Google Makes Changes To Reduce “Fat Finger” Ad Clicks

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Tell me if this has ever happened to you. As you’re browsing a website, your thumb accidentally hits an ad as you try to scroll past it, launching a new page. You close it out, and try to scroll down again only to accidentally tap the ad on the page yet again, leaving you in a loop of trying to close the page and move past it but repeatedly wind up tapping an ill-placed ad that you have no interest in.

Not only is this scenario a bad experience for the user, but it is also a nightmare for advertisers who are wasting money on valueless clicks.

This has been a growing issue for the online advertising industry as mobile browsing increases, but sites have struggled to optimize their sites (and their advertising) for mobile viewers and errant taps. Now, Google is finally making changes to hopefully solve the so-called “fat finger” ad clicks problem.

  1. First, taps close to the edge of an image ad won’t be considered clicks. Google says it has identified the border area particularly prone to accidental clicks during scrolling.
  2. Second, for in-app install ads interstitial ads like the one on the right above users won’t be able to click on the app icon because the close button is overlayed on that image. Users will need to click the call-to-action button.
  3. Finally, ads will only become clickable after they’ve been onscreen for “a short period of time”. How long that period actually is isn’t clear, but Google says the delay is to give users “enough time to examine the content of an ad”.

While most of these changes are relatively common sense (why on earth was the app icon ever considered a click?), but they are still welcomed by the advertising community who have been complaining about “fat fingers” since display ads came to mobile.

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Google My Business Is Helping Businesses Update Their Listings For Summer

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As schools close and the temperatures soar across the country, it isn’t unusual for businesses to change their hours for the summer. It is especially common in tourist areas where shops often stay open longer to accommodate the longer days and increased store traffic.

If your business has special summer hours, now is the time to guarantee your business listing on Google shows your adjusted seasonal hours.

Today, Google launched a new initiative at gybo.com/summer to help businesses quickly check how their Google My Business listing is displaying, including whether they are currently open or closed.

Google says a recent survey of small businesses found 25% change their operating hours during summer, but only 1 percent of the businesses also adjusted their hours on Google My Business.

Considering recent studies have shown over half of all consumers use search to look for business hours, and even higher numbers use search to plan local purchases, having the wrong hours listed can be quite a big problem.

If you have special summer hours but haven’t updated your listing yet, be sure to update the listing in Google My Business. Be sure to set a reminder while you are at is so you remember to change the hours back again when fall arrives.

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The Basics of SEO [Infographic]

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If you’re a business owner who has decided to get serious about your company’s online presence and marketing, you’ve almost certainly heard about search engine optimization. Unfortunately to the uninitiated, SEO can seem impenetrable with its endless technical jargon and conflicting opinions from experts about exactly how to get the best online visibility. It can feel a lot like jumping in the deep end without learning how to swim first.

Search Engine Optimization doesn’t have to seem so intimidating however. There may be a lot to learn before you are an expert, but with just a few basic ideas you can drastically improve your business’s online profile.

This infographic from SEOHalt will help guide you through the basics of SEO and give you the vocabulary you need to really get an understanding of what search engine optimization is and how it affects online marketing efforts. Once you’ve got these ideas under your wing, you’ll be ready to dive into the deeper waters of SEO without having to worry you’ll drown.

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Emojis Vanish From Google Search Result Listings

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It was fun while it lasted, but Google has followed through on their promise to remove emojis from titles in search results.

In April, Expedia became the first major brand to start experimenting using emojis in search results titles. For example, a search listing for beach rentals may have included a wave emoji on Expedia listings.

It wasn’t long until many other major brands followed suit, but Google ultimately decided the trend was not something they wanted to promote. During a Google Hangout in early May, John Mueller, a webmaster trends analyst for Google, announced the search giant would be removing the emojis.

True to Mueller’s word, emojis disappeared from search results early this morning, as first noticed by Jennifer Slegg at The SEM Post.

Notably, Google has only seemed to remove the emojis from titles. Norwegian Airlines, known for creating the very first emoji URL, appears to be unaffected.

