Google makes 2 ad updates that will affect local search marketers

Ads now appear in Local Finder results, plus ads display differently in Google Maps.

 

Google has made changes this week to local search results and Google Maps that will impact retailers and service providers with physical locations.

Ads in Local Finder results

Local SEO specialist Brian Barwig was among those who have noticed the ads appearing in the Local Finder results — reached after clicking “More places” from a local three-pack in the main Google search results.

The addition of the ads (more than one ad can display) in the Local Finder results means retailers and service providers that aren’t featured in the local three-pack have a new way of getting to the top of the results if users click through to see more listings. (It also means another haven for organic listings has been infiltrated with advertising.)

The ads in the Local Finder rely on AdWords location extensions just like Google Maps, which started featuring ads that used location extensions when Google updated Maps in 2013. Unlike the results in Maps, however, advertisers featured in Local Finder results do not get a pin on the map results.

A Google spokesperson didn’t offer further details other than to say, “We’re always testing out new formats for local businesses, but don’t have any additional details to share for now.”

  

Google Maps is no longer considered a Search Partner

Google has also announced changes to how ads display in Google Maps. Soon, Google will only show ads that include location extensions in Maps; regular text ads will not be featured. The other big change is that Google Maps is no longer considered part of Search Partners. Google has alerted advertisers, and Maps has been removed from the list of Google sites included in Search Partners in the AdWords help pages.

This change in Maps’ status means:

1. Advertisers that use location extensions but had opted out of Search Partners will now be able to have their ads shown in Maps and may see an increase in impressions and clicks as their ads start showing there.

2. Advertisers that don’t use location extensions but were opted into Search Partners could see a drop in impressions and clicks with ads no longer showing in Maps.

The move to include Maps as part of Google search inventory will mean more advertisers will be included in Maps ad auctions. The emphasis on location extensions is in line with Google’s increasing reliance on structured data and feeds, as retailers participating in Google Shopping can attest.

source: http://searchengineland.com/google-ads-local-finder-results-maps-not-search-partner-247779

What Is Social Media Marketing?

What Is Social Media Marketing?

Social media marketing refers to the process of gaining traffic or attention through social media sites.

Social media itself is a catch-all term for sites that may provide radically different social actions. For instance, Twitter is a social site designed to let people share short messages or “updates” with others. Facebook, in contrast is a full-blown social networking site that allows for sharing updates, photos, joining events and a variety of other activities.

How Are Search & Social Media Marketing Related?

Why would a search marketer — or a site about search engines — care about social media? The two are very closely related.

Social media often feeds into the discovery of new content such as news stories, and “discovery” is a search activity. Social media can also help build links that in turn support into SEO efforts. Many people also perform searches at social media sites to find social media content. Social connections may also impact the relevancy of some search results, either within a social media network or at a ‘mainstream’ search engine.
Social Media Marketing At Marketing Land

Marketing Land is the sister site to Search Engine Land that covers all facets of internet marketing, including these popular topics within social media marketing:
Facebook
Instagram
Twitter
Pinterest
Google+ 
Linkedin
YouTube
Social Media Marketing How To Guides & more!

At Search Engine Land, we occasionally cover social media news with a search angle, you’ll find all of our most recent articles related to ‘social search’ here:

All Social Search Related Stories

More Social Media Marketing Resources

Search Engine Land and Marketing Land produce three conferences dedicated to digital marketing strategies and tactics for professional marketers: SMX, the MarTech Conference and the SocialPro Conference series.

Many of our SMX events have topics that cover social media. There’s also our annual event entirely devoted to social media. Check out the site to learn more: SocialPro Conference.

Subscribe to our weekly Social Media Marketing digest and Marketing Day daily recap newsletters, with the latest articles from Marketing Land and Search Engine Land, as well as the day’s news sources all over the web.


Source: http://searchengineland.com/guide/what-is-social-media-marketing

Bing Boasts Continuous Updates To Their Search Engine Daily

Bing deploys multiple updates per day in an effort to constantly improve the search results and features.

Dr. Jan Pedersen, Chief Scientist, Bing and Information Platform R&D, wrote this morning on theBing blog that Bing is continuously updating their search engine “multiple times per day.”

Some may think that Microsoft is a big company that’s slow to make changes, but the blog post explains that is at least not the case when it comes to Bing, their search engine.

“Four years ago, Bing engineers deployed new features once a month,” they said. But now Bing ships “features to production multiple times per day,” he added. This is based on Bing taking a different approach through what is known as agile development.

Now Bing has 600 engineers, six times the number they had four years ago. They are running 20,000 tests, a 10-fold increase, per submission attempt, and have kept feature submission times below 30 minutes.

In short, Bing is doing a lot, constantly improving, testing, updating and investing in their search technology in order to compete with Google’s incredibly frequent updates.

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