Google October 2022 spam update done rolling out in less than 48 hours

The Google October 2022 spam update that started to roll out on October 19, 2022, at around 11 am ET, is now complete less than 48 hours after it began. The update finished rolling out on October 21, 2022, at around 5 am ET.

The announcement. Google quietly updated the search updates page adding “Released the October 2022 spam update. This update is global and affects all languages. The rollout was complete as of October 21, 2022.“

The part added was bolded above and reads “The rollout was complete as of October 21, 2022.”

What are spam updates? Google wrote:

“While Google’s automated systems to detect search spam are constantly operating, we occasionally make notable improvements to how they work. When we do, we refer to this as a spam update and share when they happen on our list of Google Search ranking updates. For example, SpamBrain is our AI-based spam-prevention system. From time to time, we improve that system to make it better at spotting spam and to help ensure it catches new types of spam. Sites that see a change after a spam update should review our spam policies to ensure they are complying with those. Sites that violate our policies may rank lower or not appear in results at all. Making changes may help a site improve if our automated systems learn over a period of months that the site complies with our spam policies.”

Previous updates. Before this, the most recent confirmed Google spam update was the November 2021 spam update. Google also released a two-part Spam Update – on June 23 and June 28 in 2021, as well as the July 2021 link spam update.

Note, the November 2021 spam update took 8 days to fully roll out.

Read more: Google October 2022 spam update done rolling out in less than 48 hours

LinkedIn Adds Automatic Captions To Videos

LinkedIn is adding several features geared toward making the website more inclusive to individuals with accessibility needs, including automatic captions on videos.

LinkedIn is upgrading video content with automatically generated captions and adding several new features to assist people with accessibility needs.

With automatic captions, LinkedIn aims to make videos more accessible to those who are deaf, hard of hearing, or prefer to watch videos with the sound off.

LinkedIn will automatically add captions to videos during the upload process, which you can choose to implement immediately or review and edit for accuracy.

Additionally, LinkedIn is rolling out a high contrast mode to the mobile app, which will adjust colors to improve accessibility for people with visual disabilities.

New Features For Job Postings & User Profiles
In honor of National Disability Employment Awareness Month, LinkedIn is introducing several accessibility-focused enhancements to job postings and user profiles.

LinkedIn reports there’s a significant increase in the total annual number of U.S. job postings with the word “accessibility” in the job title, indicating a growing demand for accessibility specialists:

“… our data shows that these job postings have spiked 171% since September 2019, indicating that companies are actively not only talking about this but taking action to hire accessibility specialists that can help them create products and services that work for everyone.”

Alt Text For Ads

Advertisers can now add text descriptions to image ads with the addition of alternative text (alt-text) in Campaign Manager.

Alt text allows blind or visually impaired individuals to understand the imagery presented in an ad.

New LinkedIn Learning Course

A new course in the LinkedIn Learning library can help people build skills in the accessibility field.

The Practical Accessibility for Designers course by instructor Chimmy Kalu teaches you how to design and build accessible experiences on the web.

Read more: LinkedIn Adds Automatic Captions To Videos

Google Shopping Searches On Desktop Get More Visual

Google is making the shopping experience on the desktop more visual by adding a more comprehensive selection of product images.

In an example from Google shown below, you can see how search results for product category pages contain a whole row of thumbnail images.

Presumably, the images are pulled from the pages linked to in search results, though Google doesn’t specify.

As you scroll down the page, you’ll see a unique search feature with prices and ratings dedicated to individual product results.

Clicking on one of the products will bring up a panel on the right with links to different retailers selling the product.

This feature allows you to read more about a product without losing your place in search results.

Additionally, you’ll be able to filter results by type, brand, retailer, nearby, and what’s on sale.

In a blog post, Google says the new shopping search experience will come up when searching for clothes, electronics, beauty products, or home goods.

With this update, search results for shopping-related queries on the desktop are closer to the experience Google recently rolled out on mobile.

Read more: Google Shopping Searches On Desktop Get More Visual

Google will help users keep personalized searches

Google is one of the world’s leading companies. All the major firms compete to display their ads on Google’s website. So, there are many ads that users interact with daily. Some users ignore it, but some get angry. Among this, personalized searches are also a deciding factor.

That is why Google is bringing in new features and updates. Some new tools to ease the anger of users are also on the way. One of the new tools is now ready to roll out into the public space. The new tool helps users customize their ads. That is also applicable to ads within personalized searches.

Google has a new My Ad Centre. It manages all the operations related to ads and personalized searches. The new center gives users the power to disable targeted ads. But through a method that does not affect features like personalized search results. Personalized search results are a very helpful feature for users.

Earlier the method to do this was very problematic. To block targeted ads, you had to go to your account settings. Then you should deny permission to collect Web and App Activity. Youtube History Data was also blocked by Google. Without permission, Google cannot deliver personalized searches to users.

Read more: Google will help users keep personalized searches

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Uber ads are coming, and they’re already raising privacy concerns

WordPress 6.1 Is Jam-Packed With Performance Upgrades

TikTok Planning On Opening Warehouses In U.S.

Uber ads are coming, and they’re already raising privacy concerns

Ubers’ new journey ads will be shown in the Uber app at least three times during the riders’ journey. The new feature will let brands place ads using data drawn from riders’ travel history and their precise geographic destinations, according to Uber. In an example from The Wall Street Journal, if a user books an Uber to a specific retailer, cinema or airport, for example, a company could buy ads centered on that location.

How the new ads will work. Though not available globally yet, Uber is testing the ads with a few brands at launch. The new product will also let brands sponsor an entire trip, starting with when a rider first calls a car. The ad spots will be sold on a per-trip basis instead of digital advertising’s common pricing by consumer impression, let brands show a user different ads at three points in the user’s trip: while waiting for a car, while riding in the car and upon reaching the destination.

The rider can also conduct transactions, such as clicking the ad to buy a product without leaving the Uber app, said Mark Grether, general manager of Uber Advertising. Separate pilot programs in the U.S. and India will also include ads on in-car tablets, he said.

Privacy concerns. It’s not news to anyone that the US has been facing abortion rights issues. With Uber’s new ad targeting products based on riders’ trip history, we have to wonder what this means for sensitive situations such as a rider who has taken a trip to an abortion provider.

Although this does raise concerns, platforms such as Google, Meta, and Simpli.fi have been tracking users’ locations for many years. The FTC even sued data broker Kachava Inc. this past August claiming that the broker was selling data that tracks people at sensitive locations such as reproductive clinics and places of worship.

According to The Wall Street Journal article, Uber’s advertising policy forbids targeting users by factors such as race, religion or sexual orientation, and it also prohibits basing ad targeting on certain types of destinations, including government buildings, hospitals and reproductive-health centers.

What Uber says. An Uber spokeswoman said the company doesn’t share individual users’ data with advertisers. The data it does share is aggregated information or data related to ad-campaign performance, she said. Users can opt-out of targeted ads on the Uber app at any time, said Grether.

Source: Uber ads are coming, and they’re already raising privacy concerns

Google Spam Algorithm Update Rolling Out Now

Google confirms an algorithm update targeted at fighting spam is rolling out to search results worldwide and in all languages.

Google estimates the October 2022 spam update will take several days to roll out.

Exact details about spam updates are rarely provided, except in cases where they target specific types of spam, such as last year’s link spam update.

Google regularly rolls out spam updates to maintain the quality of its search results. Spam updates are designed to improve Google’s automated systems that are constantly running in the background to detect spam in search results.

If you’re following the Google Search Essentials, formerly known as the Google Webmaster Guidelines, it’s likely you don’t much much to worry about with respect to the October 2022 spam update.

Source: Google Spam Algorithm Update Rolling Out Now

Webinar: 5 ways to improve content strategy in 2023

Digital content creation and management have never been more complicated. These workflows now need to accommodate remote workers and resources, worldwide offices, and security and privacy concerns, not to mention the growing need for content and creative teams to produce more content in less time.

