The worlds of Digital Marketing, SEO & PPC can change daily: so we’ve rounded up the biggest updates in June.
From Facebook Algorithm updates to the first major Google Trends update in years & Pinterest entering the world of Paid Search – it’s been a busy month for Social Media & Google alike. Find out what else has happened below:
1) Google Trends Updated to Provide Minute-by-Minute Data on Trending Searches
It was announced that from 17th June, Google will in fact roll out one of the most significant updates within Google trends, since 2012. The article goes into detail about Google trends and how it will now offer consumers minute-by-minute data, on what people are searching for at a specific moment. This should now provide everyone with faster, deeper and more comprehensive data, in terms of what’s going on in Google Search. Despite the update only active in 28 countries, Google have announced that there is an ongoing plan to increase in the near future.
2) Facebook Tweaks News Feed To Account For Time Spent On Stories
There was a huge announcement in social media this month, as Facebook stated that they will be making some major alterations to the famously complicated News Feed article and will focus their time and effort on making stories, as a ranking factor.
This decision was made due to the results from recent poll, which indicated that people don’t always like or comment on stories, which they find meaningful on Facebook.
But due to the recent update, Facebook don’t expect to see specific pages have“significant changes in distribution”.
3) Google Drops Google+ Promotion From Gmail, Search & Other Google Services
Yes, it seems that Google are in fact moving away their social networking platform as a promotional method. You will now notice that the plus sign from the +[your name here] label no longer exists. It has removed photos, which is actually one of it’s more popular features on their site.
Despite Google releasing a statement saying:
“No, Google Plus is not dead,” Horowitz said. “In fact, it’s got more signs of life than it’s had in some time.”
We think they may be covering their back, so they do not worry businesses and users, who are committed members of the platform.
4) Online reviews ‘used as blackmail’
One of the biggest news bulletins to come out of SEO this month was the recently publicised “Fake review” scandal. This issue was raised by the BBC, on their weekly show Watchdog. It was discovered that online forums and well known review websites had infact been creating fake reviews and misleading cases, in order to gain sales and undermine their competitors.
Although the CMA did not name any of the companies under the spotlight, many review sites have been defending their processes.
5) Google Makes Strides in Tracking Cross-Device Conversions Across the Web
So, Google’s DoubleClick have announced they are now going to provide marketers with cross-device measurement to all of their campaigns across the web. This will be monitored and tracked across all of the DoubleClick advertiser products.
6) Instagram Overhauls Search Feature to Surface More Trending News
Instagram have followed suit with other competitors and have recently unveiled a massive overhaul to its search feature in an effort to bring users into the app more often, particularly during breaking news bulletins.
The new feature allows users to search for images by location and includes a section for trending places and hashtags.
7) Pinterest Reveals Mock-Up For Its First “Buy Button”
A huge announcement was made for everyone involved with Pinterest, as they unveiled their prototype “buy it now” button on their social network. Many fans of the photo sharing app will surely be delighted, as they can immediately buy something they like the look of. Not only will this be beneficial for users around the globe, but i’m sure the majority of companies – who have a product that could be related to the topics available on the site, will be turning to this marketing method.
8) New Link Tool Crowdsources Your Disavowed Links In DisavowFiles
The announcement of the new crowdsources tool, will be appreciated by all who are involved in SEO. This tool has will ease the stress of disavowing and destroying any spammy links that are pointing to a website.
Bruce Clay, the owners of this tool have promised to anonymise the data they receive, so no one can identify and expose the source of those disavowing the URLs, within the tool.
9) Spammy Structured Markup Penalty & Recovery – Use Schema Markup With Caution!
In accordance with the March update, it was noticed by many that Google has started issuing penalties for improper implementation of structured data markup. With this brought to light, it was announced that structured data can potentially hurt your site, if not used correctly. This would be due to recent “spammy structured markup” penalties from Google. This article goes on to explain how you can solve this issue and how you could in fact avoid these penalties.
10) How Google May Use Searcher, Usage, & Clickstream Behavior to Impact Rankings
This recent article to come from Moz, explains the patent from Google, which could have a brand new type of influence in the rankings. This article delves further into matter and looks at different methods that Google may be using to impact on your rankings.
