Atomic Media

Chrome will show Google Lens results in the same browser tab

Wednesday, May 25th, 2022

Google Lens results within Google Chrome on desktop will now be displayed on the right side of the same browser tab you are viewing. This is instead of the results opening up in a new tab or new window within Chrome.

How it works. Here are the steps to take on Chrome to see this yourself:

1. Open a page in Chrome.
2. Right-click on an image.
3. In the menu, choose “Search image with Google Lens.”
   • If you right-click anywhere outside an image, from the menu, you can choose “Search images with Google Lens.” After you click this option, you can drag to select an image.

Tip: Search results display on the right side of your screen. To display them in a new tab, click Open .

Here is a GIF of it in action:

Who can see it. Google said this feature is now rolling out to all Chrome users. Google said this is part of the search company’s “broader effort to help people search and access information in more natural and intuitive ways.”

Why we care. This may encourage searchers and Chrome users to search more visually using Google Lens. If your content is displayed in these results, there is a chance you might see more traffic to your site through this search feature. Either way, you should be aware of this new Chrome feature as a potential source of traffic to your site and also how useful it can be for you to learn about images or things.

The post Chrome will show Google Lens results in the same browser tab appeared first on Search Engine Land.

Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing

Webinar: Overcome third-party data challenges for CX success

Monday, May 23rd, 2022

A sublime customer experience allows customers to move from channel to channel without losing their place or the information they’ve entered. To successfully deliver these experiences, brands must meet current data, security, and personalization challenges with ambitious strategies and first-rate technology.

Join seasoned experts from Redpoint Global in a live webinar and learn how you can creatively collect first-, second- and third-party data to engage and retain consumers.

Register today for “Data-Driven Answers to Achieve Omnichannel Success” presented by Redpoint Global.

The post Webinar: Overcome third-party data challenges for CX success appeared first on Search Engine Land.

Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing

Automating Ourselves Out of Existence

Monday, May 23rd, 2022

Courtesy of SEO Book.com

Google News new design being tested

Monday, May 23rd, 2022

Google is testing a new trail version of the Google News portal at news.google.com. It is a limited trail, I was only able to bring it up once in Safari private mode, but then I lost it. The new home page is more visual, brings the navigation menu from the left side to the top and overall cleans up the look of the home page.

What it looks like. Here is a screenshot of the top of the page that I was able to screen capture when I saw the test – you can click on it to enlarge it:

Here is the bottom portion of the page where you can see the “Fact check” section. Again, you can click on it to enlarge it:

When will you see it. Again, this is just a test, just a trial, Google is running to see if those in this test group like the new Google News design and if the responses they expect from the new design is positive or negative. Google is constantly testing new user interfaces across all their platforms, so this should come as no surprise.

Why we care. Whenever Google releases a new design or user interface in Google Search or Google News, that can impact ones visibility and clicks to their web site. So keep these user interface tests in mind when understanding any risks or rewards you might see in the future with Google News interface changes.

Again, this is just a test – it is hard to know if and when this new design will go live.

The post Google News new design being tested appeared first on Search Engine Land.

Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing

Is Google Search showing fewer sitelinks

Monday, May 23rd, 2022

Google Search seems to be showing fewer sitelinks in the search results. Google would show as many as six sitelinks per search result snippet, now Google seems to be showing a maximum of four sitelinks and often just two sitelinks.

What are sitelinks. Sitelinks are links from the same domain that are clustered together under a web result. Google Search said it “analyzes the link structure of your site to find shortcuts that will save users time and allow them to quickly find the information they’re looking for” in the search results.

What changed. Google seems to have changed to a vertical format for large sitelinks and is only showing up to 4 sitelinks. Even the example from Google’s very own help documentation shows six sitelinks.

