Archive for the ‘seo news’ Category
Tuesday, November 7th, 2023
Successful SEO professionals know a lot about dealing with uncertainty – such is life when algorithms that make or break performance are kept under lock and key.
But Search Generative Experience (SGE) triggers change-related anxiety from even the most seasoned SEOs.
Simply put, it’s both a paradigm shift and a quickly moving target; Google’s incorporation of SGE has been evolving almost daily.
So what do we know, and what should we expect – and how should we prepare? In this article, I’ll take a look at:
Where do we stand on SGE?
From a UX perspective, Google scaled back on the initial look, which was taking over most of the SERP. Now it’s less in your face, which I suspect they had planned the whole time – test maximalist to force people to notice and collect data on how they behave in the new environment.
Sticking with the user perspective, not everyone is served SGE with every query. I just tried 10 queries (a mix of “what is,” “should I buy,” “top 10 options for,” and information on state governors), and none of them returned results featuring SGE.
This will certainly change as the product comes out of beta, but it reaffirms that SGE is still in the roll-out phase, and users, SEO, and Google are all learning on the fly.
For SEOs, SGE is kind of the black box within the black box of Google’s algorithm. We can make some very educated recommendations for navigating the world of SGE, but nothing is clear at this point.
How could user behavior (and SEO) shift?
I’ve spoken with many people who have recoiled at the idea of SGE taking over their SERPs. This isn’t surprising; it combines the specter of AI taking over the world with a general distrust of change.
Add that to Google’s reputation on the advertising side, taking a few PR hits lately, and you have a bit of a perfect storm.
That said, I expect Google will just shove SGE down people’s throats as they did with featured snippets, the knowledge graph, etc.
After the 100th search, it’ll just be the expected experience. And I do expect the results to get better and more useful over time.
I’m already finding it useful as a user. For example, when looking for synonyms for a given word, I used to go to Thesaurus.com.
Now, I can just type it in and ask Google to show me synonyms, and AI will spit out a list, which saves me time. Something like that is fairly linear.
But for more complex issues, you’re still better off with content written by humans.
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What kind of skills do SEOs need to capitalize on SGE?
This is where we get into speculation a bit more. I believe SGE won’t reward SEOs who practice completely different strategies than they do for keyword and query-related search. The skills will have a ton of overlap.
Having said that, I think for some SEOs, the question of how to harness SGE for your brand’s benefit might become, essentially, “How do you produce really good content that Google will use as a source for its AI,” not “How do you produce valuable content for the end user?”
Writing for AI and writing for users, after all, could have subtle but meaningful differences.
I’m looking at this question like I do with featured snippets. The goal should be to communicate trust and usefulness to Google.
The SEO content I’ve seen featured in SGE for my clients has either featured structured data (easy for Google to digest) or has been housed in pillar pages that cover the topic in-depth and act as a resource.
In short, it looks like content that ChatGPT would reference if asked a specific question, but it doesn’t sound like ChatGPT (which would add nothing to the conversation).
When I think of writing for SGE – which could have real benefits, like lifting your content from the bottom of the SERPs to the top-of-the-page SGE ranks – I think of giving the AI incentive to point the user to your site.
This might sound counterintuitive because Google’s been telling SEOs not to make content just to rank – but ultimately, my goal is to be useful to the end user, which hasn’t changed from pre-SGE days.
If there’s a net-new skill we need to add, it’s developing an understanding of how large language models (LLMs) spit out answers and what the model isn’t delivering that humans need to add.
That could be personal opinions, experience, anecdotes, etc.
AI could certainly remix those and spit them out in aggregate, but there’d be a lot lost in translation.
In short, think about the gaps in AI-produced answers, and make sure you’re addressing those gaps to add value.
Use user-generated content as an insurance policy
On the opposite end of the content spectrum, we have user-generated content (UGC).
Big September and October updates from Google kicked off a lot of chatter on X and SEO forums about the possibility of a bigger emphasis on UGC in the SERP results.
While I haven’t seen a big spike in its SERP visibility, I do think content pulled from sites like Quora and Reddit (speaking as someone with a focus on B2B/SaaS) is useful.
And it represents an extremely personal counterpoint to SGE:
If you’re looking to lean into a facet of SEO to hedge against possible erosion from SGE, UGC could be a smart – and relatively underutilized – bet.
