for the economic benefits of digital advertising – in particular,…

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The video timeline feature is getting more visibility in mobile search. Google’s “key moments” feature, also known as “in this video,” is now showing on more than one video in mobile search results. Users can also now hide and expand the feature. Previously the feature, which lets users skip to “key moments” in a video, appeared only on the first video listing. Australian SEO consultant Brodie Clark spotted the change Tuesday. Brodie Clark@brodieseo Wowsers, Key Moments (AKA “in this video”) on steroids in this test. Previously, this feature would only show in…

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Currently limited to India, the Google+-like feature gives personal brands and individuals some control over their own search results. Google is experimenting with public search profile cards for individuals that would appear alongside regular search results, Android Police first reported on Thursday. The test is currently limited to India and the company currently has no plans for a wider launch, a Google spokesperson told Search Engine Land. Why we care If this feature receives a wider rollout, personal brands will have a new way to distinguish themselves on the search results, providing…

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Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian is on record as calling his former employer’s cloud offerings “a disgrace.” Oracle is currently facing an inventor lawsuit, filed by Union Asset Management Holding AG. The lawsuit alleges that Oracle mislead investors regarding the success of its cloud business and that it bullied customers into paying for cloud licenses they didn’t want to artificially inflate the business. The lawsuit also accuses Oracle’s former co-CEOs, as well as Kurian himself, of dumping the stock at inflated prices based on their firsthand knowledge of how bad…

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