Sarah Bird, the CEO of Moz, said that it is “time for me to move on and make space for new voices, new leaders,” on the company blog. After 14 yeas with the company, almost 8 of those years as the CEO of Moz, and the previous years as Moz’s President and COO, she is leaving the company.
Sarah Bird took over as the CEO in January 2014, after Rand Fishkin, the co-founder, stepped down from that role. Rand Fishkin explained that Sarah Bird was the President and COO of the company and was taking over as the CEO then. She has been with the company for 6 years and has been acting in many ways as the company’s CEO, prior to her taking on that role. In 2017, Rand Fishkin left day-to-day operations of the company.
Moz has been through many ups and downs over the years but most recently in June of this year, just about five months ago, Moz was acquired by iContact. While Sarah Bird did not specifically say much about the reason she is leaving outside of saying “I’m going to take the winter off to reflect, rest, and cherish my loved ones. I don’t know what the future holds for me, but I know it will be a grand adventure.” One can guess that she accomplished her goal of getting Moz acquired and is now moving on to a new role.
We wish Sarah Bird much luck with her next adventure and we wish Moz and its employees much success with its new leadership, which has yet to be disclosed.
Sarah Bird said “I feel good knowing that I’m leaving Moz, and all of you, in good hands.”
Why we care. Moz is one of the more reputable toolsets in the industry, we hope to see future leaders in the search community represent the company going forward.
For members of the search community at Moz, many of whom have been featured here or at SMX, we hope the future has exciting things in store for you at Moz.
Google Ads is introducing conversion goals, which group conversion actions into categories based on conversion type and can be used to optimize bidding at the account or campaign level, the company announced Monday. Alongside conversion goals, the company also announced a troubleshooting tool called Tag Assistant and explanations for Search campaigns.
Standard goals — Conversion actions added by the advertiser, which are then automatically grouped into conversion goals based on their conversion category type (e.g., “Purchases,” “Contacts” or “Submit lead forms”).
Account-default goals — The standard conversion goals (above) that you have designated as your account default. When you create a new campaign, all account-default goals in your account are selected for optimization by default.
Custom goals — Goals that advertisers can create and add any combination of primary (used for bidding) and secondary conversion (not used for bidding) actions.
“For example, let’s say you’re an online clothing retailer. Going forward, you can set a purchase as your account-default goal so that all of your campaigns can optimize for that outcome,” Google said in the announcement, “Within this purchase goal, you’ll also be able to define which specific conversion actions, such as ‘completed sale’, should be used for bidding.” Advertisers can decide which individual conversion actions are used for bidding optimization when the goal it belongs to is used for bidding.
Advertisers will begin seeing their conversion actions grouped by these new conversion goals when they create new campaigns over the coming weeks. Existing conversion, conversion optimization and bidding settings will not be changed.
Tag assistant. Your conversion actions play an important role in facilitating the aforementioned conversion goals. To that end, Google is also introducing Tag Assistant, a tool that can help you diagnose issues with your conversion actions, such as unverified conversion actions, inactive tags or no recent conversions.
The new Tag Assistant in Google Ads. Image: Google.
Additionally, the Tag Assistant shows which conversion actions are being properly measured in real time.
Explanations for Search campaigns. Google has also added explanations for Search campaigns. “With explanations, you can view the reason for any change in conversion value in a single click,” the company said.
An example of an explanation in Google Ads. Image: Google.
Explanations are currently available for search campaigns using manual CPC, enhanced CPC, enhanced CPC for value, target CPA, maximize conversions, maximize clicks bidding, maximize conversion value and target ROAS, as well as app campaigns using target CPA.
Why we care. Conversion goals may simplify conversion management and improve campaign performance by giving Google’s machine learning more data to work with.
The Tag Assistant can help advertisers troubleshoot unverified or inactive conversion actions, which can help them more accurately record conversions.
