Technology News and Industry Knowledge

Antisemitic memes appearing in Google Image search results caught the attention of search professionals last week — and broader media this week. Many are urging the company to make tangible moves towards removing such content. Google isn’t the only search engine surfacing these hateful memes — Search Engine Land’s Editor-in-Chief, Ginny Marvin, pointed out that they can also be found on Bing and DuckDuckGo . On its face, the issue may seem simple to resolve by just removing the offending content from the index; however, they and others say, it’s not that easy and opens the door to broader decisions on content moderation. The fact that Google has no definitive plans to remove the offensive images speaks to how search engines are designed to work.  Jesus Christ, @Google – are you kidding me?! pic.twitter.com/w0inOy9Zmu — Peter Shankman (@petershankman) September 25, 2020 How search engines have(n’t) responded In a statement to Search Engine Land, a Google spokesperson s...

Hiring from within will do little to quell concerns that Facebook is growing resistant to outside influence at a time when public opinion of its brand is low. source https://www.marketingdive.com/news/facebook-names-new-cmo-as-it-looks-to-meld-trust-building-with-tech-focus/586148/

In April 2020, Google opened up Google Shopping to free listings for all U.S. merchants, starting with the Google Shopping tab and then expanding to the main search results section. Google announced on Wednesday that it is expanding Google Shopping listings for free globally. The announcement. Google said “today we announced that we’re bringing free listings to the Shopping tab in countries across Europe, Asia, and Latin America. Just as we don’t charge sites to be part of the Google Search index, listings for participating retailers are eligible to appear in these results at no cost to them. Paid listings will continue to appear in ad slots and will operate in the same way as Shopping ads do today.” When? This is starting mid-October 2020, according to Google. How do you participate? Upload your product feeds to Google Merchant Center account and then be sure to opt-into the Surfaces on Google program. This will allow your products to show in relevant search results across ...

With "We Stan for Her," the wine company joins other brands in promoting self-acceptance and diversity in its content marketing. source https://www.marketingdive.com/news/barefoot-wine-toasts-beauty-experience-of-black-women-with-video-series/586137/

The shoemaker listened to loyal customers in March and responded with $40M worth of free shoes, a move that nurtured brand love and trust, an executive said during an Advertising Week panel. source https://www.marketingdive.com/news/how-crocs-stepped-up-during-the-pandemic-and-built-on-fans-trust/586119/

Brands and sports fans continue to seek ways to replicate the communal aspects of sporting events while encouraging social distancing. source https://www.marketingdive.com/news/dos-equis-commits-to-making-football-fans-saturdays-fun-again/586132/

The cookie brand parodies telecoms that promise to "supercharge your connectivity" while offering tips on how to enjoy time spent at home with loved ones. source https://www.marketingdive.com/news/oreo-celebrates-human-connections-made-during-lockdown-in-new-ad/586111/

Do you understand how important it is to rank well on the Google search engine results pages (SERPs)? These compelling stats prove why you have to rank high on the SERPs: •  Nineteen percent of online purchases start with Google searches. •&

The post 20200930 SEL Brief appeared first on Search Engine Land . Via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/1BDlNnc

Google’s Local Services Ads (LSAs) program is now rolling out in Europe. It will initially be available for 16 home services categories (not professional services) in 10 countries: Germany, UK, France, Austria, Belgium, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Switzerland and Spain. 16 home services verticals. The featured home services verticals include Appliance Repair, Carpet Cleaning, Electricians, Garage Door Installation and Repair, House Cleaning, Lawn Care, Movers, Pest Control, Plumbers, Roofers, Water Damage Restoration, Window Cleaning, Window Repair, Junk Removal and Tree Service. LSAs is a pay-per-lead program that started with the idea of offering a very simple ad product to small businesses that generated more tangible results. There’s essentially no merchant-provided ad creative; and fixed pricing made everything simple. However, last week Google introduced bidding for LSAs while preserving fixed pricing as an alternative option. In Europe, pricing will be auction-based. Would...

Posted by rjonesx. One of the most difficult decisions to make in any field is to consciously choose to miss a deadline. Over the last several months, a team of some of the brightest engineers, data scientists, project managers, editors, and marketers have worked towards a release date of the new Page Authority (PA) on September 30, 2020. The new model is exceptional in nearly every way to the current PA, but our last quality control measure revealed an anomaly that we could not ignore. As a result, we’ve made the tough decision to delay the launch of Page Authority 2.0 . So, let me take a moment to retrace our steps as to how we got here, where that leaves us, and how we intend to proceed. Seeing an old problem with fresh eyes Historically, Moz has used the same method over and over again to build a Page Authority model (as well as Domain Authority). This model's advantage was its simplicity, but it left much to be desired. Previous Page Authority models trained against SERP...

Marketers’ already low expectations that they could safely attend in-person events this year have bottomed out, according to our latest Events Participation Index, which isn’t surprising as the planet passed a grim milestone of 1 million deaths tied to COVID-19 this week.  But despite concerns over second and, in some cases, third waves of the virus beginning to show, many of the 350 professionals we surveyed are hopeful that they can travel and attend conferences, trade shows or more in the second half of 2021. As expected, sentiment about attending events in 2020 hit two out of 10, a new low since we started asking the question in May. Optimism ticked up to four out of 10 when asked how likely they would attend in-person events in the first half of 2021. Related: Register to attend MarTech But marketers gave the prospect of attending events in the second half of 2021 a six out of 10 chance, our survey found.  That growing optimism could be tied to the expectation tha...

With a limited-edition tallboy, the company joins a growing list of brands tapping into rappers' cool factor. source https://www.marketingdive.com/news/budweiser-teams-with-detroit-rapper-big-sean-to-rep-michigan/586057/

With an ad shot in the style of 1920s silent films and mobile activations, merging old and new media could help the car brand reach a wide audience. source https://www.marketingdive.com/news/acura-accelerates-into-ar-cinematic-ads-with-multichannel-push-for-tlx/586026/

The new look is designed to better reflect the brand's evolution and expanded product portfolio beyond its core jellies and jams. source https://www.marketingdive.com/news/jm-smucker-ditches-berries-for-more-stylized-identity/586058/

The company is shifting from a product-led approach to a customer-led one as it focuses on the intersection of consumer products and backend technology. source https://www.marketingdive.com/news/under-armours-digital-push-continues-through-slumped-financials/586068/

In part one of my interview with Drew Madore,  the CEO and founder of Synergist Digital Media, we spoke a lot about “black hat SEO.” Black Hat SEO is basically SEO that is not in accordance with Google’s guidelines. We spoke about how black hat SEO has changed over the years. Such as how the definition of black hat SEO has become wider and covers more and more SEO techniques that were maybe once considered acceptable tactics within Google’s webmaster guidelines . With that, we also talked about how one can use such techniques in a safe way (i.e. not use it on client sites) to test what works and see how you can leverage that in a more “white hat” SEO way. Here is the video: If you’re a search professional interested in appearing on Barry’s vlog, you can  fill out this form  on Search Engine Roundtable; he’s currently looking to do socially distant, outside interviews in the NY/NJ tri-state area. You can also subscribe to his YouTube channel by  clicking ...

Search engine optimization (SEO) has been around since the emergence of the internet and online search engines. It has become a hugely important tool in creating the online experience. The skill of mastering SEO has become one of the most marketable qualit

Posted by MiriamEllis   Image credit: DoSchu “No place like home for the holidays.” This will be the refrain for the majority of your customers as we reach 2020’s peak shopping season. I can’t think of another year in which it’s been more important for local businesses to plan and implement a seasonal marketing strategy extra early, to connect up with customers who will be traveling less and seeking ways to celebrate at home. Recently, it’s become trendy in multiple countries to try to capture the old Danish spirit of hygge , which the OED defines as: A quality of coziness and comfortable conviviality that engenders a feeling of contentment or well-being. While this sometimes-elusive state of being isn’t something you can buy direct from a store, and while some shoppers are still unfamiliar with hygge by name, many will be trying to create it at home this year. Denmark buys more candles than any other nation , and across Scandinavia, fondness for flowers, warming foods, cozy dri...

