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Good morning, Marketers, “basic” does not mean things are easy or always obvious.

That nugget of wisdom comes from Google’s John Mueller. In a Twitter thread about freelance and agency SEOs asking “basic” questions, Mueller shared that he prefers people ask such questions “because many are afraid to ask and also need to know the answers. Better to ask (or at least listen) & learn than to assume a falsehood is true.”

Search professionals are quick to point out that the industry undergoes constant change. While most of the fundamentals stay the same, “basic” is a relative term and sometimes standard practices do change, like when Google confirmed that it hasn’t supported rel=prev/next for years.

There are also a lot of SEO myths out there — so many, in fact, that Google has produced an entire YouTube video series called SEO Mythbusting. Reiterating foundational knowledge can help dispel these urban legends. And, more basic questions may also mean that the industry is growing, which is always exciting.

George Nguyen,
Editor

Google takes stand against climate change deniers with new ads and monetization policy

Google will introduce a new policy for advertisers, AdSense publishers and YouTube creators that prohibits ads for, and monetization of, content that contradicts authoritative scientific consensus around the existence and causes of climate change. Google will use its automated systems as well as human reviewers to enforce the policy, which will take effect next month.

Why we care. Advertisers that deal with climate matters should be especially careful as this new policy takes effect. If your ads adhere to the policy but are still disapproved, you can appeal the policy decision directly from your Google Ads account. Publishers and YouTube creators that make climate change content should also be careful not to run afoul of this policy as it may make monetization impossible. For general publishers and YouTube creators that monetize their content, this change may increase brand safety as climate-change-denying ads will be less likely to show up alongside your content.

Read more here.

Google AdSense moves to a first-price auction model

Google will move AdSense from a second-price auction model to a first-price auction by the end of 2021, the company announced last week. In a second-price auction, the final price paid by the winner is determined by the second-highest bid. In a first-price auction, the final price is the same as the winning bid.

The transition to a first-price auction only affects AdSense for Content, AdSense for Video and AdSense for Games (not affect AdSense for Search or AdSense for Shopping). This change also aligns AdSense with Ad Manager and AdMob, botch of which already operate under a first-price auction model. There is no action for advertisers or publishers to take and these changes will occur automatically.

Why we care. As Google pointed out, making the winning bid the actual price advertisers pay may make it easier for some advertisers to plan their spending and enables them to use a single approach across AdSense, Ad Manager and AdMob.

However, a first-price auction means that the final price the winning advertiser pays will be higher than it was under a second-price model if advertisers bid the same amount. “When buyers lower their bids in the context of a first-price auction, the effective payments tend to be similar in both models, reflecting the value of the publisher’s ad space and audience,” a Google spokesperson said, “We announced our change to first-price auction in advance to give our advertising partners the opportunity to adjust their bidding strategy before the auction goes live.” Campaign managers should inform stakeholders of this change as it may affect their strategy and/or budget.

Read more here.

One feed, one world

Google Merchant Center allows one feed for all countries. Now, merchants can use a single feed to push all their products to Merchant Center, regardless of how many countries they support. This change may improve workflows as merchants can use just one feed per language for all countries.

Page-width featured snippets seen in the wild (again). Brodie Clark has (screen)captured another glimpse of a featured snippet test that some initially saw in August. He also maintains a chronology of SERP features he’s encountered, with a search box and links to images for many of them.

Online conferences are great, but… Yes, I also have a conference shirt that I sleep in. Perhaps vendors can just have them made in the button-up pajama style for the holidays.

What We’re Reading: Will making it easier to switch default search engines make a difference?

“We welcome the Commission’s goals with the Digital Markets Act (DMA) but the DMA fails to address the most acute barrier in search: Google’s hoarding of default positions,” DuckDuckGo, Qwant, Lilo and Ecosia wrote in an open letter to EU lawmakers, “Google would not have become the overall market gatekeeper they are today without years of locking up these defaults. If the DMA fails to address this fundamental issue, we believe the status quo will continue, leaving the root cause of this problem unchanged.”

Presented last year by the European Commission, the DMA is a set of regulations aimed at ensuring that big tech companies cannot abuse their position to stifle competition or take advantage of consumers.

