Microsoft Partners With Hackerrank To Deliver Executable Code In Bing Search

Bing's group engineering manager for UX features and shared tools calls the new feature a Rosetta-stone model for programming languages.

According to a report from TechCrunch, Microsoft has partnered with the programming community website HankerRank to bring code snippets into Bing’s search results.

TechCrunch says the partnership makes it possible not only to locate code quickly via search, but also edit and execute code right from the search results page.

Search for something like “string concat C#” or a similar question and Bing will pop up the editor for you. Using the widget, you can also switch to other languages as well. Depending on the algorithm you’re looking for, the options here include C, C++, C#, Python, PHP, and Java.

TechCrunch

HackerRanker co-founder Vivek Ravisankar told TechCrunch that Bing search results will return more than 80 code snippets based on the most commonly searched terms. Marcelo De Barros, Bing’s group engineering manager for UX features and shared tools, also spoke to TechCrunch, calling the new search feature a “Rosetta-stone model for programming languages.”

“In addition to learning how a certain algorithm/code is written in a given language, users will also be able to check how the same solution is constructed in a range of other programming languages too,” said De Barros.

Here’s an image from the TechCrunch story showing how the code snippet works:

Source: http://searchengineland.com/microsoft-hankerrank-partnership-delivers-executable-code-via-bing-search-results-246908

Google Warns Site Owners Their Site Is Not Mobile-Friendly In Mobile Search Results

A month before the Google mobile-friendly algorithm boost, Google starts issuing new warnings to site owners.

Google is now issuing a new type of warning to site owners if their site is not mobile-friendly. The new warnings show directly in the mobile search results, but only to the site owner, when Google knows that the searcher is the owner of the site.

Jennifer Slegg has an old site that is not mobile-friendly, and she reported that when she views the site in the mobile search results, it says to her in the snippet, “Your page is not mobile-friendly.” That message is a hyperlink to a Google help page about mobile-friendly.

Here is what Jenn sees as the site owner of a non-mobile-friendly website:

This new warning comes a month prior to Google boosting the mobile-friendly algorithm.

John Mueller of Google confirmed this is an experiment they are trying out to see if it helps boost mobile-friendliness.

Source: http://searchengineland.com/google-warns-site-owner-site-not-mobile-friendly-mobile-search-results-246849

Searchmetrics Now Shows Where Your App Appears In App Packs

Also new: rankings for app ads, unique keywords on a page, and the release of the Visibility Guard to protect against errors affecting ranking

SEO and content marketing analytics service Searchmetrics has announced several new features, including the ability to see where your mobile apps — or those of competitors — appear in the Google App Packs or where your paid app ads show up on a mobile search results page.

The San Mateo, California-based company said this kind of analysis in its Mobile App Rankings is the first of its kind. The new features were made available in Europe in March and are now being rolled out to the US.

For example, Director of Product Helen Shaughnessy told me, if you search for “free music downloads” on a smartphone, you’re “highly likely to find Spotify and SoundCloud apps in the accompanying App Pack.”

A Google App Pack is a group of up to six suggested apps that might be returned in a Google mobile search, appearing as colorful tiles with app names, icons, prices and ratings. They link to the app download pages in the Google or Apple app stores. Searchmetrics reports that about 10 percent of Google mobile searches return an App Pack.

Searchmetrics now shows where the App Pack appears in the results, and where specific apps appear in the Pack. Previously, she pointed out, Searchmetrics did not show App Pack results. Here’s a sample App Pack results screen:

And here’s an App Pack:

There is also a new capability to see where paid ads for your or your competitors’ apps appear in the results. “You may be paying for app ads but your competitor may not be,” she pointed out, so the tool can help a marketer assess whether the cost is worth it. Paid App Rankings are similar to Organic App Rankings, in that it shows the position of the app ad in the cluster of ads in a mobile search results page.

The company is also announcing two other new features. While previously, its Competitive Keyword Discovery tool showed all and shared competitive keywords for a specific web page, now it shows which page-level keywords are unique to you and which to your competitor’s page. For example, if you wanted to know the unique keywords for a page that features a pair of Nike shoes, now you can.

Additionally, the Visibility Guard that Searchmetrics had earlier made available in its beta phase is now out in an updated release version. It sends email or chat alerts about problems affecting ranking that a search engine crawl might encounter. Shaughnessy suggested this might include a “do not index” that was mistakenly left on a site update after it was moved from a staging server to a public location, as well as common errors like 404 “not found.”

Source: http://searchengineland.com/searchmetrics-now-shows-app-appears-app-packs-246824

Google Makes Adwords Products Tab More Useful For Shopping Campaigns

In addition to new product-level columns, inventory data comes to the Products group tab, and Reports Editor gets Shopping attributes.

Google is finally bringing some functional heft to the Products tab. Managers will now find “Product status” and “Effective max CPC” columns in the Products tab in AdWords.

The Products status column (You can add it from the Columns drop-down) will let you know if a specific product is ready to serve, disapproved, excluded or out of stock.

With the new Effective max CPC column, you can make bid adjustments right from the Products tab on individual products within your product groups.

Speaking of product groups, in the Products groups tab, new inventory status columns are now available. See percentages and totals for products ready to serve, active, approved and total submitted products. This will save you some time, since you won’t have to dig into Merchant Center.

And in another bit of a bonus for Shopping campaigns managers, Google has also added more Shopping info in AdWords Report Editor. You can now see attributes like brand or product type for Shopping campaigns and build charts and tables for reporting.

Source:
http://searchengineland.com/google-adwords-products-tab-update-reports-editor-246753

Google Tests Displaying Review Snippets In The Local 3-Pack

Google now may show a single review in the 3-pack. This was caught being tested in the wild.

Google is testing adding an additional line of text on some of the local packs you see in the web search results. When Google shows local results in the main search results, they often now come in a 3-pack. Sometimes Google shows review stars, but now, Google is testing pulling out a single quote from one of the reviews to show in the local pack snippet.

Peter Meyers from Moz spotted it in one of his tests and posted a screen shot of it on Twitter. He called them “mini-reviews in local pack.” Here is a picture from Peter Meyers, as I cannot personally replicate it.

Source: http://searchengineland.com/google-tests-displaying-review-snippets-local-3-pack-246629