So how are the most successful content and creative teams currently executing production and managing workflows? To answer these questions and more, Canto surveyed over 600 professionals involved in their organization’s production, management and/or strategy for content and creative assets.

Register today for “5 Ways to Improve your Content Workflows and Strategy in 2023,” presented by Canto, and get the survey results to learn content strategies, workflows and technology that have made these organizations successful. 

Source: Webinar: 5 ways to improve content strategy in 2023

WordPress Security Update 6.0.3 Patches 16 Vulnerabilities

WordPress 6.0.3 started rolling out this week. The latest security release patches 16 vulnerabilities.

WordPress 6.0.3 fixes nine stored and reflected cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerabilities, as well as open redirect, data exposure, cross-site request forgery (CSRF), and SQL injection flaws.

WordPress security company Defiant has shared a description of each vulnerability. Four of them have a ‘high severity’ rating, and the rest have ‘medium’ or ‘low’ severity.

“We have determined that these vulnerabilities are unlikely to be seen as mass exploits but several of them could offer a way for skilled attackers to exploit high-value sites using targeted attacks,” the company warned.

One of the high-severity vulnerabilities is a stored XSS issue that can be exploited by a user who can submit posts to a website via email to inject malicious JavaScript code into posts. The code would get executed when the malicious post is accessed.

Another high-severity flaw is a reflected XSS that can be exploited for arbitrary code execution by an unauthenticated attacker via a specially crafted search query in the media library. Exploitation requires user interaction and creating a payload is not easy, but Defiant believes this could be the most exploitable vulnerability in this release due to the attacker not needing to be authenticated.

The third high-severity issue is a SQL injection that could be exploited by a third-party plugin or theme — the WordPress core itself is not affected.

The last severe issue is a CSRF bug that can be leveraged by an unauthenticated attacker to trigger a trackback on behalf of a legitimate user, but social engineering is required for successful exploitation.

WordPress websites that support automatic background updates will be patched automatically. The next major release is version 6.1, planned for November 1.

According to Sucuri’s Website Threat Research Report for 2021, WordPress websites accounted for more than 95% of CMS infections, and roughly one-third of the sites on which the cybersecurity firm detected a credit card skimmer were running WordPress.

Source: WordPress Security Update 6.0.3 Patches 16 Vulnerabilities

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WordPress 6.1 Is Jam-Packed With Performance Upgrades

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WordPress 6.1 Is Jam-Packed With Performance Upgrades

WordPress 6.1, arriving November 2022, is jam-packed with performance improvements, signaling that this may be the update that many have been waiting for.

WordPress performance scores from the beginning of 2022 until the end of September have been relatively stable, going up a few percentage points in the spring then dropping in the summer, ending September roughly 3 percentage points higher than from the start of the year.

WordPress Core Web Vitals Performance in 2022

Most other platforms have enjoyed more substantial performance improvements month after month in 2022:

• Wix up by 13 points
• Duda up by 8 points
• Squarespace up by 7 points
• Joomla up by 7 points
• Drupal up by 5 points

“Massive Improvement” To WP_Query Performance

An important performance boost is the addition of caching to WP_Query in the database.

What that means is that every time a visitor requests a webpage that request will remain in a cache, a memory of what was retrieved from the database.

When another visitor requests the same webpage, instead of making another request to the database WordPress will instead retrieve the webpage data from the cache (memory) instead of retrieving (making a query) from the database. That results in faster performance.

Improvement to REST API Database Queries

When a webpage is requested, the webpage will make different requests for various components of the page. This improvement streamlines that process by reducing the number of database queries (requests for parts of a webpage).

Additional Caching Improvements

• Improvements to Cache API
• Post, Post Types Improvements
• Multisite improvements
• Media Handling Improvement
• Improved PHP performance for Core Blocks Registration

Source: WordPress 6.1 Is Jam-Packed With Performance Upgrades

3 new YouTube streaming, shopping, and audio features

YouTube has just announced three new features for advertisers to reach people where and when they’re watching the most. The three new features are spread across shopping, audio, and streaming in what YouTube calls the YouTube Effect (the unique dynamic between YouTube creators and viewers).

Moment Blast

Moment Blast gives advertisers prime positioning on YouTube Select content on connected TVs (CTV) and other devices, plus a Branded Title Card and optional Masthead placement.

Moment Blast is intended for brands looking to raise awareness during key moments, like major sporting events, movie releases or product launches.

In the announcement, YouTube says “People have always connected in front of the TV screen, but YouTube gives them the unique chance to bond over shared passions — like watching live-streamed concerts, fitness classes or even religious ceremonies together. They feel a similar connection to the ads they get, too.” YouTube also says 59% of respondents in a survey feel that ads they see on YouTube are more relevant than on linear TV or other streaming apps.

Expanded product feeds for Discovery Ads

YouTube will be expanding product feeds to Discovery ads to help advertisers scale their social media creative and reach more engaged viewers. Soon, product feeds will also include local offers, allowing brands to show real-time availability for products in their Google Merchant Center so people can find the most convenient place to buy.

Creators will also be able to transform their content into virtual storefronts. Additionally, more creators will have the ability to tag products in their videos and Shorts.

These features will be available on November 10.

Reach music and podcast listeners

Audio ads are now globally available to buy in Google Ads and Display & Video 360. Audio ads are designed to reach people on audio surfaces and in listening-first states.

Podcast targeting is also now available globally. “With Podcast targeting, brands and agencies can specifically reach podcast listeners.”

Source: 3 new YouTube streaming, shopping, and audio features

The Pinterest Trends Tool is expanding with a new API for Conversions

The new Pinterest API for Conversions gives advertisers a full view of their campaign performance as well as actions their audience took on their site, and it will be integrated with tag management partner Google Tag Manager and commerce partner Shopify.

The Pinterest Trends Tool. Pinterest is expanding the capabilities of its Trends Tool which came out in 2019 to help advertisers worldwide gain deeper insights into the behavior of Pinterest users and to use that information in planning their campaigns.

New updates. New Trends Tool updates also announced include three new features:

• A widget on the Pinterest Trends homepage that lets advertisers see what has been trending with their engaged users and followers over the past 90 days
• Trends filtered by demographic, place, time and topic
• And new trend types, including seasonal trends, to help brands better align their content and marketing calendars with times when users are most engaged with those specific topics

Early API adopters. Pinterest also said hundreds of advertisers worldwide have already implemented the tagless, server-to-server solution, and early results included improvements of 14% in CPAs on average for optimized CPM campaigns when using both the API for Conversions and tags, compared with tags only, and a 36% average increase in attributed conversion volume under the same conditions.

Though the new API was most frequently used for lower-funnel actions such as checkouts, they are also seeing success in full-funnel actions like page visits and add to cart.

What Pinterest says.

“Pinterest is uniquely positioned at the intersection of discovery and commerce, where inspiration meets intent. We are investing across our advertising platform to help businesses around the world reach their goals and connect with leaned in consumers at every stage of the campaign lifecycle.”

Pinterest chief revenue officer Bill Watkins

Source: The Pinterest Trends Tool is expanding with a new API for Conversions

New @wordpress/data stores in WooCommerce Blocks

In WooCommerce blocks 8.7.0 we refactored a significant portion of our Cart and Checkout blocks’ code. Specifically, a lot of the data previously kept in React Contexts was moved into WordPress data stores (@wordpress/data). We did this to make it easier for third party extensions to extend the functionality of the Cart and Checkout blocks.

The changes we’ve made are all backward compatible, so any existing integrations should continue to work without any intervention.

We have added the following data stores, however, some actions and selectors on these stores are currently for internal use only while we evaluate which ones third party applications should have access to:

• wc/store/payment – used to store information about the payment state and available payment methods.
• wc/store/validation – used to store information about validation, currently this is used in by Cart block to ensure the Shipping Calculator form is valid, and by the Checkout block to ensure the checkout form is valid. Extensions can use this data store to add validation to their own integrations.
• wc/store/checkout – used to store information about the checkout state (whether it’s before processing, after processing, idle, or completed), whether it has errors, or whether any calculations are pending (changes to shipping method or address will cause a “calculation” to be in progress until the request completes). It also stores whether the shipping address should be used as the billing address, the draft order number, and the order notes.

