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.”

Google has recently introduced three new reports in the AdWords on cross-device activity, along with a reorganization of the Attribution section, under the Tools menu.

According to a Google/Ipsos study, the new reports are created to assist marketers track cross-device conversion path, including the ones that feature search ad clicks.

As six out of 10 online conversions in the US start on one device and end on another, so these new attribution reports can help marketers in tracking every cross-device activity that is featured from than one device in a conversion path.

The new cross-device activity reports introduced by Google, features:

• Devices: Provide a complete overview of the cross-device activity in your account.
• Assisting Devices: It shows assist levels and values by each device type, be it mobile, tablet, or desktop.
• Device Paths: Provides complete information about the top conversion paths for visitors who used more than one device before converting.

You can check in the screen shot above that the existing conversion, path and click analysis reports are now categorized under their own sections, within the Attribution reporting menu. As per the search engine giant, Google, the new reports and layout will be rolling out over the next several weeks.

Not just this, Google has also released benchmarks on cross-device conversion activity for search campaigns in the United States, Japan, Germany and Great Britain.

Search engine legends, Google and Yahoo have been noticed experimenting their new user interfaces.

One of the Google’s representatives, Ruben Gomez from All Google Testing recently captured search engine giant Google testing gray background on their homepage. Gomez even spotted Yahoo testing their top search bar.

Google homepage

A couple of week ago, Google changed the look of their search platform, when they introduced a grey color background for their homepage, instead of older white background. Now the search box is slightly larger than the older one with more space.

Check with the screen shot:

The white background version that users utilized so far:

Yahoo search bar test

Simultaneously, Yahoo is also playing with their user interface and currently they are testing a new search bar on the top of the page. The new bar is more spacious and larger than the older. The purple color drop out of the search box has been replaced with the magnifying glass icon.

Here is the screen shot:

The version that was live so far:

Earlier this month, many Webmasters reported that Google has been testing long text ads in the search results for numerous platforms. This report came out to be true on May 24^th 2016, when Google officially announced the availability of Expanded Text Ads for the advertisers later this year.

After removing right-side ads, Google now has the flexibility to show text ads with more characters so that they appear uniform across multiple devices. These expanded text ads will easily run across different devices and soon be optimized for smartphones.

On Tuesday 24^th May 2016, Google’s Senior Vice President, Ads and Commerce, Sridhar Ramaswamy, in a blog post talked more about this and other news from Google Performance Summit, “These upgrades help your ads work harder across screens, especially for the on-the-go mobile consumer that wants to know exactly what you offer before tapping into your website.”

This updated ad format will now have two longer headlines of up to 30 characters and a description of up to 80 characters long.

Moreover, the display URL can also include up to two directory paths, which can be effectively utilized by the advertisers to describe the landing page content. One does not need to match the landing page URL.

Here are the features that are being changed by the Google.

Further stating, Mr. Ramaswamy said, “This deviation from the 25-35-35 character format that has perhaps been the only constant throughout AdWords’ 15-year history will be a big change for advertisers. We encourage you to start planning for this upgrade before it rolls out later this year.”

A few days back, Google confirmed that they have rolled out an update for their mobile search results.  Now, if any user’s search query has local intent, and it shows up the “3-pack” or “local pack” in the search results, then search engine giant might offer users additional search filters for that query.

Below is an example for search la bella. Here Google has provided additional filters option to show results “within 5 miles,” or “open now,” or “top rated,” or even more. Moreover, depending on the location of the searcher, one might see “pizza”, “hair salon” and other options. These search filters on the local pack provide searchers additional dynamic filters based on the query, searcher’s location and their history.

Here is the screen shot for the search “la bella” from iPhone, which shows the filter bubbles below the map, but above the listings.

Over the last weekend, search engine giant, Google took manual action for outbound links that was associated with the warning Google gave a few weeks ago for bloggers exchanging links for free products and services.

On April 11, 2016, a report circulated over the web that Google sent outbound linking penalties to a huge number of webmasters past weekend. These penalties were directly linked with the warning that search engine giant gave a few weeks ago for bloggers who exchanged links for the free products and services.

Google asked bloggers to, “nofollow the link, if you decide to link to the company’s site, the company’s social media accounts, an online merchant’s page that sells the product, a review service’s page featuring reviews of the product or the company’s mobile app in an app store.”

After a few weeks of the announcement, Google took manual actions in typical Google style against those who regulated their guidelines.

Google’s John Mueller stated about the warning given by them in a few threads in their support forum. Individuals can now about the warning on https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2016/03/best-practices-for-bloggers-reviewing.html.

He further added, “In particular, if a post was made because of a free product (or free service, or just paid, etc.), then any links placed there because of that need to have a rel=nofollow attached to them. This includes links to the product itself, any sales pages (such as on Amazon), affiliate links, social media profiles, etc. that are associated with that post. Additionally, I imagine your readers would also appreciate it if those posts were labeled appropriately. Its fine to keep these kinds of posts up, sometimes there’s a lot of useful information in them! However, the links in those posts specifically need to be modified so that they don’t pass PageRank (by using the rel=nofollow).

Once these links are cleaned up appropriately, feel free to submit a reconsideration request, so that the webspam team can double-check and remove the manual action.”