What Does Google’s Restructuring Mean For Search?

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As you may have heard, yesterday Google announced massive restructuring that included launching a new parent company called Alphabet and appointing a new CEO. This is obviously big news, but it has also left many webmasters scratching their heads wondering what impact the new “slimmed down” Google will have on search.

Under the announcement, which was made by former Google CEO and new CEO of Alphabet Larry Page, Google will now be scaled down to only include the operation of the company’s primary internet products, while the newer research and innovation ventures will fall under the Alphabet umbrella.

For example, these ventures include Wing, a drone delivery system, Calico, a company focused on anti-aging, as well as robotics research and more.

The new, smaller Google will be led by new CEO Sundar Pichai. Since the announcement, several former and current Googlers, such as Matt Cutts, have expressed excitement about Pichai’s new leadership and think he is a great choice for moving the company forward.

Page says the restructuring will allow for a renewed focus on Google and described Pichai as someone who cares deeply about innovation.

While it is hard to predict the long-term implications of the restructuring, it seems as if there will be no immediate changes to Google search or AdWords. So, you can breathe a sigh of relief for now.

Starting now, Page will no longer be a part of day-to-day operations at Google, instead running Alphabet with President Sergey Brin. The pair says they are excited to be able to give attention to “more ambitious” projects, and they have no plans to turn Alphabet into a large consumer brand. Rather, Alphabet is set to be a platform for companies to grow their own brands.

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Study Shows Mobile-Friendly Sites Are Dominating Mobile Search Results Pages

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When Google rolled out its Mobile-Friendly Algorithm the results were initially underwhelming. Despite weeks of frightening articles about the so-called “Mobilepocalypse” or “Mobilegeddon”, the search results listings were largely the same in the immediate wake of the algorithm launch. However, a new study from Moovweb shows brands without mobile-friendly sites are starting to feel the pain.

The new study, which tracked clear visibility and ranking, shows consequences are beginning to affect sites who have yet to make their site easily usable for mobile searchers.

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Moovweb has been tracking “1,000 important e-commerce keywords in a range of industries” ever since the rollout of the Mobile-Friendly Algorithm on April 21 to see how the new algorithm is impacting mobile rankings on Google.

According to the study, top listings for search keywords were mobile-friendly 83 percent of the time, and 81 percent of the time the top three listings were. A review of the full page results showed 77 percent of page one results on Google mobile SERPs were mobile-friendly.

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The chart above shows the percentage of mobile-friendly sites in each of the top 10 positions across all keywords tested.

The company says mobile-friendliness in search results varied by vertical, with some industries being distinctly more mobile-friendly than others. Out of seven categories studied, retail had the most mobile-friendly results and transportation showed the lowest percentage of mobile-friendly results.

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It may have taken months, but the impact of Mobilegeddon is starting to become more obvious, but there is good news if you are starting to feel the pain. Google’s Mobile-Friendly Algorithm runs in real time, so you can make your site mobile-ready any time and expect to see fast results on mobile SERPs.

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John Mueller Explains Panda Update’s Slow Rollout

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The recently announced Google Panda algorithm update raised eyebrows for several reasons. Of course, any Google algorithm news is worthy of attention, but this specific update was unique in several ways that had SEOs and webmasters wondering what the deal was. Finally, Google has given some insight into why Panda 4.2 is so different from past algorithm updates.

There’s still not much information about why there was such a long lull between algorithm updates – over 10 months – but, Google’s John Mueller did recently provide some answers as to why the algorithm update is rolling out significantly slower than normal.

In a Google Hangout session between Mueller and webmasters, John explained the rollout is taking several months instead of the usual few days or weeks due to “technical reasons.” He also explicitly said the long rollout isn’t specifically intend to “confuse people” as some have suggested.

Both the SEM Post and Search Engine Roundtable transcribed Mueller’s comments on Panda:

This [Panda rollout] is actually pretty much a similar update to before. For technical reasons we are rolling it out a bit slower. It is not that we are trying to confuse people with this. It is really just for technical reasons.

So, it is not that we are crawling slowly. We are crawling and indexing normal, and we are using that content as well to recognize higher quality and lower quality sites. But we are rolling out this information in a little bit more slower way. Mostly for technical reasons.

It is not like we are making this process slower by design, it is really an internal issue on our side.

Webmasters have expressed frustration with the long rollout because it is taking much longer than normal to see results from the algorithm, and Mueller’s comments only provide a small window into how the algorithm is functioning.

Here is the video, from the start of the conversation:

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Google Finally Makes Google+ Optional For Users

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Google+ has been a controversial and underwhelming social media platform mostly populated by profiles made out of obligation in order to use Google’s services, but this will change soon as Google announced Google+ will no longer be a requirement for services across Google’s network.

