The Week In Search & SEO: May 18, 2018

The Week In Search & SEO: May 18, 2018

JPMorgan says that Amazon Prime is the best deal in online shopping. While Featured Snippets have once again been shortened, learn how Google may decide what material to feature. Loading speed is now a ranking factor for mobile sites. Google says they can now gather information from many websites and paraphrase it to answer search quarries on this own auto-generated page. Read more about these stories and others in this week’s SEO roundup …

Top Global Search News

Is A Google Search Algorithm Update Brewing?

Some webmasters are reporting increased volatility over the weekend of May 12, 2018, and May 13, 2018. Most affected seems to be e-commerce sites and those using Yoast to post pictures.

Google Confirms it Shortened Search Results Snippets After Expanding Them Last December

Google confirms it shortened search results snippets after expanding them last December

While insisting that snippet length varies by subject matter, Google has confirmed that shippets are once again being shortened. RankRanger found that snippets on desktops are now about 160 characters long while those on mobile are about 130 characters.

Google: 15% Of All Queries Are Still Never Seen Before

About 15 percent of all searches conducted on their platform are things that have never been searched for before. The statistic was 25 percent in 2013 before dropping, but it has remained stable as was 15% when RankBrain rolled out in 2015.

Using Page Speed in Mobile Search Ranking

While the loading speed of a page has been a ranking factor on desktop sites for many years, Google says that it will start using it as a ranking factor for mobile sites in July 2018.

Google’s John Mueller on Ranking for Featured Snippets

Google’s John Mueller gave some important clues on getting your website content to be used as a featured snippet. Mueller says that content that answers a specific question using at least one paragraph is often used for the featured snippet.

Google: The Faster We Can Crawl, The More We Can Crawl

Google’s John Mueller says that you should consider using fast servers and optimized code If you want Google to crawl more of your site.

Google Posts Video Upload Feature Now Working

Google Posts Video Upload Feature Now Working

After making the announcement last week that videos can be added to the Google My Business section of Google Posts, it would seem that feature is now fully functional. Once uploaded, your video will show on both mobile and desktop searches.

Google Search Console Beta May Be Getting Links From Data

“Links from” data may be available in the Index Coverage report when the new Google Search Console is released.

Top Local Search News

Google to Notify Those who Leave Reviews when Business Owners Respond

Google to notify those who leave reviews when business owners respond

Reviewers who leave a review on Google Local results will get an email notification about five minutes after a business owner responds to their review.

Google Local Hotel Pack Showing Search Refinement Option
Google Local Hotel Pack Showing Search Refinement Option

While it may not be new, Google is now showing hotel refinement boxes at the top of local packs where applicable.

Top PPC News

Amazon Drops Out of Google Shopping Ads

It would appear that on April 28, 2018, Amazon made the decision to no longer participate in Google Shopping Ads. This decision could indicate that Amazon may be in the process of introducing a similar program on their own website. Meanwhile, it may be the perfect time for marketers to start using Google Shopping Ads now that Amazon’s money is no longer being spent on the platform.

Top Social Media News

Klout Loses its Influence, Announces Shutdown on May 25

Lithium Technologies who is the parent company of Klout has announced that they will shut the social media ranking service down effective May 25, 2018. Lithium Technologies says that they will soon be launching a new service based on the Twitter platform.

A Hidden Instagram Feature Shows Users Time Spent in the App

Instagram may have recently introduced a new feature called Usage Insights that will show users how much time they spend on Instagram. The feature may still be in the testing stage.

Twitter to Filter Out Negative Tweets in Search Results

While the content of tweets will not be judged, Twitter has announced that they will remove negative tweets in search results using several different factors including tweets sent by accounts with unconfirmed emails, tweets indicating a user is stalking another user and the number of accounts belonging to a particular entity. While these will not be shown in search results, there will be a see-more button allowing users to see them at their discretion.

Internet Marketing-Related Tech

 

Report: Google Home Making Gains on Alexa, Apple HomePod in 4th place

Report: Google Home making gains on Alexa, Apple HomePod in 4th place

While Apple HomePod has made great strides in catching up with its competition it still remains in fourth place during the first quarter of 2018 behind Amazon, Google and Alibaba. As reported earlier by Slice Intelligence, Alexa devices were 73 percent of all devices shipped during thefirst quarter followed by Google Home at 14 percent, Apple HomePod at 10 percent and Sonos One at 2 percent.

Best Opinion Pieces

Unfortunately, there were no opinion pieces that captured out attention this week but that’s sure to change in our next update !