These stores are documented on GitHub. This documentation is continually being updated so please be sure to check back often.

Source: New @wordpress/data stores in WooCommerce Blocks

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TikTok Planning On Opening Warehouses In U.S.

LinkedIn matched audiences: How to get started

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TikTok Planning On Opening Warehouses In U.S.

More than a dozen recent LinkedIn Jobs postings suggest social media platform TikTok is getting into the warehouse and logistics business.

According to the listings, which were first notified by Axios, the Chinese-owned company is reportedly looking into building “global fulfillment centers” and seeking employees for locations in both Seattle and Los Angeles.

“The ecommerce industry has seen tremendous growth in recent years and has become a hotly contested space amongst leading Internet companies, and its future growth cannot be underestimated,” TikTok said in a job posting. “With millions of loyal users globally, we believe TikTok is an ideal platform to deliver a brand new and better e-commerce experience to our users.”

According to the postings, the short-form video-sharing platform is seeking to provide warehousing, delivery, and return services for merchants. They will also include customs clearing and supply chain systems.

These hirings appear to indicate the company is in the process of developing ecommerce as a new way to generate money, joining its already impressive advertising revenue, which is expected to keep growing at an exponential rate.

TikTok Committed To Ecommerce, Live Shopping

In August 2021, TikTok developed a partnership with Shopify that allowed merchants to connect their Shopify storefronts with the social media platform. This was intended to help retailers promote their brands and sell their products by using with organic discovery and shopping tabs.

The platform has also ventured into live shopping, a phenomenon incredibly popular in China and other Asian countries, but slower to catch on in the rest of the world.

Reports over the summer claimed TikTok was abandoning its live shopping plans for the U.S. and Europe after it struggled to gain a foothold, but more recent reports indicate the live shopping initiative is back on.

TikTok Warehouses Could Challenge Amazon

With more than 1 billion active monthly users, TikTok is a powerful online player. By creating its own ecommerce supply chain system, it could pose a serious threat to Amazon’s hegemony, which has long dominated online shopping.

Source: TikTok Planning On Opening Warehouses In U.S.

Google replaces its Webmaster Guidelines with Google Search Essentials

20 years is a long time, especially in internet days and that is how old the original Google Webmaster Guidelines are. Google has done a major refresh of those Webmaster Guidelines today, and with that, also renamed it to Google Search Essentials.

Why the change. Outside of it being two decades old, Google said “a lot has changed since 2002” with the internet and Google Search in general. The updated guidelines are streamlined, simplified, and have been updated “to ensure people have clear guidance for how to build sites that serve people well,” a Google spokesperson told Search Engine Land. Google also told us the “goal is to make this guidance useful and easier to understand and to help site owners focus on things that matter for your site.”

What changed. Yes, while Google has made many updates over the years to the old Google Webmaster Guidelines, Google decided it was time for a major refresh. Here is an overview of what has changed.

• Name change: From Google Webmaster Guidelines to Google Search Essentials, because, well, Google doesn’t think webmaster is a term used much these days and/or it is too narrowly focused. This is similar to Google dropped the named Webmaster Tools for Search Console in 2015.
• Technical requirements: Google has published a new section to help people understand how to publish content in a format that Google Search can index and access that content. 
• Spam policies: Google has updated its guidance for the Google Search policies against spam, “to help site owners avoid creating content that isn’t helpful for people using Search,” Google said. Note that most of the content in these spam policies has already existed on Google Search Central, Google did however make a few additions to provide clearer guidance and concrete examples for issues like deceptive behavior, link spam, online harassment, and scam and fraud, the company told us.
• Key best practices: Google has also published new guidance with key best practices that people can consider when creating sites, to create content that serves people and will help a site be more easily found through Google Search. 

Other changes include organizing the content in a more logical structure and consolidating similar pages. Google did explain that generally, they haven’t changed the content much in those areas.

Source: Google replaces its Webmaster Guidelines with Google Search Essentials

WordPress Vulnerability In Shortcodes Ultimate Impacts 700,000 Sites

The United States government National Vulnerability Database (NVD) published an advisory about Shortcodes Ultimate WordPress plugin, warning that it was discovered to contain a Cross Site Request Forgery vulnerability.

Shortcodes Ultimate is a highly popular WordPress plugin that has over 700,000 active installations.

The vulnerability affects plugin versions that are older than the current version 5.12.2.

Cross-Site Request Forgery Vulnerability

Cross-Site Request Forgery, commonly referred to as CSRF, is a type of vulnerability that can in the worst cases can lead to complete website takeover.

These kinds of vulnerabilities are generally caused by targeting a flaw in software that can trigger a change, which can then lead to unintended consequences.

A successful attack generally depends on a user, for example with administrative privileges, clicking on a link and unintentionally revealing information like a session cookie which can then be used to impersonate that person.

This kind of vulnerability depends on social engineering, which is manipulating an end user to complete an action which then takes advantage of the plugin vulnerability.

National Vulnerability Database (NVD)

The National Vulnerability Database published just a few details about the vulnerability. There is currently no complete breakdown of the vulnerability itself.

The NVD advisory published the following:

“Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in Shortcodes Ultimate plugin <= 5.12.0 at WordPress leading to plugin preset settings change.”

The official Shortcodes Ultimate GitHub changelog was similarly vague, describing the update to fix the vulnerability:

“### 5.12.1

Security release

This update fixes a security vulnerability in the shortcode generator. Thanks to Dave John for discovering it.”

Meanwhile the WordPress plugin repository changelog explains:

“Fixed issue with Shortcode Generator Presets, introduced in the previous update”

Recommended Course of Action

WordPress publishers who currently use Shortcodes Plugin should consider updating to the very latest version, which at the time of writing is currently version 5.12.2.

Source: WordPress Vulnerability In Shortcodes Ultimate Impacts 700,000 Sites

Revenue optimization: 3 ways to get your advertising efforts right

Marketing departments once believed it was a sales issue if the sales team couldn’t work the leads from marketing.

Today, this is no longer the case.

Optimizing for leads or marketing qualified leads (MQLs) is great, but optimizing for what drives pipeline and revenue is better. 

Marketers exist in a new age where it’s no longer satisfactory only to drive leads alone.

With the available technology and data today, we can do much more than identify hand-raisers to help companies spend their marketing dollars more efficiently and drive revenue.

Tight-knit tracking 

Tracking is essential for reasons that go well beyond reporting.

In this new age of artificial intelligence, it’s vital to feed machine learning the data that will make it do what you desire.

Platforms like Google optimize the data you provide, making it a powerful tool or your worst nightmare. 

Accurately tracking your efforts plays a significant role in your advertising strategy’s success.

Integrating third-party data sources, like Snowflake and Salesforce, with your paid media reporting helps decrease the optimization time against a deeper funnel event, such as MQL, sales accepted lead (SAL) and revenue.

Understand the customer base 

Marketers should know how users from different channels perform once they are in your sales funnel.

For example, if your average Google search lead value is 4x higher than a lead out of Facebook, how can you use that to prioritize your spending and channel goals?

Understanding your average time to close or how long it takes the lead to turn into revenue will help you only to further optimize toward revenue.

With that said, marketers should avoid reactivity with a down day or week if it can take up to a couple of months for a user to move through the sales funnel.

For example, if it takes two months for a lead to close, you need to give a new campaign or channel at least that long before making abrupt cuts if you aren’t seeing initial revenue. 

Understand the lifetime value of customers 

Teams optimizing for revenue should understand the value of their customers through customer lifetime value.

How can you optimize for revenue if you don’t know who your most valuable customers are? 

Understanding the lifetime value (LTV) of your customer base and your customer acquisition cost (CAC) allows you to perform an LTV:CAC ratio analysis to get the complete picture of how your channel mix is affecting your advertising efforts. 

