Google Finally Shuts Down The Google My Business App

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Google My Business is officially gone as the GMB mobile app has finally stopped functioning.

Now, instead of being able to edit your local listing, see your insights, or respond to customers, business operators will only see a short message reading “the Google My Business app is no longer available” if you open the app.

Google My Business shutdown notice

Of course, the shutdown of the GMB app is not sudden. The company announced it would be discontinuing the app when it revealed it was rebranding local business listings to Google Business Profiles.

Thankfully, you do have other options if you have still been using the GMB app to manage your listing. 

Along with being able to update your listing through Google Search, you can also manage your listing through the Google Maps app. 

With this, Google has finally eliminated the final remaining artifact from Google My Business in favor of allowing businesses to manage their listings directly within Google Search and the existing Google Maps app for a more seamless experience. Though not explicitly stated, the goal seems to be simplifying managing your local SEO without the need for an entirely separate platform like GMB.

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Pinterest Launches 4 New Features To Promote Products and Online Stores

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Pinterest is angling to make itself the leading social network for e-commerce activity with a slew of new features and advancements for shopping. 

As the announcement for the updates explains, Pinterest has seen a surge in the number of merchants listing their products on the platform (up 87% in Q1 of 2022 alone).

Now, the company is hoping to double down on this with a new Pinterest API for Shopping, Product Tagging for Pins, Videos in Shopping Catalogs, and the introduction of a Shop Tab on Business Profiles:

“At Pinterest, our goal is to turn inspiration into action, and our vision for shopping is to make it possible to buy anything Pinners are inspired by on the platform. In 2021, the number of Pinners engaging with shopping surfaces on Pinterest grew over 215%, and 89% of weekly Pinners use Pinterest for inspiration in their path to purchase. The new shopping features such as the API for Shopping allows brands and retailers to reach high-intent Pinners during the earliest stage of their shopping journey with the most updated catalog data.”

Pinterest API for Shopping

Pinterest wants to make it easy to manage your products no matter how large your inventory is. With the new API for Shopping, you can more accurately manage metadata for your products with early tests showing the tool was 97% accurate.

Product Tagging for Pins

Though the social network is leaning more heavily into the world of shopping, the main focus is still on Pins that users and brands share. With Product Tagging, you can make your pins a seamless part of your sales process. Once you have tagged your products in pins, shoppers can easily click on the tags to be immediately taken to a sales page.

Video in Catalog

The typically image-based social network is gradually integrating video. The latest move in this direction is the ability to use video assets in product catalogs to showcase your products in motion.

Shop Tab on Business Profiles

Make your online store a more prominent part of your business profile with a new tab dedicated to your shop. According to early tests, approximately 30% of Shopify merchants said they got their first attributed checkout directly from this high-intent shopping feature.

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Google Clarifies Googlebot Doesn’t Always Crawl Entire Webpages

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In an update to the help documentation for Googlebot, the search engine’s crawling tool, Google explained it will only crawl the first 15 MB of any webpage. Anything after this initial 15 MBs will not influence your webpage’s rankings.

As the Googlebot help document states:

“After the first 15 MB of the file, Googlebot stops crawling and only considers the first 15 MB of the file for indexing.

The file size limit is applied on the uncompressed data.”

Though this may initially raise concerns since images and videos can easily exceed these sizes, the help document makes clear that media or other resources are typically exempt from this Googlebot limit:

“Any resources referenced in the HTML such as images, videos, CSS, and JavaScript are fetched separately.”

What This Means For Your Website

If you’ve been following the most commonly used best practices for web design and content management, this should leave your website largely unaffected. Specifically, the best practices you should be following include:

  • Keeping the most relevant SEO-related information relatively close to the start of any HTML file. 
  • Compressing images.
  • Leaving images or videos unencoded into the HTML when possible.
  • Keeping HTML files small – typically less than 100 KB.
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Google Shares 8 SEO Tips for Ecommerce Sites

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Ecommerce websites have become a major part of the internet as online shopping has taken off in recent years. However, the unique nature and structure of these sites can make them uniquely tricky to optimize. 

Product variant pages, annual sales, and the need for lots of high-quality images may make it difficult to optimize these pages using some traditional SEO strategies, while other techniques remain essential for high rankings.