Screenshots. Here are screenshots showing how a search for [tesla] is showing four sitelinks:

A year or so ago, the same search displayed six sitelinks:

My site has always showed at least four sitelinks, now I see it showing only two:

If you search for rustybrick with a space, [rusty brick], Google does show four:

Why we care. Fewer sitelinks may lead to less of a chance to get clicked on from the Google Search results. That may lead to less site traffic from Google search and ultimately lead to less revenue.

We have emailed Google to confirm this was changed and to learn more about why it has changed.

Hat tip to this Reddit thread for spotting this.

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Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing

How privacy changes affect B2B paid search marketing

Monday, May 23rd, 2022

Everyone’s talking about privacy. When Google announced the deprecation of third-party cookies in early 2020, privacy became a hot topic.

The loss of third-party cookies impacts all advertisers and is especially challenging for B2B marketers, who struggle to reach the right audience even with third-party cookies in play.

Let’s review how today’s privacy changes came about – and then look ahead to what it all means for marketers.

How did we get here?

In the early days of the internet, it was the Wild West. No one cared about privacy.

As with anything new, consumers were enamored with going to a website, ordering whatever they wanted and having it show up at their door.

Sure, mail-order had been around for a long time. But it wasn’t exciting to fill out a form, write a check and send it in – only to wait 6-8 weeks for the order to arrive.

The internet changed buying habits forever.

It was possible to find and buy nearly anything online easily. Still, the internet also offered a treasure trove of user data that marketers could tap into for insights into buyer behavior.

Somewhere around the mid-2000s, retargeting was introduced.

I remember being at a search conference around 2005, watching a demo of a new technology that would dynamically serve ads based on users’ search activity and the websites they visited.

My mind was blown. Do you mean we can show different ads to different users based on things we know about them? Sign me up!

No one thought about privacy then either. We were so enamored with this new technology that we never gave privacy a thought.

Privacy becomes a thing

Fast forward to today.

Retargeting is everywhere. Everyone knows when they are being retargeted. And advertisers are often doing it poorly.

Every digital marketer can come up with a handful of bad retargeting they’ve experienced personally.

For me, a memorable one was just after I’d made an online reservation at a hotel for a business trip to Seattle. I was immediately bombarded with ads – from the same hotel I’d just booked, saying, “Book your trip to Seattle now!”

Come on.

I believe that lazy marketers are partly responsible for the privacy changes coming later this year. People are sick of poorly targeted ads that follow them incessantly.

How privacy affects B2B search marketing

B2B search marketing is challenging under any circumstances. Searchers don’t self-identify as B2B users when they perform a search.

And often, the keywords they use are the same keywords a consumer might use, even though each is looking for two different things.

Terms like “insurance,” “security” and even “design software” are vague. The searcher could be looking for services for themselves or their business.

That’s where third-party cookies came in.

Advertisers got excited when Google introduced audience targeting options like affinity and in-market audiences. Finally, a way to layer on audience signals based on search and browsing behavior!

However, audience targeting options are hopelessly consumer-focused. Here are Google’s current affinity segments:

See anything that looks remotely like B2B? Me neither.

In-market segments aren’t much better. Here’s one for Business Services:

The “Business Technology” category isn’t bad, but the others, such as “Business Printing & Document Services,” seem tailored to small businesses, not enterprises.

The death of third-party cookies

So what does all this have to do with privacy?

Targeting options like affinity audiences and in-market audiences are built from third-party cookies. Search engines use signals (e.g., which websites users visited) to compile the audiences.

Google has announced the deprecation of third-party cookies from Chrome within the next year.

In other words, most of these targeting options are going away soon.

First-party audiences to the rescue

First-party audiences are great for B2B. They remove many obstacles B2B advertisers face: consumer-focused targeting, or targeting that’s too broad for the business need.

But first-party audiences also pose challenges for B2B.

The biggest hurdle is creating the audiences in the first place.

To efficiently use first-party audiences, advertisers need some way to compile audience data, group users into cohorts and securely pass the data to advertising platforms like Google Ads and Bing Ads. Usually, this is done through a data management platform (DMP)

Advertisers who use a DMP have a relatively easy time using first-party audiences in their PPC campaigns. The DMP can be used to upload audiences directly to search engine platforms.