While the hearts, waves, and smiley faces are gone from Google, emojis are still currently appearing in Bing searches. Microsoft’s search engine started showing emojis in title tags shortly after they began appearing in Google, but there’s no word if they intend to follow Google in phasing them out now.

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Google Maps Gives Local Businesses Even More Reason To Update Their Business Hours

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Local business owners have more incentive than ever to make sure their Google listings are correct. As first reported by Android Police, Google Maps has recently added a feature that tells users to turn around and go home if they are using Google Maps to navigate to a specific place if that location will be closed by the time they are expected to arrive.

The warning reads simply, “your destination may be closed by the time you arrive.”

If you keep up with making sure your local listings are always up-to-date and accurate, this shouldn’t be much of a worry to you, however if your business has incorrect hours listed the new feature could wreak havoc on your store traffic.

With the new feature, having the wrong time listed is almost like forgetting to turn the sign from closed to open at the start of the day.

Here is an example of the new warning:

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Mobilegeddon Had Greater Impact on Small and Medium Businesses

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Most reports have made Mobilegeddon out to be a farce with only a small effect on Google’s search results overall. New analysis from digital agency Koozai, however, suggests small and medium businesses (SMB) felt quite an impact when Google rolled out their mobile friendly algorithm.

According to Koozai’s May survey of 2,000 SMB’s with 50 or fewer employees, nearly half (46%) of all respondents reported experiencing changes in ranking. Of that group, 41 percent also saw a drop in rankings by at least three spots. This may not sound like much, but a drop in just one or two rankings can have huge impacts on traffic.

“The hype that the Google mobile update would cause carnage in the search engine rankings missed the larger picture,” says Ben Norman, chief executive (CEO) of Koozai. “Exaggerating the impact meant that businesses didn’t anticipate that even small changes in their ranking can have a big impact on their organic mobile search results.”

Norman says much of the confusion is due to the idea that a single algorithm is the deciding factor when determining ranking. Google uses over 200 different factors to rank pages on search results pages, but some were led to believe the mobile optimization would be the ultimate deciding factor. On the contrary, 27 percent of businesses in Koozai’s survey reported drops in rankings despite having optimized their sites for mobile.

This leads many business owners to feel like they are being punished after acting on Google’s warnings, which Norman says illustrates how frequently SMBs are poorly educated on SEO and fail to understand e-commerce analytics.

“Many consumers today will research on mobile and then purchase on desktop,” he says. “Many SMBs are missing out on these lead-creation opportunities if they don’t know if their e-commerce sites aren’t giving their potential customers a good experience on mobile.”

Of the businesses involved, 37 percent said they were worried the mobile friendly algorithm update would impact their sales while 44 percent said they were not concerned because the majority of their sales come from desktop shopping. Nearly half said they were unsure about the relationship between devices and could not say whether mobile influenced their desktop sales. In addition, 12 percent did not know whether their sites had been optimized for mobile at all.

There were predictions well before the release of the algorithm that small and medium businesses would be the most likely to be impacted by ‘Mobilegeddon’, but many reviews of the algorithm’s effects failed to consider the disparity in their post-Mobilegeddon analysis.

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Amazon is The Most Visible Mobile Site In Google Search Results By Far

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It might not be a surprise to learn that Amazon dominates the search engine results pages, but you might be surprised by just how much they lead all other major brands.

A recent performance study of 10 leading U.S. brands published by SearchMetrics makes it clear that Amazon has by far the most visibility across Google’s search results on both desktop and mobile.

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In the study, SearchMetrics used the top 10 retail sites listed in the National Retail Federation’s list of top 100 retailers and parsed the search results of millions of Google search terms to establish a mobile visibility score along with a desktop visibility score.

To calculate the visibility score, the study evaluated the number of times a brand appears across a keyword set, the brand’s rankings within those search engine results pages, competitiveness of keywords, and the click through rate of those results pages.