SEO and SGE: Preparing for the future
In a meta sense, the SEO tenets of methodical testing and finding your way in a murky landscape will be more important than ever in planning a world heavy in SGE.
- Follow your favorite industry sources closely.
- Annotate changes in both the Google landscape and your own strategy to recognize trends.
- Understand the role of human insight in bringing value to the user.
It might not guarantee success, but you’ll have a solid foundation that will make strategic pivots easier to pull off.
The post SEO through the Google SGE lens: What’s changing? appeared first on Search Engine Land.
Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing
Friday, November 3rd, 2023
Google has rolled out its Ads Editor version 2.4, with 16 new features and updates for advertisers to utlize to improve the efficiency of their capaigns.
Below is a breakdown of what’s new.
New Features:
- App Install Ads deep links. You can add app deep links to App Install Ads using the App URL field, just like with App Engagement Ads.
- Automatically created Ad Strength assets. Ad Strength of responsive search ads will take automatically created assets into account to ensure that Ad Strength results are accurate.
- Asset source in asset report. The “Asset source” column is now available for channel level, asset group level, and ad level asset reports. This column enables you to differentiate between automatically created assets and advertiser provided assets.
- Additional fields in Discovery product ads. Discovery product ads now support the following additional fields:
- Videos
- Long headline
- Path 1
- Path 2
- In-feed video ads. Editor now works with in-feed video ads for Discovery campaigns, combining features of Discovery and responsive display ads.
- Text mode for selecting videos. You can now switch between video picker and text mode in the video asset library. Previously, Editor v2.4 used a video picker to select videos for ads. With text mode, you can directly enter video IDs to choose videos.
- Campaign level broad match. Editor now supports the broad match keywords campaign setting. When activated for a campaign, only broad match keywords can be used, and any existing non-broad match keywords will be converted to broad match.
- Video view campaigns. Editor now supports Video view campaigns, which are Video campaigns with Target CPV bid strategy and multi-format video ads.
- Search themes in Performance Max campaigns. Editor now works with search themes in Performance Max campaigns. These themes help you share important insights with Google AI about your customers’ searches and the topics that drive conversions for your business.
- Replace Text tool for product groups. You can now use the Replace Text tool to change text across all parts of a product group. For instance, you can quickly correct a consistently misspelled brand name throughout your product groups.
- Device targeting in Discovery campaigns. You can now enable mobile carrier targeting, and campaign level device bid adjustments for desktop, mobile, tablet, and TV in Discovery campaigns. For bid adjustments, the only adjustments allowed are 0% and -100%.
- Brand settings for Search and PMax campaigns. Editor now supports brand settings for Search and Performance Max campaigns, specifically:
- Brand restrictions for Search
- Brand exclusions for Performance Max
- Dynamic Search Ads features in PMax. Editor now supports features related to Dynamic Search Ads in Performance Max campaigns, including:
- Adding Dynamic Search Ads in Performance Max campaigns.
- Specifying page feeds to use in your Performance Max campaigns.
- Supporting webpage targeting for asset groups.
- Ad format controls for Video reach campaigns. You can now choose the ad formats that show for Video reach campaigns, including:
- In-stream ads
- In-feed ads
- Shorts ads
- Demand Gen ad group level location and language. You can now set language and location targeting for Demand Gen campaigns at the ad group level. Remember that you can only choose the targeting level when creating the campaign, and you can’t modify it later.
- PMax dynamic Search Ads upgrade tool. You can track each campaign’s migration status in the tool, but keep in mind that Google Ads Editor won’t be accessible until the migration finishes. Once the migration is done, the tool downloads draft campaigns and identifies any failed upgrades. It also highlights errors, like missing assets. After fixing these errors, the recommendations are applied immediately.
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Why we care. The new features have been designed to give advertisers greater control, simplify the editing process, and enhance the efficiency and overall performance of your Google Ads campaigns.
Deep dive. Read Google’s full list of changes for more information.
The post Google Ads Editor version 2.5 rolls out with 16 new features appeared first on Search Engine Land.
Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing
Friday, November 3rd, 2023
Google has rolled out a new Ad Review Centre for AdSense, Ad Manager and AdMob.
Five major changes have been added to the platform – all aimed at improving the user experience for advertisers.
Below is a breakdown of what’s new.
