The Google dance is on. Yes, you got it right! Search engine giant has once again updated its algorithm for mobile web, Google app for iOS, and desktop search and maps. Now, this popular search engine will be displaying search results based on user’s location, however users will still have the option to change their search settings for selecting a country service.

This means, Google is changing the way it labels country services on mobile web, its iOS app, and desktop. Google’s justification behind this move is, since one in five searches is location-based, so to improve the relevancy of search results, they will not be using the country code top level domain name (ccTLD) to indicate the country of service. As per search engine giant, now the search results will be showcased default to the country where the user is performing the search.

Elaborating more about this new update, one of their representatives wrote on Google Search Blog, “So if you live in Australia, you’ll automatically receive the country service for Australia, but when you travel to New Zealand, your results will switch automatically to the country service for New Zealand. Upon return to Australia, you will seamlessly revert back to the Australian country service.”

Though users will see search results based on their location, still there is a slight twist. According to search engine giant, simply entering the relevant ccTLD into a browser will not reflect various country services, instead users need to select the specific country service from their search settings to see the country they want.

Further briefing about this update, Google’s representative wrote, “This preference should be managed directly in settings. In addition, at the bottom of the search results page, you can clearly see which country service you are currently using.”

Mentioning more about their latest update, their representative wrote, “This latest update will improve the search experience by automatically providing users the most useful information based on their search query and other context, including location.”

Almost everyone’s lifestyle changes, when he/she starts working as an SEO consultant. Google becomes your 2^nd better-half (if you are married), you begin to see world differently, your way of communication changes, and you think of reaching the top wherever you are.

Read More

Search engine giant, Google has recently introduced a new dashboard on its search result pages for making it easier to manage and edit Google My Business Listing. This new dashboard was being tested by Google back in July 2017, and finally the feature is out from its nutshell. Read More

Google introduced RankBrain for around 15% of search queries in October 2015.

And, now Google is more confident about it and widely using RankBrain algorithm for every search query, which is directly impacting the rankings a lot.

The news evolved a few weeks earlier as a part of Steven Levy’s Backchannel story about Artificial Intelligence and machine learning efforts of Google. From the story, in account to RankBrain: Read More

Google lately released search trends for 2016 in nine categories from overall searches ranking to the most searched people and news trends.

In their most prestigious global searches 2016 list, Pokémon Go has been at the top following iPhone 7 and Donald Trump.

The American singer Prince’s sudden demise and craze of Powerball boosted their presence in search ranking and respectively got fourth and fifth position in the list. Read More

Google has launched top lists and critic reviews for local search results.

With this new update, Google is now including “Reviews from The Web”. This new feature will now bring user ratings and reviews from third party websites to the knowledge panel for all of the local spots across many verticals including restaurants, shops, parks and much more.

When the critic reviews were first introduced in August, many criticized that popular review sites including TripAdvisor or Yelp, are not eligible to be included. But, “Reviews from The Web” is intended to accept user ratings and reviews from sites like Yelp and TripAdvisor, as the reviews and ratings provided here are generated by the consumers rather than ‘critics’ and ‘experts’ Read More

Search Engine Giant, Google made an announcement that they are working on a new format of text ads.

From past few months, Google has been removing text ads from the right rail of the search results on desktop, and now a new format – Dubbed Expanded Text Ads, featuring longer headlines, is being tested by them.

Extended headlines have become the norm

Presently, advertisers can extend headlines to include the first line of description copy, in case if that line ends with a punctuation mark. This feature was limited to ads that were served in the mainstream, but now with the end of the right side ads, Google can change the convention text ad formatting system wide.

One of the biggest differences in this test   is that now text ads will display a double headline and the full 70-character count of description copy. Here is a screen shot of before and after look of the new version of text ads which was soon deleted from twitter as it went viral amongst the advertisers.

Recently, Google announced that they are working on a new format of text ads. A few months back, search engine giant removed text ads from the right rail of the search results on desktop, and now the new format, Dubbed Expanded Text Ads, is being tested by them that will feature longer headlines.

Extended headlines have become the norm

Presently, advertisers can extend headlines to include the first line of description copy, in case if that line ends with a punctuation mark. This feature was limited to ads that were served in the mainstream, but now with the end of the right side ads, Google can change the convention text ad formatting system wide.

One of the biggest differences in this test   is that now text ads will display a double headline and the full 70-character count of description copy. Here is a screen shot of before and after look of the new version of text ads which was soon deleted from twitter as it went viral amongst the advertisers.

Display URL format changes

The other changes that Google has made with this test include the display URL formatting. Now advertisers will have the option to add on to two paths or directories to their domain name. In the above picture, it shows that the advertiser would have entered two paths as “/NewYorkCity” and “/Budget.”

As per the news, now in AdWords there will be a new field for the second headline, a single field for description copy, as well as new fields for the Display URL paths.

Closed Beta

Search engine giant, Google has yet not officially confirmed about the launch of this test, but one of their spokespersons told, “We regularly test different ad formats with the goal of providing useful information to users and driving even better results for advertisers. Beyond that, we don’t have anything to announce at this time.”

A few months back, Google announced the new upgrades for their iOS apps, which are especially designed to deliver a faster mobile experience.

As per search engine giant, they have sliced down the loading time of the apps and is rolling out AMP content on the Google iOS app with this update.