Unfortunately, even among our enterprise clients, surprisingly few have a good DMP setup. This means most advertisers are not able to use first-party audiences effectively.

And even for advertisers who do have a suitable DMP, we often find that the first-party audiences are too small to target.

Unlike e-commerce, B2B is a smaller universe. There aren’t as many people researching enterprise business software as there are people buying shoes on a given day.

There are even fewer people from companies with more than 5,000 employees researching ERP software for the enterprise.

See where I’m going with this?

Audiences that are too small to target aren’t much help.

Or are they?

Search engines use audiences as a signal for targeting ads. Think of an audience as a way to tell Google and Bing who you’re trying to reach.

One way to amplify the signal of a small first-party audience is by using similar audiences (also called lookalike audiences).

Similar audiences are often 2-10 times bigger than first-party audiences. Here’s an example:

The first-party audience only has about 5,000 members – it’s large enough to target but won’t drive much traffic.

But the similar audience has anywhere from 10,000 to 50,000 members for search and up to 1 million for display – a much larger reach.

Similar audiences are especially helpful for B2B, which tends to have a low audience match rate). We’ve seen strong performance from similar audiences for our B2B clients.

Let paid social help

Another way to create B2B audiences is to use paid social to inform paid search.

Paid social is usually used for upper-funnel activity – awareness and consideration. But we’ve used paid social to create audiences for paid search retargeting.

The great thing about paid social is that we know a lot about our target audience. We can target based on employer, job title, company size, education, skills and other factors that indicate the user is a good target for B2B.

Create a dedicated landing page for paid social traffic for your B2B audience targets and tag it for retargeting. Then target people who visited that page with Google Ads.

We’ve done this with YouTube videos too. People who watch a 30-60 minute keynote from a B2B conference make a great audience for follow-up with RLSA or display retargeting.

And don’t forget about LinkedIn targeting in Microsoft Ads. Being able to use LinkedIn profile attributes to target is a big differentiator for Microsoft Ads, and it’s especially useful for B2B advertisers.

Use micro-conversions as signals

Another way to create retargeting audiences is to use micro-conversions as signals for intent.

B2B has a long sales cycle – usually 12-18 months or longer. No one buys a six-figure business software system in a single visit with a credit card.

The process usually involves a lot of research, with multiple touchpoints along the way.

Users might follow these steps on the way to purchase:

• Read an article
• Download a whitepaper
• Read an ebook
• Request a demo
• Sign up for a free trial
• Contact sales
• Purchase

Each of these actions represents a micro-conversion.

You could create audiences for people who downloaded a whitepaper. You could even segment this further by creating audiences based on the type or product of the whitepaper they downloaded if you’re selling multiple products or targeting multiple audiences.

Retarget users who downloaded a whitepaper with an offer for a free demo or trial. Then retarget users who signed up for a demo or trial, asking them to contact sales.

If you sell to multiple business sizes, you can also start to segment by small business vs. large enterprise based on the content they consumed.

Using first-party data is an investment – of time and money

The days of simply picking an audience based on in-market traits or affinity groups are numbered. Lazy marketing is soon to be a thing of the past.

Now is the time to start building your first-party audiences and think about your buyer journey.

Get serious about creating micro-conversions and paid social audiences to reach your target.

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Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing

Google search results spam for ‘Bill Slawski obituary’ shows the dark side of SEO

Friday, May 20th, 2022

We reported yesterday the sad news that Bill Slawski has died.

It’s less than 24 hours later and no actual obituary has been published (either by a news site or funeral home). Yet, Google’s search results are littered with spammy results.

Look at what is ranking on a Google search right now for [bill slawski obituary]:

This is a horror, especially for anybody seeking trustworthy information on Slawski’s funeral arrangements.