Say Google is driving significant lead volume but at a .5 LTV:CAC. It might be time to dig a little deeper into Google to see how you can improve Google’s revenue-generating efficiency.

The takeaway

CMOs are asked to demonstrate the value of every dollar put into marketing.

Leads are quickly becoming a metric of a bygone age where marketers could simply pat themselves on the back for a well-done job. 

Today, any metric outside of revenue is a vanity metric to senior and executive leadership outside of marketing, making every dollar to customer acquisition and improving the bottom line. 

Give the platforms the data they need to find the highest-value customers.

By doing so, you’ll empower the optimization of every effort for the success and growth of your organization, giving your CMO a few extra hours of sleep at night.

Source: Revenue optimization: 3 ways to get your advertising efforts right

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LinkedIn matched audiences: How to get started

LinkedIn can be a difficult platform to master, but with the right combinations of targeting and messaging brands can see success in generating results.

Matched audiences allow you to reach people who have engaged with your business in some way and go after lists of “dream companies” that you’d like to work with. 

This article provides an overview of how you can get started with matched audiences along with tactics for using them in your campaigns.

Types of matched audiences

LinkedIn allows for a variety of first-party and third-party methods to build audiences. Here are the available categories at the time of writing this article:

• Contact lists: Targeting individual people.
• Company lists: Targeting anyone who works for a particular organization.
• Pixel-based retargeting: Reaching anyone who visited select pages on your website.
• Engagement-based retargeting: Based on in-platform activity

Guidelines

The platform will show a match rate after the list has finished syncing, allowing you to double-check your fields if the match rate seems abnormally low.

However, just because you can target as few as 300 people doesn’t mean you should. Larger audiences generally see more efficient CPCs and CPAs, with a threshold of at least 50,000 individuals being ideal. 

For company targeting, LinkedIn recommends including a minimum of 1,000 companies.

For contact targeting, LinkedIn recommends a minimum of 10,000 email addresses. If more than one email address matches with the same user, that person will only be included once.

The maximum file size for either type of list is 20MB or 300,000 records.

Layering targeting

Matched audiences can be used in combination with LinkedIn’s other available targeting. Think about ways you can use your own audiences plus additional layers such as company size, job function, seniorities, titles, or others. Just note that you cannot combine contact lists with interests and traits.

For example, you can target a company list layered with job seniorities of Senior level and up if you’re seeking to avoid junior-level individuals.

Or you can retarget people who visited your website and also work for companies with over 500 employees.

You can use “AND” as well as “OR” targeting when setting up layers. For instance, you can reach people who are members of either list A or list B, and if they also have Director level seniority.

Exclusions

Lists can also be valuable to make sure you’re not wasting spend on individuals you don’t want to target. 

For instance, you can upload a list of your current customers and exclude them from campaigns to avoid reaching them. You also should exclude competitor companies so their employees don’t see your ads.

Upselling and ad sequencing

If your brand entails the opportunity to upsell customers on additional levels of service, sync lists of current customers based on their tier or existing plans to then serve ads for new products or services. 

For example, users of CRM software could be upsold to add marketing automation features to their existing plans.

Lookalike targeting

Once you’ve created a matched audience, you can also make a corresponding lookalike audience. This will find people with similar characteristics to those on a particular list. 

For instance, if you upload a list of current customers, you can then create a lookalike audience that will include people with similar job titles, group membership, interests, etc.

Getting data from audiences

In addition to campaign targeting, LinkedIn offers some useful analytics features to see details about the individuals in your lists. 

To access this information for a contact list you’ve uploaded, navigate to the Audiences section, select an audience, and click the Insights button in the upper right.

Start testing audiences

If this article has helped you to identify some matched audiences you haven’t yet tested, start thinking about ways to implement them in your campaigns. 

Whether you assemble prospect lists to import into LinkedIn or start building engagement-based audiences to target people who are engaging with your brand, think about content that makes sense for the level of interaction people have had with your brand.

Source: LinkedIn matched audiences: How to get started

Easy Digital Downloads 3.1 Adds 10 New Core Blocks, Introduces Email Summaries

Easy Digital Downloads (EDD) put out a big release today, following several maintenance releases and the last major release in July. Version 3.1 introduces 10 new core blocks available to users who are running WordPress 5.8 or newer:

• Buy Button
• Order History
• Products
• Registration Form
• Login Form
• Download Terms
• Receipt
• Confirmation
• Cart
• Checkout (Beta)

These blocks enable store owners to do more than their shortcode predecessors. Although the shortcodes still work, the block versions allow for much easier customization with a better UI. One example in the announcement is the Order History block. The previous Purchase History shortcode output a simple table of orders, but the new Order History block has a card style view and allows users to easily modify the number of columns and how many orders are displayed per page.

The other blocks have been updated in a similar fashion, with extended functionality and greatly expanded customization options.

It’s important to note that the new Checkout block was released in beta. It is not turned on by default for new stores yet. 

Email Summaries is a new feature for store owners in 3.1.

A few other notable changes in version 3.1 include the following:

• New setting to require users to login to download files
• Success Page has been renamed to Confirmation Page to differentiate it from the receipt
• More detailed views and filtering options for Reports
• reCAPTCHA keys added to Downloads » Settings » Misc so users can automatically enable reCAPTCHA for the lost password and the registration forms
• New color options for purchase buttons
• New “View Receipt” link in the orders table

Source: Easy Digital Downloads 3.1 Adds 10 New Core Blocks, Introduces Email Summaries

Google to offer publisher first-party cookie support

Google has just announced its plans to launch a number of features aimed at helping publishers monetize their websites and increase their emphasis on first-party data relationships. The features include support for ads personalization with publisher first-party cookies in Google Ad Manager and AdSense.

Expanding publisher first-party cookies. Publisher first-party cookies can help publishers deliver relevant ads without tracking users across third-party websites. Publisher first-party cookies have been available to address frequency capping and fraud control previously.

When a publisher allows, Google provides publisher first-party cookies to help improve ad relevance on that specific publisher’s website. The solution uses information from ad interactions that users take on that publisher’s own site. This information cannot be used on any other publisher’s website. The feature also respects people’s ads personalization preferences that they have indicated through AdChoice controls. 

Publisher first-party cookies are an especially useful solution for smaller publishers, who may not have the resources or infrastructure to leverage first-party data independently. They require minimal technical work from publishers to use. 

The introduction of audience signals. Google announced publisher-provided signals last month to help publishers categorize their first-party data into audience or contextual segments and then share those signals with programmatic buyers. Those signals make it easier for programmatic buyers to “find and purchase audiences based on things like demographics, content interests or purchase intent across multiple sites and apps without tracking people’s activity in apps or across the web.”

What Google says. In a statement to Search Engine Land, Google said:

“As part of a broader suite of tools, we’re helping publishers of all sizes build durable advertising strategies that uphold user trust. This solution is really geared toward supporting the publisher base, especially smaller publishers who may not have as many resources, as they continue to navigate changing privacy expectations.”

Peentoo Patel, Director of Product Management, Google Ad Manager
Launch date. This feature will be available to publishers beginning in November. 

Source: Google to offer publisher first-party cookie support

Uninstall these malicious mobile apps now, Facebook warns

Facebook says it has spotted hundreds of malicious mobile apps that abuse its single sign-on (SSO) feature to steal people’s login credentials.

While it has reported the apps to Google and Apple, the operators of the world’s two largest mobile app stores, users who have already installed these apps will remain under threat until they are deleted.

In a blog post, the social media giant explained it identified over 400 malicious apps on Android and iOS. These apps range from fake VPNs to photo editors, mobile games, business apps, utility apps, and health and lifestyle services.

Dangerous mobile apps

When installed, the apps in question require users to “log in with Facebook” to use their features. However, doing so results in data being stolen, allowing threat actors to use their accounts for whatever they see fit.

Sometimes, threat actors would use Facebook to distribute malware and viruses, launch stage-two ransomware attacks, take over pages and groups the compromised account was administrating, amplify fake news, or boost fraudulent apps with positive reviews.

Photo editor apps are by far the most popular type, comprising 42.6% of the entire batch. Business utility apps are second with 15.4%, followed by phone utility services (14.1%).

While most of these apps can only be found on third-party app repositories and standalone websites (which should be cause for concern, to begin with), some manage to bypass security measures set up by Google and Apple, and end up getting listed on the Play Store and App Store. Facebook managed to get all the apps listed on official repositories removed, but for the others it can’t do much, right now.

To protect against such apps, Facebook suggests users look for “telltale signs” that differentiate malicious, from legitimate apps, including requiring social media credentials to run, the app’s reputation, or promised features. 

The full list of the apps can be found here.

• These are the best antivirus services right now

Source: Uninstall these malicious mobile apps now, Facebook warns

More News:

Twitter Update Sets Goal To Be “Best Place To Share Media”

4 new Instagram ad surfaces and tools

YouTube Shorts Adds Another TikTok Feature – Voice Narration

Twitter Update Sets Goal To Be “Best Place To Share Media”

Twitter announced an update to multimedia sharing that, together with another update, makes it easier to discover videos and in essence transitions Twitter toward becoming a multimedia sharing platform.

The announcement states clearly and without ambiguity that its goal is to become “the best place to share media” and posted examples of the new functionalities.

Starting today any Twitter app users can upload up to four videos, images, and/or GIFs within a single tweet.

This change partners with another important update that adds a video carousel to the Explore feature.

The video carousel allows users to discover more videos to watch.

Twitter’s announcement is clear that their goal is to transition their platform from mostly a text based social media destination into more of a multimedia sharing platform.

The focus of this update is to provide a way for creators to express themselves while the updates to the video carousel helps users to discover the new videos.

Examples of New Format

Twitter posted examples of new and creative ways to share media and tell a story.

One example is a side by side tweet juxtaposing an image and a tweet.

This kind of tweet provides the ability to juxtapose an image and a video and to also play the video while retaining the side by side formatting.

Big Changes at Twitter

Twitter has made numerous changes to its platforms to encourage monetization for creators.

But none of those updates caused a substantial change to the platform itself.

These new updates are significant because they profoundly change what Twitter is, going from a mainly text-based sharing platform to a multimedia sharing social site.

Source: Twitter Update Sets Goal To Be “Best Place To Share Media”

Amazon advertising optimizations to crush Q4

When it comes to online shopping, there’s an undisputed leader. 

Boasting a 37.8% share of the ecommerce market, Amazon is far and away the biggest online retailer in the U.S. – and poised to surpass Walmart as the number one retailer overall by 2024. 

With so many people shopping for everyday goods on Amazon, setting aside a chunk of your advertising budget to take advantage of the site’s commercial traffic is a smart business strategy.

What you sell isn’t terribly important. People buy everything from Legos and binoculars to jewelry, clothing, and kitchen appliances on Amazon. 

Focus instead on how to sell your products and you’ll end the fourth quarter on a high note. 

Use sponsored campaigns to attract shoppers

Sponsored product campaigns are easy to create and allow you to control your costs by setting a price on how much you’ll spend per click. They work well with:

• Sponsored brands that focus on your overall business rather than a single product.
• Sponsored display campaigns – interactive ads that can reach shoppers not just on Amazon, but on other sites as well.  

Data offers a bigger payoff than blind luck

When creating a sponsored product campaign, don’t just rely on luck. Sales and performance metrics tell the true story.

Getting cozy with data will help you understand your advertising cost of sale (ACoS) – an important tool in formulating a successful ad strategy. 

To calculate your Amazon ACoS, divide your advertising expenditure by the total revenue earned.

If you spend $20 on advertising and sell $100 worth of products, then your ACoS is 20%. Breaking it down further, this means you spend $0.20 for every $1.00 you make.

Obviously, the lower your ACoS, the higher your profit. 

While ACoS is an important metric, it isn’t the end all, be all.

Don’t miss out on opportunities

Ad campaign optimization ensures you are targeting the right audience and utilizing the right platforms and tools. It allows you to create personalized content and can go a long way toward reducing your customer acquisition costs.

There are several things you should look for when optimizing your ad campaigns. 

Underperforming SKUs

In most cases, underperforming SKUs should be paused. But the work doesn’t end there. Research the reasons why they were underperforming by asking yourself the following questions: 

• Which SKUs are performing better and why? Is it the budget? 
• Are the keywords in the campaign not as relevant? 
• Is that SKU simply not as good compared to the products it’s competing against? 
• Is the product detail page not optimized enough?

Bids

Since bidding on keywords is an auction-based format, you are never operating in a silo. 

Raising and lowering your keyword bids will make a big impact on your ACoS and overall results. The following tips can help: 

• Look for keywords that aren’t relevant or are not converting.
• Review the targeting. Are you using phrase/exact match for the high-converting gems? 
• Don’t forget about automatic targeting types. Loose match, close match and product targeting are all areas of opportunity. 
• Make sure your inventory levels are high and you are maintaining the buy box.
• Use negative keywords to your advantage. This is great for all campaigns but especially effective in automatic and broad acquisition campaigns. 

Use coupons and promotions

Everyone loves a deal – especially in this economy and during this time of year. 

Even if you aren’t participating in Cyber Monday, you can still offer coupons and promotions to help boost conversion rates and sales. 

When used with sponsored product ads, this is a great way to bring in more sales. 

Study the search query performance dashboard

If you are a brand registered seller, this report gives you valuable insights into:

• Your customer’s shopping journey in comparison to your competitors.
• Each search term’s volume and rank. 

Manage your budgets properly

Web traffic will increase in the next few months and advertisers will be raising their budgets. The downside? 

You risk using up your budget allocation much faster than usual. This is true even on normal days, not just special events like Cyber Monday and Black Friday. 

If your budget won’t allow ads to run all day, make sure you are using dayparting. 

This strategy involves scheduling your ads for certain days of the week and certain times of the day when you get the most conversions. 

Now that you’ve learned how to optimize your ads for Amazon, it’s time to make some great impressions!

Source: Amazon advertising optimizations to crush Q4

Google Analytics Discontinues Store Visits Reporting

Google advises publishers it will no longer report on store visits data in Google Analytics. Data will stop generating at the end of October, though historical data will remain available.

This announcement was quietly rolled out via an update to a Google Analytics help page.

The update was spotted by Charles Farina of Adswerve, who shared his discovery on LinkedIn

Store visits in Google Analytics is an estimate of the number of people who visited a physical location after visiting its website.

Google tracks store visit data by following the activity of people with location history enabled on their phones.

Reports on store visits are only available to businesses with their Google Analytics property linked to a Google Ads account.

That means businesses aren’t losing the data, as Google Ads will continue reporting on store visits after it’s discontinued in Google Analytics.

Source: Google Analytics Discontinues Store Visits Reporting

Google can now automatically create your ad assets

A new setting in beta allows Google the ability to automatically create additional ad assets (header and description). The feature uses the creative content from the following sources:

• Landing page
• Relevant web pages
• Existing text ads in the same ad group
• Keywords in the same ad group

How auto-created assets work. If you have access to this new feature, you’ll instruct Google to generate the assets from eligible sources based on relevance and predicted performance.

Performance reports. Advertisers can view the performance of their automatically-created assets by navigating to the reporting section of their ads account.

Asset Report. You can see which assets are being used in the RSAs by navigating to “Asset report” from the Ad level to “View asset details” and viewing all of the assets used.

• You can use the “source” column to distinguish between automatically created assets vs advertiser-created assets
• Automatically created assets will show impressions and performance ratings
• On the channel-level asset report, auto-created assets are visible like advertiser-provided assets

Combination report. The actual combinations and ads that are served can be viewed by going to “combination report” and viewing all the ads that are served.