Even compared to other major competitors, Amazon is an absolute giant. With the staggering rating of 11,145,359, the online retail company dwarfs Walmart, its closest competitor with a score of 1,816,192.  Following Walmart were The Home Depot with 881,538, and Target.com, with a score of 771,839.

The focus of the study was mobile search, as it is most often the first touch point to purchase. However, the analysis also showed the rankings remain the same on desktop.

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Google To Unverify Inactive Google My Business Listings

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If you run a local business and haven’t logged into Google My Business in a while you may be at risk of having Google unverify your listings, according to a statement from a Google representative today.

In a post on the Google and Your Business Help Forum, Google’s Jade Wang confirmed the news that the company has been contacting some Google My Business users that it considers to be inactive:

In some cases, we may contact Google My Business users via email to confirm that they are still actively managing a business page. If a user is unresponsive to our attempts to contact him or her and has not logged into Google My Business for a significant length of time, then we may unverify pages in the account. We’re doing this in order to continue to provide users with the best experience when they’re looking for local businesses like yours. If you find that a page in your account has been incorrectly unverified, please contact support to get assistance restoring verification.

The news was first brought to light by Brian Barwig of Integrated Digital Marketing, who posted a message today about a phone conversation he had with a Google support rep who told him that this may happen to accounts which are considered inactive for six months.

Mike Blumenthal has also shared the text of the email Google sends out to warn inactive accounts about being potentially unverified.

To help prevent this, Wang included some advice: “It’s a good idea to keep an eye on the inbox associated with your Google My Business (Locations) account. It’s also a good idea to regularly log into Google My Business (Locations) to confirm that your business information is current and accurate.”

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Webmaster Tools Is Dead, Welcome to Google Search Console

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Over the past decade, website operators have relied on Google Webmaster Tools for ensuring their sites were being properly displayed and indexed across the search giant, but big changes are on the way. Google is rebranding one of its most popular services to Search Console and there a few new features coming with the new name.

According to Google, the shakeup is the result of user feedback, as only a small portion of users actually identify as “webmasters.” Google is hoping the new name will help bring the service to a wider user base.

“It turns out that the traditional idea of the “webmaster” reflects only some of you. We have all kinds of Webmaster Tools fans: hobbyists, small business owners, SEO experts, marketers, programmers, designers, app developers, and, of course, webmasters as well… So, to make sure that our product includes everyone who cares about Search, we’ve decided to rebrand Google Webmaster Tools as Google Search Console.

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The rebranding is coming in the next few weeks, and Google has announced two new features that are expected to roll out about the same time.

With Search Console, users will have access to all the functionality they have come to expect of Webmaster Tools, as well as the ability to see how searchers are accessing your content via Android apps through Google Search within Search Analytics reports and the ability to see your app content through Google’s eyes with an alpha version of Fetch as Google for Apps.

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Google-Twitter Deal Brings Tweets To Search Results In a Big Way

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Earlier this year Google and Twitter announced a deal which promise to bring more tweets to your search results, and that promise is coming true today. Google now includes tweets in a more cohesive and graphical format on mobile devices, including a tweet carousel.

Both Twitter and Google announced the news in blog posts today, including examples of how the feature appears, such as the example below which shows how it looks if you search on #madmen.

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You can also scroll through the carousel to see more results.

The placement of the feature isn’t always directly at the top of the page. According to Search Engine Land, the tweet carousel can appear in the middle or even the bottom of the page, as their example for “MacBook Pro” shows:

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Tweets don’t show for every search, and it is currently unclear exactly what types of searches include tweet carousels and which don’t. However, Google does say:

It’s a great way to get real-time info when something is happening. And it’s another way for organizations and people on Twitter to reach a global audience at the most relevant moments.

That suggests searches for hastags, topics, prominent figures, or trending events are most likely to include tweets.

Google has included Twitter in its search results in the past, even after their last deal ended. The new agreement simply allows for much deeper integration in the search results.

Currently, the new implementation on the search results is limited to only users in the US, in English, using either their browser in iOS or Android, or on the Google Search App. Twitter has promised further support for desktop and more languages in the near future.

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