New Features:
- Larger area to view ads. The new Ad Review Centre features an improved layout to maximise the area that you have for viewing ads.
- New, easy-to-use filters. Google has added new filters to make it quicker and simpler to select statuses like ‘Allowed’ and ‘Blocked’.
- Bulk actions are easier: The search engine has also introduced a prominent ‘Select all’ button so it’s now easier to take actions on pages of ads.
- Simplified image search. The new Ad Review Centre has rolled out a more prominent ‘Search by Image’ button and improved the search results. It also now shows image search requirements in the image selection dialogue.
- Improved detail view: Lastly, the platform has also updated the detail view by adding an expandable ‘Ad info’ area with more metadata and a new ‘Related ads’ tab to make it quicker to find related ads.
Why we care. These new features have been introduced to enhance the efficiency of ad management, simplifying the advertiser’s tasks and potentially saving them valuable time in the process.
What Google is saying. A Google Ads spokesperson said in a statement:
- “We’re super excited to introduce the new Ad Review Centre for AdSense, Ad Manager and AdMob.”
- “We’ve spent a lot of time listening to feedback from publishers and partners alike, and we’ve made several investments to improve the experience for everyone.”
Deep dive. Visit the Ad Review Centre overview for more information.
The post Google launches new Ad Review Centre for AdSense Ad Manager and AdMob appeared first on Search Engine Land.
Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing
Friday, November 3rd, 2023
The U.S. Department of Justice has released several new trial exhibits – including internal Google presentations, documents and emails related to ranking.
Here are seven that specifically discuss elements of Google Search ranking:
1. Life of a Click (user-interaction)
This is a heavily redacted PowerPoint presentation put together by Google’s Eric Lehman – and like most of the other documents, it lacks the full context accompanying it.
However, what’s here is interesting for all SEOs.
In “The 3 Pillars of Ranking,” slide, Google highlights three areas:
- Body: What the document says about itself.
- Anchors: What the Web says about the document.
- User-interactions: What users say about the document.
Google added a note about user interactions:
- “we may use ‘clicks’ as a stand-in for ‘user-interactions’ in some places. User-interactions include clicks, attention on a result, swipes on carousels and entering a new query.
If this sounds familiar to you, it should. Mike Grehan has written and spoken extensively about this for 20 years – including his Search Engine Land article The origins of E-A-T: Page content, hyperlink analysis and usage data.
In this slide, titled “User interaction signals,” Google illustrates the relationships of queries, interactions and Search results, alongside results for the query [why is the ocean salty]. Specific interactions mentioned by Google:
- Read
- Clicks
- Scrolls
- Mouse hovers
In September, Lehman testified during the antitrust trial that Google uses clicks in rankings. However, once again, it’s important to make clear that individual clicks alone are a noisy signal for ranking (more on that in Ranking for Research). Google has publicly said it uses click data for training, evaluation, controlled experiments and personalization.
What is redacted:
- A slide titled “Metrics” – all that is visible is one line: “Web Ranking Components.”
- Seven additional slides, including two titled “Outline” and “Summary.”
Link: Google presentation: Life of a Click (user-interaction) (May 15, 2017) (PDF)
2. Ranking
These seven slides were part of a larger Q4 2016 Search All Hands presentation, prepared by Lehman.
In this slide, Google says “We do not understand documents. We fake it.”
- “Today, our ability to understand documents directly is minimal.
- So we watch how people react to documents and memorize their responses.”
And the source of Google’s “magic” is revealed:
“Let’s start with some background..
A billion times a day, people ask us to find documents relevant to a query.
What’s crazy is that we don’t actually understand documents. Beyond some basic stuff, we hardly look at documents. We look at people.
If a document gets a positive reaction, we figure it is good. If the reaction is negative, it is probably bad.
Grossly simplified, this is the source of Google’s magic.”
So how does this work?
In this slide, Google explains how “each searcher benefits from the responses of past users … and contributes responses that benefit future users”:
“Search keeps working by induction.
This has an important implication.
In designing user experiences, SERVING the user is NOT ENOUGH.
We have to design interactions that also allow us to LEARN from users.
Because that is how we serve the next person, keep the induction rolling, and sustain the illusion that we understand.
Looking to the future, I believe learning from users is also the key to TRULY understanding language.”
And in the final slide, Google sums up with this statement:
- “When fake understanding fails, we look stupid.”
