This Week’s Industry News
Compiled By Rocket Clicks Staff
Facebook Launch Of New “Paper” App
Yesterday Facebook launched a new app called Paper, which is a simplified, prettier version of Facebook. The new app is optimized for reading longer articles and watching videos similar to Flipboard. It is also customizable, giving users the ability to choose between categories such as “Tech” or “Headlines”. It is a smart decision for a company whose biggest problem may be brand fatigue, but its success among the public is yet to be determined.
Source: Slate.com
Google And EU Close To Reaching Settlement
Reuters is reporting that Google is close to reaching a settlement with the EU on a three-year antitrust probe. Google has been close to reaching a settlement twice before, so this time around is far from a guarantee. A decision is expected within the next couple of weeks.
Source: Search Engine Land
Google Unveils New Frame Designs For Google Glass
Four new frames and two new sunglass shades were recently unveiled by Google. This comes after numerous surveys showed that many people would be too embarrassed to wear Glass in public. The latest projection for a widespread consumer launch is late 2014.
Source: Marketing Land
Google Buys London-Based AI Company
Google has purchased DeepMind for $400 million. DeepMind’s mission is to harness the power of machine learning tools to improve our daily lives. Many speculate the purchase is part of Google’s continued plan to improve the Knowledge Graph.
Source: Search Engine Watch
Patent Deal Reached Between Samsung And Google
Some are hailing a new deal between Samsung and Google as a breakthrough. In a statement the two companies declare they have “furthered their long-term cooperative partnership with a global patent cross-license agreement covering a broad range of technologies.” The agreement resolves patent disputes through cross-licensing.
Source: Marketing Land
Israel Hopes To Impose Taxes On Google
A new bill reaching Israel’s parliament would asses a 7% tax on revenue generated from search engines. The goal behind the tax is to subsidize local content publishers and is not exclusive to any one particular company. Israel isn’t the first country to consider a tax like this and may not be the last.
Source: Search Engine Land
Google Has A New Search Trick
Google has a new feature in the OneBox when searching for the distance between locations. It’s called “As The Crow Flies” and it gives the distance between locations. If the distance is drivable, for example from Milwaukee to Miami, the OneBox will display the driving distance. But if you search for the distance from Milwaukee to Melbourne, you’ll find out that poor crow has to fly 9,763 miles.
Source: Search Engine Land
How Many ‘Blue Links’ Are There?
A new study analyzed 1.5 million keywords to determine how many blue links were on SERPs compared to multimedia and ads. 88% of the results contained organic search results. 34% of the time, those keywords contained results with images, news, or shopping results attached. Lastly, 55% of SERPs show nine or more ads per page.
Source: Search Engine Watch
Q4 2013: CPCs Up, Bing Down
This week, The Search Agency released its Quarterly State of Paid Search Report with Q4 performance data. Highlights include: paid search spend rose 37.4% year over year and CPCs have been on the rise for several quarters now, with the largest growth coming from mobile traffic. They also report clicks among Bing ads have dropped 20 percent year over year, which is contrary to what RKG reports.
Source: Search Engine Land
Latest Research On Mobile Paid Search
RKG’s Q4 2013 Digital Marketing Report reveals some great insights into mobile paid search performance. Among them, smartphones and tablets accounting for almost a third of paid search traffic. Tablets accounted for 71 percent of mobile search spend, with iPad holding the highest share of that tablet traffic.
Source: The RKG Blog
Google To Pay For Infringed Patents
Holding company Vringo used old patents to sue Google in December of 2012, winning 30 million in a jury trial. Recently, they got the payout they were originally seeking. Google is to pay out a 1.36% running royalty on US revenue from AdWords. The total value of the win is unclear, but could be up to 250 million annually.
Source: ArsTechnica
Bing Close To 50% Paid Search Adoption Rate
According to AdGooroo’s database of search advertising activity, over 1.5 million companies used paid search advertising in the US in December. The majority of the companies were using Google AdWords. Unexpectedly, over 45% of those can also now be found on Bing. Although that percentage might seem high, there is still relatively little overlap between Google and Bing, with just 156,000 advertisers on both engines. Looks like Bing has plenty of room for growth.
Source: The AdGooroo Blog
Another Link Network Bites The Dust
Matt Cutts announced that Google is taking action on a French link network called Buzzea. An unspecified German link network is next on Cutts’ list of link network violators. Rather than fighting Google on the issue, Buzzea has called it quits and posted an open letter on their site.
Source: Search Engine Land
Date Selector Now Available In Knowledge Graph Carousel
A date selector tool is the newest feature available in Google’s Knowledge Graph carousel. This feature will only display on relevant queries such as hotel-related searches. The price shown in the carousel will change based on the selected date range.
Source: Search Engine Land
Google Attempting To Improve OneBox Answers
OneBox, a form of Google’s Knowledge Graph, is attempting to answer more complex questions. In many instances the answers are more detailed as well. It’s far from being a perfect system, as there are multiple examples where the search results lower on the SERP provided better responses.
Source: Search Engine Land
Matt Cutts Warns Old Sites May Lose Current Rankings
Cutts has said that sites upwards of 15 years old will not maintain their rankings forever. Sites that have never been redesigned, old user interfaces, and those that have never added new features are the ones most at risk. Cutts believes all sites need upgrading, tweaking, and improved user experience to remain competitive. Those who fail to do so may be surpassed by new sites with better user experiences.
Source: Search Engine Land
Online Display Ad Spend Trend Up In 2013
Although online display advertising is the fastest growing advertising medium, growing more than 32% in the first three quarters of 2013, it still only holds 4.5% of overall advertising market share. TV advertising remains number one at 57.5%. This could start to change in 2014 with media companies reaching for a cut of TV ad dollars, such as Twitter and its Amplify program. Overall advertising grew 3.2% to hit $234.5 billion at the end of Q3 in 2013.
Source: Marketing Land
Notable Commentary
You Probably Won’t See During The Super Bowl
Twitter Advertising Guide
Need a refresher on how and why to advertise on Twitter? Lisa Raehsler has got you covered! In her recent post for Search Engine Watch she explains the ins and outs of Twitter advertising.
Analysis by: Lisa Raehsler, Search Engine Watch
The Ethics Of Remarketing
PPC Chat has posted a transcribed version of Matt Umbro’s live chat on the ethics of remarketing. Topics of conversation include user perspective of remarketing and aggressiveness of remarketing messages for sensitive topics.
Analysis by: PPC Chat
Better Sitelinks = Better Ads
Sitelink extensions in paid search ads, as we know, play an important role in the success of ads. Google recent posted an article about how to be sure you are using your sitelinks to their fullest potential. It discusses some best practices for sitelinks as well as tips on reporting on and testing them.
Analysis by: Matt Lawson, Inside AdWords
Analyzing Link Quality
Jon Ball at Search Engine Land reviews link building basics, reminding us that we need to pursue links that are not only impactful today but will also have an impact in the future. When analyzing any link consider relevance, link type, authority, location, and gut instinct.
Analysis by: Jon Ball, Search Engine Land
What Web Design Means For SEO
A website needs to be intuitive to navigate and you need to ensure it is going to work across all devices and platforms. But after that a trickier task is ensuring the site is easy for Google to index. Kannav Chaudhary of Search Engine Journal examines the most popular web design styles and how they affect SEO.
Analysis by: Kannav Chaudhary, Search Engine Journal
Take Note Of The Publishing Industry
The publishing industry is usually the front runner when it comes to new content techniques and products. As an SEO consultant, you can learn a lot from them. Sarah Kershaw highlights some of her big takeaways.
Analysis by: Sarah Kershaw, The Moz Blog
Writing Headlines That Work
A recent post on Search Engine Watch gives powerful tips for writing headlines that Google will love. They’ll also explain how to write headlines that people will click, read, and share. The big takeaway is to write headlines that mix keywords for context with story elements to encourage clicks.
Analysis by: Salma Jafri, Search Engine Watch
Is Link Building A Waste Of Time Too?
Eric Ward has heard a lot of arguments against the value of link building, and he knows exactly how to respond to each. If you focus on the right content, the right person, and the right introduction, your link building efforts will be incredibly valuable.
Analysis by: Eric Ward, Search Engine Land