Opt-out. You can choose to opt-out of automatically generated assets by going into your Google Ads account, navigating to Settings, then clicking Automatically created assets, then selecting Off: Use only assets I provide directly for my ads.

Source: Google can now automatically create your ad assets

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4 new Instagram ad surfaces and tools

YouTube Shorts Adds Another TikTok Feature – Voice Narration

GA4 now has an enhanced measurement option for Form interactions

4 new Instagram ad surfaces and tools

Over the last few weeks, Instagram has been introducing new surfaces (what Instagram calls placements) and ad creative tools to give businesses more options to create engaging posts, reach more customers, and grow their brand.

Music optimization for Reels

To increase the adoption of Reels, Instagram has introduced free, high-quality songs from the Meta Sound Collection library. These songs can be added to Carousel Ads on Reels. You can select a song from the library or allow the app to automatically select a song based on the content.

Explore home and profile feed ads

Explore home is the grid that you see when you click the Explore tab. This feed will now feature ads to reach people in the earliest stages of discovering new content they may be interested in.

Ads in profile feeds are also being tested for non-teen, public profiles. This is the feed experience that people can scroll through after visiting another account’s profile and tapping on a post.

Monetization options. As a part of this test, we will experiment with a monetization opportunity that will allow eligible creators to earn extra income from ads displayed in their profile feeds, beginning with select U.S. creators.

AI-powered multi-advertiser ads

Multi-advertiser ads allow businesses to be discovered by “people who are in a shopping mindset and have recently engaged with relevant businesses content in the feed.”

When a person expresses commercial intent by engaging with an ad, the AI delivers more ads from other businesses they may be interested in.

AR Ads

An open beta of AR has been launched in both feed and stories. The AR experience is powered by Spark AR and brands can encourage people to interact with the effect through their surroundings.

Dig deeper. Read the full announcement and learn more about the new Instagram ad surfaces and features here.

Why do we care? More ads on Instagram don’t seem like a good thing for users. Too many ads and a negative platform experience could make more users stop using the app, making the ads less effective for brands.

Source: 4 new Instagram ad surfaces and tools

Facebook offers new ways to customize your feed

Facebook has just announced two new ways for you to customize your feed. The new features will allow you to show more or less of the content that’s suggested to you based on the platform’s AI.

Show more of what you like, and less of what you don’t. The first new feed-ture is the ability to select Show more or Show less on posts from people and communities you’re connected to as well as posts that Facebook recommends.

Selecting Show more will temporarily increase the ranking score for that post you liked. Selecting Show less will decrease that post’s ranking score. These scores help to make the AI smarter, more responsive, and tailored to your preferences.

The Show more, Show less feature should be available soon and will be periodically shown on posts in your feed. You can access the Show options by clicking the three-dot menu in the upper right corner of the post.

Customize posts from friends, family, and groups. Facebook is also testing new ways for users to be able to customize posts they see from friends and family, Groups, Pages, and public figures you’re connected to. 

You can find those tools in the Feed Preferences section of your account.

Source: Facebook offers new ways to customize your feed

Google Integrates The Google Tag With Ads & Analytics

Google makes it easier to implement the Google tag via integrations with Google Ads, Google Analytics, and popular CMS platforms.

Google is making it easier to implement the Google tag across an entire website by integrating it with Google Ads and Google Analytics.

Sitewide tags are essential to understanding how customers interact with a website and its ads.

However, it isn’t easy to set up and manage tags without technical expertise.

In August, Google rolled out a single, reusable Google tag that helps advertisers set up and manage sitewide tags.

The Google tag allows advertisers to do more across different Google products and accounts without changing a website’s code.

Now, Google is rolling out additional capabilities that simplify the setup process and provide more visibility into a site’s measurement coverage.

Tag Coverage Summary

To improve measurement accuracy, tagging should be used across all website pages. Now, you can quickly determine whether your Google tag has been implemented on all of your website’s pages using the new tag coverage summary.

The tag coverage summary will also suggest pages that may not have been properly tagged to ensure they’re included.

Integration With Google Ads & Analytics

To make Google tag even easier to use, businesses and advertisers will soon be able to find Google tag capabilities directly integrated into Google Ads and Google Analytics.

This integration removes the need to add more code to your website.

Source: Google Integrates The Google Tag With Ads & Analytics

WordPress.org Plugin Developers Demand Transparency Regarding the Removal of Active Install Growth Data

Frustrations are mounting, as WordPress.org plugin developers plead with WordPress leadership to restore access to the active install growth data for plugins after it was removed last weekend without any public discussion. A ticket calling for bringing back the charts is home to a heated discussion on the matter but so far the developer community has not been able to get any clear answers on why access to the data was cut off.

In his first response on the ticket, Matt Mullenweg asked developers to explain their reasoning for bringing the stats back, without communicating why they were removed in the first place, asking them to present “that side of the argument.” No decision-makers have confirmed this to be a security issue.

WordPress plugin developers may never know the details behind this chart’s removal. If it is in fact a security issue, this could have been confirmed in a transparent way by the people involved. Instead, plugin developers have been set on edge by the demand that they present their side of the argument for bringing back the stats.

Source: WordPress.org Plugin Developers Demand Transparency Regarding the Removal of Active Install Growth Data

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YouTube Shorts Adds Another TikTok Feature – Voice Narration

GA4 now has an enhanced measurement option for Form interactions

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YouTube Shorts Adds Another TikTok Feature – Voice Narration

YouTube Shorts is adopting another popular TikTok feature that allows creators to narrate over videos. Learn how to add voiceovers after recording a piece of content.

You can utilize voiceovers to enhance Shorts, such as explaining how to do something, adding insightful commentary, or making funny comments.

Before this update, YouTube didn’t make it easy to add your voice to a recorded video. You would have had to capture your voice while the video was recording.

Now, you can add a voiceover to YouTube Shorts after recording. Learn how to do it by following the steps in the next section.

How To Add A Voiceover To YouTube Shorts

After recording a YouTube Shorts video, you can add a voiceover by following these steps:

• Tap the checkmark button in the bottom right of the camera screen
• Tap the voiceover button
• Move the vertical white line on the video filmstrip to the spot you want to start your voiceover
• Hit the red record button to start recording and tap it again to stop recording.

Availability

The voiceovers feature for YouTube Shorts is rolling out now on iOS.

Source: YouTube Shorts Adds Another TikTok Feature – Voice Narration

There’s finally a fix to this serious Microsoft Teams problem

The team behind Microsoft Teams has moved to address one of the most pressing security issues affecting the service in a new update.

Users of the video conferencing platform will soon be able to report suspicious Microsoft Teams messages as a security threat using Office 365’s built-in safety protections.

The service will be available to Office 365 users via its Microsoft Defender service, and will work much the same way as the current process for reporting suspect emails.

Microsoft Teams phishing

In its entry on the official Microsoft 365 roadmap, the company notes that the new tool will help an organization “protect itself from attacks via Microsoft Teams”.

Given the similarities to existing systems, this should be as simple as clicking on a Defender pop-up message alerting to possible threats, which should block the malicious message immediately.

The feature is still listed as in development for now, with a scheduled general availability launch set for January 2023. When released, the company says it will be available to all web and desktop users across the world using Teams and Microsoft Defender for Office 365.

The news is the latest in a series of upgrades to Microsoft Teams in order to help protect users from possible security threats.

Back in July 2021, the platform gained the ability to automatically block phishing attempts thanks to an expansion of Defender for Office 365 Safe Links. This tool automatically scans URLs sent in Microsoft Teams to determine if they direct to a malicious destination.

Microsoft said at the time that every month its detection systems discover close to two million distinct URL-based payloads used by cybercriminals to conduct credential phishing campaigns.

Source: There’s finally a fix to this serious Microsoft Teams problem

TikTok vs. YouTube: Which Is Better For You?

Content marketers are using video content more than ever.

In 2022, 86% of businesses use video as a marketing tool.

Aside from the rise of TikTok, especially during the pandemic, more marketers are creating videos, and 46% of marketers said it was because videos had become easier to develop in-house.

As a content marketer, should you jump on the bandwagon?

And what about the more “traditional” YouTube?

Worldwide, YouTube is part of the Top 3 social media networks. TikTok isn’t just yet, though it’s steadily climbing the ranks at No. 5.

Just because TikTok is the newest kid on the block doesn’t mean you have to allocate all your video budgets to it.

Choosing between the two requires careful thought and consideration. You must factor in content type, target audience, engagement rates, and influencer marketing spend.

So, which of these two viral video platforms makes more sense for your business?

Let’s dive in.

What Is TikTok?

After Chinese tech company ByteDance acquired Musical.ly in 2017, its technology was ported. Thus, TikTok was born.

TikTok (called Douyin locally) is a user-friendly social media platform that allows users to create short-form videos.

What Is YouTube?

With over 2.1 billion monthly active users, the video-sharing platform has been around much longer. Launched in 2005, YouTube has been the mainstay for sharing video content.

Three former PayPal employees founded YouTube as a way for people to have fun sharing their home videos. (Remember the first few viral YouTube videos?)

Compared to TikTok, YouTube videos are a lot longer.

Factors To Consider When Choosing Between TikTok And YouTube

Audience For TikTok vs. YouTube

TikTok Has A Younger U.S. Audience

If you’re marketing to teens, a.k.a., Gen Z (and by extension, Generation Alpha who are becoming teens next year), TikTok is a strong bet.

This means that TikTok is especially popular with Gen Z while more and more adults are steadily becoming app users, too.

Note that younger children ages 12 and above can access TikTok (the app requires a minimum of 12 years of age to get a profile).

Gen Z And Millennials Are More Likely To Trust YouTubers

If you’re trying to reach Millennials (while keeping older Gen Z in mind) and be seen as more authoritative, YouTube could be a safer bet.

According to the YouTube Culture And Trends Report 2022, 83% of Gen Z watch soothing content on YouTube to help them relax.

Lastly, in a survey by Ypulse, YouTubers were the most trusted public figures (31%) among those surveyed, beating TikTokers by 12%.

Source: TikTok vs. YouTube: Which Is Better For You?

Hackers Exploiting Dell Driver Vulnerability to Deploy Rootkit on Targeted Computers

The North Korea-backed Lazarus Group has been observed deploying a Windows rootkit by taking advantage of an exploit in a Dell firmware driver, highlighting new tactics adopted by the state-sponsored adversary.

The Bring Your Own Vulnerable Driver (BYOVD) attack, which took place in the autumn of 2021, is another variant of the threat actor’s espionage-oriented activity called Operation In(ter)ception that’s directed against aerospace and defense industries.

“The campaign started with spear-phishing emails containing malicious Amazon-themed documents and targeted an employee of an aerospace company in the Netherlands, and a political journalist in Belgium,” ESET researcher Peter Kálnai said.

Attack chains unfolded upon the opening of the lure documents, leading to the distribution of malicious droppers that were trojanized versions of open source projects, corroborating recent reports from Google’s Mandiant and Microsoft.

ESET said it uncovered evidence of Lazarus dropping weaponized versions of FingerText and sslSniffer, a component of the wolfSSL library, in addition to HTTPS-based downloaders and uploaders.

The intrusions also paved the way for the group’s backdoor of choice dubbed BLINDINGCAN – also known as AIRDRY and ZetaNile – which an operator can use to control and explore compromised systems.

But what’s notable about the 2021 attacks was a rootkit module that exploited a Dell driver flaw to gain the ability to read and write kernel memory. The issue, tracked as CVE-2021-21551, relates to a set of critical privilege escalation vulnerabilities in dbutil_2_3.sys.

“[This] represents the first recorded abuse of the CVE‑2021‑21551 vulnerability,” Kálnai noted. “This tool, in combination with the vulnerability, disables the monitoring of all security solutions on compromised machines.”

Named FudModule, the previously undocumented malware achieves its goals via multiple methods “either not known before or familiar only to specialized security researchers and (anti-)cheat developers,” according to ESET.

Source: Hackers Exploiting Dell Driver Vulnerability to Deploy Rootkit on Targeted Computers

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GA4 now has an enhanced measurement option for Form interactions

Google has added an enhanced measurement option for Form interactions. Now you can not only see when a form has been submitted, but you can also see when one has been started by a new user.

Lead gen marketers rejoice!

Enable enhanced measurement. Enhanced measurement should be enabled automatically if you already have a web data stream created. If not, check your analytics account and turn this on.

Dig deeper. You can read the announcement from Google here.

With so many new shopping products being released lately, it’s nice to see one for lead gen. The new enhanced measurement feature will let you see visitors to your website who started filling out forms but did not complete them for some reason. With that information, advertisers can create remarketing campaigns with unique messages to entice visitors to come back and complete the form.

Source: GA4 now has an enhanced measurement option for Form interactions

Technical SEO testing: How Googlebot handles iframes

Earlier this year at SMX Advanced, I presented results from our Peak Ace test lab. These tests shed some light on several technical implementation points and how Googlebot would deal with them. 

One of my favorite tests examined Google’s indexing of iFramed URLs and their content. In my SMX Advanced presentation, I touched on various scenarios that may lead Google to index the content inside an iFrame, while “assigning” that content to its parent URL.

In the iFrame test, was the iFramed content coming from the same domain or a different one? 

My example showed two URLs that live on the same domain: domain.com/test.html would iFrame domain.com/tobeframedA.html, so that test.html could rank for content that only exists in tobeframedA.html. 

The same also works for externaldomain.com/tobeframedB.html – which can still cause test.html to rank for content only present in tobeframedB.html, as well as for iFrames residing on subdomains. We tested every combination we could think of and concluded that it made no difference where the iFrame content was hosted.

If you want to prevent someone from loading (and ranking for) your content in an iFrame, it would be a good idea to look into the X-Frame-Options Header. This indicates whether a browser should be allowed to render a page in an iFrame. 

If we were to use iFrames with a no-indexed content page, would the parent page still rank for the listed content with the intent to improve page speed?

As soon as the iFramed URL contains a meta robots noindex directive, the parent URL won’t be able to rank for the content from the iFramed URL.

The same is true if you iFrame a URL that would be served with an X-Robots noindex header directive or is actively blocked using robots.txt.

Does Google give full value to semi-hidden content (content that typically comes after ‘Read more’)?

There doesn’t seem to be too much love for using “Read more” functionality within the ranks of Google. John Mueller went on record a couple of times here and here, questioning the use of the functionality in its entirety. Mueller added, “I don’t think you’d see a noticeable, direct change in SEO, […]”. 

When we tested it, the purpose of the test was to understand what difference the technical implementation could potentially make – and if, in general, the content behind a “Read more” would be indexed (if correctly set up). 

The short answer: whether or not it was visible, the content would be indexed, found, and returned.

Did you mention that duplication in certain areas of the content can be fixed by CSS implementation since it is not indexed?

I did present some behavior that I find fairly interesting regarding CSS selectors. What technically happens is that selectors such as ::before create a pseudo-element that is the first child of the selected element. In practice, this is often used to add cosmetic content to an HTML element. 

This could also be useful from an SEO point of view because Googlebot seems to treat this just as it would treat Chrome on desktop/smartphone. The rendered DOM remains unchanged (which is to be expected since it’s a pseudo-class). As a result, content from within said selectors won’t be indexed.

Source: Technical SEO testing: How Googlebot handles iframes

Search News Buzz Video Recap: Google Core & Product Reviews Update Done, Local Search Ranking Bug Fixed, Search On Event Recap & More

Google has finished rolling out both the September 2022 core update and product reviews update on Monday, September 26th – yes, there is a lot of confusion. Google fixed a bug with the local search rankings and service area businesses. Google had its big Search On event, I recap most of it. Google product review updates do get periodic updates that may not be announced. Google said if you don’t know if your content is written expertly, then it probably is not. Google said there is no percentage of measurement for duplicate content. Google really wants you to avoid changing URLs just for SEO reasons. Google said page speed issues won’t lead to a site being removed from Google Search.