To me, this SERP looks like Google, before the Panda Update, for certain queries where content farms reigned. That’s the easiest way to describe it. 

A ton of low-quality websites have created thin content with the sole purpose of optimizing it to rank whenever someone searches for an obituary for Bill Slawski. And they are monetizing whatever traffic they get through display ads.

What’s worse – there are many of these types of sites. And these sites have one thing in common: the content reads like it was either automatically generated or written (poorly) by people whose first language is not English.

Let’s look at some of the sites so you can understand how gross this all is:

1. AReal News

The content is pure garbage. Look at this paragraph:

“He was hale and hearty until he suffered a broken leg which caused his death. Before his death, he suffered a Brian clot, due to which he was admitted to the hospital. This information was shared on Twitter. This did not affect his ability to think and write. He was only facing issues with waking properly. He was very much active on Twitter before his death.”

Aside from the obvious content problem, this site looks like it should be in clear violation of Google’s page layout algorithm (aka Top Heavy). Before you even get to the content, you get nothing but ads, ads, ads.

And searching for [obituary site:arealnews.com] reveals this isn’t a one-off. It’s a strategy:

2. OnTrend

Some of the garbage content:

“No doubt, he was surrounded by his wife and children when he took his last breath peacefully. The further insights of Bill’s partner are inaccessible at this time. We are keeping an eye on this topic.”

3. CowdyCactus

If this isn’t outright search spam, it’s certainly about as low-quality content as you can publish before reaching that threshold:

“Twitter mourns the lack of lifetime of web site positioning skilled Bill Slawski at age 61. However, his clarification for lack of life has remained secret. What occurred?”

In fact, when I turned my adblocker off to take that screen capture, it was infested with so many ads and redirects to spam I could no longer even view the site. Hopefully, my computer didn’t get a virus.

4. CmaTrends

Before we look at this example, make sure you check out this site’s homepage title tag: “CmaTrends « We SELL Entertainment Periodt!”

And the opening of their “article”: 

“Bill Slawski, the author of Search Engine Land, died at the age of 61, #Bill #Slawski #author #Search #Engine #Land #died #age Welcome to O L A S M E D I A TV N E W S, This is what we have for you today:”

I could cite more examples, but you get the point. 

Google’s new information problem. The quality of this search result is bad. But it goes beyond just Slawski.

This is a known issue. For certain new search queries, often there isn’t enough content on the web for Google to rank. So you get a bunch of content that, otherwise, has no reason to have any visibility. 

Sometimes you also see this after a broad core algorithm update. Suddenly, Google starts surfacing iffy content from suspect sources – as if they hit a sort of reset button. Typically, Google eventually figures it out and more appropriate content returns to where it should be (though not always). 

The profits of death. Aside from the clearly bogus “news” sites, there are a couple of spammy obituary websites in there – deathobits.com and death-obituary.com. Both are also loaded up with display ads. Including Google ads.

Yet this is not a new problem. And it goes far beyond Slawski. In fact, some brands are even helping fund this low-quality content. 

Marketing Brew published a report in November detailing how spammy sites rip off obituaries and actually end up being monetized by ads from major brands (e.g., Nike, Nordstrom, Zola, Burt’s Bees). Google told Marketing Brew it has:

“strict policies that explicitly prohibit Google–served ads from running on sites that use disruptive advertising formats, including pages with more ads than publisher content. We also prohibit ads from running alongside content that’s been copied from other sites. When we find pages or sites that violate these policies we take appropriate enforcement action.”

I’ve reached out to Google to comment on this story. I will update if/when I receive a response.

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Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing

New mobile Google ad experiment puts favicon in-line with display URL

Friday, May 20th, 2022

Google has confirmed that the search company is experimenting with a new Google Ads label display, this was after this has been spotted in the wild by some in the industry. The test includes different verbiage like “advertisement” and “sponsored” above mobile search ads, instead of just saying “Ads.” In many cases, the site’s favicon is featured directly to the left of the ad domain & display URL.