Thankfully, Google’s own Alan Kent has produced a short video full of SEO tips specifically for ecommerce sites. I’ll embed the full video at the bottom of the page, but we’ll also be sharing the highlights below:

8 Tips for Ecommerce SEO

  1. Cover the Basics: Basic technical SEO like allowing Google to crawl your site or using proper page titles is crucial for helping Google find and understand your website. For starters, make sure page titles feature your brand name and product details (such as color) and use structured data to make your product pages easy for Google to sort through your online store pages.
  2. Create Content for Every Stage of the Shopping Journey: Google knows that searchers are often looking for information rather than wanting to buy right now. This is why the search engine prioritizes sites with a wide array of content for every stage of the buyer’s journey. To help you get started brainstorming, Kent suggests providing gift ideas, highlighting reviews, and including detailed information about your products.
  3. Markup Product Variant Pages: To keep product variants well organized, ensure every variant has a unique URL and establish a canonical page.
  4. Reuse Regular Sale URLs: Preserve URLs from sales so they can be reused later. For example, you’ll want to use the same URLs every year for holiday sales.
  5. Performance: When shoppers are ready to buy, they want to do so as quickly as possible. When your page is competing against a similar product page for a spot in the search results, speed is often the tiebreaker that will help you come out ahead.
  6. Be Patient: SEO takes time to gain momentum. In many cases, it can take months for changes to impact your rankings. Don’t try to rush things or change strategies because you’re getting restless. Just keep working on improving your overall SEO.
  7. Don’t Be Afraid To Ask For Help: Every site is unique and may not benefit equally from Google’s broad advice. Don’t hesitate to ask SEO experts how to best optimize your site or how to adopt these strategies to your needs.
  8. Focus on Users: At the end of the day, Google wants to provide the best possible site for users. Be that site. 
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The Top Google Searches From The U.S. and Worldwide

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Have you ever wondered what the most searched keywords and phrases on Google are? 

While the search engine regularly details trending search topics and trends, the company does not share details on the top overall search terms. Thankfully, Ahrefs used data from over 19.8 billion keywords to list the top searches in the U.S. and worldwide on their own.

To generate the list, Ahrefs looked at the number of times search terms were used each month and averaged these monthly totals over the course of a year. 

Below, we will share the top 50 Google Searches in the U.S. and worldwide. For complete lists of the top 100 searches and lists of the most frequently searched questions, check out the full report here.

Top 50 U.S. Google Searches

#KeywordSearch volume
1facebook160,000,000
2youtube151,000,000
3amazon121,000,000
4weather103,000,000
5google70,000,000
6walmart63,000,000
7gmail59,000,000
8google translate42,000,000
9home depot41,000,000
10yahoo mail39,000,000
11yahoo38,000,000
12wordle34,000,000
13election results33,000,000
14fox news32,000,000
15december global holidays28,000,000
16ebay28,000,000
17food near me28,000,000
18instagram26,000,000
19costco24,000,000
20restaurants near me24,000,000
21nfl24,000,000
22nba24,000,000
23google maps24,000,000
24amazon prime23,000,000
25starbucks23,000,000
26weather tomorrow23,000,000
27best buy22,000,000
28cnn22,000,000
29walgreens21,000,000
30translate20,000,000
31espn20,000,000
32lowes20,000,000
33mcdonalds19,000,000
34craigslist19,000,000
35usps tracking19,000,000
36news19,000,000
37zillow18,000,000
38traductor18,000,000
39nfl scores17,000,000
40calculator16,000,000
41twitter16,000,000
42target16,000,000
43wells fargo15,000,000
44netflix15,000,000
45restaurants15,000,000
46bank of america15,000,000
47food14,000,000
48chick fil a14,000,000
49cvs14,000,000
50indeed14,000,000

Top 50 Google Searches Worldwide

#KeywordSearch volume
1youtube1,163,000,000
2facebook1,033,000,000
3google513,000,000
4whatsapp web490,000,000
5weather400,000,000
6gmail394,000,000
7translate367,000,000
8amazon348,000,000
9google translate332,000,000
10instagram301,000,000
11traductor235,000,000
12hotmail206,000,000
13cricbuzz196,000,000
14tiempo170,000,000
15fb146,000,000
16satta king123,000,000
17yahoo mail121,000,000
18yahoo119,000,000
19weather tomorrow110,000,000
20google maps108,000,000
21погода99,000,000
22tradutor89,000,000
23sarkari result86,000,000
24переводчик85,000,000
25yandex83,000,000
26tiempo mañana78,000,000
27walmart76,000,000
28ebay74,000,000
29traduçoes72,000,000
30nba72,000,000
31flipkart67,000,000
32google traduction65,000,000
33çeviri64,000,000
34wordle63,000,000
35meteo62,000,000
36bbc news61,000,000
37satta60,000,000
38hava durumu53,000,000
39ютуб52,000,000
40dolar51,000,000
41home depot50,000,000
42вконтакте48,000,000
43dr46,000,000
44cowin46,000,000
45xsmb46,000,000
46amazon prime45,000,000
47snaptik45,000,000
48ipl45,000,000
49wetter44,000,000
50december global holidays44,000,000
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Twitter Test Long-Form Content With ‘Notes’

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After expanding its character limit for tweets a few years ago, Twitter is testing a new feature called Notes that lets users ditch character limits altogether.

The company confirmed testing the new feature in a tweet, along with a longer Note explaining everything Notes can do:

“Notes will give people the ability to go over 280 characters on Twitter in a single piece of content, with the inclusion of photos, videos, GIFs, and Tweets. Notes can be written, published, and shared on Twitter, and read all across the Internet.”

Unfortunately for most of us, the feature is initially being tested among a select number of writers in the US, UK, Canada, and Ghana. 

As the announcement explains:

“We’re excited for the moment when everyone can use Notes, but for now, our focus is on building it right. A large part of that is engaging with writers and building community.”

Notably, the feature does not appear to be replacing Twitter threads, at least for now:

“There are situations, however, where threads aren’t enough. From the rise of the screenshot announcement Tweet to the newsletter boom, a new reality became clear: people were writing long elsewhere, and then coming to Twitter to share their work and for the conversation surrounding all those words.”

In the announcement, Twitter also detailed a few unique features which will make Notes attractive to those looking to publish longer content:

  • Formatting: Formatting tools included bold, italic, and strikethrough text, as well as the ability to add links and create lists.
  • Include Media: Notes can include one GIF, one video, or up to four static images.
  • Embedded Tweets: Include traditional tweets in Notes by pasting a URL or from your bookmarked tweets.
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TikTok Reveals Its Future Plans For Ads, Shopping, and More

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TikTok is still considered a niche social media site by some, but the platform has grand ambitions to keep growing into an even bigger platform in the future. 

In TikTok’s first-ever company event, held as part of the 2022 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, the company’s leadership spoke about the challenges facing the platform and their plans to overcome them.

Company leadership addressed a range of topics, including shopping across the platform, user safety, iOS 14’s impact on online advertising, and more. Let’s go over some of the highlights:

Advertising Updates

Though it has already amassed hundreds of thousands of advertisers, TikTok’s president of global operations solutions, Blake Chandlee says the company’s current goal is in the millions.

To do this, TikTok is expanding its advertising toolset and creating new features to help advertisers measure the quality of ads.

Managing director and global head of monetization product, strategy, and operation, Ray Cao, also addressed the impact of Apple’s iOS 14 on its advertising operations. 

This update made it difficult to target and track ads to many users as it gave users the option to block many forms of online tracking. However, Cao says the social network will overcome this by increasing the options for contextual ad targeting.

At the same time, TikTok is working to improve brand safety by better assessing what type of content an ad may be associated with. 

As Francis Stones, head of European brand safety explained, the company’s review process now analyzes sounds, text, emojis, and imagery to ensure brands do not become associated with something problematic.

TikTok Shopping Features

Along with these updates to TikTok’s advertising services, the platform is also continuing its efforts to develop its live shopping functionality.

Global head of business marketing, Sofia Hernandez explained that the new feature is being developed to allow brands to take advantage of user-created content quickly and easily, though further details were unavailable.

As TikTok grows into a major force on today’s internet, it is working to provide brands and advertisers with the types of features they have come to expect from social networks. While this is just a small look at the platform’s direction for the future, it shows that the newly popular social network intends to keep growing with its userbase.

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Leaked Facebook Memo Reveals Major Changes Coming To The Main Feed

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Facebook is preparing for a major overhaul of its main feed to turn it into a “discovery engine” geared towards video content, based on a newly leaked internal memo.

The memo, written by Head of Facebook Tom Alison, was first sent to employees on April 27, though it was only recently obtained and published by The Verge. This suggests the changes to the main feed may be coming sooner rather than later, however, the memo does not give a date for the update to arrive.

What Is a Discovery Engine?

It may seem like corporate jargon, but the move towards being a ‘discovery engine’ indicates a major change in priorities for how Facebook’s main feed functions.

In general, the term ‘discovery engine’ simply refers to helping users find more interesting content from accounts or pages they are not connected to. What makes this such a big change is that Facebook has always focused on content shared by connections like friends and family.

This opens the door for Facebook to become more of a general content aggregator than the more personal social network it has always been.

Facebook’s Top Three Priorities

In the memo, Alison identifies three near-term priorities that the social network believes will help create a place where people can find and share engaging content. These are:

  • Make Reels successful.
  • Build world-class recommendations technology.
  • Unlock messaging-based sharing.

