Google has updated its reviews help document page in the Google Business Profile support area to say that Google values all reviews, not just positive. Now Google says it is “more trustworthy” to see a mix of both positive and negative reviews on the business profile.

What is new. Google has added a bullet point to the document that reads “Value all reviews: Reviews are useful for potential customers when they’re honest and objective. Customers find a mix of positive and negative reviews more trustworthy. You can always respond to a review to show the customers that you care and provide additional context. If the review doesn’t follow our posting guidelines, you can request to remove it.”

Here is a screenshot:

Ranking impact? This will probably not impact rankings in any way but it might be a sign that if a business has 99% all positive reviews, maybe – just maybe – Google will flag that business and manually audit the reviews of that business. It is simply not natural for all customers to only leave positive reviews on a business online.

Why we care. If you manage local businesses and some of your customers feel anxious about having negative reviews on their business listing, then show them this new update to the Google help document. Maybe that will alleviate some of the anxiety around getting negative reviews?

The post Google says it values all local reviews, both positive and negative appeared first on Search Engine Land.

Google Merchant Center is now automatically showing retailers when their products are eligible for badges, a Google spokesperson has confirmed to Search Engine Land. Available badges include, but are not limited to, the “sale price,” “price drop,” “amount off,” “percent off,” and “buy quantity, get percent off” badges.  

Tip of the hat to Kirk Williams, who first posted about this new feature.

Why we care

Badging isn’t new. However, the column showing which badge your products are appearing with is new and it can help merchants understand how potential customers are seeing their ads, without needing to manually figure it out for themselves. This can help retailers identify the types of promotions that are (or aren’t) working out for their business.

The latest shopping search news

• Google introduces new ‘Deals’ features for the Shopping tab and Merchant Center
• Google to enforce unique product identifiers on free merchant listings
• Microsoft Bing expands Shopping options for users, gives retailers more options to reach shoppers

The post Google Merchant Center now automatically displays badge eligibility for products appeared first on Search Engine Land.

“COVID itself has changed the way that people interact with businesses online,” said Amanda Jordan, director of local search at LOCOMOTIVE Agency, in her session at SMX Next, “which means that search engines, businesses and marketers had to pivot to meet those demands and needs.”

The events of 2020 have changed how local businesses operate as well as Google’s search results. And, while these shifts are designed to make search easier for consumers, many businesses have been caught unawares, losing visibility on Google.

Local marketers are at the forefront of these SERP updates, helping clients adapt to changes in features such as their Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business) and Google Maps. But, the differences in these updates are not lost on local marketing professionals.

“Google, as always, is changing the layout and testing new things, so that’s not surprising,” said Jordan. “The thing that I found most interesting were the changes to reviews and the knowledge panel.”

To help local SEOs navigate these developments, Jordan provided the following strategies.

Improve the quality of local reviews

“Google has grouped reviews together by topic,” said Jordan. “This is one of those updates that were mentioned in a timeline. You can see that there is a new badge for the new reviews.”

Google also seems to be reorganizing how it displays third-party reviews.

“Third-party reviews are going to continue to be important because those are being shown in the knowledge panel,” said Jordan. “They’re being shown in regular organic search results, so it’s important to know where you stand.”

Review topics, sources, relevancy, and recency each play a major role in how the local algorithm ranks them. Marketers should know where their clients stand in terms of each of these factors and help facilitate the creation of quality reviews.

Edit your knowledge panels using on- and off-site sources

Google is revamping its local knowledge panel in major ways. It seems to be shaping into “its own entity, which includes lots of third-party data,” says Jordan. This means more of your clients’ panel information could be coming from sources you have no access to.

“While these things may seem out of our control, sometimes we can influence what Google uses,” Jordan said.

Here are some areas Jordan recommends marketers check if their panels contain inaccurate data from sources across the web:

On-site sources

• Schema
• Site content
• Robot directives
• Google Business Profile completion

Off-site sources

• Industry sites
• Third-party reviews
• Google reviews

Make corrections to your data sources and test your knowledge panel appearances when possible. Even if the corrections seem small, Google can still find the new information if the changes are made in one of these key areas.

Prepare to adapt to mobile SERP changes

Business information isn’t the only thing changing in this local landscape; mobile SERP layouts are transforming as well. While marketers know this happens, SERPs have begun transforming them frequently — and not always for the better.

Jordan highlighted an instance in which one of her clients’ local panels lost some important information: “We had a client that had their site links not showing up only on mobile only if you search from their city; anywhere else in the world everything was fine.”

Local SERP issues like these can seem complicated to fix, but marketers can use insights from competitor analysis to determine the best course of action. In Jordan’s case, her team worked on updating their client’s local panel so that it would include each element the competitor used.

It should be noted that Google often experiments with local results, which could result in temporary changes to how they display in the SERPs.

Moving forward with local SEO

“Google is going to continue focusing on online reputation and customer sentiment,” Jordan said, pointing to what she believed marketers should expect from local SERPs going forward. Getting clients onboard with these areas of focus can help future-proof their campaigns in the long run.

These changes to local SERPs, coupled with the rise in features focused on purchasing products and booking appointments, will require marketers to become more adaptable. But if Google provides actionable data along the way, businesses can rest assured they’ll be ready for what comes next.

“I would hope that Google’s insights for businesses get even better so that trends and user experience and customer experience show up in your panel,” said Jordan, “So that you’d be able to look at that data and make changes in your business.”

Watch the full SMX Next presentation here (registration required).

The post How marketers can adapt to Google’s local SEO changes appeared first on Search Engine Land.

Beginning on March 1, 2022, Google AdSense’s Matched content widget will only show ads, the company announced Wednesday. To go along with the change, Google is also rebranding Matched content as “Multiplex ads.”

What’s changing. Launched in 2015 as a free recommendation service that enables sites to promote their own content, along with ads (which can be disabled), to visitors, the Matched content widget will continue to function that way until February 28, 2022.

“Due to decreasing usage of the content promotion service, and positive customer feedback and performance results from the ads-only Matched content ad format, we’ve decided to turn down the content promotion service and convert all existing Matched content units to only show ads,” Google said in the announcement, “This also applies to Matched content units that have the ‘Monetize with Ads’ option turned off.”

Fresh rebrand, new rules. To be eligible for Matched content, sites must contain a minimum number of unique pages and meet a traffic volume requirement. With the change and subsequent rebrand as Multiplex ads, these requirements will be lifted and the ad type will be available to all AdSense publishers.

After March 1, 2022, the Matched content page in the AdSense interface will be removed and the Matched content unit editor will be updated to show the new ads-only format.

Why we care. Sites that were using the Matched content widget to show users a mix of their own content and ads will, as of March 1, only be showing ads. This change will happen automatically, even if you have the “Monetize with Ads” option switched off.

If you don’t want the widget to only show ads, you should remove it before March 1.

The post Google AdSense’s Matched content widget will only show ads starting on March 1, 2022 appeared first on Search Engine Land.

As your organization continues to grow and expand, managing basic day-to-day processes can become increasingly complex. Fortunately, you can scale and streamline your business model with powerful mortgage CRM solutions from top providers.

With the right customer relationship management technology, you can enhance the borrower experience, track the performance of your loan officers, and maximize profitability. 

A robust platform will allow you to:

Automate Marketing Processes

Automated marketing solutions will save you time while also enhancing the effectiveness of your advertising efforts. Unify your entire organization with powerful, and custom-tailored content featuring your brand.

With automated marketing, you can present a cohesive brand image across your organization. Your brokers will be able to connect with leads and past clients at the touch of a button. This will allow each team to focus their energy on more important tasks.

Increase Business Volume

There is no better way to boost the productivity of your individual loan officers than by implementing organized workflows. 

For example, a CRM can perform basic tasks like sending out documents for signature when a specific event occurs. If a new VA loan comes in, you can set up your system to automatically send out relevant documents that will be necessary, saving processors time and ensuring that every detail is accounted for.

A mortgage CRM platform should offer premium sales tools, marketing automation, and other solutions that will help you increase business volume. These tools can make it easier to nurture existing client relationships while also building new partnerships with prospective borrowers.

Improve Customer Satisfaction

A lack of communication can have a negative impact on the customer experience. As your organization continues to grow, loan officers must be equipped with tools to keep buyers, processors, and real estate agents in the loop about the status of the loans they’re working on.

A powerful CRM platform makes it much easier to do just that. Your mortgage brokers can enjoy access to a multi-channel messaging system with branded content. They can communicate with other staff members and your valued customers via SMS, email, social media, and using in-app notifications.

For example, when an appraisal comes in, you can send out a custom-branded message automatically to the realtors on both sides of the table, informing them that the loan has moved forward. This can help agents to feel well-informed about where the deal stands.

With the right tools, your borrowers, real estate agents, and loan officers will be in sync from the moment an application is received to the time that the customer receives the coveted “clear to close.”

Develop Cohesive Brand Messaging

If you want to continue building your mortgage enterprise, you have to present cohesive brand messaging. Any content you deliver should convey your company’s core values and mission while also addressing borrowers who are at every stage of the mortgage process.

That is why a top solution should include branding and messaging control tools. These built-in functions allow you to set up compliant and consistent marketing content that aligns with your long-term goals.

Gain Total Control over Your Databases

Multi-location mortgage brokerages generate massive amounts of data. If your marketing and sales database is not properly managed, this abundance of information can cause leads to get lost in the shuffle. Over time, this will cause you to miss out on vital sales while damaging your reputation.