What it looks like. Here is a screenshot from Brodie Clark of a few variations:

Courtesy of @brodieclark

Google confirmed. A Google spokesperson confirmed the test saying “This is part of a series of experiments to help users more easily identify the brand or advertiser associated with the Search ads they may see for a given query. We are always testing news ways to improve the experience for users on the search results page, but we don’t have anything specific to announce right now.”

A more organic feel? Google has consistently evolved the visual display of ads over the past 15 years. Ads have graduated from a heavy blue background to today’s smaller bolded “Ad” text typically found to the left of the domain:

A current ad in the wild.

One can argue that this new test has ads taking yet another step towards replicating an organic result. In this view, the ad/sponsored/advertisement text is removed from the right side of the ad and moved above the site and domain. Replacing that label in some cases in now a favicon that is appearing to the left of the domain/display URL, much like a mobile organic result:

Image courtesy of Bastiir

The combination of the removal of the ‘ad’ notification horizontally next to the ad along with the favicon may well drive more clicks for those thinking they are clicking on an organic listing.

Why we care: If this experiment goes mainstream, both PPCers and SEOs could see a slight change in click-through rates. While the Google spokesperson isn’t wrong that users may more “easily identify the brand or advertiser associated with the Search ads” it is possible that they may less easily identify ads. With the Favicon on the left of the results, webmasters may notice increased CTR on ads, and less clicks on organic listings.

The post New mobile Google ad experiment puts favicon in-line with display URL appeared first on Search Engine Land.

Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing

SEO pioneer and expert Bill Slawski passes away

Friday, May 20th, 2022

We have just learned the shocking news that Bill Slawski, an SEO expert, educator and pioneer, has died.

Slawski was the Director of SEO Research at Go Fish Digital, a digital marketing agency. His company just shared the news of his passing on Twitter, moments ago.

We don’t know many details about his death. He was last active on Twitter on May 16 and passed away on May 17.

What we do know is he leaves an incredible void in our industry. Slawski was a wealth of knowledge. Countless SEOs are better off – both directly, and indirectly – as a result of his mentorship, insights and expertise.

About Bill Slawski

Slawski did SEO before Google existed. Heck, he did SEO before SEO was even called SEO.

He started when all of this online stuff was simply known as internet marketing and web promotion, in 1996. He provided consulting services to help make websites easier to find online, help make them easier to use, and increase conversions and revenue for clients.

Throughout his career, Slawski worked on all types of sites – nonprofits, Fortune 500, educational institutions, e-commerce, professional services, consumer goods, B2B and more.

Prior to his search marketing career, Slawski earned a Juris Doctor degree and was a legal and technical administrator at the highest level court in Delaware for 14 years. Slawski lived in Carlsbad, California.

SEO by the Sea

For many in our industry, Slawski was probably best-known for researching, analyzing, interpreting and writing about Google and search-related patents and algorithms at SEO by the Sea. He started the SEO by the Sea blog in June 2005.

On SEO by the Sea, Slawski covered it all – from the classics (PageRank, TrustRank, information retrieval) to today (machine learning, the Knowledge Graph, entities).

Contributions to the search community

They were many.

Aside from writing on his own blog, Slawski contributed articles to the Go Fish Digital blog and other search marketing publications. Slawski was a contributing author here at Search Engine Land from December 2006 to July 2008. You can read Slawski’s articles here.

Slawski was also a popular speaker at several search conferences, including several SMX events. He also did several webinar presentations and was an in-demand guest for multiple SEO podcasts.

Slawski had been active in SEO forums, including serving as a co-administrator on Cre8asite Forums.

In addition to all of that, he was extremely active on Twitter, sharing his own insights and content, as well as from others. He was particularly vocal about debunking SEO myths and misinformation.

‘Our teacher, our professor, our mentor’

That is how Search Engine Land’s own Barry Schwartz described Slawski in 2020.