By focusing on these three goals, the platform aims to expand the ways people publish and share content with each other.

What Will The New Facebook Feed Look Like?

While the memo does not go into many specifics about what the new Facebook feed will look like, The Verge’s Alex Heath spoke with Alison to find out how he is envisioning the new feed experience:

“Here’s how the future Facebook app will work in practice: the main tab will become a mix of Stories and Reels at the top, followed by posts its discovery engine recommends from across both Facebook and Instagram. It’ll be a more visual, video-heavy experience with clearer prompts to direct message friends a post. To make messaging even more prominent, Facebook is working on placing a user’s Messenger inbox at the top right of the app, undoing the infamous decision to separate the two apps eight years ago.”

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How To Get a Google Review Removed Online

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No one likes receiving a bad review. Not only do they affect your company’s morale, but they can also easily scare off future customers if they check your reviews – and they will almost certainly read your reviews. Studies have shown that 98% of consumers read online reviews before doing business with a local company.

At the same time, there is usually very little you can do about a legitimate negative online review. In most cases, the best solution is to be humble, apologize for not delivering the quality service or products expected, and do your best to make it right.

Still, there are a few types of reviews that require more extreme responses. Thankfully, when dealing with fake, spammy, or inappropriate reviews, you may be able to get the offending reviews deleted entirely.

When Can a Review Be Deleted?

There are strict rules about what types of reviews can be deleted. 

For obvious reasons, complaints that appear to be legitimate complaints about a poor experience with your brand can not be deleted. 

However, Google can remove reviews for your business if they break the company’s policies and guidelines. These include rules banning deceptive, explicit, or irrelevant. Below, we will talk a bit more about exactly what violations may make a review subject to removal.

Offensive Content

As described by Google, offensive content may include any sort of content “that is clearly and deliberately provocative.”

This includes any form of hate speech or harassment, as well as reviews containing personal information.

Deceptive Content

Misleading or inaccurate reviews are a regular occurrence online. In some cases, competitors may try to hurt your reputation by manufacturing a poor experience. Personal conflicts between individuals may also boil over and result in negative reviews in an effort to get an individual fired.

This is why Google does not allow any review that is not an accurate representation of a real experience with a brand.

Mature Content

To ensure content on the search engine remains safe for all users, Google will delete any reviews containing profanity, sexually explicit content, adult themes, or graphic violence.

Regulated or Illegal Content

Reviews may not contain calls to action for products or services which may be subject to local legal restrictions. Additionally, Google warns that dangerous activities or illegal content will get reviews removed.

Irrelevant Content

Lastly, reviews must be related to an actual experience with a company’s products or services. That means rants, off-topic content, or attempts to promote one’s own products are subject to removal.

How To Get an Online Review Removed

Obviously, brands can not directly delete reviews from their Google Business Profiles. Instead, a company representative must report a review for removal through Google Search or Google Maps.

Once reported, Google will assess the review and determine if it violates any of the platform’s policies. Though this process may take several days, brands can also mitigate the damage of a misleading or inappropriate review with a response explaining the reality of the situation and noting that the review has been reported to Google.

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LinkedIn Makes It Easier To Discover And Follow Creators

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LinkedIn is making it easier to find and follow creators across the platform through a series of new updates announced this week.

The professional social network has been emphasizing its platform’s content publishing tools over the past few years. The goal is to make it easier for individual figures and brands to stand out on the platform by sharing interesting anecdotes, important professional updates, and motivational insights.

These updates continue that theme by opening new ways for those who don’t share connections on the site to discover your content and opt-in to see more of your content in their feed.

Here’s a breakdown of all the new ways users can find, follow, and share your content to increase your visibility on LinkedIn:

Follow Creators Directly from The Feed

When people who aren’t connected to your page see your content in their feed, they will now be able to immediately follow you through a small button in the top right of the post. Additionally, users may be shown a prompt below the post, providing a larger more noticeable call to follow you.

Follow Creators From LinkedIn Search Results

LinkedIn is going to start including creators who are tagged with relevant hashtags in search results for topics or ideas. Even better, the listings will include a small icon allowing users to immediately start following you.

Share Links To Your Profile

To make it easier to reach users on other platforms or sites, LinkedIn is working on a tool that will let you create a shareable link to your page. Anyone who clicks the link will then be taken to a prompt that will allow them to start following your posts on LinkedIn.

New Connections Requests Become Followers

Now, when a user sends a request to connect with your page, they will automatically be added to your followers – if they weren’t following you already.

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