Category: google

What Is GoogleOther? GoogleOther is a generic crawler created by Google for the various purposes that fall outside of those of bots that specialize for Search, Ads, Video, Images, News, Desktop and Mobile. It can be used by internal teams at Google for research and development in relation to various products. The official description of GoogleOther is: “GoogleOther is the generic crawler that may be used by various product teams for fetching publicly accessible content from sites. For example, it may be used for one-off crawls for internal research and development.”…

This is just a reminder that Google has discontinued Google Business Profile chat yesterday and call history is going away. Google Business Profile chat feature will no longer initiate new chats, with existing chats to stop working on July 31st. Plus, Google Business Profiles will remove call history at the end of this month. This is not new, we told you this was coming a few months ago when we wrote – Google Business Profile chat and call history going away. New chats gone. Now if your customers or prospects try to…

Google’s Gary Illyes’ answer about authorship shared insights about why Google has less trust for signals that are under direct control of site owners and SEOs and provides a better understanding about what site owners and SEOs should focus on when optimizing a website. The question that Illyes answered was in the context of a live interview at a search conference in May 2024. The interview went largely unnoticed but it’s full of great information related to digital marketing and how Google ranks web pages. Authorship Signals Someone asked the…

Advertising sensitive products on Google Ads? Learn best practices for balancing policy compliance and marketing effectiveness. Understand Google Ads policies Google’s comprehensive policies ensure a safe and positive experience for users, advertisers and publishers. Knowing these policies is the first step to successful advertising in challenging niches. Google Ads policies on sensitive categories Google Ads policies are designed to protect users from harmful, deceptive or inappropriate content. For sensitive categories, these policies are often more stringent and specific. They cover various aspects of advertising, including ad content, targeting and landing…

Universal Analytics shuts down on July 1, 2024, forcing a swift transition to Google Analytics 4 to maintain data access and measurement capabilities. Google is discontinuing Universal Analytics, its legacy web analytics platform. This is the final shift in the transition to Google Analytics 4 (GA4). Why it matters. Businesses that relied on Universal Analytics for website measurement and data analysis need to act quickly to avoid losing access to their historical data and maintain continuity in their analytics capabilities. Key dates. July 1: Users will lose access to Universal Analytics…

A recent study by the digital marketing agency Amsive documented a notable change in Google’s search results rankings over the last year. The study found that Google is surfacing more ecommerce websites and sites featuring user-generated content while reducing the visibility of product review and affiliate marketing sites. Here’s a look at the findings and the implications for online businesses if the shifts continue. Ecommerce Dominance In Search Results The study found a marked increase in ecommerce sites appearing in top search positions for many commercial queries. Keywords that previously returned results…

Highlights Google launched custom event data import for GA4. Allows combining external data with GA4 data. Enables more comprehensive reporting and analysis.Google announced a new feature for Google Analytics 4 (GA4), rolling out support for custom event data import. This allows you to combine external data sources with existing GA4 data for more comprehensive reporting and analysis. Google’s announcement reads: “With this feature, you can use a combination of standard fields and event-scoped custom dimensions to join and analyze imported event metadata with your existing Analytics data. You can then create custom…

Google published a case study that shows how using structured data and following best practices improved discoverability and brought more search traffic. The case study was about the use of Video structured data but the insights shared are applicable across a range of content types. How CDNs Can Cause Indexing Problems One of the interesting points in the case study is about an issue related to how CDNs can link to image and video files with expiring URLs. The new documentation specifically mentions that it’s important that the CDN uses…

Google is enabling Restricted Data Processing and honoring user opt-outs via Global Privacy Controls signals in light of new state laws. Restricted Data Processing (RDP) (which is when Google limits how it uses data to only show non-personalized ads) for new state laws: Google will update its ads terms to enable RDP for these states as their laws take effect. This allows Google to act as a data processor rather than a controller for partner data while RDP is enabled. No additional action required if you’ve already accepted Google’s online…