After Slawski suffered a stroke, Schwartz created a tribute site: billslawski.com. Schwartz asked SEOs for stories about how Slawski had helped them in their career. And they sure delivered.

The site is filled with hundreds of stories and memories, published on a near-daily basis, from Dec. 15, 2020 until May 10, 2021.

One of those stories from Slawski himself, who updated the community on his status:

Thank you to everyone who took a moment to write something, or to send me something while I was in the hospital. I had a small brain clot, and am now taking aspirin as a blood thinner. The clot caused a stroke, which had the effect of throwing off my center of balance, and made it difficult to walk and made me concerned about falling over. I was in hospitals for 2 months going through 3 hours of rehab a day. A lot of that was learning to use a wheeled walker and then a cane to help me get around. By the time I was discharged, I had started walking unassisted. At home, I spent a lot more time walking without a walker or a cane. I am a little clumsier than I was before but can walk fairly well. I am riding a stationary bike 40 minutes a day, and tracking my steps walking too. The stroke did not impact my ability to think or talk or do SEO. The Speech therapists checked me on that, giving me logical puzzles to work through to make sure that I could. They were puzzles that could have fit into spreadsheets, and to someone used to doing site audits were just not very challenging – they kept on saying that they needed more advanced books.

A shoutout to my team at Go Fish Digital, who sent me plants to look at, and to a number of local SEOs who sent me a succulents and a couple of Doordash gifts so that I could order breakfasts directly from them. I managed to keep my connection to Twitter working during that time, and a couple of people who were local ending up helping me make sure that I made it home, and took care of some issues with the DMV and paying my bills during the hospital stay. After 2 months away from a computer, it took me a few tries to write and send emails. I have written about a few patents already, and am now chatting weekly about SEO. I agreed to a chat this week on the future of SEO, 9 years after Penguin, on Twitter Spaces. Have to learn how to use that first. I hope to talk to everyone soon Thank you for setting this website up, Barry. It really has been nice to see a new post on it every day as I continue to work on relearning how to walk.

Community reaction

We are all still in shock and processing this devastating loss.

News quickly spread of Slawski’s passing on Twitter and word-of-mouth. Here’s just a small sampling of reactions from the search community, upon learning of Slawski’s death.

Rest in peace, Bill. We all miss you.

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Google launches video health tools to help publisher monetization

Friday, May 20th, 2022

Maximizing the return on video inventory is a problem likely to be found at the top of most publishers’ lists. Help is on the way for those using Ad Manager thanks to new video specific tools from Google.

The new features are part of the Programmatic Video Health Tools and real-time video reporting, both with goals of using automation to surface insights and information quickly.

Programmatic video signals

This card will create views that show performance across the various video platforms being used.

Some elements that are automatically reported on include: app/web domain, viewability and audience information. Users will also be able to see the impact of each on revenue.

According to Google “publishers with high programmatic inventory signal coverage see an average 25% revenue uplift compared to inventory with low programmatic inventory signal coverage.”

VAST errors

The Video Ad Serving Template (VAST) errors insight cart will help with error reporting on lost ad requests. This automated view will surface the number of errors on inventory caused by improper settings or broken creative.

These can also be sorted to find errors that are having the highest impact on revenue.

Video performance alerts

Publishers will also have the ability to configure custom alerts based on requirements most important to them. This tool, Video Performance Alerts, can create a customized email based around campaign metrics and dimensions. The Video Performance Alerts feature is currently in beta.

Real time video reporting

Lastly a final tool, real-time video reporting, will help users resolve problems sooner.

This is for those serving ads on YouTube via Ad Manager and will give them the ability to test ad delivery and view ad requests, key values and details on the winning line items.

Why we care: Publishers that run video ads through Ad Manager have more tools to help identify and fix issues with their campaigns. These tools bring automation to your troubleshooting and should help save publishers time and revenue.

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Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing