How to make a GA4 landing page report in 10 easy steps

Want to make your own landing page report in Google Analytics 4, but not sure how? Then this article is for you.

Read on to learn how to make your own landing page report in GA4 in a few simple steps.

Step 1: Start from a similar template. In this case, the Pages and Screens report in GA4. Then click Customize Report in the upper right corner.

Step 2: Click in to edit the included dimensions and Click “Add dimension”. Scroll down the list until you find Landing Page. Select it.

Step 3: Click the three dots on the right side of the Landing Page dimension name from the list of included dimensions. Choose Set as default. Then hit apply in the bottom right corner.

Step 4: The landing page is now the default report dimension. While you’re here, you can also add or remove metrics and change/hide the chart types if you’d like. I’ve selected a line chart and removed the second chart by hitting the eye icon to hide it.

Step 5: Save as a new report. This is important! Don’t save changes to the current report because we started off using the Pages and Screens report. Otherwise, you’ll no longer have the Pages and Screens report. The title is Landing Page.

Step 6: You’ll need to add the report to a collection. Go to the library section – you’ll find this icon while in the Reports section of GA4 at the bottom of the left-side navigation.

Step 7: Choose which collection to add this new report to. It likely makes the most sense to add it to the Life cycle collection, into the Engagement topic, right next to the Pages and Screens report. Click Edit collection for where you want to put it.

Step 8: Scroll to the bottom of the list of reports on the right to find your new Landing Page report, and then drag and drop it into the topic section you want on the left column.

Step 9: Click Save on the bottom of the screen. This time, choose to “Save changes to current collection” so that the Landing Pages report is added to your nav collections that are already published/visible.

Step 10: Check out your shiny new Landing Page report in the left-side nav.

Source: How to make a GA4 landing page report in 10 easy steps

Google reveals new image ranking signal, inclusive schema

Google said it will soon incorporate a new signal into image ranking. Google is also introducing a new type of schema in an attempt to help make its image search results more racially diverse and inclusive. 

Google will use MST Scale to rank images. Google said it will be adjusting how it ranks images, using what is called the Monk Skin Tone (MST) Scale. It is a 10-shade scale. It looks like this:

The MST scale was created with the help of Dr. Ellis Monk, a Harvard professor, and sociologist. Google said the MST Scale is being incorporated into Images search, as well as other image products (e.g., Google Photos). And Google plans to expand it more broadly in the coming months.

Inclusive schema. Google said that creators, brands, and publishers can use a new type of schema – inclusive schema – to label their content with attributes like skin tone, hair color, and hair texture. Using this schema will help Google better understand what appears within the images. 

Content labels coming soon. Google also noted that it wants to create a more representative search experience. As part of that, Google plans to develop a “standardized way to label web content.”

A continuation of image search changes. Google’s push toward image equity began In October 2021, Google told Bloomberg it had updated its algorithms to show more skin tones for a variety of images, ranging from [beautiful skin] to [professional hairstyles] to [happy family]. 

Source: Google reveals new image ranking signal, inclusive schema

Google’s My Ad Center lets users control their ad experience, follow brands

A sleek new My Ad Center experience was announced today at Google’s annual I/O event. It provides users with a handful of options to control the messages being served across selected Google properties.

Google users will be able to dictate:

• Which brands and topics do they like.
• The amount of personalization they are comfortable with for their ad customization.

These personalization options can be accessed from within the new My Ad Center experience or directly within the ad itself.

Privacy has been the core issue over the last few years. While Google has focused on offering a variety of solutions, many times they’ve been somewhat hard to navigate for the unskilled user.

Source: Google’s My Ad Center lets users control their ad experience, follow brands

Google multi-search to gain near me support

Google is expanding Google multi-search, a search feature Google announced several weeks ago to let you search by image and text at the same time, to support near me types of queries. This will let you find a local business in Google Maps and Google Search to see local search results.

What is Google multi search? Google multi-search lets you use your camera’s phone to search by an image, powered by Google Lens, and then add an additional text query on top of the image search. Google will then use both the image and the text query to show you visual search results.

What is near me multi search. The near me aspect lets you zoom in on those image and text queries by looking for products or anything via your camera but also to find local results. So if you want to find a restaurant that has a specific dish, you can do so.

What does multi-search near me looks like. Here is a screenshot followed by a GIF from the Google I/O keynote:

MUM is not yet in multi search. Google made a comment in its blog post saying “this is made possible by our latest advancements in artificial intelligence, which is making it easier to understand the world around you in more natural and intuitive ways. We’re also exploring ways in which this feature might be enhanced by MUM– our latest AI model in Search– to improve results for all the questions you could imagine asking.”

Source: Google multi-search to gain near me support

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Here’s What We Learned From TikTok, Meta, Snap & Twitter At IAB NewFronts

LinkedIn changing feed, will show less low-quality content, polls

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Here’s What We Learned From TikTok, Meta, Snap & Twitter At IAB NewFronts

Days 2 and 3 of the 2022 IAB NewFronts featured announcements from TikTok, Meta, Snapchat, and Twitter.

Here are the top takeaways and tips from these social video companies – ranked by importance instead of listed chronologically.

TikTok Introduces TikTok Pulse

Last Wednesday, TikTok introduced TikTok Pulse, a new contextual advertising option that enables advertisers to place their brand next to the top content in the For You Feed.

Alongside that announcement came the news that the social video platform will begin exploring its first advertising revenue-sharing program with creators, publishers, and even public figures.

Storytelling Goes Here: Building Your Brand On Meta

Meta had promised to unveil “its multiplatform video ecosystem that’s designed to help all kinds of brands tell their stories” on Tuesday evening, but the 70–80 people at the NewFronts event held at 281 Park Avenue only remember hearing that over 45% of Instagram accounts like, comment on, or share Reels at least once a week.

Big Blue had also indicated that Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s Chief Operating Officer, would be there, but Nada Stirratt, Meta’s Vice President of The Americas, seemed to be the top executive in the room.

Snapchat: There’s More To The Story

On Tuesday afternoon, Snap announced a partnership with Cameo to help brands connect with influencers to make ads.

In addition, the social media company announced several new and returning Snap Originals.

They also revealed that more than 80% of the US Gen Z Population had watched one of over 150 Snap Originals last year.

Twitter: “Pay No Attention To The Man Behind The Curtain”

Twitter had encouraged media buyers to attend their IAB NewFronts presentation on Wednesday evening to “learn what’s happening and what’s next for premium content on the timeline.”

As I’ve already mentioned, plans change.

And Twitter did announce video and audio programming deals with Condé Nast, ESSENCE, E! News, REVOLT, NBCUniversal, and the WNBA.

The microblogging and social networking service also announced Twitter Amplify, which promises to give brands a chance to put their ads right next to video content from Twitter’s content partners.

This is, of course, if Elon Musk doesn’t change those plans.

Oh, it’s also worth noting that Twitter’s NewFronts presentation lasted about 20 minutes, less than the 30 minutes the schedule had indicated it would last.

Hey, everything has to come to an end sometime.

Source: Here’s What We Learned From TikTok, Meta, Snap & Twitter At IAB NewFronts

Google’s Responsive Display Ads go vertical for a better mobile experience

The popular automatic display ad type Responsive Display Ads (RDAs) will be undergoing a major transformation in the second half of this year. RDAs have been the default display option since 2018 and these new enhancements are geared toward a better mobile offering for advertisers.

Portrait images and videos now welcome. The versatility of RDAs has the ability to flex images to display on mobile devices, but Google will allow for portrait images and videos to be used.

Auto-generated vertical video. If you are an advertiser that doesn’t have vertical videos handy, Google will now be able to help create those assets for your RDAs. Google is leveraging machine learning to use existing assets to create vertical video for campaigns.

Image uncropping, powered by machine learning. A unique addition coming to RDAs is the ability to “uncrop” images via machine learning. Google said this “automatic improvement lets your products shine by seamlessly expanding to fill the available space.”

Creative inspiration. If you are an advertiser looking for inspiration with your assets, Google has a new home for you. Creative inspiration is a filterable tool that allows you to surface some of the best ad creative from around the globe.

For more information on the improvements, see the full release and stay tuned for more after the May 24 Google Marketing Live event.

Source: Google’s Responsive Display Ads go vertical for a better mobile experience

6 Image Optimization Tips From Google

In a new video from Google, Developer Advocate Alan Kent shares six tips for optimizing images for ecommerce websites.

While the video is specifically aimed at ecommerce sites, the advice is applicable to any website that serves a large number of images.

Clocking in at over 14-minutes, Google’s video is a lot to digest if you’re busy working on websites.

Here’s a more palatable recap you can consume in under five minutes.

These are Google’s tips for making images load faster and more efficiently.

Eliminate Image Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)

CLS refers to instances where content on the page visually moves, or shifts, from one place to another as it’s loading.

While this problem isn’t exclusively caused by images, they can contribute to the problem if used incorrectly.

Correctly Size Your Images

Pick the right width and height for your images, as larger files take longer to download.

Sizing images correctly can be complicated due to the ranges of screen sizes and resolutions that visit your site.

If the browser crops the image on its own, the download size ends up being longer than needed, which only drags things down.

One easy way to detect incorrectly sized images is by using the properly sized images section under Opportunities in the PageSpeed Insights report.

Use The Best Image File Format

Think about the file format of your images, such as whether to use PNG, JPEG, or webP files.

The file format affects the file size, so choosing right one requires careful consideration.

There are pros and cons to weigh out for each format. For example, JPEG and webP tend to have lower file sizes, though the smaller size is achieved at the expense of image quality.

Compress Images Appropriately

Use the right quality factor for your images to encode them efficiently while retaining the desired image quality.

The Encode Images Efficiently section of the PageSpeed Insights report can be used to identify images that are good candidates for compression optimization. The report also shows potential file size savings.

Cache Images In The Browser

Tell the browser how long it can safely cache images.

When you return an image you can return an HTTP response header with caching guidance, such as how long it is recommended for a browser to cache an image for.

Again, you can use the PageSpeed Insights report to detect if the HTTP response cache headers have been set properly on your site.

The serve static assets with an efficient cache policy section identifies images that may benefit from caching improvements.

Correctly Sequence Your Image Downloads

As a more advanced tip, Google recommends correctly sequencing the order webpage resources are downloaded.

The following download order is advised:

• Hero images at the top of the page
• Other images above the fold
• Images just below the fold

The rest of the images on a webpage can be lazy loaded.

Source: 6 Image Optimization Tips From Google

Google now allows virtual food brands to have Google Business Profiles

Google has updated its Google Business profile guidelines page under the “guidelines for chains, departments & individual practitioners” to allow virtual food brands to be listed with “conditions.”

One of the more popular virtual food brands is MrBeast Burgers, a popular YouTube creator has deals with local burger shops to sell his own branded burgers but MrBeast does not have any official burger shop or workers. You buy virtual branded food items made by the local shop. Joy Hawkins said with these updated guidelines “Mr. Beast would be allowed listings and should set them up as service area listings (without an address).”

Updated guidelines. The updated guidelines now say “virtual food brands are permitted with conditions.” It goes on to write out those conditions:

Co-located food brands offering pick-up

• Food brands that are co-located each must have permanent separate signage. They should display their address only if they offer pick-up to all customers.
• Delivery-only brands (no-pick up option) out of shared kitchens must hide their address and add service areas to that specific brand to avoid confusing their customers.

Delivery-only food brands

• Delivery-only brands (i.e. those operating out of virtual kitchens) are permitted if they have distinct branded packaging and a distinct website.
• Multiple virtual brands operating out of one location are permitted, but are subject to additional verification steps.
• Delivery-only brands must add their service areas and hide the address on their business profile to avoid confusing their customers.
• If there is a partnership where a food brand has authorized the virtual kitchen as a verified provider of the food, the virtual kitchen may manage each authorized brand’s business profile once the authorization is confirmed.
• The facility that houses the delivery-only brands, i.e. Doordash Kitchens, is permitted to have its own separate business profile. Only someone affiliated with the facility can claim and verify this profile.

Virtual food brands in local search. Yes, MrBeast Burgers, a virtual food brand, does indeed show up in Google local search results:

Source: Google now allows virtual food brands to have Google Business Profiles

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LinkedIn changing feed will show less low-quality content, polls

LinkedIn is now reducing the visibility of several types of content in its feed, including polls and engagement bait.

Here’s what LinkedIn announced it is changing. 

Less “low-quality content.” Any posts that explicitly ask for or encourage engagement, such as comments or reactions, will have less visibility in the feed. LinkedIn said users find these types of posts that exist solely to boost reach “misleading and frustrating.” 

Fewer polls. You had to know this one was coming. If you regularly browse LinkedIn, it’s become common to see multiple polls in your feed every day. Many of these are from people you don’t know. LinkedIn said it has better filtering and promises to show only “helpful and relevant” polls, from people in your network.  

Less irrelevant updates. Ever seen a connection congratulate someone you’ve never met about a recent job change? LinkedIn says it will reduce how often users see this and try to show “more targeted activity” from your network. 

“I don’t want to see this.” In addition to algorithmic feed changes, LinkedIn is giving users a way to tell LinkedIn what they don’t want to say. All individual posts will include an “I don’t want to see this” option. You can limit content by authors or topic – plus you can choose to not see any political content. 

Source: LinkedIn changing feed will show less low-quality content, polls

Business redressal complaint form adds an option for “This business doesn’t exist”

Google has updated its business redressal complaint form over here to add “this business doesn’t exist” as an option on why you think the business listing is fraudulent. This gives you one more way to communicate to Google why the business listing should be removed from Google Search and Google Maps.

You can see the new option, which was added over the past several days, in the form in the screenshot below.

The previous options. The older options were not removed, they just added “this business doesn’t exist” the existing options which include:

• Title
• Address
• Phone number
• Website

What is the business redressal form? Google said you can use this form “if you come across misleading information or fraudulent activity on Google Maps related to the name, phone number, or URL of a business.” Google said, “you may use this form to submit a complaint. Complaints submitted through this form will be reviewed in accordance with our guidelines for representing businesses on Google Maps.”