The other four slides are entirely skippable, unless you’re interested in knowing that “Search is a great place to start understanding language. Success has implications far beyond Search.”
Link: Google presentation: Q4 Search All Hands (Dec. 8, 2016) (PDF)
So when you see Google claiming links aren’t a top 3 ranking factor, now you can hopefully start to better understand why. That isn’t to say links are unimportant or that user data is the entire reason – machine learning and natural language processing are other huge pieces, more on that in Bullet points for presentation to Sundar.
Google is looking at end users – how people interact with Search results. Not as individuals – but as a collective.
3. Ranking for Research
It’s unclear who created this presentation, but there are some very interesting findings in here.
In this slide, Google talks about 18 aspects of search quality:
- Relevance
- Page quality
- Popularity
- Freshness
- Localization
- Language
- Centrality
- Topical diversity
- Personalization
- Web ecosystem
- Mobile friendly
- Social fairness
- Optionalization
- Porn demotion
- Spam
- Authority
- Privacy
- User control of spell correction
This slide discusses the shortcomings of live traffic evaluations. Yes, essentially Google is talking about clicks not being a good signal because they are hard to interpret.
- “The association between observed user behavior and search result quality is tenuous. We need lots of traffic to draw conclusions, and individual examples are difficult to interpret.”
Finally, this slide provides a different illustration of how Google Search result ranking works:
There are some other interesting tidbits in this presentation, though not necessarily tied to ranking. Of note:
- “Attempts to manipulate search results are continuous, sophisticated, and well-funded. Information about how search works should remain need-to-know.” (Slide 5)
- “Keep talk about how search works on a need-to-know basis. Everything we leak will be used against us by SEOs, patent trolls, competitors, etc.” (Slide 10)
- “Do not discuss the use of clicks in search, except on a need-to-know basis with people who understand not to talk about this topic externally. Google has a public position. It is debatable. But please don’t craft your own.” (Slide 11)
Link: Google presentation: Ranking for Research (November 16, 2018) (PDF)
4. Google is magical.
In this presentation, we learn how search really works.
This slide explains how search does not work. From the notes:
“We get a query. Various scoring systems emit data, we slap on a UX, and ship it to the user.
This is not false, just incomplete. So incomplete that a search engine built this way won’t work very well. No magic.”
In this slide, we learn how search does work:
“The key is a second flow of information in the reverse direction.
As people interact with search, their actions teach us about the world.
For example, a click might tell us that an image was better than a web result. Or a long look like might mean a KP was interesting.
We log these actions, and then scoring teams extract both narrow and general patterns.”
Next, we learn the source of Google’s “magic.” From the notes:
“The source of Google’s magic is this two-way dialogue with users.
With every query, we give a some knowledge, and get a little back. Then we give some more, and get a little more back.
These bits add up. After a few hundred billion rounds, we start lookin’ pretty smart!
This isn’t the only way we learn, but the most effective.”
So how does Google learn more from users? From the notes:
“On the surface, users ask questions and Google answers. That’s our basic business. We can’t screw that up. But we have to quietly turn the tables. One way is to:
- ask the user a question implicitly
- provide necessary background information
- give the user some way to tell us the answer”
This slide looks at the 10 blue links.
“For example, the ten blue links implicitly pose the question, ‘Which result is best?’
Result previews give background. And the answer is a click.
This is a great UX for learning. For years, Google was mocked for great search results in a bland UI.
But this bland UI made the search results great.”
This slide is on Image Search:
“Image search poses a similar question– which do you like best? Thumbnails provide background information, and the user’s answer is logged as a hover, click, or further interaction.”
Finally, knowledge cards:
“For example, some knowledge cards need an extra tap to fully open.
On the left, an extra tap means the user wants lower classifications and an overview.
On the right, the user has too little background information.
More what? How is tapping here different from scrolling down? Users can’t make a good decision, so Taps and clicks are such distinctive events in logs; we should endow every one with meaning.”
Link: Google presentation: Google is magical. (October 30, 2017) (PDF)
5. Logging & Ranking
This presentation discusses the “critical role that logging plays” in ranking and search.
This familiar-looking slide revisits the two-way dialogue being the source of Google’s magic. As explained in the notes:
“Search is a bit like a potluck, where every person brings one dish of food to share. This a great, big spread of food that everyone can enjoy. But it only works because everyone contributes a little bit.
