Archive for the ‘seo news’ Category
Wednesday, October 18th, 2023
Google’s Rich Results Test has been upgraded to show you validation of structured data for paywalled content. So now the tool will show you if that site is using the proper structured data for paywalled content or not.
What it looks like. So the Financial Times is a popular financial news site that using a paywall. I plugged in a URL from the Financial Times into the Google Rich Results Test and it showed the site or URL was using
Rich results tool. The rich results tool will be on Google’s own site, designed and maintained with the purpose of showing you Google Search rich result types. Google said, “to test your markup for Google Search rich result types, you can continue to use the Rich Results Test.” You can also preview how rich results can look in Google Search.
Google’s announcement. Google wrote:
Why we care. Those of you who work on sites that use a paywall will find this new addition helpful in debugging and validating whether what they have implemented works with Google Search or not.
So give it a try on any paywalled URLs to validate that Google Search knows they use the proper markup.
The post Google Rich Results Test now supports paywalled content appeared first on Search Engine Land.
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Tuesday, October 17th, 2023
Baidu has unveiled the latest edition of its generative AI model, ERNIE 4.0.
The Chinese technology company has said that the chatbot’s capabilities rival those of OpenAI’s GPT-4. ERNIE is an acronym for “Enhanced Representation from kNowledge IntEgration”.
Search engine plans. Baidu is planning to integrate ERNIE 4.0 into its search engine, maps, business tools and cloud services. This will change how the search engine responds to queries, by providing customized answers instead of lists of results and links, according to Baidu CEO Robin Li.
The exact timeline for these changes is yet to be confirmed.
Capabilities. Baidu CEO, Li, claimed that the ERNIE model has been “significantly improved” in terms of understanding queries, generating more advanced responses and memory functionality. Speaking at an event in Beijing, he said that the 4.0 version can:
- Generate a car commercial within minutes.
- Solve complicated math problems.
- Create plots for novels from scratch.
Why we care. The potential ramifications of integrating ERNIE across its suite of products, including its search engine. are substantial, potentially reshaping rankings, traffic and advertising. The exact magnitude of these effects is uncertain at this point, so international search marketers should stay on top of the latest developments.
Language issues. ERNIE 4.0’s primary language is Mandarin Chinese. It isn’t yet able to process English queries to the same advanced level.
Availability. The ERNIE Bot was first unveiled in March and was made available to the public in August. The 4.0 model has not yet been rolled out to the general public, however, Baidu has invited some people to test it.
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What Baidu is saying. Li said in a statement:
- “ERNIE 4.0 has achieved a full upgrade with drastically improved performance in understanding, generation, reasoning, and memory.”
- “These four core capabilities form the foundation of AI-native applications and have now unleashed unlimited opportunities for new innovations.”
But. Despite Li’s big claims, analysts seem unimpressed, according to Reuters.
The post Baidu to integrate ERNIE 4.0, which ‘rivals’ GPT-4, into Search appeared first on Search Engine Land.
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Tuesday, October 17th, 2023
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Tuesday, October 17th, 2023
Google is retiring four rules-based attribution models for all properties in Google Ads and Google Analytics in mid-October 2023:
- First-click.
- Linear.
- Time decay.
- Position-based.
The models listed above will be removed from both the Analytics user interface and Admin API.
Why we care. If you’re using these models in Google Ads, it will affect you. And tracking anything other than the last click is about to become more challenging because the data-driven attribution formula differs for each advertiser – and it’s not visible. As Greg Finn, director of marketing for Cypress North, told Search Engine Land:
- “In the past, you could use linear and give each touch the same credit. You will no longer be able to do so. There will be no impact on last touch, as that is still available. But finding some of the first-touch information will be much muddier because there will no longer be a way to see the formulas that compute the attribution scores.”
What happens next. If your existing property uses one of the impacted models, it will automatically default to paid and organic data-driven attribution. Paid and organic last-click and Google paid channels last-click models will also continue to be available.
Why the change. Google is retiring these four attribution models because of “increasingly low adoption rates, with fewer than 3% of conversions in Google Ads using these models” according to a Google spokesperson. They added:
- “Switching to the data-driven attribution model typically results in a 6% increase in conversions for advertisers.”
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What Google is saying. A Google spokesperson said in a statement:
- “Rules-based attribution models assign value to each advertising touchpoint based on predefined rules.”
- “These models don’t provide the flexibility needed to adapt to evolving consumer journeys. Data-driven attribution uses advanced AI to understand the impact each touchpoint has on a conversion. That’s why we made Data-driven attribution the default attribution model in Google Analytics 4 and Google Ads.”