So long, 20% text limit in Facebook ad images Facebook Ads is officially removing its 20% text rule. The company’s rule that text not take up more than 20% of ad images is now a mere suggestion: “We’ve found that images with less than 20% text perform better. With this in mind, we recommend keeping your text short, clear and concise in order to get your message across effectively,” the help page now states.    Why we care. Facebook relaxed its 20% text limit several years ago, but still throttled ad impressions when images had a high proportion of text. Removing the limits altogether reflects how ads on the platform have changed. It seems quite quaint to think back on the days when ads with text were a jarring enough experience that Facebook would just disapprove them outright. Pinterest Story Pins debut Pinterest is hopping on the Story bandwagon with Story Pins , now in beta in the U.S. Pins can include videos, voiceovers, images and text overlays. Creators can ...

There is a common problem when auditing staging enterprise sites inside corporate networks.  If you work in-house, you first connect to the corporate network using a VPN client. Then, you need to run auditing tools to review the pages.  The only tools that work are the ones that you can run directly from your computer. For example, the ScreamingFrog spider, which is a downloadable program. However, many enterprise sites have millions of pages which makes crawling from your computer impractical due to time constraints or machine resources. Enterprise cloud-based crawlers like DeepCrawl, Ryte, Oncrawl, etc. are better suited for this type of work. But, they are not able to audit sites inside private networks. In addition to this, this leaves out many other valuable tools like the URL Inspection tools from Google and Bing that are critical to audit JavaScript-driven content. If you work agency-side, you have the extra complication that security and privacy compliance...

Context matters more than ever amid the surge in content consumption spurred by the pandemic. source https://www.marketingdive.com/news/nearly-half-of-consumers-will-try-new-brands-if-the-ad-is-relevant/585972/

The non-partisan spot will air before the first presidential debate and follows other brands with campaigns centered around voting rights. source https://www.marketingdive.com/news/absolut-promotes-voting-with-its-first-tv-ad-in-3-years/585950/

A federal judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration's order on new downloads, a reprieve that could help TikTok sustain growth at a key moment.  source https://www.marketingdive.com/news/tiktok-avoids-us-ban-on-new-downloads-in-last-minute-ruling/585953/

Microsoft Advertising announced Monday that it has partnered with Integral Ad Science (IAS) to provide brand safety verification for the native ads that run on the Microsoft Audience Network. The Microsoft Audience Network encompasses ad inventory on Microsoft-own and operated sites such as MSN, Outlook.com, and Microsoft Edge browser as well as partner properties. Advertisers can target ads using data from the Microsoft audience graph, which includes LinkedIn professional data. The IAS integration is built in, automatically applied across the network, and advertisers aren’t charged outright for it. How it works. It’s a pre-bid integration, meaning inventory is evaluated prior to the ad auction. In this case, IAS will scan, evaluate and rate pages across the Microsoft Audience Network for risk. Risk will be assigned across IAS’s standard set of content categories: Adult, Alcohol, Gambling, Hate Speech, Illegal Downloads, Illegal Drugs, Offensive Language and Controversial Content,...

There’s a ton of rhetoric online about how backlinks affect your ranking on the search engine results pages (SERPs). Backlinks appear in just about every article or study on ranking factors, so it’s safe to assume links matter and will continu

The post 20200928 SEL Brief appeared first on Search Engine Land . Via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/1BDlNnc

Posted by SamuelMangialavori Content, content, and more content! That’s what SEO is all about nowadays, right? Compared to when I started working in SEO (2014), today, content is consistently one of the most popular topics covered at digital marketing conferences, there are way more tools that focus on content analysis and optimization, and overall it seems to dominate most of SEO news. Don’t believe me? Here’s a nice Google Trends graph that may change your mind: Google Trends screenshot for “content marketing” as a topic, set for worldwide interest. But why is it that content is now dominating the SEO scene? How vital is content for your SEO strategy, actually? And most importantly: how can you be content with your site’s content? Puns aside, this post aims to help you figure out potential causes of your underperforming content and how to improve it. Why content is key in SEO in 2020 Content is one of the most important factors in SEO. Just by paying close attention to what G...