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Highlights brought to you by Search Lately @SMGSearchUK this week include:
Bing Adds Encyclopedia Britannica Answers to Search Results
Google launched another algorithm update: Panda 3.7 Google Pitches Marketing Dashboard for Agencies, Advertisers DoubleClick Digital Marketing- An Integrated Digital Buying Platform Future of SEO: Investment, Innovation & Integration
Google Backtrack to Adjust Recent Ad Rotation Limit
Browse last week’s Search Lately for more details and initial reaction from industry experts on recent hot topics
Bing Adds Encyclopedia Britannica Answers to Search Results – 11th Jun 2012 Just last week, Microsoft launched its new updated design for their search platform, Bing in the U.S. Today, it is moving to bulk up by partnering with the Encyclopedia Britannica to add more relevant data to its search results.
This new format will include a quick overview of the topic from the search query, coupled with a thumbnail image and other quick facts relevant to the topic. From here, the user can choose from a list of online encyclopedias like Britannica, Freebase, Qwiki, and Wikipedia.
- Wenyi Shi This update is in direct response to the new Knowledge Graph feature on Google, pulled primarily from Wikipedia, and is arguably not as aesthetically appealing and streamlined as the latter. Bing though are using the might of Britannica as the primary partner for this new feature and while it is not a game changer, it may well help Bing to limit the lead Google now have over them. Bing continues to develop new features and partnerships, although Google always seem to be a step ahead in raising the bar even higher. Bing will have to work a lot harder to bridge this now massive gap, but it is definitely not beyond them with the global reputation and power they still hold within the digital arena. Expect this to be the first of many changes to the Bing search page in the coming months if not years to put some increased pressure on Google.
- Kevin Ting More details: 1: searchenginewatch.com/article/2183521/Bing-Adds-EncyclopediaBritannica-Answers-to-Search-Results 2: news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57449347-93/bing-plugs-encyclopediabritannica-into-its-search-results/
Google Backtrack To Adjust Recent Ad Rotation Limit – 9th Jun 2012 Last week Google made alterations after many petitioned against the recent changes to the ad rotation policy within Google Adwords. A few weeks ago, Google announced that advertisers would only be able to keep unchanged ad copy in even rotation for a maximum of 30 days before being forced into optimisation mode. As a result of a number of petitions and complaints this has now been extended to 90 days with an opt out offer now included. “First, we'll expand the even rotation period from 30 days to 90 days to give you a longer window for testing new ads. Second, if you still wish to have your ads rotate evenly indefinitely, we're going to offer an opt-out of this change. You can opt-out by filling in your information on this form or by contacting your account representative. Both of these changes will go into effect on June 11, 2012.” – Google
Google have effectively done a dramatic U-turn which means that little has now changed with this feature as it can be returned to the original state if advertisers wish. All that has really changed is the advertisers option to let Google switch this optimisation feature automatically after 90 days. The original feature did not take that long to manually change; while best practice for ad copy optimisation would probably have new ad copy added at least every quarter. With this in mind, the new adjustments will make little impact to an advertiser which means a psychological win for advertisers in wrestling back control.
Google have been delivered a warning for future changes that they may be planning as they cannot expect to make drastic changes without angering the hands that feeds them and line their pockets.
Google launched another algorithm update: Panda 3.7 – 9th June Launched on June 8, Panda 3.7 will affect less than 1% of queries, according to Google’s statements. What is emerging from the SEO community is that this update looks bigger than what Google has initially claimed. Its impact seems indeed to be substantially higher than previous Panda updates (3.5, 3.6). It is also highly probable that Panda 3.7 is not going to be the last major update we are going to see this year. It really looks like 2012 is going to be remembered as a landmark in the SEO landscape. An impressive number of algorithm updates have been rolled out by Google since last January, including the infamous “Penguin”, the biggest update against webspam ever released. Now it’s time for a new one: Panda 3.7 is crawling the web looking for new sites to penalise at this very moment. Meanwhile, rankings are fluctuating everywhere in the world and the current situation is still very fluid. All websites whose ranking positions have been inflated by years (or even just months) of optimisation of depreciable quality should fear the most. So what should website owners do? Choose SEO support that you can trust! Choose SEO support that works now and that will work in one or even 5 years’ time. That’s the big lesson that Google is telling us in 2012.
- Laura Cogo More Details: 1: www.seomoz.org/google-algorithm-change 2: searchengineland.com/official-google-panda-update-version-3-7-onjune-8th-124281
Facebook App Center: What Does It Actually Do – 8th Jun 2012 Facebook is making efforts to earn more money as its stock price has nosedived. On 7 Jun, Facebook officially launched its own App Centre in the US after the plans were originally announced last month. It is rolling out on three platforms: Android, iOS and Facebook.com (on the mobile web) itself. With more than 600 apps featured in the App Centre, Facebook just got a little bit more like Google and Apple. All of the apps in the initial launch are free, including the popular Draw Something, Stitcher Radio and Pinterest, but Facebook plans to add paid apps later.
On the surface, the App Centre allows Facebook users to browse apps that are compatible with their device and download the most up-to-date version. However, it wasn’t clear to me how users would benefit. As soon as you click one of those buttons to either go to the app or send it to your mobile device, you authorize a third party to have access to your Facebook account information, including profile, email address and friends list. Facebook's investments being predominantly in mobile, demonstrate the company's drive in becoming a successful mobile platform. Through its new app centre, Facebook will benefit the most by collecting user data and then target us with ads. But the question is do you really need to go through Facebook to get apps from the Apple Store or Android Market?
- Wenyi Shi More details: 1: mashable.com/2012/06/09/facebook-app-center-guide/ 2: www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/jun/08/facebook-app-storelaunches?INTCMP=SRCH 3: www.pcadvisor.co.uk/news/internet/3362864/facebook-app-centerhands-on/
DoubleClick Digital Marketing- An Integrated Digital Buying Platform – 5th June 2012 Google has introduced DoubleClick Digital Marketing: the first modern ad platform built for the modern digital world.
Digital marketing is incredibly complex—with marketers juggling multiple systems to manage their different digital efforts across banner ads, paid search campaigns, mobile ads, online video and measurement using systems that don’t talk to one another. Towards this end, DoubleClick Digital Marketing will weave together the technologies that buyers currently use to plan, manage, schedule, deliver and measure their online buys. The new platform comprises the following components: DoubleClick Digital Marketing Manager, DoubleClick Bid Manager, DoubleClick technology, DoubleClick Search, DoubleClick Studio and Google Analytics. They will be fully integrated and work together to enable seamless ad campaign management for agencies and advertisers: According to Google, DoubleClick Digital Marketing will not only help buyers to work smarter and faster, but ultimately be more responsive to their customers and deliver better ads. This fully integrated, unified platform and its components will be rolling out to partners over the coming months.
– Blair Liu More details: 1: googleblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/reimagining-future-of-buyingand.html 2: doubleclickadvertisers.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/digital-marketingplatform-to-win.html
Future of SEO: Investment, Innovation & Integration – 4th Jun 2012 We know that SEO has been constantly changing and evolving. Therefore, competing in content-heavy fields such as SEO can be very, very difficult. It used to be considered as a tool, mostly in response to two key factors: developments in how search engines work and developments in how websites work. But now it is more like a SEO toolset that provide a holistic solution to business needs. SEO has its place in any well considered marketing strategy. No one can predict what the search engines will and will not do in the future.
What change has happened? How has it fostered investment and innovation of SEO technologies as this discipline integrates with other channels? The author tried to answer these questions in the post. If businesses want to compete online and have any kind of longevity, they will need to dig deeper.
– Wenyi Shi More details: 1: searchenginewatch.com/article/2179372/Future-of-SEO-InvestmentInnovation-Integration 2: searchenginewatch.com/article/2144350/Future-of-SEO-ChangeConvergence-Collaboration 3: www.searchenginejournal.com/the-future-of-seo-5-clear-facts-youshould-know/37630/