- “For these reasons, First click, Linear, Time decay, and Position-based attribution models across Google Analytics 4 will be going away.”
Dig deeper. Data-driven attribution: How to think about Google’s default attribution model
The post Google confirms sunset details for 4 attribution models in Ads and Analytics appeared first on Search Engine Land.
Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing
Tuesday, October 17th, 2023
Google has added a new business attributed within Google Business Profiles for “disabled-owned” businesses. This new disabled-owned attribute can show up on businesses that are owned by disabled business owners.
Google said, “When businesses choose to identify as disabled-owned in their Business Profile, the attribute will appear on their listings in Maps and Search. This update builds on our existing business attributes, including Asian-owned, Black-owned, Latino-owned, LGBTQ+ owned, veteran-owned, and women-owned.”
What it looks like. Here is a screenshot of this new “disabled-owned” badge or label on business listings in Google Search and Google Maps:
You should be able to add this attribute by editing your Google Business Profile within Google Search.
Other features. Google also added a number of other features to Google Maps and Google Search:
- Use screen reader capabilities with Lens in Maps
- Get around more easily with accessible walking routes in Google Maps
- See wheelchair-accessible information in more places
- Customize your Assistant Routines with more options
- Search faster in the Chrome address bar
- A more accessible camera for your Pixel
Why we care. Adding these labels and attributes to your business listing may drive more attention and more foot traffic into your store.
The post Google Business Profiles adds disabled-owned attribute to listings appeared first on Search Engine Land.
Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing
Monday, October 16th, 2023
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The post 10 reasons to join us at SMX online this November appeared first on Search Engine Land.
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Monday, October 16th, 2023
Unassigned traffic in Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is a common headache for digital marketers.
It’s like trying to solve a puzzle with missing pieces: your data is incomplete, making it hard to measure the success of your marketing efforts.
This article covers the common causes of unassigned traffic in GA4 and tips to ensure your campaigns are accurately tracked and optimized.
What is unassigned traffic?
Unassigned traffic refers to web traffic that isn’t categorized under any of the traffic sources or mediums provided by Google Analytics 4 (GA4).
Often, this arises when we use UTMs that reference traffic sources or mediums that GA4 doesn’t recognize. In such cases, Google labels this as Unassigned.
While this is a frequent reason, there can be other factors causing this classification.
How does GA4 classify user acquisition and traffic?
The traffic source dimensions provide information about where the website or app traffic comes from. GA4 provides different dimensions to analyze it. Among the most used include:
Default channel groups
Source
- Identifies the origin of your traffic, like from a search engine such as Google, or another website.
Medium
- Indicates through which method you acquired the website traffic, i.e., via organic, CPC, etc.
First user source / medium
- Given at the user level, this indicates the source or medium responsible for the user’s initial session.
Session source / medium
- Assigned at the session level, this represents what originated the session.
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What are the causes and how to prevent unassigned traffic in GA4?
Manual tagging based on source and medium
One of the main causes of unassigned traffic is the manual tagging of UTMs that do not follow Google’s recommendations.
UTM parameters enable you to manually tag URLs for emails, ads, and more. They can be easily added using Google’s Campaign URL Builder, providing insights into the origin of visits.
The essential and most recommended tagging fields are:
- Source and medium, which will allow you to identify where the campaigns come from.
- Campaign name, which allows you to assign a name to the campaign so you can analyze its results through the campaign dimension.
Below are common channels for manual traffic:
If you don’t tag these fields per Google’s recommendations, GA4 will not be able to group them into its predefined categories, so the traffic will be labeled as Unassigned.
For instance, if we want to manually tag a newsletter URL, we will have to fill in the UTMs parameter fields using Google’s predefined ones:
https://www.tiodenadal.online/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=october_2023
*Newsletter is optional. If you choose to put this source, it is always recommended to stick with it. If not, we can set the name of the ESP used or look for how the source is tagged.
When tracking links from another website, verify your source and medium tracking, then create a UTM with a campaign ID:
https://orvitdigital.com/?utm_source=searchengineland.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=Post_Unassigned_Traffic
https://orvitdigital.com/?utm_source=searchengineland.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=Post_Unassigned_Traffic
For platforms like social networks or marketplaces, Google has a list of sources and categories to ensure accurate tagging and prevent unassigned traffic.
Other ways to prevent unassigned traffic
Since Universal Analytics ceased processing data beginning July 2023, GA4 has become the primary analytics tool from Google.