In a similar way, search is powered by a huge mass of knowledge. But it isn’t something we create.
Rather, everyone who comes to search contributes a little bit of knowledge to the system from which everyone can benefit.”
In this slide, Google discusses translating user behaviors. From the slide notes:
“The logs do not contain explicit value judgments– this was a good search results, this was a bad one.
So we have to some how translate the user behaviors that are logged into value judgments.
And the translation is really tricky, a problem that people have worked on pretty steadily for more than 15 years.
People work on it because value judgements are the foundation of Google search.
If we can squeeze a fraction of a bit more meaning out of a session, then we get like a billion times that the very next day.
The basic game is that you start with a small amount of ‘ground truth’ data that says this thing on the search page is good, this is bad, this is better than that.
Then you look at all the associated user behaviors, and say, “Ah, this is what a user does with a good thing! This is what a user does with a bad thing! This is how a user shows preference!’
Of course, people are different and erratic. So all we get is statistical correlations, nothing really reliable.
For example:
[REDACTED]
– If someone clicks on three search results, which one is bad? Well, likely ALL of them, because it is probably a hard query if they clicked 3 results. Challenge is to figure out which one is most promising.”
Finally, this slide discusses how logging supports ranking and Search. From the notes:
“… and here comes the part I warned you about. I’m selling something. I’m selling the idea of the logs term keeping the needs of the ranking team in mind. Pretty please with sugar on top.
But the basic reason is that the ranking team is really weird in one more way, and that is business impact.
As I mentioned, not one system, but a great many within ranking are built on logs.
This isn’t just traditional systems, like the one I showed you earlier, but also the most cutting-edge machine learning systems, many of which we’ve announced externally– RankBrain, RankEmbed, and DeepRank.
Web ranking is only a part of search, but many search features use web results to interpret the query and trigger accordingly.
So supporting ranking supports search as a whole.
But even beyond this, technologies developed in search spread out across the company to Ads, YouTube, Play, and elsewhere.
So– I’m not in finance– but grossly speaking, I think a huge amount of Google business is tied to the use of logs in ranking.”
Link: Google presentation: Logging & Ranking (May 8, 2020) (PDF)
6. Mobile vs. desktop ranking
This newsletter dove into the differences between desktop and mobile search ranking, user intents and user satisfaction – at a time when mobile traffic was starting to surpass desktop traffic on some days.
Google did a comparison of metrics, including:
- CTR
- Manual refinement
- Queries per task
- Query length (in char)
- Query lengths (in word)
- Abandonment
- Average Click Position
- Duplicates
Based on the findings, one of the recommendations was:
- “Separate mobile ranking signals or evaluation reflecting different intents. Mobile queries often have different intents, and we may need to incorporate additional or supplementary signals reflecting these intents into our ranking framework. As discussed earlier, it is desirable that these signals handle local-level breakdowns properly.
Link: Email from Google’s Web Ranking Team to Pandu Nayak – Subject: [Web Ranking Team] Aug 11 –Aug 15, 2014 was updated — Ranking Newsletter (August 16, 2014) (PDF)
7. Bullet points for presentation to Sundar
Nothing surprising in this document (it’s unclear who wrote it), but one interesting bullet on BERT and Search ranking:
- “Early experiments with BERT applied to several other areas in Search, including Web Ranking, suggest very significant improvements in understanding queries, documents and intents.”
- “While BERT is revolutionary, it is merely the beginning of a leap in Natural Language Understanding technologies.”
Link: Google document: Bullet points for presentation to Sundar (Sept. 17, 2019) (PDF)
The post 7 must-see Google Search ranking documents in antitrust trial exhibits appeared first on Search Engine Land.
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Friday, November 3rd, 2023
The Guardian has accused Microsoft of damaging its brand by adding an offensive AI-generated poll to one of its articles.
In a story reporting on the death of 21-year-old Lilie James, whose body was found with serious head injuries in Australia, the tech giant’s AI asked readers to vote on the cause of her passing, giving them the options of murder, accident or suicide.
Furious readers reacted by describing the poll as “disgusting” and calling for the instant dismissal of the journalist – who had nothing to do with the poll.