And, explanations may help advertisers learn why account performance has changed, in one place, without having to cross-reference reports. This may also be useful for identifying potential reasons behind those performance changes.
When Google released the real-time Penguin algorithm update, which some SEOs code-named 4.0, back in 2016, Google told us this version devalues or ignores most spammy links. For the most part, Google’s Penguin algorithm no longer penalized for bad links because it would aim to neutralize the spammy links and just not count them, as opposed to penalizing for them.
John Mueller, a Search Advocate at Google, said on Friday in a video question and answer session that Penguin does try to ignore the spammy links. However, in the cases where Google cannot because there is a “very strong pattern” of spammy links pointing to the site, Penguin may penalize and distrust the site as a whole and not act in the granular way it was designed for.
John Mueller said this at the 37:06 mark in this video he posted on Friday on the Google Search Central YouTube channel.
What was said. The question John was asked was “Is the Penguin penalty still relevant at all or less relevant spammy toxic backlinks are more or less ignored by the ranking algorithms these days.”
John responded, “I’d say it’s a mix of both.” He explained, “For the most part when we can recognize that something is problematic and any kind of a spammy link and we will try to ignore it.” “If our systems recognize that they can’t isolate and ignore these links across a website, if we see a very strong pattern there, then it can happen that our algorithms say well we really have kind of lost trust with this website and at the moment based on the bigger picture on the web, we kind of need to be more on almost a conservative side when it comes to understanding this website’s content and ranking it in the search results and then you can see kind of a drop in the visibility there.”
John is saying, that in some cases, Google’s Penguin link algorithm can demote the whole site based on the links and not just ignore the specific spammy links. But it seems like it has to be very high levels of spammy links.
“But for the most part like the web is pretty messy and we recognize that we have to ignore a lot of the links out there. So for the most part I think that’s fine. Usually, you would only see this kind of a drop if it’s really a strong and a clear pattern that’s associated with the website,” John added.
John came back on Twitter to clarify that “this is the case for many spam & low-quality signals” in the Google algorithms. He explained, “we’ll work to ignore the irrelevant effects, but if it’s hard to find anything useful that’s remaining, our algorithms can end up being skeptical with the site overall.” “Our spam algorithms are pretty nuanced and they do look at a number of factors,” he added.
Disavow links. So do we need to disavow links now, even when Google said we really don’t need to? The answer is no, you don’t need to disavow links. You can John Mueller said, “I’d either ignore it or use the disavow file (for the worse domains).”
The video. Here is the video embed where John said this:
SEO consultants chime in. I asked a few SEO consultants their opinion on what John said in this video and here is what they had to say:
Lily Ray, the Senior Director, SEO & Head of Organic Research of Amsive Digital told us, “John’s advice here shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to SEOs who have dealt with companies engaging in large scale link building initiatives using tactics that violate Google’s guidelines, only to encounter massive declines in ranking and traffic.” “Google doesn’t always send out a manual action when the sites run into trouble. But in many cases, sites can either struggle to rank or feel that they’ve received an algorithmic penalty without any formal notification. Often, when you take a look at their backlink profile and talk to the company about their SEO strategy, you might discover that most of the links are paid links, guest posts, footer links, exact match anchor text, etc. on websites no one has ever heard of. In these cases, I believe it’s important to reconcile Google’s trust issues with your site by disavowing the paid/offending links, as well as earning new, trustworthy links organically,” she added.
Glenn Gabe, SEO consultant at G-Squared Interactive told us, “Rolling out Penguin 4 was a great move by Google in 2016, since it devalued link spam versus penalizing it. But as John explained, if Google’s algorithms cannot find any useful links (which would be an extreme situation), and there is a strong and clear pattern of spammy links, then it can be skeptical with the site, and Google can lose trust with the site overall. As a result, the site can see a drop in search visibility. The problem is that many site owners believe they are being attacked via negative SEO (and that those link attacks are working — and it’s the reason they have seen drops over time). Google has explained in the past that negative SEO attacks don’t work and that its algorithms can just ignore the link spam (especially for sites with a normal mix of links). So for many of those sites fearing negative SEO attacks, the situation John covered in the latest Search Central Hangout would not really apply. In my opinion, if a site has an overwhelmingly spammy link profile (almost all of the links are unnatural and spammy), without any other quality links, then that obviously can be problematic. But for most sites that have a normal mix of links, what John is explaining should NOT be a problem. Unfortunately, I’m already hearing from site owners about this… when their sites definitely don’t fit into the situation John explained in the video.”
Dr. Marie Haynes, the CEO of MHC inc told us, “Google’s communication on what site owners need to know about Penguin has been frustrating. At a Pubcon conference in late 2016 Gary Illyes told us that it was indeed possible for Penguin to algorithmically cause harm saying, “If Penguin sees signs of manipulation, it can decide to discount ALL the links, which can be pretty bad for a site.” Our belief is that while this can happen, it is reserved for cases where there is an obvious history of links being built solely to manipulate PageRank on an astronomical scale. While we have seen improvements for some sites after filing a thorough disavow, even if no manual action is present, the only cases that we feel we can attribute improvements to disavow work are for sites with a history of years of very manipulative link building.”
Why we care. Ultimately, when it comes to link building, you should be careful. Don’t buy links, don’t look for cheap and easy ways to get links to your site. Make sure to review Google’s documented link schemes help document and stay far away from those methods.
When working on client sites that may have link issues, you need to decide if you really need to disavow links or not and then which links you should disavow. At the same time, Google is likely already ignoring most of the bad links, so you may not have to worry too much about it.
It may just be easier to avoid the practice of link building and build a website and content that other sites naturally want to link to without you asking them.
Google is introducing a new “Deals” feed in the Shopping tab along with additional Merchant Center features to support retailers running promotions, sales and price drops, the company announced Thursday. It is also expanding its integrations with Shopify and WooCommerce to enable merchants to showcase their deals across Google surfaces.
The new deals feed in Google Shopping. Image: Google.
The new “Deals” feed. All products with a deals badge are now automatically eligible to show in a new feed within the Shopping tab of the search results. This new feed is shown when a user searches for generic deal-related or shopping event-related queries, like “deals” or “black friday,” (shown above) or when “Deals” is selected from the drop-down menu in the Shopping tab (shown below).
The new deals feed can also be accessed via the drop-down menu in the Shopping tab.
New ways to track your deals in Merchant Center. Merchants can now see which of their products is eligible for a deals badge from the products tab in Google Merchant Center. Eligibility is based on promotions, sales prices and/or price drops.
The new “Shopping ads: Traffic for promotions, sale and price drop badges” dashboard in the Performance tab of Merchant Center. Image: Google.
In addition, a new dashboard (shown above) breaks out data on impressions, clicks and click-through rate for Shopping ads for products with a deals badge. The data can be segmented by promotion type, product, brand and category.
Deeper integration with Shopify and WooCommerce. Building on Shopify and WooCommerce integrations announced earlier this year, retailers on these platforms are now able to show their existing deals across Google surfaces (Search, the Shopping tab, Images and Lens).
And, starting next month, retailers that use Shopify’s Google channel app or WooCommerce’s Google Listings and Ads extension will be able to show their promotions in Search and the Shopping tab. Retailers can sync both existing and new promotions to their products listed on Google directly from their store dashboard.
Why we care. As we approach the peak of the holiday shopping season, retailers now have multiple places in Google where their deals can appear — the newly announced Deals feed, the “Deals related to your search” section of the Shopping tab and the deals carousel (which appears when users search for deals during major sales events). Retailers that are offering promotions, sales or price drops should keep their product feeds up to date to ensure they’re eligible for these organic opportunities to get in front of shoppers. To that end, being able to see which of your products are eligible for a deals badge can be very useful, and now Google is showing that information in the products tab of Merchant Center.
Breaking out the performance of Shopping ads based on products with a deals badge can help merchants understand the types of deals that are driving conversions and the product categories that perform the best when on-sale.
And, the proliferation of e-commerce integrations offered by Google (and also Bing) lowers the barrier to entry for discovery and promotion in search. This leveling of the playing field works in favor of smaller retailers that may not have the resources or technical savvy that it used to take to establish a presence on these platforms. For Google, this not only strengthens it as a shopping destination but also makes it a no-brainer for retailers since, unlike marketplaces such as Amazon or eBay, Google doesn’t take a cut of the sale.
Search Engine Land’s daily brief features daily insights, news, tips, and essential bits of wisdom for today’s search marketer. If you would like to read this before the rest of the internet does, sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox daily.
Good morning, Marketers, not gonna lie. My bet was on OASIS, but I suppose Meta is just as close.
If you’re a Ready Player One fan, you know The OASIS was a MMOSG (massively multiplayer online simulation game) where people go to escape reality and “live” online. It’s what I thought of when Facebook announced last week that it was planning on rebranding to highlight its role as a “metaverse.”
“The metaverse will feel like a hybrid of today’s online social experiences, sometimes expanded into three dimensions or projected into the physical world. It will let you share immersive experiences with other people even when you can’t be together — and do things together you couldn’t do in the physical world,” said the announcement. One of the recent indications we were headed this way was their introduction of Horizon Workrooms where you can meet in-person, online via your avatar.
How well people accept things like Horizon Workrooms and Meta’s new direction is still up for discussion, but, spoiler alert, Ready Player One ends with everyone deciding to leave The OASIS and go live their real lives in the real world.
Carolyn Lyden, Director of Search Content
Facebook is Meta
Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg announced Thursday that the tech company is renaming itself to “Meta” to encompass its expanding technology and role in what it calls, “the metaverse.” The company owns multiple technologies and apps including WhatsApp, Instagram, and Oculus VR. In July, Zuckerberg told The Verge that over the next several years, Facebook would “effectively transition from people seeing us as primarily being a social media company to being a metaverse company.”
Why we care. The rebrand comes right as whistleblower revelations have Facebook under fire for its practices, morals, and social impact. It also begs the question if the metaverse will become a new frontier for advertising (especially as the Oculus has been testing ads in VR). But also, as marketers, we can’t look away from a branding fail and “Meta” just feels like one.
YouTube ads are the breakout star of Google’s Q3 earnings report
Another quarter’s earnings report shows that Google is among the winners when it comes to the shifting pandemic landscape. Revenues for Google’s parent company, Alphabet, went up a whopping 41% YoY according to the report, with ad revenues driving $51.3 out of the $65.1 billion. Google attributed the continued increases to its big push for commerce in Q3 (and before) in the earnings call. Along with the investment in commerce, Google is offering even more options for advertisers who are seeing a return to in-person shopping, especially as the holiday season nears.
YouTube is the breakout star. “YouTube advertising revenues reached $7.2bn, an increase of 43% from the previous quarter thanks to both direct response and brand advertising,” reported John Glenday for The Drum. This is the result of YouTube’s CTV (connected TV) advertising increases and its competitive product Shorts, which competes with the likes of TikTok and Snap. This increase is a big deal since Apple’s App Tracking Transparency had the potential to affect YouTube similarly to other video social media apps.
Why we care. “Google chief business officer Philipp Schindler explained on the call that while shoppers are returning to physical stores, the company’s also seeing ‘strong growth in local shopping queries’ at the same time,” said Sean Hollister for The Verge. Advertisers can expect to see the continued shift in local and omnichannel search marketing strategies, so if you’re not preparing yet, it’s something to consider for your 2022 strategy.
Google reduces the unique product identifiers enforcement on free product listings
In September, Google said if a product listing was missing required attributes such as GTIN [gtin], MPN [mpn], and brand [brand], the product was immediately disapproved and no longer shown in free listings. Now, starting in November 2021, “with the introduction of limited performance enforcements, products that are missing such attributes will remain eligible to serve but their performance may be limited,” the company said.
Why we care. If you are taking advantage of the free Google Merchant Center and you are not using UPIs on your products in those feeds, you previously may have seen those products being rejected and disapproved. Now, instead, those product listings will likely continue to be served but their performance in Google Search may be limited.
Businesses and individuals get Instagram Stories link sticker just in time for holiday shopping season
Source: Instagram blog
“Instagram’s link stickers, which let you include hyperlinks in Stories in the form of stickers, will now be available to everyone on the platform, the Facebook-owned social media network has announced,” wrote Jon Porter for The Verge. Instagram began testing the sticker option as a replacement to the “Swipe Up” linking in Instagram Stories around August. Plus, the features were only available to verified accounts or those that met a 10,000 follower threshold.
Why we care. Instagram users have long been lobbying for this functionality as the platform says it supports small businesses, but previously did not allow them to link their products, stores, and services through Stories. The feature is now available to everyone just in time for the holiday shopping season. If your business has a decent following on Instagram, make sure to incorporate it as part of your social strategy to help move those loyal communities down the funnel toward a purchase.
PPC Shorts: Feedback, video campaigns, luxury shopping trends, and Zapier integrations
Microsoft previews new first-party feedback system. You can submit new feedback, vote and comment on existing feedback, and track responses from the Microsoft engineering teams.
Google Ads Video reach campaigns are now available globally.Video reach campaigns give you the option to use automation to serve the best combination of skippable and bumper ads to maximize your reach and efficiency.
Holiday online shopping trends for luxury goods.Research shows that 78% of luxury shoppers on Microsoft Advertising properties use their mobile phone as a second screen device when watching TV – so search is at their fingertips
Link your Zapier account in the Google Ads UI. Google Ads announced an integration with Zapier, an automation solution, that helps you work with your first-party data across tools like lead form extensions, offline conversion imports, and Customer Match.
What We’re Reading: The secret to people management? Less managing, more peopling
Oftentimes when we’re good at our jobs, the next level up in promotion is “manager.” You go from doing the tasks to managing others who are doing the tasks. And while some people excel in these roles, for others, people management takes intentional work. In this piece for Atlassian, Pranav Shahi gives 10 strategies for becoming a successful people manager:
Teams work well when you invite them to shape a decision, not when you make a decision for them.
Hold others accountable.
Prioritize people over tasks aka listen to hear not to respond.
Help your team understand why any project didn’t make it to production.
Say no when you have to, but make sure to share the why behind the no.
Everything “I” is “we” now.
Being natural can help you be vulnerable, which is an important leadership trait.
Hire for what a candidate can become.
People are going to quit. Accept it early.
Embrace failure. It’s a learning opportunity.
“To scale and become a high performing team, you not only need caring and sharing, you need daring. And all dares come with a huge chance of failure. Get comfortable with that,” recommends Shahi.
Google has removed 12 documented structured data fields from its help documents citing these were removed because they are “unused by Google Search and Rich Result Test doesn’t flag warnings for them.”
What was removed. Google removed 12 different structured data fields from within HowTo, QApage and SpecialAnnouncements rich results types. These include:
QAPage: mainEntity.suggestedAnswer.author, mainEntity.dateCreated, mainEntity.suggestedAnswer.dateCreated, mainEntity.acceptedAnswer.author, mainEntity.acceptedAnswer.dateCreated, and mainEntity.author fields.
SpecialAnnouncement: provider, audience, serviceType, address, and category fields.
Google removed these 12 fields from the help documents to more accurately describe what Google Search and the Rich Results Test support.
Remove the code? Should you remove the code and fields from your structured data and code on your web pages? No, you do not have to. Google simply will not support them, but it doesn’t hurt you to keep the fields populated on your pages. Google simply won’t use them for Google Search.
Why we care. If you are using these fields, just be aware that these have been officially removed from Google’s Search help documentation. They do not work for rich results in Google Search and the testing tool won’t notify you if there are errors or warning with these field types.
Again, you do not need to remove the fields from your structured data, but Google will simply ignore them.
Instagram has made the link sticker available to all users this week. The feature lets you link out to third-party sites, stories, products, and more via the Stories option in the app.
Source: Instagram blog
Previously only available to select accounts. Instagram began testing the sticker option as a replacement to “Swipe Up” linking in Instagram Stories around August. Plus, the features were only available to verified accounts or those that met a 10,000 follower threshold. Facebook, Instagram’s parent company, has been emphasizing how the platform is crucial for small, local, and retail businesses — especially as a rallying cry against Apple’s App Tracking Transparency initiative.
However, the social media managers for these types of businesses have always advocated that making the Swipe Up link option, and now the sticker link option, available to everyone and not just select users, would be one of the best ways to support SMBs and commerce businesses.
the fact that you need 10k followers on instagram to get the swipe up feature on your stories really sucks for us small business owners
The Stories link feature opening up to everyone is a huge opportunity for SMBs, retail, social justice orgs, and more. Instagram says that those misusing the Stories link feature to share misinformation or harmful websites will lose access.
How to start using link stickers. To add a link sticker to your Stories:
Capture or upload content to your story
Select the sticker tool from the top navigation bar
Tap the “Link” sticker to add your desired link and tap “Done”
Place the sticker on your story — like our other stickers — and tap on the sticker to see color variations
“We’re also working on ways to customize the sticker so it’s clear what someone will see when they tap your link,” according to the announcement.
Why we care. Instagram users have long been lobbying for this functionality as the platform says it supports small businesses, but previously did not allow them to link their products, stores, and services through Stories. The feature is now available to everyone just in time for the holiday shopping season. If your business has a decent following on Instagram, make sure to incorporate it as part of your social strategy to help move those loyal communities down the funnel toward a purchase.
Search Engine Land’s daily brief features daily insights, news, tips, and essential bits of wisdom for today’s search marketer. If you would like to read this before the rest of the internet does, sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox daily.
Good morning, Marketers, what if Microsoft hadn’t fumbled so hard with smartphones?
Today is Bill Gates’ 66th birthday, and regardless of how you feel about him, his successes and failures have helped shape the environment that we market in. Bing is the default for Windows, making the search engine an important consideration for some B2B marketers or for brands with audiences that primarily use desktop devices. I also regularly see PPC experts praise the efficiency that Bing Advertising offers, although they acknowledge the tradeoff in search volume.
Returning to my question at the top, Gates once said that, “The greatest mistake ever is whatever mismanagement I engaged in that caused Microsoft not to be what Android is — that is the standard [non-Apple] phone platform. That was a natural thing for Microsoft to win.” Gmail, Google Maps and Search were among the top 20 free apps in Apple’s app store last year, even though iPhones are pre-loaded with Apple’s own mail and map applications (Google pays Apple to be its default search provider on iOS). If Microsoft had succeeded, Google’s ecosystem might not be the powerhouse it is today and perhaps search marketing would look less like a monopoly, or maybe just a different monopoly.
George Nguyen, Editor
Core Web Vitals: SEOs aren’t sold the work was worth it
Image: Google.
Since its announcement in May 2020, the page experience update generated much speculation among SEOs. This was because it made user experience more of a Google ranking factor than it had been before and because it was announced more than a year ahead of its rollout. Before it went live, Google told us that “Page experience remains one of many factors our systems take into account. Given this, sites generally should not expect drastic changes.”
Now that the update has completely rolled out, SEOs are reflecting on how it actually played out for their brands. Although opinions vary, the general consensus seems to be that the page experience update didn’t result in major rankings fluctuations, but ROI isn’t just on the SERP — “Performance optimization may not be a silver bullet for rankings, but we don’t optimize just for that,” said Detlef Johnson, Search Engine Land’s SEO for developers expert. “[Core Web] Vitals, as determined by Google, are the tip of the spear that you can sharpen to cut through the network to load the experience faster, which can lead to more add-to-cart actions because it builds confidence and trust,” he added.
Priority Hints, a new, experimental feature to help site owners and Chrome browsers prioritize which resources to load first, can help you deliver a faster experience to your users. It can be used to boost the priority of the LCP image, causing LCP to happen sooner and thus improve the associated metric — in a test on Google Flights (shown above), Priority Hints improved LCP from 2.6 seconds to 1.9 seconds. Conversely, you can also lower the priority of above-the-fold content that may not be as important, like the second, third or fourth images in a carousel.
Google makes it easier to remove images of kids from the search results
Google is now letting anyone under the age of 18, or their parent or guardian, request the removal of their images from the Google Search results. The removal request can lead to the image no longer appearing in the Google Images tab or as thumbnails in any feature in Google Search, the company said.
Why we care. Sometimes teenagers and kids do rash things with their phones. Having these controls in place can help undo some of the harm. On a more professional level, this may give more tools for online reputation management firms to deal with some content removal within Google Search.
In 2022, retailers will lose half of sales on backordered items unless they compensate with experience, according to Forrester
Research company Forrester has released its 2022 consumer and customer experience predictions, highlighting pandemic-related issues and evolving consumer sentiment. Here are the most important predictions for search marketers:
Brands stand to lose 50% of their sales on backordered items unless they compensate with customer support. Brands that can stabilize their supply chains suggest in-house alternatives to products that are out of stock and proactively message customers about shortages and expected availability are in the best position to curb customer churn.
Customers will want some pandemic-era services to be part of the new normal. People may have become accustomed to services like remote health appointments, curbside pickup and senior shopping hours; removing them wholesale could be a mistake.
One-fifth of retail and consumer goods firms will compromise on customer experience. Over the last few years, consumer demands, like faster fulfillment, have resulted in poor conditions for workers at companies like Amazon. Now, nearly 40% of U.S. consumers say concerns about companies’ labor practices influence their purchasing decisions.
Company values will continue to be a differentiator. By July of this year, three-fifths of Fortune 500 companies had committed to climate action, up from 32% the year prior. “Brands that take a stand on more highly charged issues will cater to a small segment of hyper aware consumers with a personal connection to those values,” said Lai et al.
Why we care. These predictions align with what many businesses have been experiencing and how consumer sentiment has changed since the start of the pandemic. While most of the predictions aren’t directly related to SEO or PPC, they may affect reviews, ad campaigns and customer loyalty, which greatly influences strategy for search marketers.
The non-impact of URL length, iOS 14’s effect on ad revenue and morbid Squid Game memes
No, URL length doesn’t matter. “I’m currently only aware of one part of our systems where the URL length plays a role. That part is canonicalization,” Google’s John Mueller said in the latest #AskGooglebot video, adding, “If we find a shorter and cleaner URL, our systems tend to select that one. This does not affect ranking, it’s purely a matter of which URL is shown in Search.”
Google Ads and Microsoft Advertising earnings both up over 40%. Both Google and Microsoft released earnings statements on Tuesday. Year over year, Google Ads grew 43% (from $37,095B to $53,130B) and Microsoft Advertising’s business was up 40%. It seems that YouTube’s earnings weren’t impacted as dramatically as some might have expected by Apple’s app tracking transparency initiative.
Just for fun. The first two are funnier/more disturbing if you’ve seen Squid Game — tip of the hat to Suganthan Mohanadasan and Crystal Carter. And, here’s one I think SEOs that work for publishers will really be able to relate to, courtesy of Izzi Smith.
Google is changing the enforcement policy around unique product identifiers for Google Merchant Center from immediate disapproval to limited performance capabilities for free listings. “Products that are missing such attributes will remain eligible to serve but their performance may be limited,” the company said.
What are unique product identifiers (UPIs). Google said a unique product identifier, also known as UPIs, are considered products that include Global Trade Item Numbers (GTINs), Manufacturer Part Numbers (MPNs), and brand names in the product feed you submit to Google Merchant Center.
Previous enforcement. In September, Google said if a product listing was missing these required attributes, the product was immediately disapproved and no longer shown in free listings. Google said “in order to unify the enforcement of UPIs across programs, specifically the enforcement for multiple different products that use the same GTIN, we’re expanding this enforcement and applying it to products listed in free listings.” Google said then, “beginning September 15, 2021, the following enforcement will apply to products shown in free listings.”
New rules. Now, starting in November 2021, “with the introduction of limited performance enforcements, products that are missing such attributes will remain eligible to serve but their performance may be limited,” the company said.
Why we care. If you are taking advantage of the free Google Merchant Center and you are not using UPIs on your products in those feeds, you previously may have seen those products being rejected and disapproved. Now, instead, those product listings will likely continue to be served but their performance in Google Search may be limited.
Brands stand to lose 50% of their sales on backordered items unless they compensate with customer support, Forrester said in its Predictions 2022: Customer Experience report. The report also forecasted trends for pandemic era services as well as labor practices that may affect customer experience. The research company also published its 2022 consumer predictions as well, suggesting that brand values will continue to be a factor for customers.
Customer churn due to supply chain issues. Product availability is one of the most common reasons why U.S. consumers purchase from a retailer other than the one they originally planned on, according to Forrester. These unaddressed product shortages can lead to frustration, which negatively impacts customer loyalty. Brands that can stabilize their supply chains, suggest in-house alternatives to products that are out of stock and proactively message customers about shortages and expected availability are in the best position to curb customer churn, Forrester predicted.
Customers will want some pandemic-era services to be part of the new normal. Since the outset of the pandemic, companies have introduced new ways of doing business, like curbside pickup, senior shopping hours, easier and more flexible flight changes and virtual alternatives to traditionally in-person services or experiences. “Brands that successfully navigate the transition to the new normal will avoid a wholesale reversion and analyze current customer insights and research to evaluate which services to keep, adjust, or toss,“ Forrester said.
One-fifth of retail and consumer goods firms will compromise on customer experience. Typically, customer expectations only grow stronger, but those demands may be straining employees. The last year and a half or so has highlighted the human cost of these conveniences. Nearly 40% of U.S. consumers say concerns about companies’ labor practices influence their purchasing decisions, according to Forrester. The research company predicts that, next year, more businesses will consider their responsibility to their employees as they plan their customer experience and product offerings.
“Brands that take a stand on more highly charged issues will cater to a small segment of hyperaware consumers with a personal connection to those values,” said Lai et al.
Why we care. Predictions can be hit or miss, and Forrester’s are no different. However, these predictions align with what many businesses have been experiencing and how consumer sentiment has changed since the start of the pandemic. While most of the predictions aren’t directly related to SEO or PPC, they may affect reviews, ad campaigns and customer loyalty, which greatly influences strategy for search marketers.
Supply chain issues have become a major factor for retailers, which may affect inventory decisions as well as ad campaigns ahead of Cyber Week. It’s no surprise that more support and transparency might prevent customers from canceling orders or going to a competitor.
Approximately 60% of U.S. and UK consumers agreed that the pandemic changed the way they shop. Having had over a year to become accustomed to services and features that convenience them while maximizing safety, it may be a shock to find that some businesses are no longer offering those services now that the pandemic is more under control. This unpleasant surprise might be reflected in reviews or churn rates as customers seek out businesses that still cater to those needs.
Whether your brand’s values and ethics are a selling point for your particular audience should be considered before making those values part of your marketing. Consumers may resonate with this kind of messaging, which might boost loyalty, but they’ll ultimately hold you accountable for your values and living up to that is almost certain to take up resources that could have been allotted elsewhere.
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