Since Google made their social platform a requirement for all other services across their site, including Gmail and YouTube, there has been a strong pushback from users. The negative reaction was especially prevalent for YouTube users, who were forced to create new Google+ pages if they wished to create a new video channel.

In the announcement, Google conceded making Google+ mandatory for all users may have been a mistake:

“When we launched Google+, we set out to help people discover, share and connect across Google like they do in real life. While we got certain things right, we made a few choices that, in hindsight, we’ve needed to rethink.”

Over the next few months, Google will be uncoupling Google+ from all services. This means all it will take to access any Google products or services is a simple Google account. Once this is complete, users will be able to use YouTube, Gmail, or Google Analytics using a traditional Google account.

For users who were already pushed into making Google+ accounts, you will soon be able to remove it, although Google didn’t provide any more details about how or when.

With this change, Google+ will now be completely optional. This may be good news for users, but it will be interesting to see how the platform handles the shift. Many have already proclaimed the social network is dead, but it is entirely possible setting it free from the rest of Google may finally give the platform a chance to grow with only members who want to be on the social network.

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Google Panda 4.2 Began It’s Long Roll Out Over The Weekend

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Google has confirmed it has released a Google Panda refresh over the weekend, over 10 months after the last update to the algorithm.

The latest refresh is unique from past updates as it went virtually unnoticed by webmasters until it was announced by Barry Schwartz. This is because it is being rolled out far slower than in the past. Previous updates were rolled out usually over a period of a few days or at most a couple weeks, but Google says this latest update could potentially take months to fully roll out, even on a site-by-site basis. However, as it is a site-wide algorithm, it will not be on a page-by-page basis.

Google was not willing to provide any information about why the rollout is being done so slowly.

Unfortunately, the slow rollout does not mean you can expect to make any last minute changes to save your site. It is too late to change your fate with Panda 4.2, although it’s always good to make any improvements you know are needed.

Schwartz also noted his personal SEO news site, which was penalized by Panda 4.1, does show an increase in organic traffic since the update. That means others who were hit by the last update may see small improvements as well.

The Panda refresh is expected to impact approximately 2-3% of queries, meaning it is a relatively small update.

While the refresh may be good news to webmasters who were impacted by 4.1, most people are less pleased – particularly by the slow rollout.

It may be months before we know the impact of the refresh thanks to the slow implementation, but, considering there hasn’t been an update since October of last year, it was past time for it to happen.

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Google Sitemaps Bug Shows Indexed Page Drops On Reports

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A Google Sitemaps bug is causing many webmasters to see significant indexed page count falls within Google Search Console, but a fix should be on the way according to Google.

Google Search Console, known as Webmaster Tools until recently, is experiencing an issue causing confusion and concern among webmasters and marketers as huge declines are appearing in the indexed pages shown in the Google Sitemaps report.

Barry Schwartz is one expert who has seen hundreds of thousands of pages being suddenly displayed as no longer indexed by Google, and shared an example of how the problem can look on a report:

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Google is already aware of the issue and is hard at work to resolve it. Google’s Gary Illyes responded to Schwartz on Twitter saying “it’s confirmed and we’re working on it.”

If you’ve encountered similar drops in indexed page counts on your reports from July 14, there’s no cause for alarm. The glitch will be fixed soon and won’t affect your traffic or rankings through the search engine in the meantime.

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Mobile CPC Growth Is Up Despite Losses Elsewhere

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While display cost-per-click (CPC) growth is steadily falling, Adobe’s new Digital Advertising Report shows the opposite is happening on smartphones.

Using aggregated, anonymized data gathered over the past three years, Adobe assessed over 489 billion digital ad impressions. According to the data, click-through-rate (CTR) growth is consistently rising, but CPC growth how hit a steep decline over the past year, especially between Q4 and Q1.  At this point, there is a 33-point gap between CTR growth and CPC growth, despite the two being nearly equal at this time last year.

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However, smartphones seem to be bucking the trend. Mobile CPC growth is up 16 percent while CTR shows a 9 percent decrease year-over-year, leading to a 25-point gap. Adobe’s team believes the so-called “mobilegeddon” is largely responsible for the spike in mobile paid search.

The team also said price is another favor facilitating the increase in CPC growth on smartphones. According to Tamara Gaffney, principal analyst for Adobe Digital Index, clicks on mobile are cheaper than desktop clicks, but the trend is unlikely to stick around.

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“Mobile advertising’s lack of perceived value causes a mobile search click to be worth 37 percent less than a desktop search click,” she says. “Conservative and incremental approaches to tackle ‘mobile stress’ are insufficient to bridge the gap. Disruptive and innovative changes will be required in order to drive future business success on both the publisher and marketer side.”

Facebook also saw a 23 percent increase in clicks, despite showing half the impressions year-over-year. The social platform’s CPC has largely stayed stagnant, but CTR growth has shot up 99 percent YoY.

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Adobe says Facebook’s huge increase is the result of improved targeting on the platform, with 51 percent of U.S. consumers saying they believe Facebook ads are genuinely of interest, compared to just 17 percent of consumers on YouTube. Gaffney also said Facebook has decreased the overall number of ads it shows users to create a better balance for users on mobile screens.

“[Google is] starting to lose ground as a marketing vehicle and part of the reason why is because they aren’t getting as many clicks out of global display ads,” Gaffney says.

Google has dominated the search market for years, but the latest findings show they are slowly losing ground. Google still holds 65 percent of the global search spend share, and 61 percent in North America, but Yahoo and Bing’s combined efforts is gradually rising 4 percent year-over-year.

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Google Unveils Highly Anticipated ‘Buy’ Button

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Today, Google announced their highly anticipated ‘Buy’ button with the unveiling of the new “Purchases on Google” feature, along with several other big upgrades.

Select retailers running mobile ads can now choose to include a ‘Buy on Google’ option that takes shoppers to a branded product page hosted by Google. From there, shoppers can finalize their purchase and save purchasing information for future use if you choose.

According to Google, this feature is only in the experimental early stages and is being limited to a small number of retailers.

Retailers who choose to use Purchases on Google will only have to pay for clicks on the shopping ads to the product page. They will also have the option to invite customers to join their mailing list during the transaction.

While Google will take responsibility for hosting product pages and providing security throughout the sale, it will be up to retailers to provide customer communication.

Along with the announcement of Purchases on Google, the company introduced a few more new features for AdWords:

  • Swipe to Reveal: When a user swipes on a Google ad carousel will show more information about the products, including price and availability.
  • Ratings and Reviews: Shopping ads with product ratings and reviews will now be shown if searchers use specific trigger words, such as “best”, ”reviews”, “recommendations”, etc.
  • Priority for Local Inventory Ads: LIA’s will now receive priority for local intent shopping queries.
  • App Deep-Linking: Ads from select retailers will now include links to view a product on their app.Today, Google announced their highly anticipated ‘Buy’ button with the unveiling of the new “Purchases on Google” feature, along with several other big upgrades.
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Research Shows Mobile Search Spend Leaps 71 Percent From Last Year

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So far, 2015 is shaping up to be a huge year for the mobile internet. Between Google’s “Mobilepocalypse” and the news that searches from mobile have overtaken desktop search volume, mobile was already on the way to dominance, but a new report from IgnitionOne shows mobile search spend is also growing by leaps and bounds.

According to the recent Q2 Digital Marketing Report, paid search spending has risen 22 percent for tablets last year, and a massive 71 percent for smartphones.

Both mediums showed comparable growth in CPC and CTR (24 and 28 percent for phones, 26 and 17 percent for tablets), but smartphone clicks have outpaced those from tablets by 41 percent. The report also noted smartphone impressions had climbed 8 percent, but tablet impressions have declined by 17 percent.

“Google has incredible dominance on [the mobile] side,” says Will Margiloff, chief executive (CEO) of IgnitionOne. “But they still have, for the most part, a mobile display business and not really a native to phone and tablet business like Facebook. Google’s got their work cut out for them when it comes to mobile native or native display, and the only real player there is Facebook.”

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The report also showed Google’s display growth was down 9 percent year-over-year while Facebook’s is up 48 percent, which gives the social platform 16 percent of the display share. In comparison, Google’s share is at 31 percent, down from 38 percent last year.

After years of debate whether another search engine could ever prove to be a meaningful challenge to Google’s market share dominance, Facebook’s recent gains suggest it may actually be social media that poses the greatest challenge to Google.

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IgnitionOne’s research found programmatic data spend increased 33 percent year-over-year while eCPM rose 35 percent from last year. Impressions, however, have fallen 1 percent.

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Google Celebrates USA’s FIFA Women’s World Cup 2015 Win

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Today Google is celebrating the United States’ Women’s World Cup win with a Doodle on the homepage of the search engine. The logo appeared last night after the United States team defeated Japan in the final game 5-to-2.

Google received some criticism during the tournament for not devoting space for a special box on search results pages related to the tournament like they have done for all major sports championships. Unlike in the past, only searchers using Android devices saw a special box with scores and game times during the championship.

After last night’s win, however, Google immediately put the team front and center on the search engine with a special Doodle.

Midfielder Carli Lloyd was the breakout star of the championship game, scoring three of the team’s five goals. Her third goal was a stunning kick from just past midfield over the Japanese goalie, giving Lloyd the second hat trick of her career and the earliest hat trick in a Women’s World Cup game in history. Her performance won Lloyd FIFA’s Golden Ball for the most outstanding player in the tournament.

The logo celebrating America’s win is currently showing across the United States, but Google’s Japan homepage also features a slightly modified version of the logo with the prominent U.S. flag removed.

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The U.S. is the first team to win three World Cup titles, with previous wins in 1991 and 1999.

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