Source: Business redressal complaint form adds an option for “This business doesn’t exist“

Google removing support for some video and image sitemap extension tags

On August 6, 2022, Google will no longer support some video and image sitemap extension tags. Gary Illyes from Google said it is removing support for those sitemap extension tags to simplify sitemap extensions and to help “reduce the complexity of your codebases” by making sitemaps “less cluttered in general.”

What is being removed? The following sitemap extension tags are no longer going to be supported:

Within image sitemaps:

• caption
• geo_location
• title
• license

Within video sitemaps:

• category
• player_loc[@allow_embed]
• player_loc[@autoplay]
• gallery_loc, price[@all]
• tvshow[@all]

August 6, 2022. Google said the “deprecated tags will have no effect on indexing and search features after August 6, 2022.”

This does not mean you need to race to remove these tags or attributes from your video or image sitemaps. Google said “there’s no immediate action required; you can leave these tags and attributes in place without drawbacks.”

Search Console notifications. Google did add that sometime in the future, if you still have these tags or attributes in those sitemap files, Google may notify you that they have been deprecated via messages or errors in Search Console. “the future, Search Console may show warnings once these updates are included in the next schema versions of the Image and Video extensions,” Google added.

Source: Google removing support for some video and image sitemap extension tags

Are You Web 3.0 Ready? 12 Steps For A Successful Social Media Audit

Is your brand’s social media Web 3.0 friendly? Run through this step-by-step audit to get in position for emerging opportunities.

Web 3.0 is here. Have you considered a social media audit?

Look in the mirror and ask, “Is my social media stuck in a Web 2.0 world?”

A social media audit is like a health and wellness check-up for your brand’s digital marketing results, business outcomes, public relations, and brand awareness.

Schedule It
Instead of waiting until a potential problem is detected or failing results appear, proactively schedule an audit for your brand, a quarterly checkup, and an annual exam.

A social media audit will create an efficient and actionable update to an existing social media plan or a reset to a new social media strategy.

Include PR, SEO & PPC, And New Innovations Of Web 3.0 In The Audit
Working remotely or living behind closed doors in the social media marketing room leads to dehydration and loss of healthy nutrients in a social media marketing plan.

Public relations, search, and PPC will add depth, optimization, and vital content to a social media plan.

Grading Scale
A process and methodology for a social media audit are essential for long-term success and efficiencies.

Whether it’s your own process using Excel, a template from a third-party source, or a platform such as Sprout Social, using consistent methods puts science behind the historical comparisons.

Headlines & Grades
“We start with competitors and look for ‘who’s to beat.’ Then we write the headline for what each competitor’s strategy appears to be. We map it on a quadrant to determine the white space for the brand we represent,” says Collins.

Website & Blog Assessment
Check the relevant website and blog pages to check for social media factors, including:

• Shareability.
• Meta titles and descriptions.
• Formatting.
• Keywords.
• Visuals.
• Content performance.
• Links.
• Accessibility.
• Integration with paid media.
• Behavior.
• Security and privacy.

Social Media Channel Review
This is where you want to review each channel, including this checklist:

• Page/profile optimization.
• Cover and profile image use.
• Visual assets.
• Video optimization (i.e. playlists, featured, etc.).
• Frequency and timing.
• Content types/mix.
• Comment sentiment and response time.
• Live video use.
• Engagement.
• Branding.
• Optimization.
• Chatbots and messenger use and strategy.
• Augmented reality use.
• Virtual reality.
• Creator coins.
• Web 3/NFT marketplaces such as OpenSea.
• Audio experiences such as Twitter Spaces and Clubhouse.
• Community platforms such as Discord.
• Security and privacy.

Source: Are You Web 3.0 Ready? 12 Steps For A Successful Social Media Audit

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Meta Expands Ad Formats And Tools For Small Businesses

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Meta Expands Ad Formats And Tools For Small Businesses

Small businesses are getting the attention they deserve from Facebook parent company Meta.

During National Small Business Week, Meta announced new ways for SMBs to take advantage of lead generation and share content.

The new tools are aimed at helping businesses drive higher quality leads by identifying new ways they can connect with customers.

Messaging And Conversation Features

Meta recently identified over 70% of people want to be able to communicate with businesses in a similar way as friends and family: through messaging.

In fact, businesses are also realizing the value of messaging customers. They’ve found the ad format that opens a WhatsApp chat is a great way for new customers to discover them and have a conversation.

With this new insight, Meta is creating ads for Facebook and Instagram that can be made directly from their WhatsApp Business app. An example of the new experience is below.

New Lead Generation and Customer Acquisition Tools

Meta is launching a myriad of new tools to help businesses capture and manage leads through the platform. These features include:

• Quote Requests in Instagram
• Lead filtering with Instant Forms
• Creative flexibility
• Gated content
• Partner integrations

The Quote Request is currently being tested with selected businesses on Instagram. Essentially, it allows companies to add a “Get Quote” button on their Instagram profile and stickers in their Stories.

Source: Meta Expands Ad Formats And Tools For Small Businesses

PPC Survey: Adoption of Google Ads automation high, marketers unhappy with recommendations

PPCsurvey.com has just released a new State of PPC Global Report for 2022. It includes input from more than 500 PPC specialists from around the globe.

The findings cover search marketers’ largest concerns, top priorities, spend data, automation insight and a wealth of information about the most pressing trends in paid search.

Here’s a breakdown of some of the largest findings.

High adoption rate of automations in Google Ads. Two eye-opening metrics in the survey:

• 97% of respondents use Responsive Search Ads.
• 95% have implemented Smart Bidding (tCPA).

Most surprisingly a whopping 78% of respondents have used Auto-applied Recommendations.

The time has passed when advertisers could compete without adopting automation.

Adoption of automation is high, but marketer satisfaction is mixed. The least satisfying automation, according to respondents, was Auto-applied Recommendations.

• 83% of respondents reported that they were dissatisfied with the Auto-applied Recommendations feature.

Another surprise came from one of Google’s biggest pushes as of late: The Recommendations Tab. The feelings on Recommendations were 63% negative, according to PPCsurvey.com.

Why so negative? Top complaints about the feature include “the ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach and the obvious push for smart bidding, broad match, and budget increases.”

Respondents were more satisfied with other automation.

• 51% of search marketers reported being satisfied with scripts.
• 48% said they were satisfied about tROAS Smart Bidding.
• 47% of respondents were satisfied about tCPA Smart Bidding.

The most pressing priorities for PPC Specialists. What are their clients’ top priorities? Some new concerns appeared this year.

• Priority #1: improve goal-setting beyond traditional metrics (e.g., conversions, revenue). This includes the consideration of margin, including new versus traditional customers and Lifetime Value (LTV), with 62% of respondents stating that these were a top priority.
• Priority #2: Tracking improvements including cookieless concerns, GA4 and server-side tagging came in second with 56%.

Unsatisfactory scores for Optiscore. Google now requires Google Partners to maintain a 70% Optiscore, PPCsurvey.com took a look at the satisfaction levels for the metric. Respondents could rate from 1-10 and the results were turned into a Net promoter score (NPS) to gauge how many participants would recommend.

Only 15% of respondents value a high Optiscore with 41% of respondents considering a high Optiscore a detractor in an account.

Using NPS methodology, this would give a high Optiscore an overall negative NPS of -26, which is a very undesirable score.

• You can download the full report (PDF) here. It includes more information including global yearly ad spends, ad platform adoption, time-consuming activities, the top challenges for agencies and much more.

Source: PPC Survey: Adoption of Google Ads automation high, marketers unhappy with recommendations

Performance Max Campaigns Driving Growth In Google Ads Revenue

Last week, Google held its Q1 earnings call, touting its year-over-year Search growth.

The company reported $68 billion in Q1 revenue, with over 50% attributed to Search and Ads.

Performance Max campaigns were one of the highlights of Search performance, indicating strong projections and investments from Google.

Strong Search Growth In 2022

Performance Max adoption seems to be a key reason for Search growth.

Google’s Chief Business Officer Philip Schindler went on to explain how the newest AI-powered campaign type can help drive optimal performance for advertisers.

Performance Max Figures And Projections

Google provided a brief case study on Performance Max during the earnings call. They highlighted a leading travel assistance company, AssistCard, in LATAM.

AssistCard first started testing Performance Max in November of 2021 when it first rolled out.

During beta testing, Performance Max campaigns had a 40% lower cost per acquisition and a 15X higher conversion rate compared to other campaign types with the same goals.

The case study concluded with the mention that AssistCard will “significantly increase spend on the new ad format in 2022.”

With Performance Max replacing campaign types such as Smart Shopping and Local campaigns, its not surprising that Google is betting on investment to this new campaign type.

Source: Performance Max Campaigns Driving Growth In Google Ads Revenue

TikTok Pulse puts brands next to the top 4% of videos

TikTok has announced plans for a “contextual advertising solution” that will let advertisers get visibility next to the top 4% of content in TikTok’s For You feed.

What is TikTok Pulse. This is TikTok’s first exploration of an advertising revenue share program with creators, public figures and media publishers, the company said. Ad revenue will be split 50-50 with creators.

By advertising in Pulse, brands will appear among the top 4% of all videos of TikTok in 12 categories. These categories include:

• Beauty & personal care.
• Fashion.
• Cooking & baking.
• Automotive.
• Gaming.​

Brand suitability. One concern for brands could be appearing alongside questionable content. Here’s what TikTok says it’s doing to ensure a safe environment for brands:

• “Our proprietary inventory filter ensures that TikTok Pulse ads are running adjacent to verified content with our highest level of brand suitability applied on the platform. Additional post campaign measurement tools such as third party brand suitability and viewability verification provide advertisers the opportunity and transparency to analyze and understand the impact of their campaigns.”

Eligibility requirements. Creators and publishers must have at least 100,000 TikTok followers. 

When it will launch. Pulse will become open to U.S. advertisers in June. It will expand to more countries in the fall.   

Source: TikTok Pulse puts brands next to the top 4% of videos

Meta Expands Reels Monetization With Monthly Challenges

As part of its shift toward short-form videos, Facebook-parent Meta is introducing more monetary incentives for content creators to produce Reels.

Through an update to its Reels Play Bonus program, Meta is restructuring payouts, expanding monetization opportunities, and providing creators with new insights about viewers.

In a blog post the company says these changes are designed to reward creators who are consistently publishing high quality, original content that audiences enjoy.

Challenges Add New Ways For Creators To Earn

Part of this update includes the introduction of Challenges on Facebook, which helps Reels Play bonus program creators unlock new revenue streams.

New Insights Help Create More Relevant Content

To help content creators make short-form videos that will resonate with their audiences, Meta is increasing visibility into performance.

From the Reels Play Bonus Insight page of Facebook, creators will be able to see how many plays each Reels received and how much it earned over a time period.

Crossposting Functionality Will Allow Joint Facebook/Instagram Media

Meta also announced it will be adding crosspost functionality to Reels, allowing content creators to seamlessly share video to followers on both Instagram and Facebook.

Source: Meta Expands Reels Monetization With Monthly Challenges

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DMCA request removes Moz from Google Search index

If you search for [Moz] in Google Search, you won’t be seeing the moz.com home page, that page was removed from the Google index due to a DMCA takedown request. The takedown complaint cites that Moz’s home page, along with 185 other URLs were “distribute modified, cracked and unauthorized versions” of the Dr. Driving app.

The takedown complaint. The DMCA, The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and takedown complaint can be viewed over here. You can see the Moz home page listed on line 122. As Cyrus Shepard posted on Twitter “Crazy! You can’t access the Moz homepage from Google right now. A search for “Moz” shows an incredible 8(!) removed results from an overly-broad DMCA filing. DMCA literally lets anybody abuse the system, and it breaks Google.

Google is aware. Danny Sullivan, the Google Search Liaison responded saying “I’ve passed it on for review.” We suspect Google will reverse this issue really quickly – but so far, Moz is still not showing.

The Google search results. Here is a screenshot of the search results page showing the Moz blog coming up in the first position, not the Moz home page:

Source: DMCA request removes Moz from Google Search index

How hub-and-spoke content marketing can help improve SEO

“When we think about creating topical – evergreen, informational content – it’s sometimes hard to fit all that information on one landing page,” said Zack Kadish, SEO customer success team manager at Conductor, in a recent webinar. “So, we when think about ‘hub-and-spoke models,’ we want to think about generating content on a broad topic while diving deeper into more relevant areas on different parts of the website.”

“This can help increase organic traffic and keywords rankings, and even lead to more downstream metrics such as conversions, leads, and sales,” he added.

Similar to pillar page structures, hub-and-spoke models are designed to establish a site’s authority on the ins and outs of a given topic. But, how do they differ from other content marketing models?

“Think of the hub as the center of the wheel, and all of the spokes pointing outward,” Kadish said. “In an SEO and digital marketing lens, the hub is the main topic that we want to create more authority around. The spokes are all that supporting content that might help boost authority around that topic.”

Kadish said marketers can identify potential hub-and-spoke topics through keyword research. The higher volume, more transactional keywords are likely to be “hubs,” and the lower volume, long-tail keywords will serve best as “spokes.”

Chaz Marshall, SEO success manager at Conductor, gave a helpful example of a hub-and-spoke strategy in the same presentation:

“Let’s say civil engineering is the hub topic. If someone is researching that career path, a great subtopic to feature would be, ‘What is the average salary of a civil engineer?’ That would be a spoke.

“Each of those topics trails back to your brand, so, why not help Google and people who have never heard of your business notice that you are industry experts?” Marshall added.

Source: How hub-and-spoke content marketing can help improve SEO

Conductor CEO opens up about mental health 

May is Mental Health Awareness Month. This inspired Seth Besmertnik, the CEO of enterprise SEO platform Conductor, to reveal his struggle with mental health. 

His goal? To encourage his team to seek out help. And it’s a message that everyone in our community should hear. 

Here are some highlights from Besmertnik’s message:

“We all face our own demons.” As Besmertnik wrote, everyone goes through tough patches. That’s what initially led him to seek therapy six years ago. He’s been going religiously every Tuesday at noon since. 

• “Professional support helps.”

In the process, Besmertnik made it sound like therapy is a normal activity. Because it is. There should be no stigma attached to seeking out mental health services.

• “We are not perfect, we never will be.”

“A powerful tool to navigate life.” Besmertnik credited therapy for helping him become a better CEO and father. He noted that he has other forms of support (his wife, friends), but a therapist is different:

• “They don’t come with an agenda, and it’s the safest place in the world to explore your thoughts and experiences and learn from them over time. I’ve uncovered so much about myself through therapy. And I continue to. I’ve learned how to turn problems into opportunities through therapy.”

Source: Conductor CEO opens up about mental health 

Axios news SEO playbook: Speed, authority, and brevity

If you’ve ever read Axios, you’ll remember it. At least that’s what Ryan Kellett, VP of Audience at Axios hopes. 

A news article on Axios has a distinctive look. It’s all in the name of Smart Brevity. 

Smart Brevity: “Axios gets you smarter, faster on what matters.” That’s their mission. And they have five excellent guiding principles:

• Audience first
• Elegant efficiency
• Smart, always
• No BS for sale
• Excellence, always

What about SEO? Axios had 24.8 million visitors in March, with 16% of traffic coming from organic search, according to Semrush’s Website Traffic Checker. (For comparative purposes, the New York Times is the largest news site, with more than a billion visitors in March – but Axios doesn’t cover nearly as many topics as the Times, CNN, or other large news publishers.)

News is incredibly competitive. And Smart Brevity seems to go against what many consider to be SEO best practices. Namely, longer and more are better.

So how does Axios make SEO and Smart Brevity work together?

Go deeper. Here are highlights from my recent Q&A with Kellett. It has been edited for smartness and brevity.

Source: Axios news SEO playbook: Speed, authority, and brevity

Google to use Customer Match lists for Smart Bidding, Optimized Targeting

Customer Match lists will be leveraged more within Google Ads, according to an email sent to advertisers this week.

These lists will soon be eligible to be used within an account to help aid Smart Bidding and/or Optimized Targeting.

This is a shift from how Customer Match lists are applied today. Advertisers currently need to manually apply these to a campaign.

Customer Match lists won’t be used with manual bidding strategies. However, advertisers may still use bid modifiers manually to adjust bids.

When this is happening. Starting in Q2. The tentative timelines for the rollout of Customer Match lists in smart bidding are:

Source: Google to use Customer Match lists for Smart Bidding, Optimized Targeting

More news:

Google lets users limit three more types of ads on YouTube, GDN

Twitter Accepts Elon Musk’s $43B Purchase Offer

Bing’s Ethical Shopping hub expands to the U.S., Canada

Google lets users limit three more types of ads on YouTube, GDN

Google is giving users the option to see three more types of ads less often:

• Pregnancy and parenting.
• Dating.
• Weight loss.

The company today announced a global expansion of user controls that were introduced in 2020, which limited alcohol and gambling ads.

YouTube and Google Display ads. Initially, users could only limit alcohol and gambling ads on YouTube. With today’s announcement, users can now also limit these ads on Display. Users can also choose to limit the three new ad categories on both YouTube and Display.

Fewer, not zero. There’s an important distinction here: Google only limits these types of ads. That doesn’t mean a user will never, at some point, see a weight loss or gambling ad. It simply means they will see “fewer” of them.

As we noted in 2020, short of an ad ban, it’s nearly impossible to guarantee that a user who opts out will never see an ad in one of these categories. 

Given the sensitive nature of these categories, there may be additional restrictions, depending on your country.

How users opt-out. This feature can be found in users’ Ad Settings, under the Google Account dashboard. Here’s what it looks like:

More to come? Google seems to be considering expanding this feature further. According to Karin Hennessy, Group Product Manager for Ads Privacy:

“People want more control over their ads experience, including blocking ads or categories they prefer not to see. Providing transparency and control has always been a priority for us so we’re expanding our tools, enabling the choice to see fewer pregnancy & parenting, dating, and weight loss ads. We’ll continue to listen to user feedback and study which categories to expand this feature to in the future.” 

Source: Google lets users limit three more types of ads on YouTube, GDN

Cloudflare Names OVH and Hetzner as Origins of DDOS Attack

Cloudflare published a report of a massive DDOS attack, naming several well known cloud hosting data centers as the origins of the attack. The attack appeared to follow a trend of attacks increasingly being launched from data centers instead of the traditional residential botnets.

Major Cloud Data Centers

Cloudflare named several cloud-based data centers as origins of the attack, two of which are already well known in the publishing community as common sources of spam and unwanted bot visitors.

The two biggest sources of this DDOS attack, according to Cloudflare’s data, were OVH and Hetzner.

OVH and Hetzner as Sources of Spam

In addition to being origins of DDOS attacks, OVH and Hetzner are known to be sources of spam-related attacks.

