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Good morning, Marketers, in one of our featured stories below, I covered how Google decides to rank different vertical search elements, such as the image carousel or news box, in the search results.

Gary Illyes explained about the process but also said that Google determines when to show images or videos or top stories boxes in the search results based on what it learns from searchers’ actions. So, if a lot of people click on image results from the main search results page, it is a sign that Google may want to show an image carousel box on that page.

This click data is not used for individual search results (i.e., to rank page A over page B or to rank image X over image Y). Google is using the click data to see if people are going from the web results, to the image or video results and if they do that a lot, Google may decide to show an image or video carousel box in the search results. Got the difference? 

Barry Schwartz,
Click analysis consultant

How Google ranks features like news, videos, features snippets

Gary Illyes from Google explained in a recent podcast how Google Search ranks its vertical search results, i.e., news, images, videos, etc, within the core search results. Why does Google show an image carousel for a specific query in the fourth position and why does Google show videos for another query in the top position? 

Google uses a number of methods for this but Gary Illyes explained that each index or feature bids, like you would in an auction, for each position. So a video carousel can bid based on the weights Google assigned it, to be in position three or position four and Google’s overall universal search system will figure out where to place it. Google also decides when to show a feature based on click data, which is super fascinating as well. This gets a bit technical, so we recommend you read more.

Read more here.

Display & Video 360 gets new frequency and reach metrics

Google is adding a dedicated data visualization in Display & Video 360 (DV360) to show reach gains for each campaign that spans across channels and has a frequency goal set at the campaign level, the company announced Thursday. In addition, DV360 will also calculate the added reach advertisers get for each Programmatic Guaranteed deal using DV360’s frequency management solution.

Why we care. Having access to real-time reach gains can help advertisers gauge their campaign performance and manage their programmatic campaigns across channels. This new data visualization may also enable advertisers to save time that might otherwise be spent experimenting to test the impact of their frequency management strategies across various media types. And, the added reach data for Programmatic Guaranteed deals can help advertisers understand how those deals add to the incremental reach they get for their frequency management efforts. 

Read more here.

Google no longer allows multiple instances of fact check markup per page

Google has updated its technical guidelines for Fact Check structured data, saying that a page must only have one ClaimReview element and that multiple fact checks per page is no longer allowed.

The revised guidelines now say “to be eligible for the single fact check rich result, a page must only have one ClaimReview element. If you add multiple ClaimReview elements per page, the page won’t be eligible for the single fact check rich result.” Previously, the guidelines said “a single page can host multiple ClaimReview elements, each for a separate claim.” But that is no longer the case, now you can only have one ClaimReview element per page, not more, to be eligible to show fact check rich results in Google Search.

Why we care. If your site does show fact check rich results in search and you are using multiple ClaimReview elements on a single page, you may want to remove all ClaimReview elements but one. Google’s guidelines now only allow one per page and thus your rich results for Fact Check may stop showing if you are marking up more than one per page.

Quality threshold, nofollow vs sponsored and Google Ads script beta

Google quality threshold. Gary Illyes of Google explains that if you are on the edge of Google’s quality threshold, you can see your pages pop in and out of the index and search results. You’ll probably want to improve your quality if you see that.

Nofollow vs rel sponsored. When Google announced the new link spam update this week, there was been a lot of confusion around using rel=nofollow vs rel=sponsored. You do not, I repeat, do not, need to switch your nofollows to rel=sponsored according to Google.

Localized site signals. If you have an English site and then a localized French language site, Google generally will give the French site its own signals, apart from the English site, said Gary Illyes.

Google Ads scripts beta experience. Google Ads launched a beta version of the new Google Ads scripts experience. To see it, open your script and switch on the new scripts experience (Beta) toggle above the code. More details over here.

We’ve curated our picks from across the web so you can retire your feed reader.

• Advances in TF-Ranking – Google AI Blog
• Author Scores for Recommendations at Google – Go Fish Digital
• Daily SEO Fix: Auditing for Technical SEO Problems with Moz Pro – Moz
• Quiet Week After The Google Link Spam Update But Maybe A Blip Happening Now – Search Engine Roundtable
• Update to Advertiser Identity Verification Policy (July 2021) – Google Advertising Policies Help

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Google is adding a dedicated data visualization in Display & Video 360 (DV360) to show reach gains for each campaign that spans across channels and has a frequency goal set at the campaign level, the company announced Thursday. In addition, DV360 will also calculate the added reach advertisers get for each Programmatic Guaranteed deal using DV360’s frequency management solution.

Why we care

Having access to real-time reach gains can help advertisers gauge their campaign performance and manage their programmatic campaigns across channels. This new data visualization may also enable advertisers to save time that might otherwise be spent experimenting to test the impact of their frequency management strategies across various media types.

And, the added reach data for Programmatic Guaranteed deals can help advertisers understand how those deals add to the incremental reach they get for their frequency management efforts. 

More on the announcement

• DV360 uses log data to compare the reach obtained by a cross-channel campaign against the reach that an advertiser would have obtained with separate campaigns, each with a single channel and its own frequency goal.
• The information in the data visualization can also be accessed at the advertiser or partner level by creating an offline report in the standard DV360 reporting.

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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, I need your help.

I’m hoping you’ll take three minutes to complete our Event Participation Index survey.

The team here at Third Door Media has been hard at work programming our third virtual learning journey of the year, SMX Convert, which will be on August 17. We’re also looking ahead to next year’s line-up of events and we need to know how you feel about in-person and virtual events. We publish the results so that all marketers who are wrestling with these decisions can have some data to work with. Please make your opinions heard by filling out our quick survey.

Keep on scrolling for the latest news. And for those who, like me, sometimes struggle with navigating the challenges that arrived with the pandemic and our transition away from it *knock on wood*, I’ve written a special section at the end of this newsletter that highlights the importance of mental health and provides a few tips that can help you take back some control over your life — hang in there, you’re tougher than this.

George Nguyen,
Editor

Instagram is disabling interest and activity-based targeting of underage users

Beginning in a few weeks, advertisers will only be able to target Instagram, Facebook and Messenger users under the age of 18 (or older in certain territories) based on their age, gender and location, Instagram announced Tuesday. As such, previously available targeting options, such as those based on interests or activity on other sites or apps, will become unavailable to advertisers. This policy change will roll out worldwide.

Why we care. If you’re managing Instagram, Facebook or Messenger ad campaigns that target minors based on their interests and activities across the web, then you’ll need to find an alternative way to reach them as you’ll be losing access to those targeting options in the coming weeks.

Read more here.

85% of users who did holiday research on Reddit made a purchase based on their research

We’re approaching the midpoint of summer, but for e-commerce marketers that means it’s time to look ahead to the upcoming holiday shopping season. Often overlooked in traditional campaigns, Reddit can be a tremendous resource for shoppers researching what to buy and 85% of users who did holiday research on the platform made a purchase based on what they found, according to the company’s recently launched holiday guide.

October is an opportune time to get in front of users exploring their potential purchases as the platform sees a 2.7x increase in daily shopping and gifting conversations during this month. Advertisers may also be able to take advantage of auction efficiency in October as well, since it’s just before the peak of shopping season. Additionally, 34% of Reddit users shop in-stores for last-minute gifts between December 1 and Christmas day, making it a good time to drive awareness for in-store sales.

Twitter’s Shop Module pilot adds a product carousel to profiles

Twitter has launched Shop Modules, a dedicated section at the top of profiles where brands can showcase their products, as a pilot, the company announced Wednesday. The Shop Module pilot is currently rolling out with a handful of brands in the U.S., and only people in the U.S. who use Twitter in English on iOS devices are currently able to see the module.

Why we care. If this feature receives a wider rollout, Shop Modules may help bridge the gap between audiences discussing a brand and discovering that brand’s products on Twitter. Additionally, the user bases of social media platforms vary by factors like age, gender and education level. This new feature may be especially useful for B2C or D2C brands whose target audiences are particularly active on Twitter.

Read more here.

