If you have been confused about sponsored tweets appearing in your Twitter stream that look like regular tweets, you are not alone. Twitter has made some changes to sponsored tweets so they aren’t obvious as being sponsored. Notice the promoted part at the bottom? That medium gray icon to show it is a sponsored tweet […]
Archives for 2015
Bing Adds Book Purchasing Options to Knowledge Panel in Search Results
Bing is also adding book buying options into their knowledge panel, following on Google’s addition to book purchasing options in their own knowledge panels. While they have the option to buy it on both Amazon and Barnes and Noble, they have also added options to borrow in from a local library and to read an […]
Google Adding Lottery Numbers Featured Snippets
Google is starting to display lottery numbers in the search results as a featured snippet at the top of the search results. Pedro Dias posted this screenshot on Twitter and Google+. This doesn’t seem to be active in the US or Canada as of this writing, but it could be rolling out across languages. This […]
Google Sending Hreflang Implementation Warning Notices in Search Console
Google is sending out error messages to users for incorrect implementation on Hreflang through Google Search Console, warning webmasters if they have made mistakes while implementing it on a site. Dan Sharp, the Founder & Director of Screaming Frog tweeted one of the warning emails. The warning is fairly standard about possible hreflang issues that […]
Google Adds New Options When Closing Mobile Ads
Google announced had they were making changes to mobile ads to reduce the liklihood that people would accidentily “fat finger” an ad while trying to close it. And now we have seen how they are putting this into action. Here is an ad how it normally appears, with the X to close. But after it […]
Google Testing 4 Line Description Snippets in Search Results
Google is testing out longer snippets in the descrption for some Google search results, giving some results 4 lines of description over the standard two lines that you see in the majority of results. While Wikipedia triggered the first 4 lines of description as information sites, as you can see with the Hobbycraft result, commercial […]
How to Properly Format Last Modified (lastmod) for XML Sitemaps
If you have a burning desire to properly format last modified (lastmod) time for xml sitemaps, you are in luck because Gary Illyes from Google has posted everything you need to know in order to format it properly. Illyes commented on StackOverflow how to do it properly, also mentioning that it is mostly ignored by […]
Google: Penguin Algo Refresh is “Months Away”
While we have known that a Panda refresh is coming soon for the last month or so, there hasn’t been much information on an upcoming Penguin update or refresh… until now. Gary Illyes, Webmaster Trends Analyst from Google, says that the “Penguin refresh is months away.” @mrjamiedodd No. Penguin refresh is months away — Gary […]
Sign Up for Google’s User Experience Research Studies
If you are interested in all things Google, you might be interested in signing up for Google User Experience Research Studies, as they are currently looking for participants. And yes, they are even looking for SEOs. Pierre Far, a Googler who was formerly a Webmaster Trends Analyst, is looking for participants, saying they are “keen […]
Google Testing Category Based Product Listing Ads
Google appears to be testing a Product Listing Ad unit, that instead of listing particular products from a search, it is listing products from a specific brand, broken down into multiple categories. As you can see, the products are all PowerLine products, but instead of the usual individual products we normally see in the Product […]