This means the tool may still have bugs, discoveries and improvements. As of today, some other actions we can do to prevent unassigned traffic include:
Reporting identity
Google Analytics 4 uses methods like User ID, Google signals, Device ID, and Modeling for tracking user data across platforms. Selecting the right method can help prevent unassigned traffic. Device-based is the recommended one nowadays.
Event configuration
Unassigned traffic can also stem from incorrectly configured events. Ensure your Google Tag Manager settings are spot-on. Events and parameters must also be tagged following Google’s guidelines.
Other causes of unassigned traffic include:
- Events sent through regular tracking without session_start (h/t Antoine Eripre).
- Incorrect session tracking due to short user visits, ad blockers, or connection and data collection errors.
Ad blockers and other devices
Devices or ad blockers that hinder Google’s data capturing can also cause misclassifications of traffic, Himani Kankaria has found.
Simon Vreeman noted mobile apps as a potential source of channel assignment issues.
Use of audience triggers
As Himanshu Sharma highlighted the use of audience triggers in GA4 can greatly increase the volume of unassigned traffic.
If the event generated by the audience trigger isn’t tied to an existing session, perhaps because the session has ended or the criteria are met outside of the user’s current session, the source/medium might default to (not set) / (not set), which then appears as Unassigned in some GA4 reports.
Managing unassigned traffic in GA4
Addressing unassigned traffic in GA4 requires a combination of best practices, accurate tracking, and awareness of potential causes.
Implement these tips to ensure your campaigns are accurately tracked and optimized, providing a more comprehensive view of your marketing performance.
The post How to fix unassigned traffic in GA4 appeared first on Search Engine Land.
Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing
Monday, October 16th, 2023
Google has added new markup and structured data support for new vehicle listings, designed to help car dealerships get more exposure for their listings. “Vehicle listings on Google allows car dealerships to show their for-sale inventory on Google Search and other Google surfaces,” Google announced.
This comes with new reports and debugging tools within Google Search Console.
Vehicle listing structured data. Google’s structured data help documentation added a new section for vehicle listing (car) structured data. Google provides two ways for dealerships to add their inventory. One is through structured data markup on their websites, which is the main focus of this document, and the other is through feed files uploaded to the vehicle listings partner portal.
Google said the vehicle listing rich result is currently only available in English in the US and US territories for both mobile and desktop interfaces.
You can follow the technical guidelines over here to learn more.
New Search Console report. Google also launched a new rich result report in Search Console to monitor markup issues. This report will show valid and invalid items for pages with structured data for your vehicle listing markup.
Rich results test updated. Google also updated its Rich Results Test to support vehicle listing structured data. You can post your URL of a page or a code snippet to the tool. Using the tool, you can confirm whether or not your markup is valid instantly without waiting for Rich result reports to be updated, Google added.
Why we care. If you have a dealership or you have clients that are dealerships and want more ways to get visibility in Google Search, you now have new markup and structured data you can use to get more eye-balls on your cars.
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Monday, October 16th, 2023
YouTube today introduced Spotlight Moments – a new advertising package that will serve your brand’s videos next to “the most relevant and engaging content associated with the moment.”
How it works. Using, AI, YouTube can identify popular videos around cultural moments. For example, with Halloween coming up, Spotlight Moments:
- Lets advertiser serve ads across Halloween-related content on YouTube.
- Curates YouTube videos into dynamically updated playlists on a sponsored hub.
YouTube Culture Hub. All the videos will live on the sponsored YouTube Culture Hub. This hub will include the advertiser’s logo. Here’s what that looks like:
Why we care. YouTube’s new advertising offering has the potential to give your brand visibility during key cultural moments and help you reach your target audience. The big question to be determined is what kind of ROI your brand with this ad format.
The full announcement. New ways to show up where the world watches, powered by AI
The post YouTube Spotlight Moments lets brands align ads with cultural moments appeared first on Search Engine Land.
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Saturday, October 14th, 2023
Google has fixed the Google Ads issue with serving and spending that started on Wednesday morning and lasted almost three days.
Google posted an update at 5:28 pm ET today saying, “The problem with Google Ads has been resolved. We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience and continued support.”
The issue started on October 11th at 12:59 am ET.
What has Google said? A Google spokesperson said in a statement:
- “We are aware of an issue affecting serving/spending for campaigns running on Google Ads.”
- “This is an acknowledgement note to assure you that the issue is being actively investigated.”
Why we care. You may want to check your Google Ads account to see if there are any anomalies with your account and speak to Google with any necessary refunds or adjustments.
The post Google Ads serving/spending issue resolved after almost 3 days appeared first on Search Engine Land.
Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing
