Today In SEO & Search News: March 9, 2017

Today In SEO & Search News: March 9, 2017

So you want to keep up with what’s going on in search and SEO do you? Well here’s what’s happened over the past 48 hours (sorry – couldn’t get to it yesterday).

The Data Behind Quality Content

Quality Content

Sometimes I have to go with a little self-promotion and today is one of those days.  My latest article was published yesterday over on Search Engine Land.  The article draws information from three great studies to understand the technical and data-based arguments for quality content and includes data provided by Larry Kim of Wordstream, Eric Enge of Stone Temple Consulting and Brian Dean of Backlinkio.

Unconfirmed Google Update “Fred”
Barry Schwartz over on Search Engien Land discussed an unconfirmed update that’s being names “Fred” (due to Gary Illyes saying they all should be).  I took a look at SERP Watch to see what was going on.  Here’s a comparison of desktop and mobile.

SERP Watch March 9, 2017 - Google Update Fred
Something is definitely going on.  I haven’t had time to properly assess what might be causing the impact but it’s clearly stronger on mobile than desktop and at least in some way based on location. John Mueller has of course responded in typical Google fashion. 😉

Google Showing Trending News Cards
Matt Southern of Search Engine Journal covered a new feature first noticed by Reddit user GranaT0. Trending News cards are now appearing along side the Related Stories.  For those paying attention, we’re losing more organic space that one might use for marketing products or services to generally non-ecom publishers.

Pinterest Turns Images Into Queries

Tim Peterson over on Search Engine Land covered thew announcement by Pinterest of a new Chrome browser extension.  Basically the extension allows users to use images off the web to search the Pinterest database and display images of similar products, items, etc.  It’s a very cool feature and as it grows out (and as other companies adopt similar techniques) I see this type of search being a default.  Imagine simply taking a picture with your phone is something you want that others are wearing and having it immediately find the item for you and where you can buy it at the best price. Here’s what it looks like:

Pinterest Chrome Browser Extension

AdWords Account-Level Call Extensions & More
Ginny Marvin over at Search Engine Land covered the announcement by Google that a test they were running showing business names int eh headlines of call-only ads is being rolled out globally due to higher conversion outcomes.  They are also rolling out account-level call extensions for those who only use one main number and new phone impressions and phone calls with soon appear at the keyword level in the AdWords interface.  There was more covered by Ginny and if you’re involved in PPC at all it’s recommended reading.

Google Docs For WordPress
Matt Southern (yeah – him again) covered a neat addition to the WordPress arsenal.  They’ve developed a Google Docs add-on that allows multiple users to now edit a Google Doc and once the collaboration is complete, push the resulting copy live as a blog post. This is going to be an excellent addition for companies with multiple writers working on the same piece. Matt discusses how to get started with it, etc. in his article.

Google AI Recognizing Entities In Videos
Google just announced the launch of Google Cloud Video Intelligence API.  The API is in private beta currently and uses deep learning built on TensorFlow and enabled developers to easily search and discover video content by providing information about entities.  Basically, they’re able to recognize things in videos and allow users to find videos matching the content of what’s within it.  This is a very very interesting advancement and one that will revolutionize how we consume video media in the next couple years.

reCAPTCHA Turning Invisible
Google now claims they can separate man from machine without tests or checkboxes and will be making them invisible.  Essentially Google will be using their own automated techniques to determine is a user is a bot or a human and allowing through the humans without requiring any input from them. This is going to be very interesting to watch roll out to see how successful they are.

If you think we missed any stories please feel free to comment on them below.