Why we care. Microsoft’s decision to use AI instead of human writers is causing problems again. This is a clear reminder of why businesses should utilize AI to support human efforts rather than replace them. Neglecting this approach could damage your brand’s reputation and adversely affect your search rankings.
How this happened. Microsoft has agreements with major news organizations around the world, such as The Guardian and CNN, under which it can republish their articles in return for a portion of ad revenue. However, when the tech giant republished this story, its AI technology automatically added the offensive poll.
What The Guardian is saying. Anna Bateson, chief executive of the Guardian Media Group, wrote to Microsoft’s president, Brad Smith, accusing the company of upsetting James’ family, as well as causing “significant reputational damage” to both the newspaper and the journalist. She said:
- “This is clearly an inappropriate use of genAI [generative AI] by Microsoft on a potentially distressing public interest story, originally written and published by Guardian journalists.”
Bateson then asked Smith to reassure her that:
- “Microsoft will not apply experimental AI technology on or alongside Guardian journalism without the news publisher’s approval; and Microsoft will always make it clear to users when AI tools are used to create additional units and features next to trusted news brands like the Guardian.”
What Microsoft is saying. A Microsoft spokesperson said:
- “We have deactivated Microsoft-generated polls for all news articles and we are investigating the cause of the inappropriate content. A poll should not have appeared alongside an article of this nature, and we are taking steps to help prevent this kind of error from reoccurring in the future.”
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History repeating itself. This isn’t the first time Microsoft’s generative AI has landed the tech giant in trouble. In September, the company was heavily criticized after publishing an AI-generated obituary for NBA star Brandon Hunter.
The former Boston Celtics and Orlando Magic player passed away suddenly this week, aged 42, after collapsing during a hot yoga class in Orlando, Fl. Shortly after his passing, fans were shocked to see the father of three described as “useless” in an obituary published on MSN. The headline read:
- “Brandon Hunter useless at 42.”
Readers reacted by branding Microsoft “lazy” for leveraging AI to create articles and urged the company to rehire the editorial staff it replaced with AI.
Deep dive. Read the Guardian’s response in full for more information.
The post The Guardian accuses Microsoft of damaging its reputation with offensive AI-generated poll appeared first on Search Engine Land.
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Thursday, November 2nd, 2023
With customer and revenue growth hitting new highs in Q3, Semrush achieved its first profitable quarter since Q1 2021. That ends a stretch of nine straight quarters posting a net loss.
Semrush’s third quarter revenue was $78.7 million, up 20% year-over-year ($65.8 million) from 2022.
Earlier this year, Semrush said it expected to break even or show a profit for 2023, after losing $33.8 million in 2022.
Customers. Semrush had about 106,800 paying customers as of Sept. 30. This was up nearly 14% from the “over 94,000” figure it reported a year ago. Also:
- 20% growth in customers who pay more than $10,000 annually.
- 987,000 registered free active customers (up 25%)
Price increases starting. On the investor call, Eugene Levin, President, discussed one of the company’s growth pillars – to “maximize the value” Semrush generates from its users. Pricing changes started rolling out in Q3, according to Levy:
- “We took the opportunity to optimize our pricing strategy to better align with the tremendous value our product delivers. During Q3, and into the early part of Q4, we tested price increases with a cohort of customers, and we were encouraged by the response, as net adds, and retention were in line with our expectations and recent trends.
- “In our view, this indicates customers have a strong need for our offering and are willing to pay more given the unique benefits it provides them with. While we are still in the early phases of pricing adjustments, these initial findings suggest there may be room to prudently raise prices to better capture the value we provide, which we think, over time, would also contribute further to our growth.
- “Our plan is to be thoughtful and measured. We expect to continue testing and analyzing data so that any broader pricing changes are backed by customer insights while maintaining our commitment to delivering exceptional value.”
Why we care. Many Search Engine Land readers use Semrush daily, so it’s good to know the company continues to be in good shape financially. Meanwhile, these results show SEO and SEO platforms continue to be in-demand. However, be aware pricing changes have started – and if you haven’t seen them yet, they are coming.
Read the full press release. Semrush Announces Third Quarter 2023 Financial Results
The post Revenue, customer growth returns Semrush to profitability in Q3 appeared first on Search Engine Land.
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Thursday, November 2nd, 2023
Google has introduced several updates to assist advertisers in maintaining brand safety and suitability on YouTube and the Google Display Network.
Danielle Wolinsky, Google’s Global Lead for Advertiser Trust and responsibility, presented various options for brand protection, such as a new feature that enables marketers to easily select topics they want to exclude on both YouTube and the Google Display Network.
Below, is a roundup of the five new ways advertisers can safeguard their brands on YouTube.
1. Simplified ability to exclude themes
Now, worldwide, you can easily filter out themes on YouTube and the Google Display Network that don’t fit your brand, offering more precision and clarity. These filters offer more accuracy and clarity when removing specific content types.
2. Estimated Impact in Google Ads
This tool helps you assess the impact of your settings on inventory, impressions, and costs. – and it is now accessible to all YouTube advertisers. You can use this tool to analyze how excluding certain content may affect ad reach and performance. It can also be used to help agencies can assist clients in making informed choices.
3. Leveraging AI for ad safety
YouTube’s AI technology can now spot patterns that help the platform to detect similar content that’s previously been removed – sometimes even before it’s seen. It’s also used to automatically identify and remove spam and content that has already violated YouTube’s rules. The same approach is applied to YouTube comments and ads as well.
4. Content-level brand safety accreditation
YouTube has received content-level brand safety accreditation from the Media Rating Council for the third year in a row following an extensive audit. YouTube advertising is 99% effective in ensuring brand safety for in-stream, livestream, Shorts, and Watch Next/Home feed content, meeting GARM brand safety standards.
5. Tailoring YouTube ad placements
YouTube now offers expanded suitability inventory types to more areas, including YouTube Shorts, allowing marketers to align their campaigns with specific content categories. The recommended choice for most advertisers is the standard inventory, ensuring adherence to YouTube’s advertiser-friendly guidelines. Depending on your brand, you can opt for either limited or expanded inventory, giving you flexibility in reaching your target audience.
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What Google is saying. Danielle Wolinsky, Google’s Global Lead, Advertiser Trust & Responsibility, said in a statement:
- “In our dynamic industry, one thing won’t ever change: marketers and users alike need to trust the entire ad ecosystem. That’s how we can keep the web open and free.”
- “Brand safety and suitability are top priorities for us. We actively enforce our publisher policies and work to ensure your ads on YouTube don’t appear next to harmful content.”
- “Because there is no one-size-fits-all approach, we’re prioritizing transparency and control for marketers of all sizes.”
Deep dive. Read Google’s announcement in full for more information.
The post 5 ways Google and YouTube advertisers can protect their brands appeared first on Search Engine Land.
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Thursday, November 2nd, 2023
Google’s November 2023 core update is now rolling out and may take up to two weeks to complete.
This is the fourth broad core algorithm update of 2023. the first core update of 2023 was the March 2023 core update, which started rolling out on March 15 and was completed on March 28. The second core update of 2023 was the August 2023 core update, which started rolling out on August 22 and was completed on September 7. The third core update was the October 2023 core update, which started rolling out on October 5 and was completed on October 19.
New in the core update. Google said, that this core “update involves an improvement to a different core system than last month.” Google said its guidance about core updates is the same for both.
Reviews update coming next week. Google said a reviews update will also be coming next week. Google said this “will also mark a point when we’ll no longer be giving periodic notifications of improvements to our reviews system, because they will be happening at a regular and ongoing pace.”
More details. Google posted a more detailed Q&A over here, explaining more about the new core update and the upcoming reviews update.
- Why another core update so soon? Google said, “We have different systems that are considered core to our ranking process; this month’s core update involves an improvement to a different core system than last month.”
- Difference between a ranking update and ranking system? Google said, “Ranking systems are what we use to generate search results. We use multiple ranking systems that do different things. We have a guide to Google search ranking systems that explains some of our more notable ones. Updates are when we make an improvement to a ranking system.”
- What do updates do? Google said, “We use automated systems to rank search results, and like anything, these aren’t perfect. We’re always looking at ways to improve these systems to show better results.”
- Why do some updates overlap? Google said, “We do try to separate notable updates, so that if they produce changes, site owners can better identify which system is involved. However, given we have so many updates overall, it’s not always possible. In addition, when an update is evaluated and approved because it will make Search better, we don’t want to hold that back.”
- Why are some updates during the holiday season? Google said, “We do try to avoid having updates during the late-November to mid-December period when possible. But it’s not always possible. If we have updates that can improve Search, that have been developed over the course of several months, we release them when they’re ready.”
What to do if you are hit. Google has given advice on what to consider if you are negatively impacted by a core update in the past:
- There aren’t specific actions to take to recover. A negative rankings impact may not signal anything is wrong with your pages.
- Google has offered a list of questions to consider if your site is hit by a core update.
- Google said you can see a bit of a recovery between core updates but the biggest change would be after another core update.
Why we care. Whenever Google updates its search ranking algorithms, your site can do better or worse in the search results. Knowing when Google makes these updates gives us something to point to understand if it was something you changed on your website or something Google changed with its ranking algorithm. Today, we know Google has released a core ranking update, so keep an eye on your analytics and rankings over the next couple of weeks.
Although with the spam update rolling out at the same time, it might be hard to isolate which update or updates impacted your site.
Previous core updates. Here’s a timeline and our coverage of recent core updates:
Other recent Google algorithm updates. Google recently rolled out the October 2023 spam update, while rolling out the October 2023 core update and in September, Google rolled out the September 2023 helpful content update over a 14-day period.
Google recently fixed a bug with the core update a couple of days ago, that impacted Discover traffic.
You can read more about past Google updates here.
The post Google November 2023 core update released appeared first on Search Engine Land.
Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing
Wednesday, November 1st, 2023
Google declared a “Code Yellow” after user queries slowed in February 2019 to find out why. Ben Gomes, then the head of Google Search, became concerned about a thinning firewall between Search and Ads, according to emails revealed during the ongoing U.S. vs. Google antitrust trial.
Why we care. We’ve been concerned to learn Google has increased ad prices to meet quarterly revenue goals and Ads, Search and Chrome teams working to boost ad revenue. While Google talks about always doing what’s best for users, clearly it also has done what’s best for Google revenue and profits.
The emails. In one 2019 email, a “frustrated” Gomes told other executives that the Search team was “getting too close to the money,” Bloomberg reported:
- “I think it is good for us to aspire to query growth and to aspire to more users. But I think we are getting too involved with ads for the good of the product and company.”
- “I am getting concerned that growth is all we are thinking about.”
- “We could increase queries quite easily in the short term in user negative ways (turn off spell correction, turn off ranking improvement, place refinements all over the page).”
However, Gomes said during his testimony that he was “discussing things we would never do,” in that last bullet.
Code Yellow aftermath. The “emergency” lasted seven weeks, after which Google created a new metric to measure groups of queries, rather than user queries as a metric (“I think this metric of just using queries is not one that optimizes appropriately,” Gomes explained.).
Gomes left his role about a year later, when Prabhakar Raghavan became the new head of Google Search.
The post Ex-Google Search head worried his team was ‘too involved with ads’ appeared first on Search Engine Land.
Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing
Wednesday, November 1st, 2023
Google declared a “Code Yellow” after user queries slowed in February 2019 to find out why. Ben Gomes, then the head of Google Search, became concerned about a thinning firewall between Search and Ads, according to emails revealed during the ongoing U.S. vs. Google antitrust trial.
Why we care. We’ve been concerned to learn Google has increased ad prices to meet quarterly revenue goals and Ads, Search and Chrome teams working to boost ad revenue. While Google talks about always doing what’s best for users, clearly it also has done what’s best for Google revenue and profits.
The emails. In one 2019 email, a “frustrated” Gomes told other executives that the Search team was “getting too close to the money,” Bloomberg reported:
- “I think it is good for us to aspire to query growth and to aspire to more users. But I think we are getting too involved with ads for the good of the product and company.”
- “I am getting concerned that growth is all we are thinking about.”
- “We could increase queries quite easily in the short term in user negative ways (turn off spell correction, turn off ranking improvement, place refinements all over the page).”
However, Gomes said during his testimony that he was “discussing things we would never do,” in that last bullet.
Code Yellow aftermath. The “emergency” lasted seven weeks, after which Google created a new metric to measure groups of queries, rather than user queries as a metric (“I think this metric of just using queries is not one that optimizes appropriately,” Gomes explained.).
Gomes left his role about a year later, when Prabhakar Raghavan became the new head of Google Search.
The post Ex-Google Search head worried his team was ‘too involved with ads’ appeared first on Search Engine Land.
Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing
