Google Took Down Over 780 Million Ads For Policy Violations in 2015

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Source: Robert Scoble / Flickr

Source: Robert Scoble / Flickr

Google has released its annual “bad ads” report, though they’ve changed the name a bit. Every year Google uses its bad ads report to highlight the efforts they are taking to rid AdWords of scammers, malware, and fraudulent ads. This year, they covered pretty much the same areas but chose to focus on the positive, calling its annual report the “Better Ads Report.”

This year’s report says the search giant disabled over 780 million ads last year for policy violations, up from 524 million ads disabled in 2014, and 350 million ads disabled in 2013.

Google describes “bad ads” as advertisements carrying malware, blocking the visibility of content, promoting fake or illegal goods, or leading to phishing scams. The company used a team of over 1,000 people around to world to constantly fight back against these ads. The majority of the time they are able to block the ads before they are ever seen by regular users.

Google also went in to detail, showing the most common bad ads they encountered in 2015:

  • Counterfeiters: Over 10,000 sites and 18000 accounts were suspended for attempting to sell counterfeit goods (imitation designer watchers for example).
  • Pharmaceuticals: Over 12.5 million ads were blocked for violating Google’s healthcare and medicines policy, such as advertising pharmaceuticals that have not been approved for use or ads that made misleading claims about the effectiveness of prescription drugs.
  • Weight loss scams: Over 30,000 sites were suspended for making weight loss promises that were dishonest and typically impossible to achieve.
  • Phishing: Over 7,000 sites were blocked for attempting to steal user information, aka phishing.
  • Unwanted software: More than 10,000 sites were disabled for forcing unwanted software and unapproved downloads via Google ads.
  • Trick-to-click: Over 17 million ads were rejected for attempting to mislead users to click an ad that would redirect them to unrelated pages.
  • Bad apps:  Google also blocked over 25,000 mobile aps from displaying Google ads due to breaking policies. Approximately 1.4 million apps were rejected from ever being able to display Google ads in the future.

Looking forward, Google says it is going to start cracking down on ads that may lead to accidental clicks. It also says it has developed technology capable of determining when mobile ad clicks are accidental, and will be able to prevent users from being taken to ad sites they didn’t intent to visit.

Google also plans to bolster efforts to cut down on weight loss ads in 2016 by adding additional restrictions on what advertisers can say is effective for weight loss.

View the full report here.

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Google Testing Feature That Lets Users Download Apps Straight From Search Results

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Apps

Android users will soon be able to install apps to their smartphones directly from Google search results. According to Android Police, Google has begun testing the new feature which will let users bypass the Play Store and directly install an app by performing a Google search.

To try out the feature, open the Google app on any Android phone and search for any app you want to install. Within the Google card, which previously directed users to the Play Store, you will now see an Install button.

If you press the Install button, your phone will ask for the normal permissions that appear with all Play Store app download. If you accept, the app will immediately begin downloading and installing.

The feature hasn’t been rolled out to all Android phones, so there is no guarantee you will be able to directly install the app. Many users are still being directed to the Play Store.

Ryan Whitwam of Android Police speculates the feature is just in testing currently, and will see a wider rollout in the future. He also suggests the feature is likely to be available only in the Google app and not through Chrome.

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Twitter Lets Users Customize How Long Polls Run

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Twitter Banner

Since the launch of polls on Twitter in October, the feature has been a hit. The company recently announced users have cast over 1.7 billion votes to date, and now Twitter is improving the feature by allowing users to set how long they want their polls to last.

When polls were launched, they came with a default lifespan of 24 hours. While this may work for some, a full day can be a long time to expect people to stay interested in one of your Tweets. Now, users can customize their polls to run for much shorter or longer than previously.

Users can now tweak their polls to run anywhere from just 5 minutes to 7 days, allowing you to get instant results or a more comprehensive response.

The move to bolster polls on Twitter couldn’t come at a better time. The feature has been widely adopted and users seem excited to participate. While the change isn’t likely to completely stop Twitter’s stock price from freefalling, it could help please users who are still disgruntled over a rumored upcoming feature which would allow users to share long-form posts on the platform known for its 140 character limit.

Creating a poll works as it always has. The only difference is users will now see a tiny clock icon near the tweet button, which allows you to quickly establish how long you want a poll to run.

