Category: google

If you are logged into your Google My Business account and do a search for your business, you may see a call to action from Google to add Google Posts to your Google local knowledge panel. Here is a screen shot from my business where Google is saying “add a post, tell customers about a special event, deal or product.” This is only visible to me, because I have rights to add posts to my Google My Business listing. Here is a screen shot: I am not sure if this…

Read More

Google would not tell us how much of the search results were impacted by this update, as Google has done in the past with Panda, Penguin and others: Finally, we know the update has been fully rolled out and is done as of sometime yesterday or earlier. Who was impacted by this update As we explained above, Google said this is a “global” update, which implies every niche and every type of site could have been impacted. But based on the data that I’ve been seeing from surveys, multiple data…

Read More

It will not be possible to use adsenseformobileapps.com or other controls to keep mobile Display ads from showing on all apps, including interstitial ads. This article has been significantly updated to reflect changes that will be clarified in the Google Ads help center. When Google Ads (formerly AdWords) uses the word “simplify,” waves of concern ripple through the paid search community that the opposite will be true, controls will be lost and campaign performance will be affected negatively. The latest torment is coming from Google’s move to “simplify” targeting controls…

Read More

The Google Speed update, which began rolling out on July 9, has reportedly so far had almost no impact on downgrading the ranking of mobile pages in the Google mobile search results in general. The SEO PowerSuite folks looked at about 33,500 keywords, 1 million pages of search results and the positions from one to number 30 before and after the update and have come to the conclusion that there was no change in ranking, even for many slow pages, a week after the Speed Update was released. They ran the…

Read More

Google is now testing “price insights” in its hotel search listing results. Price insights show a searcher if they are getting a good deal or not for a specific hotel, date range and hotel they are looking at. When you are looking at a specific hotel, Google might show you a box that reads “this hotel costs more than similar hotels nearby.” That button will let you explore hotel price insights in Google search. This feature was first noticed by Sergey Alakov, who said this is currently being tested. I…

Read More

The practice, known as “Googlebombing,” is the latest stunt in a longstanding cat-and-mouse game between Google and activists who have the technical savvy to influence search rankings. In the current exploit, several posts on Reddit associating Trump’s name, photo and the word “idiot” received tens of thousands of upvotes, which Google uses as an important ranking signal. Media sources such as The Guardian, Fortune, The Hill and others writing about the story also influenced the placement of images in search results. Often broadly referred to as Googlebombing, this manipulation of…

Read More

Since the roll out of the Google Speed Update – the SEO community has been on high alert to see what type of impact it has on the overall mobile search results. The deal is, I’ve been tracking it for the past couple of days since it began rolling out and the chatter is mixed. I’d classify the chatter as mild and the tools themselves show a mix. Here is some of the chatter from the ongoing WebmasterWorld thread: Anyone seeing any ranking changes now that this speed update has…

Read More

Google Assistant, the app that answers questions and helps you get things done, has been enhanced with an eye toward automatically putting your daily tasks front and center on your phone. Initially launched as a search feature that also allowed you to do things like make quick phone calls, send text messages, set reminders and more, the new features provide curated information based on the time of day, location and your recent interactions with the Assistant. Based on your calendar and itineraries, you’ll see travel times to your next destination.…

Read More

Google My Business has added the ability for businesses to add a “call now” button to their Google Posts. Before, the call-to-action options on the Google Posts for the “What’s New” box included “book,” “order online,” “buy,” “learn more,” “sign up” and “get offer.” Now Google has a new option that lists the business’s phone number. Here is a screen shot: When I tested the “call now” button, it put in my business’s toll-free 800 phone number. I did not have the ability to change it to a different number.…

Read More

Google has confirmed on Twitter that two weeks after releasing the URL inspection tool in the new Google Search Console, it is now available to all users. When the new tool was first released, it was only available to a limited number of users. Google began rolling it out slowly to more and more users, and at this point in time, 15 days after the first announcement of the tool, Google says the tool is available for all. You can access the tool within the new Google Search Console over…

Read More