Google’s niche competitors, like DuckDuckGo and Ecosia, have been calling the company out for years, but the tension really kicked up when Google introduced its search choice screen in August 2019 as part of its efforts to comply with a July 2018 antitrust ruling. Fourteen months later, I analyzed the impact of Google’s search choice screen on competition and there was virtually no effect on its market share, perhaps by design.

During my research, I spoke to numerous search engines and one told me that in Europe, Google had a lot of say in how it would comply with such regulations — a sentiment echoed by Natasha Lomas of TechCrunch, who wrote, “The European Commission has — for years — shied away from imposing specific remedies on Google, despite a string of antitrust enforcements. Instead EU lawmakers have typically said it is up to Google to figure out exactly how to comply with its various orders to cease infringements in areas like product search, search ad brokering and Android.”

Now, Google’s rivals want the company to make it easier to switch search providers: In addition to prompting users to designate a default search engine when they set up their Android device, they want a one-click switch that can be accessed at any time. They also want a similar option for Chrome on desktop devices as well. To Google’s credit, the company has dropped the search choice auction and displays options in a random order, so Google itself isn’t always at the top.

The question now is whether rethinking how defaults are implemented will make a substantive impact on search market share. Perhaps it’s justified from a “fairness” standpoint, but users have had decades to get used to the Google experience — maybe due to “locking up these defaults,” as the competitors said — so simply making it easier to switch search engines is unlikely to have the impact DuckDuckGo, Ecosia, Qwant and Lilo are hoping for.

The post Google’s new policy means it literally won’t pay to deny climate change; Monday’s daily brief appeared first on Search Engine Land.

Google will introduce a new policy for advertisers, AdSense publishers and YouTube creators that prohibit ads for, and monetization of, content that contradicts authoritative scientific consensus around the existence and causes of climate change, the company announced Thursday. Google will use its automated systems as well as human reviewers to enforce the policy, which will take effect next month.

Why Google is making this change. “In recent years, we’ve heard directly from a growing number of our advertising and publisher partners who have expressed concerns about ads that run alongside or promote inaccurate claims about climate change,” the company said, “Advertisers simply don’t want their ads to appear next to this content. And publishers and creators don’t want ads promoting these claims to appear on their pages or videos.”

What kind of content and ads are prohibited? The new policy prohibits ads for, and monetization of, the following: content that refers to climate change as a scam or a hoax, claims denying that long-term trends show the global climate is warming and claims denying that greenhouse gas emissions or human activity contribute to climate change.

Sorting out offending content and ads. “We’ll look carefully at the context in which claims are made, differentiating between content that states a false claim as fact, versus content that reports on or discusses that claim,” Google said in its announcement, “We will also continue to allow ads and monetization on other climate-related topics, including public debates on climate policy, the varying impacts of climate change, new research and more.”

Why we care. Advertisers that deal with climate matters should be especially careful as this new policy takes effect. If your ads adhere to the policy but are still disapproved, you can appeal the policy decision directly from your Google Ads account.

Publishers and YouTube content creators that make climate change content should also be careful not to run afoul of this policy as it may make monetization impossible.

For general publishers and YouTube creators that monetize their content, this change may increase brand safety as climate-change-denying ads will be less likely to show up alongside your content.

The post Google takes stand against climate change deniers with new ads and monetization policy appeared first on Search Engine Land.

Google will move AdSense from a second-price auction model to a first-price auction by the end of 2021, the company announced Thursday. There is no action for advertisers or publishers to take and these changes will occur automatically.

First-price vs. second-price auctions. In a second-price auction, the final price paid by the winner is determined by the second-highest bid. In a first-price auction, the final price is the same as the winning bid.

This will simplify things for advertisers, Google says. “On display ad selling platforms, a first-price auction simplifies the buying experience for advertisers because the final price reflects the winner’s bid,” Google said on its FAQ page about AdSense moving to a first-price auction.

Which AdSense products are affected. The transition to a first-price auction only affects AdSense for Content, AdSense for Video and AdSense for Games. It does not affect AdSense for Search or AdSense for Shopping.

Why we care. Transitioning to a first-price auction aligns AdSense with Ad Manager and AdMob, both of which are already operating under that model. Making the winning bid the actual price advertisers pay may make it easier for some advertisers to plan their spending.

However, a first-price auction means that the final price the winning advertiser pays will typically be higher than it was under a second-price model. Campaign managers should inform stakeholders of this change as it may affect their budget.

