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November 3, 2021 By Brandon Schwartz

November Spam Update By Google Confirmed

November Spam Update By Google Confirmed

Google’s Danny Sullivan, the company’s official liaison for webmasters, has recently confirmed a major spam update by Google. Google’s November spam update marks the fourth such update in 2021, with major updates happening over the summer. The search engine is in a constant push and pull with webmasters who try to game the search engine results page by promoting spam websites instead of useful content.

As part of our regular work to improve results, we've released a spam update to our systems. This November 2021 spam update should be fully rolled out within a week. We encourage sites to follow our best practices for Search: https://t.co/jK3ArQmTqT

— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) November 3, 2021

Updates such as these are the methods Google usually uses to combat spam in the search results. Uncommonly, Google will take manual action against offenders, which can be more difficult for search engine optimization professionals to solve for. 2021 has seen Google become more sophisticated in the fight against spam. Back in April 2021, Google publicly revealed their creation of a spam fighting artificial intelligence, which the company boasted provided an “unprecedented potential to revolutionize” spam fighting.

“By combining our deep knowledge of spam with AI, last year we were able to build our very own spam-fighting AI that is incredibly effective at catching both known and new spam trends. For example, we have reduced sites with auto-generated and scraped content by more than 80% compared to a couple of years ago.”

Google

The format of spam can vary. Spam can be thin or copied content (called “scraped” in the industry).

It may also be content that’s “spun”. In other words, a computer program can copy someone else’s content, then put the words through a sort of thesaurus program to change the actual words while retaining the grammatical structure. Spun content reads like nonsense to a human being, but to some computer systems it can appear relevant to the original topic while seeming like it’s also brand new content.

Spam may also consist of auto-generated websites that piece together content from a variety of places to try to game the algorithm. More insidiously, spam may also consist of hacking into a legitimate website and either changing the content of the site, adding spam pages in other areas of the website unbeknownst to the site owner, or redirecting the site’s domain name to a target selected by the hacker.

While it’s still very early, we can tender a guess at what types of search queries the webspam team is paying attention to with Google’s November spam update. Throughout 2021, Google has paid particular attention to sensitive searches, such as those relating to conspiracy theories or medical information. It’s safe to assume that attention to those types of searches will continue.

Filed Under: Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

July 8, 2020 By Brandon Schwartz

How Page Loading Time Impacts Your Business

Most users can recall a time when they’ve been frustrated at how slow a website was loading. Website performance is impacted by a number of factors including the amount of content on a page, the size of any loaded images, the layout of the page, and even how physically distant the server hosting the website is from the person trying to access it. Site and page load speed is a highly important factor for user satisfaction, engagement, and search engine optimization. Here are some of the impacts of poor website performance, that extend beyond an individual getting slightly annoyed:

  • “1 second of load lag time would cost Amazon.com $1.6 billion in sales per year.” -Amazon
  • “When load times jump from 1 second to 4 seconds, conversions decline sharply. For every 1 second of improvement, we experience a 2% conversion increase.” –Walmart.
  • “A lag time of 400ms results in a decrease of 0.44% traffic – In real terms this amounts to 440 million abandoned sessions/month and a massive loss in advertising revenue for Google.” -Google. Google has become so obsessed with speed that they measure delays in the numbers of lives lost, i.e. by multiplying the time users have wasted by the number of users to determine how many lifetimes have been lost to poor engineering. Google further stated that an extra 0.5 seconds in each search page generation would cause traffic to drop by 20%.
  • 47% of users expect a page to load in 2 seconds or less.
  • 40% of users abandon a website that takes more than 3 seconds to load.
  • 79% of shoppers who are dissatisfied with a website’s performance are less likely to buy from the same website again.
  • 52% of online shoppers state that quick page loading time is important to their site loyalty.
  • A 1 second delay (or 3 seconds of waiting) decreases customer satisfaction by about 16%.
  • 44% of online shoppers will tell their friends about a bad experience online.

Some sources include:

  • Neil Patel
  • Econsultancy
  • Radware

Website performance is critical. The impact to your business extends far beyond minor annoyance.

Filed Under: Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

January 13, 2020 By Brandon Schwartz

Walmart Opens to API Partners

Walmart Opens to API Partners

Brands who sell products on Walmart.com can now make advertising purchases through four initial partners: Flywheel Digital, Kenshoo, Pacvue, and Teikametrics. Walmart continues to step up their efforts to make Walmart Media Group, their advertising agency, a powerhouse for businesses selling online. Companies currently running Google Shopping or Amazon Sponsored Product campaigns through these API partners will be able to switch on Walmart’s Sponsored Search programs easily.

Walmart Media Group is different than most other ad agencies, since they have started to tie online data with offline shopping behavior. This is a trend we’ve been covering before and which continues as companies not traditionally known for being in advertising expand their positions. Other such companies include Amazon, Visa, and MasterCard.

This change follows other developments made by Walmart Media Group in recent months. In April 2019, Walmart Media Group acquired self-serve advertising platform Polymorph and integrated them into Walmart’s own ad targeting and measurement platform. Walmart likely hopes to attract national manufacturers and brands with these kinds of changes.

90% of Americans shop at Walmart each year.

Filed Under: Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

November 27, 2019 By Brandon Schwartz

Dot Org Registry Sold to Private Equity

Dot Org Registry Sold to Private Equity

In disappointing news, the registry for Dot Org (.org) domain names was sold to a private equity firm. Ethos Capital purchased purchased the non-profit Public Interest Registry (PIR). The “Chief Purpose Officer” at Ethos Capital, Nora Abusitta-Ouri, “has held a variety of positions at the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), including Senior Vice President, Development and Public Responsibility and Director of Engagement, International and Inter-Governmental Organizations” according to Ethos Capital’s website.

ICANN decided earlier this year that the cost of registering a .org domain name would no longer be capped. The previous contract, executed in 2013, barred the PIR from directly charging more than $8.25 per year per domain. Individual domain name resellers and registrars typically charged a markup, but the price cap was designed to make .org domain names accessible to small non-profits and organizations.

ICANN solicited comments for the proposed change. According to the results, 3,252 comments received by ICANN supported keeping the price cap. 57 of the received comments didn’t express an opinion either way, while only six supported lifting the restriction. A third appeared to voice support only sarcastically. In other words, fewer than 0.07% of commenters that that removing the price cap would be positive while more than 98% were opposed.

The new contract expired and around July, ICANN decided to remove the price cap. Now, Ethos Capital has purchased PIR.

We expect prices to increase, at the expense of non-profits.

Filed Under: Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

May 8, 2019 By Brandon Schwartz Leave a Comment

Google Monetizing Google Assistant & Google Home

Google Monetizing Google Assistant & Google Home

Last Friday, we reviewed how increased pressure from Wall Street is likely to prompt Google to find new revenue sources. Yesterday, we looked at the possibility (in our mind, inevitability) that they would begin charging for additional features on Google My Business.

Today, we’re here to confirm that Google has begun experimenting with monetizing Google Home and Google Assistant, two voice activated products the company offers.

Google Home is a set of voice and web controlled products to allow you to control lights, television, and music from either voice commands or an application. Google Assistant is a voice commanded personal assistant you can use to control these devices, search the web, or interact with other Google services. Combined with the acquisition of Nest, maker of internet connected security cameras and alarm systems which now are integrating Google Assistant, Google Home and Google Assistant offer a wide product set for people looking to make their home “smart”.

To date, most of Google’s efforts have been in solidifying product offerings to compete with Amazon’s Alexa and Ring products, Apple’s Siri, and a range of smart home devices offered by companies like Honeywell. The battle has been about market share.

That might be changing in four ways.

First, in February, Google started testing ads in Google Assistant results on smartphones. Then in April, Google officially announced that ads would be included in Google Assistant results where ads would be relevant. So far, there are fewer ads in Google Assistant results than the standard search engine.

Second, Google has decided to give Google Home smart speaker owners access to YouTube Music, which is supported by ad revenue. To remove the adds, users can subscribe to the premium version for $9.99 a month.

Third, Google is beginning to show local listings in response to searches for local providers on Google Home and Google Assistant. Yesterday, we discussed how Google might begin charging a subscription for local listings.

Fourth, and of most interest to us, is through payments. Though Google Express has proven to be unpopular, users can currently send and request money through Google Pay using their Google Assistant. Currently Google doesn’t charge a transaction fee for this service, but we wouldn’t be surprised to see that change.

 

Filed Under: Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

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