If you use Firefox for Android, you may have noticed that the Google search results are not displaying the usual “Mobile Friendly” tags that normally display before all mobile friendly search results. This screenshot was taken with the Firefox for Android app, with a version that hasn’t been updated to the newest release. It isn’t […]
Archives for May 2015
Google Displaying More Reviews in Book & Movie Review Answer Box
Google is testing a new answer box for book reviews that displays multiple review sites rather than the usual single ratings via Goodreads. This seems to be a limited roll out, as I am seeing the expanded reviews while other users are still seeing the traditional single review format, which tends to link to Goodreads. […]
Google Introducing Buy Button in Search Results to Compete With Amazon
Google is stepping up their e-commerce offerings for advertisers with a new program that would see “Buy Now” buttons added to search results, with the entire transaction being hosted by Google, rather than the seller. According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, the buy buttons will launch within the next few weeks in […]
Google Hover & Fly Out Local Listings in Search Results
Google has changed they way they are serving local listings in Google. Now, each listing has a “fly out” that replaces the Google Maps area on the right-hand side of the page with the company’s knowledge graph. This style has been appearing for some users off and on for at least a year, but now […]
Why Your Google+ Profile Image is Important for SEO
Most people, when choosing the Google+ image for their business, tend to choose the company logo. They may do variations of their logo for certain events or seasons, such as Christmas or Mother’s Day, but the logo itself is usually recognizable to anyone somewhat familiar with the brand. But some companies have been choosing non-traditional […]
European Mobile Carriers Planning to Block Ads to Force Google to Pay Them
European mobile networks are declaring their own war on Google’s ad revenue by considering the use of the ad blocker Shine across their datacenters, which would block ads from being served to all their mobile customers. They do plan to allow ads to continue to be displayed in social networks, including both Facebook and Twitter, […]
Google Displays Visit Website Not Rates in Hotel Listings
Google has been adding more features to their hotels in the Google search results, most notably with the 3-pack of hotel listings directly within the search results that allow searchers to search availability and which lists pricing. I noticed something unusual when doing a search. For some hotels, Google does not display a listed price […]
How to Create Tracking URLs for Google Analytics
Did you know you can create tracking URLs for Google Analytics, even if you are not currently using a third party tool that will do this automatically for you? Just because you don’t have fancy tools doesn’t mean you can’t use the standard tracking URLs in Google Analytics. If you would like to be able […]
Both Bing Search & Yahoo Search Suffer Outage
If you use either Bing or Yahoo, both services have been down since 2:04 PST on May 14th. Bing is serving no results, while Yahoo – that is powered by Bing Seach – is running no organic results but is including their own shopping results, “____ from Tumblr” section and suggested searches. Bing’s screen says: […]
Google Uses Same Search Algo Worldwide But Have Country & Language Boosts
Some SEOs have wondered whether Google has different variations of their core search ranking algorithm depending on what country the searcher was searching from. Spam is certainly more prevalent in some languages and countries more than others. But does Google have special variations targeting different countries? Google uses the same search algorithm throughout the world, […]