@EmergingSpaces @SMGSearchUK @SearchLately
Highlights brought to you by Search Lately @SMGSearchUK this week include:
Bing steps up its game with new tools for webmasters Google announce yet another update to Panda (Version 3.8) Google Redesigns Search Ads Formats in Google Maps for Mobile
Browse last week’s Search Lately for more details and initial reaction from industry experts on recent hot topics
Bing steps up its game with new tools for webmasters 27th June 2012 After announcing several improvements to their free-to-use webmaster tools platform earlier this month, Bing has provided users with a deep dive on how to use their new tools this week. Two weeks ago, Bing rolled out changes to their rival to Google Webmasters Tools product, aptly named Bing Webmaster Tools, providing users with additions to their existing online toolkit. Bing Webmaster Tools can be used to get further insights into the way your website is crawled by Bing, beneficial to help drive SEO strategy development, and both on site and offsite SEO recommendations. In addition to a better user experience, a range of new tools are now available within the product, including 'Link Explorer' (beta), which allows users to find out what websites are linking to your domain. Although this functionality is within many SEO tools, Bing's latest offering includes options to filter via anchor text and keywords, useful for SEO teams to decipher what links are helping to drive your search engine rankings, and inform link building strategies. Bing's new 'Fetch as bingbot' functionality within their Webmaster Tools will be a popular addition to the platform, providing an easy way for users to troubleshoot what pages on a website have been crawled and what code has been read by the Bing search crawler. Using Webmaster products such as Bing Webmaster Tools and Google Webmaster Tools are a vital part of any SEO campaign that can help to flag up any potential issues with the way search engines read your website, duplication and opportunities for further optimisation. – Heath Stook
More Details: http://www.bing.com/community/site_blogs/b/webmaster/archive/2012/06/ 27/reviewing-link-explorer-and-fetch-as-bingbot.aspx http://www.bing.com/community/site_blogs/b/webmaster/archive/2012/06/ 06/bing-webmaster-tools-announces-new-features-tools-and-ways-toaccess-data.aspx
Google announce yet another update to Panda (Version 3.8) - 25th June 2012 Google have announced further updates to Panda this week, that will affect ~1% of queries worldwide. The announcement, made via Twitter, comes just days after speculation across many SEO blogs and forums that Google had made further updates to their algorithm. When first rolled out in 2011, Panda had a significant impact on websites with low quality content. Google has continued to push out algorithm updates to Panda every few months, with the most recent updates on June 6 and April 26. This most recent update is a basic data refresh that has not changed the ranking signals, so will have minimal impact on those sites that continue to create high quality content and websites that adhere to best practise. – Heath Stook More Details: http://searchengineland.com/official-google-panda-update-version-3-8-onjune-25th-125945
Google Redesigns Search Ads Formats in Google Maps for Mobile – 22nd June 2012 Google has redesigned local ad formats in Google Maps for Mobile, in order to enable advertisers to better connect with potential customers via mobile search. Google claimed that in initial tests, these redesigned formats increased click-through-rates by 100%. This visual redesign will be rolling out to the newer versions of Android phones from 22nd June. The updated formats feature several key improvements: - Important calls to action like “get directions” and “click to call” are now more prominent in the ad and clickable in more places. - A new hyperlocal marker shows the user how close they are to an advertiser’s business location. - Clicking on the ad now takes the user to an advertiser’s website from within the app, making it simple to browse the site without losing context or access to maps app navigation.
The pictures below shows the new design of local ad formats.
– Blair Liu More details: http://adwords.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/with-new-search-ads-in-googlemaps-for.html http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2187302/Google-Redesigns-LocalMobile-Ad-Formats-Claims-100-Increase-in-CTR