Google is testing the Google Search Cookbook. Google Search talks about when a brand outranks the generic meaning of the word. Google is testing a more like this search feature. Bing is testing traffic analysis in the search results. Microsoft Bing is also testing a web label. Google Ads continues to suffer from latency issues. Google Local Service ads dropped the license number from the listings. Google’s John Mueller now is offering to review parts of your public presentation for accuracy. And if you want to help sponsor those vlogs, go to patreon.com/barryschwartz. That was the search news this week at the Search Engine Roundtable.

Source: Search News Buzz Video Recap: Google Core & Product Reviews Update Done, Local Search Ranking Bug Fixed, Search On Event Recap & More

Google Tests Shady Design For Product Panels

Google is testing another design for the product panels in Google Search. This new design shades the boxes for some of the products and reviews, etc. It also moves some of the filters around.

Here is a screenshot of this from Valentin Pletzer on Twitter:

Compare that to the normal version:

Source: Google Tests Shady Design For Product Panels

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TikTok Trends Right Now: Fall 2022

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TikTok Trends Right Now: Fall 2022

There are 1 billion active users on TikTok.

And there are over 136.5 million users in the U.S. alone that you should consider engaging as part of your social media strategy.

Engaging is easier said than done because trends come and go so quickly.

So how do you do it?

While the intuitive platform makes it simple for any user to craft a video or go live, it’s hard to stand out with great content that truly connects with your target audience.

The good news is that it’s easy to seek inspiration from TikTok’s creative center for businesses, though it can take a few good hours to trawl for a 15-second clip that might work for you.

The bad news is that you don’t want to lose hours of your life on the app and get side swept into fun-but-non-sensical videos that aren’t in line with your brand identity.

Browsing multiple hashtags can get overwhelming, especially if you’re new to the app.

Not to mention, TikTok periodically changes its platform features (like how it removed the Discover tab and is trying out the Friends tab), leaving social media marketers and ordinary users everywhere disgruntled.

If you’re stuck on ideas and pressed for research time, we’ve got you covered with this article.

Because I spend an embarrassing amount of time on TikTok, I’ve done the work for you and rounded up the top five trends for this fall and beyond.

Note: This list will be updated periodically, so keep this bookmarked for the latest five trends in the U.S. at their peak popularity.

Trend #1: It’s Corn!

This trend involves pairing what’s becoming known as the “It’s Corn” sound clip with something you (or your brand) love, using text to list the things you love about it.

You could use it to show off your brand: an icon, product, or activity.

Check out this example of a “branded” use of this trend using a writing instrument.

Trend #2: Cool Kids (Sped-Up Version)

This trend revolves around a high-pitched version of the popular Echosmith tune, where creators show off unusual (but interesting and aspirational) DIY hacks or nostalgic finds.

Trend #3: I Put A Spell On You

This TikTok trend is back! This one involves showcasing your Halloween DIYs or tricks (and treats) in preparation for Halloween to the sound clip of Working with Lemons’ “I Put A Spell On You.”

(Fun fact: Working with Lemons is an American musical family based in Utah.)

This witchy sound clip can help you highlight your brand in preparing creative spooky decorations and costume ideas.

Using text-to-speech or plain text both work.

Trend #4: J’s Lullaby

This trend involves creator storytelling using the whispery lullaby paired with a gentle acoustic guitar that will warm your viewers’ hearts. They usually feature wedding-related activities or a love story, so this is a good opportunity to show your brand’s emotional side.

It doesn’t have to be romantic, either. Anything from particularly moving customer testimonials to your brand’s work in its community would fit in with this trending sound clip.

Trend #5: Labor Day Weekend

It’s true: Labor Day Weekend has come and gone in the U.S.

But we included this trend anyway, as it could become replicable or revived when everyone is enjoying a long weekend.

This trend involves recording and synching your Labor Day weekend activities to the lyrics of the song “Something Like That.” The first few lines of the Tim Mcgraw hit work seamlessly with whatever activity you wish to feature.

Many TikTokers saw it fit to pump their cars with gasoline and show off their location-specific family traditions.

Extra points if you feature barbecue stains while spending quality time with the family.

This should pair well with food and family-oriented brands.

Source: TikTok Trends Right Now: Fall 2022

Twitter has created 2 new video features

Immersive viewing and easy discovery

This new feature expands videos to full screen by simply clicking on the video in the Twitter app. When the video is in full-screen mode, users can scroll up to browse additional video content.

This feature will be available on iOS and Android in select countries in English.

Showing more videos in Explore

A new video carousel makes it easier to find more videos you’re interested in next to Tweets and Trends that might interest you. You can access these videos by opening the Explore tab.

This feature will be available on iOS and Android in select countries in English.

How Twitter uses Signals to show you more content. Twitter announced the usage of Signals to show users more content that’s relevant. Twitter uses Signals and shows you that content based on your past likes, comments, and followers.

Source: Twitter has created 2 new video features

WordPress Punts Locally Hosted Fonts for Legacy Default Themes to 6.2 Release

In June 2022, WordPress.org’s Themes Team began strongly urging theme authors to switch to locally hosted webfonts, following a German court case, which fined a website owner for violating the GDPR by using Google-hosted webfonts. For years, theme authors have been enqueuing Google Fonts from the Google CDN for better performance, but this method exposes visitors’ IP addresses.

The Themes Team warned that guidelines regarding locally hosting fonts will be changing imminently and many theme authors moved to comply before it becomes a requirement.

A ticket for bundling Google fonts with WordPress’ legacy default themes had patches and was on track to be included in WordPress 6.1 in November. WordPress contributor Hendrik Luehrsen requested more eyes on the ticket, saying it “directly affects the core WordPress audience in Germany.” He reported that users in Germany were still getting emails threatening fines for using fonts loaded from Google.

WordPress core committer Tonya Mork suggested exploring releasing the updated version of each theme separately from WordPress 6.1.

This changed the direction of the ticket and with more scrutiny, contributors found the patches could use some more work.

WordPress core committer David Baumwald changed the milestone to 6.2, as Beta 2 for 6.1 was released yesterday and the ticket still needs a final direction and patch.

In the meantime, those who are using WordPress’ default themes can use a plugin like Local Google Fonts or OMGF | GDPR/DSVGO Compliant, Faster Google Fonts to host fonts locally.

Users can also switch to Bunny Fonts, an open-source, privacy-first web font platform with no tracking or logging that is fully GDPR compliant. Bunny Fonts is compatible with the Google Fonts CSS v1 API so it can function as a drop-in replacement. The Replace Google Fonts with Bunny Fonts plugin makes it easy for users to do that without editing any theme code.

Contributors are working on having fully GDPR-compliant WordPress default themes ready for WordPress 6.2, expected in early 2023.

Source: WordPress Punts Locally Hosted Fonts for Legacy Default Themes to 6.2 Release

4 new useful LinkedIn Ads features

Offline Conversions

Offline Conversions allow you to connect the conversions you track in other tools directly to LinkedIn. Advertisers will be able to manually upload CSV files to the Campaign Manager. New supported CRM partners include Adverity, Hub Spot, LeadsBridge, LiveRamp, and Make.

Audience insights

Audience insights are available for both Matched and saved audiences. It generates aggregated insights based on topics and content they’ve engaged in, but also job titles, years of experience, seniority, location, company name, industry, and more. Insights can also be used to discover new audiences.

Document ads

Document Ads allow you to promote long-format content directly into members’ feeds where they can read and download whitepapers, case studies, and reports without leaving the platform. You can also use a Lead Gen Form to collect leads if you decide to gate your documents.

Media Library

The new LinkedIn Media Library allows you to create ads more easily by storing all of your images and videos in one central location. Advertisers can now create up to five ads at once by selecting the video or image from the media library, each then becoming its own ad. This feature seems to make ad creation easier, faster, and collaborative.

Source: 4 new useful LinkedIn Ads features

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