Top-quality software helps you avoid these dangers by giving you total control over your sales and marketing databases. You can assess loan officer performance — including the average time to close a transaction — manage client data and streamline the mortgage process from start to finish.

Schedule Your Free Demo Today

BNTouch’s solution has developed a reputation as one of the most innovative CRM platforms available today. But don’t just take our word for it. The best way to determine whether our technology is right for your mortgage enterprise is to try it for yourself.

At BNTouch, we are confident in the quality and performance of our flagship platform. With that in mind, we provide prospective clients with the opportunity to experience our solution firsthand. Contact us today to learn more or to book your no-obligation demo!

The post Streamline and Scale Your Mortgage Brokerage with a Powerful CRM appeared first on .

Microsoft Bing Page insights is now live in the Bing search results for the search results snippets, the company announced today. You will see a lightbulb icon on the right side of the search results that provides more details about the search result before you click on it.

Microsoft said that Page insights “provides a summarized insights from a page on your search results so you can find what you’re looking for faster.”

What it looks like. Here is a screenshot of this new feature, which you can see yourself for a search on [mars mission nasa] on Bing:

More on page insights. Page insights “helps you verify that the source is relevant to your needs, helps you get caught up to speed at a glance on top factoids you didn’t know about, and lets you jump straight to the relevant section of the page when you click ‘Read more’ for a specific question,” the company said. There is also a section to “explore more” to find more relevant search results.

Only desktop. Microsoft said this feature is only available on desktop search results because of the “screen size required to properly display the results.”

Months of testing. Microsoft Bing has been testing variations of this since June and the lightbulb variation since October.

Why we care. First, you might want to see if your site’s Bing snippet has this Page insight feature and if so, if the content and images within the Page insights box looks accurate and positive. So test it out for some of your more valuable keyword phrases.

Also, from a searcher feature, it is a fun little tool that we’ve seen variations from other search companies in various forms previously.

The post Microsoft Bing launched Page insights appeared first on Search Engine Land.

On November 17, 2021, Google began rolling out the November 2021 core update, this came about four and a half months after the July 2021 core update, which was a month or so after the June 2021 core update. So we had a total of three broad Google core updates in 2021.

We asked several data companies that track Google’s search results to send us impressions of this update. The results from this data showed that this rollout hit hard within the first 24 hours of the announcement and then slowed fast. Keep in mind, Google has not confirmed that this update is done rolling out yet. Most reports show that there are signs that the November 2021 update was more substantial than the July 2021 update.

The facts. Google began rolling out the November 2021 core update at around 11am on November 17, 2021. This update has not finished yet and is still rolling out as far as we know. We do however expect that the bulk of the impact of this update has been felt in the first day or so after this update, although there may be some residual affects that linger on for the next week or so. The timing of this November core update has a lot of us feeling a bit blind-sighted, as it was released right before the busiest time for most e-commerce sites.

The July 2021 core update started to roll out at around noon on July 1, 2021 and completed on July 12, 2021. The June 2021 core update, as we previously reported, started to roll out around 6:30pm ET on Wednesday, June 2nd. Like all core updates, this was a global update and was not specific to any region, language or category of web sites. It is a classic “broad core update” that Google releases every several months or so. The previous core update before the back-to-back June and July core update combo, was just shy of a six-month wait period, where the December 2020 core update took place on Dec. 3rd.

Other Google updates this year.  This year we had a number of confirmed updates from Google and many that were not confirmed by Google. In the most recent order, we had the July 2021 core update, Google MUM rolled out in June for COVID names and was lightly expanded for some features in September (but unrelated MUM is unrelated to core updates), then the June 28 spam update, the June 23rd spam update, the Google page experience update, the Google predator algorithm update, the June 2021 core update, the July 2021 core update, the July link spam update, and the November spam update then a few unconfirmed updates.

Previous core updates. The most recent previous core update was the July 2021 core update which was quick to roll out (kind of like this one) followed by the June 2021 core update and that update was slow to roll out but a big one. Then we had the  December 2020 core update ands the December update was very big, bigger than the May 2020 core update, and that update was also big and broad and took a couple of weeks to fully roll out. Before that was the January 2020 core update, we had some analysis on that update over here. The one prior to that was the September 2019 core update. That update felt weaker to many SEOs and webmasters, as many said it didn’t have as big of an impact as previous core updates. Google also released an update in November, but that one was specific to local rankings. You can read more about past Google updates over here.

Data providers on the November 2021 core update:

Semrush. Semrush data showed that the November 2021 core update hit hard and then slowed very quickly in terms of its volatility tracker, as screen captured below or you can view live at the the Semrush Sensor tool.