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Periscope Videos Are Now Viewable In Twitter Timelines

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Periscope

Periscope has been gaining popularity as a social live video streaming service, but it has been limited by requiring its own app to join in the fun. Now, the Twitter-owned streaming platform is getting some help by finding a place on one of the largest social platforms available.

Twitter users can now share and promote their Periscope videos directly on their time-line, opening up a huge new audience to the service. Users can embed and view Periscope videos directly in the timeline of Twitter’s iOS app. Just as with the Periscope app, broadcasts can be rewatched for up to 24 hours before automatically vanishing.

Twitter has been struggling to expand their market, as the recent 10,000 character tweet controversy and plummeting stock price shows. The company is most likely hoping this move will help both platforms expand their utility and user base, though only time will tell if that is the case.

The new feature is currently only available through the iOS Twitter app, but Android and web versions are expected in the near future.

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Twitter May Expand Tweet Limit From 140 to 10,000 Characters

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Source: Shawn Campbell

Source: Shawn Campbell

Rumor has it that Twitter will be extending the character limit of Tweets from 140 characters to upwards of 10,000 characters. The news comes from a report in Recode, which cites multiple sources claiming the longer tweets should be expected by the end of the quarter, but public reaction is mixed at best.

Descriptions of the new feature say the longer tweets wouldn’t clutter up feeds. Instead, up to 140 characters of any tweet will appear in user’s timelines, but a new call to action would allow users to read more.

The sources also say the company is already planning for how users might attempt to spam timelines so they might be able to combat it. For example, there may be limits to the number of other users that can be mentioned in tweets.

Unfortunately for the company, response to the rumor has already been overwhelmingly negative. Many say the 140 character limit has been the defining feature of Twitter and without it there is little to distinguish the platform.

The hashtag #Twitter10k has already taken off as users both mock and lament the rumor. Here is just a sampling of what users are saying:

Given the reaction to the rumor, it is hard to predict whether Twitter will follow through or go back to the drawing board for the next big feature. The best indication will be if we start seeing tests for different character lengths in tweets in the coming month.

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Bing Announces It Is Now Powering All Search Results On AOL

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As of January 1st, Bing is officially powering AOL’s search results as the result of a long-term deal made by the two companies in June of last year. Rick van der Kooi, Corporate VP of Microsoft Search Advertising announced the change, saying:

“Today, I am excited to share that as of Jan. 1, Bing powers AOL’s web, mobile, and tablet search, providing paid search ads and algorithmic organic search results to AOL’s properties worldwide.”

Van der Kooi also shared some interesting bits of information to help illustrate the scale of the partnership, including:

  • 1 in 5 searches happen on Bing.com
  • Bing also powers search results for the third largest search provider in the US (Yahoo)
  • With Bing now powering AOL searches, the engine now powers close to one-third of all US PC web searches.

The company looks to gain even more ground by acquiring the built-in audience from AOL, which is responsible for generating billions of search queries a year.

Unlike Bing’s deal with Yahoo, Bing’s will be powering 100% of AOL’s search results across all devices. In the Yahoo agreement, only 51% of Yahoo’s desktop search results are powered by Bing, with no support for mobile.

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Google Starts Prioritizing HTTPS When Indexing Websites

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google-alerts1

Google is continuing its efforts to promote privacy in search by prioritizing indexing HTTPS pages over their HTTP equivalents.

In the announcement, Google explains its long-term aim is to eventually direct users to secure webpages with a private connection. The step to only index HTTPS pages when an HTTP equivalent exists is their most recent move in this process, following the small rankings boost given to HTTPS pages last year.

Unlike the change to Google’s algorithm in August 2014, this move will not have any effect on rankings. Instead, it simply means that Googlebot will only index the HTTPS version of a URL when both an HTTPS and HTTP version exist.

While Google’s commitment to secure search may lead to more rankings boosts for HTTPS pages in the future, this change is mostly to improve the efficiency of Google’s current indexing process. As they explain in their announcement:

“Browsing the web should be a private experience between the user and the website, and must not be subject to eavesdropping, man-in-the-middle attacks, or data modification. This is why we’ve been strongly promoting HTTPS everywhere.”

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Google’s Year In Search Lists Show Us What We Were Searching For In 2015

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Google Logo

Christmas is almost here and the New Year isn’t far behind, which means it is time for the annual end-of-the-year lists to show us what people were searching for this year. Yesterday, Google released their “Year In Search” video and list to highlight the most important topics of 2015.

The most searched for topic of the year is also possibly the most tragic; Google counted over 897 million searches about Paris this year, largely due to two major terrorist attacks in January and November. Particularly, in the immediate wake of the November attacks, Google saw the most searches about the city ever performed in the search engine’s history.

The Year In Search list also features several top news events such as Hurricane Patricia, the discovery of water on Mars, the terrorist group ISIS, and the earthquake in Nepal.

While the end of the year list features several events that united us through tragedy, it also shows the more lighthearted topics that caught our collective hearts and minds over the past year.

“Star Wars” was a huge topic of discussion for the internet, with more than 155 million searches before its world premiere. However, the most searched for film of the year was actually another highly anticipated sequel. “Jurassic World” took the lead spot, although Google didn’t detail exactly how many searches it received.

With all the focus on Donald Trump these past few months, you might expect him to lead the most searched for public figures, but The Donald only came in seventh place behind Charlie Sheen and the Orange Is The New Black character Ruby Rose.

Instead, the three most talked about public figures of the year were Lamar Odom, UFC fighter Ronda Rousey, and Caitlyn Jenner, who saw a huge spike in interest following her gender transition announcement on ABC News’ “20/20” in April.

You can see Google’s inspirational Year In Search video below, or you can browse all the Year In Search lists at Google Trends.

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Google Smart Goals Help Advertisers Without Conversion Tracking

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Source: Robert Scoble / Flickr

Source: Robert Scoble / Flickr

Most online advertisers consider conversion tracking an essential part of their toolkit. After all, why pour money into advertising if you can’t properly see how effective it is and optimize it? However, there are many businesses who are not using conversion tracking or importing goals from Google Analytics into AdWords. Google says they have a new feature just for them.

The new Smart Goals are powered by Google Analytics and aim to help businesses without a way to measure conversions evaluate their advertising efforts and optimize their campaigns.

Unlike conversion tracking and Analytics goals, Smart Goals don’t measure actions taken directly on an advertiser’s website. Instead, it uses the anonymized conversion data collected from other websites by Google Analytics to identify visits “most likely” to convert based on Google’s estimate.

The announcement explains:

To generate Smart Goals, we apply machine learning across thousands of websites that use Google Analytics and have opted in to share anonymized conversion data. From this information, we can distill dozens of key factors that correlate with likelihood to convert: things like session duration, pages per session, location, device and browser. We can then apply these key factors to any website. The easiest way to think about Smart Goals is that they reflect your website visits that our model indicates are most likely to lead to conversions.

To set up Smart Goals, advertisers will need to link their Analytics and AdWords accounts and must receive at least 1,000 clicks rom AdWords over a 30-day period “to ensure the validity of your data.” From there, select Smart Goals, under Goals in the Admin tab.

Advertisers can even preview well Smart Goals can work for their site before activating it by exploring the new “Smart Goals” page under Conversions in Analytics. This page lets you analyze the behavior of Smart Goals visits and compare those to the visits deemed unlikely to convert. If you like what you are seeing, you can then import Smart Goals into AdWords.

Once Smart Goals have been imported, advertisers can set a target cost per acquisition (CPA) with the Smart Goals being the acquisition. The announcement says, “in this way, you’re able to optimize your AdWords spend based on the likelihood of conversion as determined by our model.”

Google says Smart Goals will be rolling out over the next few weeks. While it may serve as a reasonable solution for some businesses, for most Smart Goals may seem like a bit of a stop-gap solution. To really take control of your online advertising and guarantee you are getting your money’s worth, you will want to use conversion tracking,

If you need help getting started, contact us. We can get you set up and help you optimize your advertising to ensure the best results.

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Proven Holiday Marketing Strategies [Infographic]

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The holiday shopping season is in fever pitch, which means most business owners and marketers are going full-steam-ahead on their online marketing strategies to rake in their piece of the $650 billion predicted to be spent this year.

So how can you get in on the action? Pixel Road Designs recently shared an infographic that can give your holiday marketing strategies the extra boost they need to make this holiday season a huge success.

Check out the infographic below, or at Pixel Road Designs’ website here.

PRD_Christmas_IG_021

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