Talking more about this update, an article from the Google’s Inside Search Blog read, “Now news articles from a vast array of publishers will load instantly for your reading pleasure. Just look out for the lightning bolt and “AMP” next to articles in the “Top Stories” section of your search results and enjoy blazing-fast news.”

Besides faster experience, the Google’s iOS app will also get sports highlights within the Now Cards.

Google’s VP of product management, Tamar Yehoshua, wrote more about this update, “When you get a card with a sports highlights, just tap the play button and watch it right from the app.”

According to search engine giant, this update will save users a combined 6.5 million hours in the app this year.

Search engine giant lately introduced a new update to its app, with which you can now organize Google app cards into two categories – interest and upcoming events.

Fred Brewin, the product manager of Google stated on Google search blog “Starting today, in the Google app on Android (and coming soon to iOS), your cards will be organized into two sections. A feed that keeps you current on your interests like sports, news, and entertainment, and a section for your upcoming personal info, like flights, appointments and more.”

As per Google, a user’s feed will now become more relevant as they keep on using Google.  Moreover, to make the feed personalized Google has also added a card that will allow users to choose topics specific to their interest, besides providing a customize option in settings.

The upcoming cards will work as a Dashboard, allowing users to list various things, such as daily schedule, event indicator, or even delivery updates, whose details app pulls from other Google products like Gmail, Hangouts, Google+, and more.

Here is the demonstration of Google’s newly upgraded card:

Due to a bug, AdWords Partners received an email stating, “You’ve lost your Search Ads specialization” and they have to prove their expertise to get it back.

The emails sent to AdWords Partners on October, 27^th are apparently triggered due to a bug. Steve Seeley, an internet marketer, tweeted with the screen shot of email and notified other AdWords partners by stating, “Not flip out if you got emails like this last night or this morning. It is a bug. Our entire status is blank.”

When observing their performance, AdWords partners got to see scores and spend fields empty.

Gianpaolo Lorusso, an Italy-based digital marketer said most probably it is a global bug, and will affect the US, Italy, Austria, Germany, Spain and Switzerland.

Later a spokesperson of Google told, “Due to a bug, we sent an inaccurate email to a number of agencies about their Partner status. We’re asking them to disregard these notices. We’re working to fix the issue and will let our partners know when it’s resolved.”

On October 30^th Google has resolved this issue, and informed the advertisers about the same through the email.

Bing has recently introduced a number of new search features to boost the education searches that aim at helping students and teachers learn new concepts of math and science in an interactive way. Their newly incorporated education searches cover wide range of topics including molecules, constellations, citations and royal ancestries. The search engine has also introduced games like “World of Word” and “Rubik’s Cube solver” into its search results.

Here’s the list of the educational searches that Bing has incorporated in its search results:

Constellation Searches: In search results for word “constellations” and constellation names, the search engine will display interactive view of constellation in their top results. The search engine will also display the position of stars in horizon using location technology.

Molecule Searches: Now, Bing users can find the 2-D structure of molecules for any of their query. Searches for molecules like “methane, c4h2 molecule or h2o molar mass” will display the interactive 2-D view of the molecules in their top results.

Ancestral Family Tree Searches: With this newly introduced feature users can find the ancestral family tree of prominent families of the world. For example, if users search for “Queen Elizabeth II family tree” they will get interactive ancestral family tree at the top of search results.

World of Words Game: The search engine has also introduced a word game named “World of Words”. With this game people can find interactive results at the top for searches like “words that start with a” and as complex as “words containing b and end with k”.

Citations Results: To help students and research scholars, Bing has developed a citation search that displays the major citation sources at the top of results. Search for “APA citation book” results as shown in the picture below:

Rubik’s Cube solver: Bing has introduced a virtual Rubik’s Cube game for their users. If users search with “Rubik’s Cube”, they will get the interactive Rubik’s Cube at the top of results. Here, users can play the game and also get the few steps solutions to solve the Rubik’s Cube.

Besides their recent educational tools, the search engine has also launched a periodic table in query results, apart from it a geometry calculator and an interactive times table were introduced earlier this year.

According to Bing, it has become easier for the users to search movie titles and academic papers with lately introduced intelligent autocomplete feature, which analyzes the users natural language and provides interpretations based on it.

Bing has made an announcement that they are making improvements in their autocomplete technology for academic papers and movies queries.

According to Bing, their academic suggestion improvement was originally launched earlier this year, which was developed using technology designed by the Cognitive Services and Academic Search teams of Microsoft. “The feature allows users to explore the relationships between papers, authors, topics and publications through a large object graph,” said one of the representatives of Bing.

As per Bing, “There are many scenarios that the user can explore, for example:

• Find all papers by an author
• Find a paper written by particular co-authors
• Find a paper about a specific topic presented at a conference
• Suggest titles or authors

We have built on that foundation to provide more intelligent autocomplete functionality. The graph relationships are explored in real-time and the most relevant suggestions are generated for the user, even if Bing has never seen the query before.”

Bing says that they have built the updated automation technique that analyzes the natural language of the user and determine intent in real-time to put interpretations based on it.

Bing previous autocomplete suggestions was dependent on the past queries and searches of the users. Now their newly updated autocomplete feature for movies and academic papers provides suggestions even for the first time search. Bing says “This system can generate extensions to the query even if no user has ever typed them in before, allowing additional, never-seen-before suggestions to be generated.”