Service areas in local business listings, Olympic athletes in AR and the marketing data diet

Google local business listings in Search displays service areas. It would appear as though Google is testing a new label for displaying local business service areas. When you click on a region in the “Areas served” section, all the areas the business supports are overlaid. A tip of the hat to Ben Fisher who first brought this to our attention.

Are marketers welcomed guests or party crashers? This week’s Marketoon takes us through the various stages of data intrusion at the hands of unsavvy data management.

Olympic athletes in 3D & AR in Google Search. Olympics fans can see some of the more well-known athletes in 3D via Google’s augmented reality technology. Check it out by going to Google.com on mobile or in the Google app and scrolling down to the “Athletes in 3D” section.

By now, burnout is a given…but it doesn’t have to be

“Thank goodness 2020 is behind us, the vaccine is here and I can pick up my life where I left off!” — that was my immediate reaction after my second vaccine dose. To my unfortunate surprise, shadows of that traumatic period continue to peak around the edges of my life. It seems I’m not the only one: four in ten U.S. adults have reported symptoms of anxiety or depressive disorder; that’s four times the rate reported from January to June 2019, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

“To muster the energy for reentry into non-pandemic life, people need more than a vaccine and a vacation; they need validation of their experience, a broader reckoning with how they lived before March 2020, and tools to dig out from more than a year of trauma,” Lucy McBride wrote for The Atlantic, in which she cites hustle culture, toxic stress and poor access to affordable healthcare as factors that conspired to make Americans among the least healthy populations in wealthy countries — and that’s before we even had a pandemic.

Many of us are already resuming parts of our pre-pandemic lifestyles, but that can also introduce new stressors, like returning to the office. To help cope, McBride offered the following advice: 

• Accept that there will be anxiety and that the accumulated stress may have physical manifestations. “Normalizing these attitudes can help remove the shame and self-stigma of feeling unwell,” she said.
• Being at the mercy of the pandemic can make you feel like you don’t have agency over your own life, so it may be necessary to take back control where you can. “Reassessing and simplifying our home life, work, and relationships can be a good place to start,” she recommended, “With limited space in our schedules and brains, we must populate our calendars with intention.”
• And, advocate for the recognition of burnout within your own company and community. This makes it easier for people to show compassion, which can also do wonders to reduce stress and anxiety.

Adopting these pointers has helped me rebound from quite a few bad days — even yesterday, as a matter of fact. “Evidence also shows that people who experience trauma and adverse childhood events, particularly those that are sustained, are at significantly higher risk for developing subsequent medical problems such as obesity, diabetes, and heart disease,” McBride wrote, so taking care of your mental wellbeing may also carry positive benefits for your long term physical health as well.

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Google has updated its technical guidelines for Fact Check structured data saying that a page must only have one ClaimReview element and that multiple fact checks per page is no longer allowed.

The revised guidelines. The revised guidelines now say “to be eligible for the single fact check rich result, a page must only have one ClaimReview element. If you add multiple ClaimReview elements per page, the page won’t be eligible for the single fact check rich result.”

Previously the guidelines said “a single page can host multiple ClaimReview elements, each for a separate claim.” But that is no longer the case, now you can only have one ClaimReview element per page, not more, to be eligible to show fact check rich result in Google Search.

Before screenshot. Here is a screenshot of the guidelines before this change was made:

After screenshot. Here is what the page looks like now:

Why we care. If your site does show fact check rich results in search and you are using multiple ClaimReview elements on a single page, you may want to remove all ClaimReview elements but one. Google’s guidelines now only allow one per page and thus your rich results for Fact Check may stop showing if you are showing more than one per page.

Make sure to review the guidelines for Fact Check rich results over here.

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Paid search is an efficient and cost-effective way to drive more high-intent customers to your business. If you get it right, you can drive high-value inbound calls. And once you get a potential customer to call, they convert at 10x the rate than they do online, so you might be sitting on a gold mine. But driving inbound calls with PPC is a bit different than clicks, and attribution and optimization can be tricky.

In this webinar, the paid search geniuses from Media Experts and conversation intelligence pros at Invoca will show you how to implement and execute these killer paid search tactics that will turn more high-intent searchers into inbound calls that accelerate your customer acquisition.

Register today for “Killer Paid Search Tactics That Every Marketer Needs to Know,“ presented by Invoca.

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Twitter has launched Shop Modules, a dedicated section at the top of profiles where brands can showcase their products, as a pilot, the company announced Wednesday. The Shop Module pilot is currently rolling out with a handful of brands in the U.S., and only people in the U.S. who use Twitter in English on iOS devices are currently able to see the module.

Why we care

Twitter hopes that Shop Modules will be “a feature that allows us to explore how shoppable profiles can create a pathway from talking about and discovering products on Twitter to actually purchasing them.” If the pilot is successful, Shop Modules may become widely available, providing brands with a new way to help audiences discover their products.

The user bases of social media platforms vary by factors like age, gender and education level. This new feature may be especially useful for B2C or D2C brands whose target audiences are particularly active on Twitter.   

More on the announcement

• The Shop Module is a carousel of products. Tapping on a product takes the user to the associated product detail page (in an in-app browser, so they aren’t leaving Twitter), where they can learn more and/or complete the purchase.
• The Shop Module pilot is currently not open for businesses to sign-up.
• “We’re creating deeper partnerships with businesses that reflect whom we’re building for with a new Merchant Advisory Board,” the company said in its announcement. The board will consist of “best-in-class examples of merchants on Twitter” and the company hopes to utilize this advisory board to address the needs of businesses of various sizes and across verticals in its own product innovation.

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Beginning on October 1, 2021, Google will include a 2% “Regulatory Operating Cost” surcharge to advertisers’ invoices for ads served in India and Italy, according to an email sent to Google advertisers on Tuesday. The surcharge applies to ads purchased through Google Ads and for YouTube placements purchased on a reservation basis.

Why we care

Google was already passing on digital service taxes to advertisers for ads served in Austria, Turkey, the UK, France and Spain. Beginning in October, it will be doing the same for ads served in India and Italy.

Advertisers should be aware that these fees are charged in addition to their account budgets. As such, the surcharges won’t be reflected in the cost per conversion metrics in their campaign reporting. Advertisers should take these factors into account when creating their budgets.

Additionally, as Greg Finn, partner at digital agency Cypress North, advised on Twitter when Google first announced that it was passing on this surcharge last year, applying the “People in or regularly in your targeted locations” setting can result in racking up more surcharges.

More on the news

• Google will add the surcharges to advertisers’ Google Ads costs at the end of each month, to be paid the next time they are charged. The surcharges are subject to any taxes, such as sales tax, VAT, GST or QST that apply in the advertiser’s jurisdiction.
• Google is not the only platform passing off its costs. Amazon has passed on similar fees to third-party sellers and Apple has also implemented a similar policy for developers.
• In March, Maryland became the first state in the U.S. to impose a tax on digital advertising.

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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, do you work for a business that cares about making its content accessible to all?

In our industry, we’re used to speaking of legislation in terms of antitrust or privacy, but for this newsletter intro, I’d like to shift our focus to another piece of landmark legislation: The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) — its 31st anniversary was yesterday. The ADA is directly responsible for the employment of so many people because it requires employers to provide reasonable accommodations, and we’re a more inclusive, stronger society for it.

In addition to brick-and-mortar facilities, ADA protection also extends to websites. Between 2018 and 2019, there were over 2,200 lawsuits filed in federal courts, and although some were aimed at notable brands like Dunkin’ Donuts,  Bank of America, Domino’s Pizza and Nike, the majority were directed at SMBs. Today is a fine day to ask yourself and your team, “Are our sites ADA compliant?”

If you’re unsure where to begin, Microsoft’s Christi Olson has summarized “10 principles of digital accessibility for modern marketers” to help you get started. Over the last few years, we’ve seen a lot of new factors, like page experience, affect the rankings, and while accessibility isn’t currently a ranking factor, never say “never.”

George Nguyen,
Editor

Google publishes timelines for Privacy Sandbox proposals

Google recently published a timeline reflecting the stages of development for various categories of Privacy Sandbox initiatives. The timeline provides search marketers with a general idea of when the initiatives should be ready for adoption. That can give marketers some indication as to whether the company will meet its new deadline (late 2023) to deprecate third-party cookies.

Transition period: Stage 1 (in which APIs for each use case are available for adoption) is currently forecasted to begin Q4 2022. Sometime after that, we should have a clearer picture of what advertising with Google looks like as third-party cookies are phased out.

Read more here.

Google fixing two search bugs; review snippets and soft 404 detection

Google has confirmed it is resolving two bugs, one related to review stars showing in the search results and another related to how Google processes soft 404 documents. The two issues seem to be unrelated.

Over the past couple of days, Google Search has, for the most part, stopped showing review snippets — the image above shows the same results screenshotted two days apart. And, Google recently changed how it detects soft 404 pages, which caused some to see spikes in soft 404 errors but not clearly seeing if those pages were in the Google index or not. Both of these issues can directly affect your traffic from Google Search, so when the company does fix them, it may lead to more traffic.

Read more here.

New business openings remained strong in Q2 across categories, according to Yelp

In Q2, new local businesses opened in record numbers and across numerous sectors, according to Yelp. In categories like home, local, professional and automotive services, new business openings were higher than they’ve been since 2017-2018. Business owners may feel more confident thanks to widespread vaccine rollout and pent-up consumer demand — a phenomenon I’ve seen referred to as “rage spending.”

The economy is rebuilding its momentum and people are rethinking their lifestyles in the wake of the pandemic. We’ve seen massive shifts in the labor force, with many workers using their newly found leverage to find better, higher-paying jobs. While I’d like to say that “the pandemic is gone for good,” my guidance in today’s introduction still applies: never say “never.”

Why we care. Daily new COVID cases in the U.S. have spiked again and we’re currently at about October 2020 levels. The silver lining is that we have access to several effective vaccines, which should help keep businesses staffed and operational, and we have experience. Platforms have built features that enable businesses to pivot and convey important information to customers, and many marketers have developed new protocols to help them communicate with their audiences. Let’s hope the health of the nation and the economy continue to improve, but let’s also make preparations in case the latter half of 2021 resembles 2020.

Are you Team Google or Team BackRub?

It’s news to me. I just learned that at one point, Sergey Brin and Larry Page called their search engine “BackRub,” because it analyzed backlinks. Just imagine: BackRub Maps, BackRub+, BRMail, BackRub Shopping… So, what’s got a better ring to it? Vote here.

Google Maps updates “dangerous” Ben Nevis route. “Mountaineering groups said the dotted line crossed ‘potentially fatal’ steep, rocky and pathless terrain, while a suggested walking route for a different mountain, An Teallach, would lead people over a cliff,” the BBC reported. I’ve followed Google Maps directions on trails before and it hasn’t always turned out great — I’m glad this is now on the company’s radar, but I wonder if they’ll be able to resolve this issue at scale.

A Facebook group for SEO memes. I LOL’d.

The EU gives Google two months to improve hotel and flight search result transparency

Yesterday, the European Commission told Google that it has two months to improve how it presents flight and hotel search results and explain how it ranks them. If it doesn’t meet the deadline, the company may face sanctions.

“The latest grievance centres on the prices on its services Google Flights and Google Hotels,” Foo Yun Chee wrote for Reuters, “The final prices for these should include fees or taxes that can be calculated in advance, while reference prices used to calculate promoted discounts should be clearly identifiable, the EU executive and national consumer watchdogs, led by the Dutch agency and the Belgian Directorate General for Economic Inspection, said in a joint statement.”

In the U.S., Google is already showing why it ranked a specific search result, so I imagine this won’t be a huge leap for the company to achieve. However, some of the EU’s regulatory tactics seem to have an end goal (like more transparency or increasing competition), but also leave a lot of wiggle room, which companies are sure to take advantage of — for example, the auction that initially powered the search choice screen, which Google ultimately had to drop due to pressure from regulators and competitors. If vague instructions are given, don’t be surprised when the result isn’t exactly what you were hoping for.

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