This Week’s Industry News

Compiled By Rocket Clicks Staff

Google Inside Search Event Reveals Latest Innovations

On Tuesday, Google hosted a media event in San Francisco to showcase some of their upcoming innovations on mobile and desktop platforms. The whole presentation is available in the link below, but some of the highlights include Google Voice Search, and the first preview of their Instant Pages feature, which guesses the page you’re most likely to click on in a search query on Google Chrome and pre-loads it so it appears at the speed of light.

The chart below compares Google’s search volume in the first three years of desktop use vs. the first three years of mobile use. As you can tell, mobile has grown at a much steadier rate:

Source: The Official Google Blog

Cost-Per-Lead Testing Is Underway In Google AdWords

Google is currently testing a cost-per-lead ad format that gives users the option of asking for the advertiser to reach out to them. The search engine monolith revealed the testing on search and display ads after the Republican National Senatorial Committee raised questions over a Barack Obama ad that requested the user’s e-mail address.

Source: Search Engine Land

Click Count Display For Advertisers Now In Google Testing Phase

In other Google AdWords testing news, the company is experimenting with displaying the total click count for clients under their ads on Google. There are a few questions raised over how the clicks were calculated and why they show up for some advertisers and not others, but the test will probably provide some concrete, usable answers in time.

Source: Search Engine Land

Google Display Network Updates Tool Set

Google has updated its Display Network to provide better measurement, transparency and value tools for its AdWords account users. Here are the changes in a nutshell:

1. Relative CTR is meant to give you an impression of how your ads perform compared to other ads on the page. It provides a ratio of clicks on your ad to clicks on a competing ad (example: 2:1, 3:1, etc.).

2. Impression Share gives you a percentage idea of how many times your ads were shown on a page versus how many times they were eligible to appear on the page.

3. The Unseen Impression Filter is designed to prevent CPM advertisers from being charged for ads that were not viewed on a page because the user didn’t scroll down far enough to see it.

Source: Google Inside AdWords Blog

Google Changes Access Location For ‘Keyword Ideas’ In AdWords Tool

The “Keyword Ideas” feature in the AdWords Keyword Tool will now be displayed in a separate tab to make it easier to simultaneously view keywords and ideas. The change was rolled out on Monday.

Source: Search Engine Land

Google Attempts To Promote Offer Ads, Fully Integrate Purchasing Loop

Not to be confused with the recently launched Google Offers, Google is testing Offer Ads, which show up below the sponsored links. The purchase screen involves using the Google Wallet feature, and any deal can be purchased and saved to a portfolio that will also include any Google Offer you buy.

Source: Search Engine Land

Not Happy With Your Likeness In SERPs? There’s A Google Feature For That

“Me on the Web” is available on the dashboard of your Google account and allows you to keep track of your name or email address when they are mentioned on blogs, photos, or public status updates. This feature was already available in another section, but is now much more visible and easy to access right from the dashboard.

Source: Mashable

Messing With The CIA Doesn’t End Well For Anyone, Including Hackers

LulzSec, the main culprit in the hacking of multiple Sony web sites, may have written their own death wish by taking down the CIA web site with a distributed denial of service attack. Unlike most hacking groups, LulzSec is reveling in the publicity of these hacks like the digital version of the Zodiac Killer.

Source: Mashable

Facebook Growth Plateaus In United States And Canada

According to Inside Facebook data, the world’s largest social network site experienced a loss of 7 million users in the U.S. and Canada last night, while Mexico added around 1 million. Facebook is currently up to 700 million users, but expectedly brushed off the reduced presence in America by saying the data could very well be faulty. Facebook’s growth is naturally going to slow and user levels will stabilize as they tap out the social market, and this could be the start of that expected decline.

Source: CNN

Notable Commentary

With Irreverence And Insight

What Will The Internet Look Like In 2015?

Think about how much has changed in your life over the past four years. Now imagine what your life will look like four years from now. This snazzy infographic attempts to ask and answer that question about the Internet.

Analysis By: Cliff Kuang, Fast Codesign

The Les Paul Doodle Was Worth $268 Million

Remember how much fun it was playing with the Les Paul doodle on Google’s homepage? Apparently that enjoyment came at the expense of $268 million to the world’s businesses.

Analysis By: Rob Young, Search Engine Journal

If You Call ‘Duke Nukem Forever’ Crap, The Redner Group Will Punish You

The public relations company behind Duke Nukem Forever, a game 14 years in the making, has threatened to penalize writers that give the game (justifiably) bad reviews. Apparently they’re all out of gum…

Analysis By: Ben Kuchera, Wired

*Insert Billy Idol Reference About Dancing In An Apple Store

Apparently it’s fashionable to dance around in front of a camera at Apple Stores and call it the Apple Store Dance. The things people do for products with names starting with a lowercase “i.”

Analysis By: Tom Loftus, Wall Street Journal