“This is similar to how the July update rolled out but the return to “normal” levels of fluctuations was even more dramatic here (i.e., less of a “slow down” period compared even to July),” Mordy Oberstein from Semrush told us.

The November update was “far more volatile” than what we saw back in July core update, the company told us. Specifically the November update was 12% more volatile than July core update on the desktop search results and 23% more volatile on mobile search results. So when digging into this update, make sure to check your mobile results, not just your desktop results.

Here is a chart plotting the different between the November and July 2021 core updates by sector:

You can see how the health sector saw 41% more volatility on both desktop & mobile in November 2021 core update than it did back in July 2021 core update. Often, the health sector is more impacted by core updates than some other sectors.

Even more so, 16% of the top 20 results were not listed in the Google Search results prior to the November update. Meaning, 16% of the ranking URLs between positions 1-20 ranked worse than position 20 prior to the update, Semrush said.

And here is a chart of the winners and losers from this November 2021 core update from Semrush:

RankRanger. The RankRanger team also analyzed the Google search results after this November core update rollout. They also found that this update rolled out pretty quickly, although it may not be done yet. Shay Harel from RankRanger said “this update shows similar levels of fluctuations to the July Core update.” But he said this is when you look at the the top three and top ten results. However, the top five results showed substantially higher fluctuations, Shay Harel told us. They also noticed that average changes over the top 20 positions the company saw slightly lower levels than the July core update update.

This chart below shows the changes based on top 3, top 5 and top 10 results:

Also, if you look at the health, finance, retail and travel niches, RankRanger is showing fairly even fluctuations, with the exception of the retail niche. It seems retail saw greater fluctuations in the top three and top five positions, the company told me.

Here is a chart that shows that:

SISTRIX. The folks at SISTRIX, another data provider that tracks the changes in the Google search results sent me their top 20 winners and losers for the November 2021 core update.

Here is a chart comparing some of the websites competing in the dictionary space, seems like these four really saw some big gains with this update:

seoClarity. Mitul Gandhi from seoClarity told us that there is a “large amount of fluctuation lasting a few days,” which he said is common with most Google core updates. The seoClarity team shared some of the biggest changes they saw across some big brands.

For example in the e-commerce niche, Wayfair and eBay stood out to seoClarity with the initial data from November 16th compared to November 18th analysis as having significant drops. But there was a bounce back shortly after for some reason with Wayfair and eBay. Here is a graph from seoClarity of Wayfair’s search visibility:

Walmart and HomeDepot have seen their keywords in top three positions in Google Search increase by 10% and 19% respectively, “boding well for their holiday season,” Mitul Gandhi said. Bed Bath and Beyond saw a 45% jump in their top three positions in Google Search. But those top retailers selling footwear saw a drop, specifically Zappos lost 23% of their top 3 rankings while DSW lost 25%.

In other areas outside of e-commerce, Booking.com saw the strongest improvements in rankings in the seoClairty data set. Between 11/16 and 11/21 they are ranking for around 18,000 more keywords in the top three positions in Google Search. Whereas Skyscanner was the notable decline in travel, losing 23% of their keywords in top 3 positions. SnagaJob.com seems to have lost 60% of their top 3 rankings while SimplyHired.com lost 19%. Car and Driver lost 11% of its keywords in top 3 positions. And Pinterest lost 13% of its top 3 rankings, while Etsy gained 19% in top 3 positions.

Mitul Gandhi from seoClarity told us “don’t panic! Initial fluctuations are not where many will end up as Wayfair and Ebay have shown.” Mitual Gandhi also shared some early data on Twitter this past Friday, but the data above is fresher from its data set.

More on the November 2021 core update

The SEO community. The November 2021 core update like I said above was felt fast and hard. Not just in terms of the ranking impact but the timing. I was able to cover the community reaction in one blog post on the Search Engine Roundtable. It includes some of the early chatter, ranking charts and social shares from some SEOs.

What to do if you are hit. Google has given advice on what to consider if you are negatively impacted by a core update in the past. There aren’t specific actions to take to recover, and in fact, a negative rankings impact may not signal anything is wrong with your pages. However, Google has offered a list of questions to consider if your site is hit by a core update. Google did say you can see a bit of a recovery between core updates but the biggest change you would see would be after another core update.

Why we care. It is often hard to isolate what you need to do to reverse any algorithmic hit your site may have seen. When it comes to Google core updates, it is even harder to do so. If this data and previous experience and advice has shown us is that these core updates are broad, wide and cover a lot of overall quality issues. The data above has reinforced this to be true. So if your site was hit by a core update, it is often recommended to step back from it all, take a wider view of your overall web site and see what you can do to improve the site overall.

We hope you, your company and your clients did well with this update.

The post Google’s November 2021 core update hit fast and hard; here is what the data providers saw appeared first on Search Engine Land.