Google also said that publishers will likely not see a change in their earnings as a result of this transition: “Due to the dynamic auction environment, we cannot predict how specific AdSense publishers will be impacted. But, on average we expect the impact to AdSense publishers’ earnings overall from the move to a first-price auction to be neutral. When Ad Manager moved to a first-price auction, there was a neutral to slightly positive impact to publisher earnings on average,” the company said.

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“In a move away from last-click, data-driven attribution will soon be the default attribution model for all new Google Ads conversion actions,” tweeted Ads Liaison, Ginny Marvin on Monday morning. As Google works toward a move privacy-focused search experience for users, it’s also adjusting the available attribution models for advertisers.

“[Data-driven attribution] uses advanced machine learning to more accurately understand how each marketing touchpoint contributed to a conversion, all while respecting user privacy,” according to an announcement from Vidhya Srinivasan, VP/GM Buying, Analytics and Measurement, Google Ads.

How it works. “Data-driven attribution looks at all the interactions—including clicks and video engagements—on your Search (including Shopping), YouTube, and Display ads in Google Ads. By comparing the paths of customers who convert to the paths of customers who don’t, the model identifies patterns among those ad interactions that lead to conversions,” says the about page.

Benefits according to Google. In its “About data-driven attribution” page, Google lists potential benefits for advertisers:

• Learn which keywords, ads, ad groups, and campaigns play the biggest role in helping you reach your business goals.
• Optimize your bidding based on your specific account’s performance data.
• Choose the right attribution model for your business, without guesswork.

The default last-click model only counts the final interaction toward the attribution, so advertisers have the potential to miss out on contributing micro-conversions along the user journey. “Data-driven attribution provides advertisers and businesses with reporting that better reflects the full marketing journey and higher performing bidding, which adapts to customers’ real journeys to conversion,” a Google spokesperson told Search Engine Land.

Ad availability. The data-driven attribution model is now available for Search, Shopping, Display and YouTube ads. The announcement also adds that Google will be “adding support for more conversion types, including in-app and offline conversions. We’re also removing the data requirements for campaigns so that you can use data-driven attribution for every conversion action.”

Opting out. For advertisers that do not wish to participate in the data-driven attribution option from Google Ads, the five rule-based attribution models will still be available:

1. Last click: Gives all credit for the conversion to the last-clicked ad and corresponding keyword.
2. First click: Gives all credit for the conversion to the first-clicked ad and corresponding keyword.
3. Linear: Distributes the credit for the conversion equally across all ad interactions on the path.
4. Time decay: Gives more credit to ad interactions that happened closer in time to the conversion. Credit is distributed using a 7-day half-life. In other words, an ad interaction 8 days before a conversion gets half as much credit as an ad interaction 1 day before a conversion.
5. Position-based: Gives 40% of credit to both the first and last ad interactions and corresponding keywords, with the remaining 20% spread out across the other ad interactions on the path.

However, it seems it will be a manual switch as “Over the coming months, we’ll be migrating existing conversion actions to DDA for many advertisers,” added Marvin. “When you set up a new conv action it’ll default to DDA (instead of last-click). You can select a different model if preferred. For existing conv actions, many will be migrated to DDA, but with plenty of warning to opt out & stick with another model. You can still switch any time,” she added in a new tweet. DDA will also be available in Google Analytics 4.

Other features and updates. Along with the transition to DDA, Google Ads has announced “a number of privacy-centric measurement features and product updates – many of which will directly impact advertisers,” said a spokesperson. These features and updates include the following:

• Enhanced conversions: As a follow up on our announcement earlier this year, enhanced conversions are now available to all eligible advertisers. 
• Engaged-view conversions for display: A more robust non-click conversion measurement. Engaged-view conversions allow you to measure conversions that take place after someone views 10 seconds or more of your ad, but doesn’t click, and then converts within a set amount of days. 

Why we care. Attribution has long been an issue that marketers have faced. This conundrum is especially salient as FLoC threatens to take away even more data from search advertisers — leaving them cobbling together data on their own. Google Ad’s machine learning attribution model seems to be Google’s solution to this lack of data. “Privacy-centric, DDA trains on real conversion paths & uses machine learning to measure and model conversion credits across touchpoints, even when cookies are missing,” added Marvin.

This is a “pretty big shift,” tweeted Kirk Williams, Founder of ZATO Marketing and PPC expert. “Data-Driven Attribution (DDA) was previously only available to accounts who had enough conversions in recent history to build the models to run DDA accurately.” To Williams, this indicates two big changes for Google:

1. All accounts can now run DDA immediately (I assume this means Google has enough confidence in its algorithms and sampling now, even for smaller accounts).
2. Attribution by default on accounts appears to have changed from last-click to DDA.

Many advertisers have claimed that the lack of data and reliance on machine learning makes their jobs harder (how can we optimize when we don’t know exactly what is causing success or failure?). This is another case where they will have to just trust the information that Google Ads is giving them without seeing the inside of the process. However, if done well, it could help many advertisers better understand which campaigns and ads are contributing to overall success throughout the funnel.

We will add more information on the new attribution model as it comes in.

The post Google Ads announces machine learning-based data-driven attribution models in new privacy landscape appeared first on Search Engine Land.

A phrase match or broad match keyword that is identical to a query is now always preferred as long as it is eligible to match, Google announced on Thursday. In addition, the company has provided new details on how keyword matching works when a search is identical to a given keyword as well as when a search is not identical to any of an advertiser’s keywords. And, Google has also revealed that BERT’s language understanding capabilities are now being used to understand the intent of queries and match them to keywords.

BERT for keyword matching. “Since 2019, our research team has made significant improvements in how we interpret language, queries, and search intentㅡand your keywords now use this same technology to connect you with more people that are searching for what you have to offer,” Google said, referring to BERT, a neural network-based technique for natural language processing pre-training that Google uses to better discern the context of words in search queries.

While not necessarily specific to keyword matching, the improvements in language understanding that BERT enables helps Google understand the intent behind queries and match them to keywords.

BERT technology can be especially useful for broad match keywords. “For example, a highly specific query like ‘1995 5 speed transmission seal input shaft’ is now able to match with the broad match keyword auto parts because we can tell they’re related, even though none of the words in the query and in the keyword actually match,” the company provided as an example.

Searches that are identical to your keywords. When Google announced that it was expanding phrase match to include broad match modifier traffic earlier this year, it told advertisers that an exact match keyword that’s identical to a query will always take priority, so long as it’s eligible to match. Moving forward, broad match and phrase match keywords will follow that same behavior.

Here’s an example provided by Google: “Let’s say someone searches for ‘sushi delivery near me’, and you have the broad match keywords sushi delivery and sushi delivery near me. Before this update, both of these keywords would be eligible to serve. Now, the keyword sushi delivery near me is preferred because it is identical to the search term. Note that if you have an eligible exact match keyword that is identical to the query, it will still be preferred over the phrase and broad match keyword.”

Now that broad and phrase match keywords that are identical to a search term also receive priority, according to Google, there is no benefit to using the same keyword in multiple match types as broad match already covers the same queries. However, depending on your structure and setup, this may not apply so test before making any changes.

When a search isn’t identical to any of your keywords. Ad Rank used to determine which keyword was served when multiple keywords matched, but none were identical to the search. Now, in addition to Ad Rank, Google is taking relevance signals into account. Relevance is determined by assessing the meaning of the search term, the meaning of all the keywords in the ad group and the landing pages within the ad group. Here’s a breakdown of how various scenarios may play out:

To illustrate this in action, Google provided this example: “Let’s say someone now searches for “quick sushi delivery near me”, and you have the phrase match keyword “fast sushi delivery” and the broad match keyword food delivery. In this instance, the phrase match keyword will be selected because it’s more relevant, even if it has a lower Ad Rank than the broad match keyword.”

Why we care. The natural language processing capabilities BERT brings to keyword matching may mean that your ads get shown for more relevant searches. Knowing how Google matches keywords can help you save time and better configure your campaigns. However, the removal of search terms not deemed “significant” remains a problem for broad match. Google has added more historical data for queries that received impressions but no clicks, which can be helpful, but advertisers may be missing out on important search query data if broad match terms with less “significant” queries drive more traffic.

Google also recommended that advertisers group keywords into thematically consistent ad groups so their ads will serve from the ad group they expect them to: “Let’s say your business offers food delivery, and your most popular search categories are sushi and pizza delivery. In this case, we’d recommend three ad groups so you can tailor your creative and landing page: one for ‘sushi delivery’, another for ‘pizza delivery’, and a third for ‘food delivery’.”

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