According to SaaS spam protection service CleanTalk data, spam bots originating from OVH comprise 10.97% of detected activity from IP addresses associated with OVH.

Spam activity originating from Hetzner that was detected by CleanTalk, out of 213,621 IP addresses detected as a source of traffic, 14,997 (7.02%) of those IP addresses were associated with spam attacks.

While DDOS and spam attacks are two different things, these statistics are cited to show how both of those cloud data centers are used for a variety of malicious activity, not just for DDOS attacks.

A publisher over at WebmasterWorld Forum recently observed that they were experiencing bot traffic from OVH that was greater than from legitimate human traffic from known ISPs.

Unwanted bot traffic from OVH is such a common problem that when an OVH datacenter in France burned down a WebmasterWorld member practically applauded the event by posting:

“Looking on the bright side, our websites will have less bot traffic now.”

The question maybe that needs asking is, why is there so much rogue bot traffic originating from OVH and Hetzner?

This isn’t something new, either. Webmaster and publisher complaints about bot traffic from OVH go back a long time.

These are examples of discussions on WebmasterWorld involving OVH:

• Am I Blocking This OVH IP Correctly? (2020)
• OVH Visitors – Genuine Or Not? (2013)
• Server Farms – August 2014
• Server Farms – Jan 2018

OVH and Hetzner Are Origins of Bots and DDOS Attacks

It’s well-documented by Saas spam blocking services that OVH and Hetzner are sources of spam. Now we have documentation from Cloudflare that OVH and Hetzner cloud hosting services serve as origins of DDOS attacks.

Cloudflare identified the attacks as coming from a botnet on those cloud hosts. So that may mean that various servers were compromised.

Source: Cloudflare Names OVH and Hetzner as Origins of DDOS Attack

Bingbot user-agent change coming in the Fall of 2022

In 2019, Microsoft Bing announced new Bingbot user-agent names that fit better with its evergreen Bingbot crawling and rendering service. Microsoft’s Fabrice Canel has now said that by the Fall of 2022 the old user-agent will stopped being used and the search company will transition to the new user-agents fully.

Old user-agent. Microsoft said it will stop using its historical user-agent by Fall 2022. That user-agent looks like this:
Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; bingbot/2.0; +http://www.bing.com/bingbot.htm)

New user-agent. Bing will use a user-agent that identifies the specific version of Microsoft Edge is crawling your site. Here is the format for both desktop and mobile:

Desktop – Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko; compatible; bingbot/2.0; +http://www.bing.com/bingbot.htm) Chrome/W.X.Y.Z Safari/537.36

Mobile – Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 6.0.1; Nexus 5X Build/MMB29P) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/W.X.Y.Z Mobile Safari/537.36 (compatible; bingbot/2.0; +http://www.bing.com/bingbot.htm)

“W.X.Y.Z” will be substituted with the latest Microsoft Edge version Bing is using, for eg. “100.0.4896.127″.

Source: Bingbot user-agent change coming in the Fall of 2022

Zuckerberg Highlights Meta’s Future

In its quarterly earnings call on Wednesday, April 27, Meta Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg expressed optimism about the direction of the company, even though the company missed its earnings per share goal.

Meta, which met targets for revenue and new users, plans to slow the pace of some investments due to current growth levels.

Zuckerberg addressed some of the challenges Meta is facing in a Facebook post the same day, including the transition to short-form video, which he acknowledged “doesn’t monetize as well for now, but which we’re quite optimistic about over the long term.”

Other issues impacting the company include signal loss from Apple’s iOS changes, the slowing of e-commerce growth and the war in Ukraine, Zuckerberg said.

Video, Ads, And The Metaverse Will Drive Growth

Last year, Meta divided its business into two categories: Family of Apps, which includes Facebook, Instagram and Messenger, and Reality Labs, which is focused on building the social media platform of the future.

Meta plans to use three main investment priorities to drive this growth: Reels, ads, and the metaverse.

AI Video Recommendations Seek To Increase Value To Users

Reels, which launched globally in February 2022, is Meta’s short-form video feature created to rival TikTok. Meta plans to capitalize on the increasing popularity of video content by enhancing AI recommendations.

Meta’s advances in AI are intended to make it a discovery engine that will show users valuable and relevant content shared across the company’s properties.

Meta Building New Platform Around Virtual And Augmented Reality

Zuckerberg also discussed Meta’s plans to launch a new social media platform known as Horizon later this year.

“(Horizon) will make it easy for people to step into metaverse experiences from a lot more platforms, even without needing a headset,” Zuckerberg said.

This platform will work with virtual reality platforms like Meta-owned Quest and feature both recreational activities like gaming and work use cases.

“Making this available everywhere will mean you can interact with anyone on whatever device or platform that they want to use,” Zuckerberg said.

Source: Zuckerberg Highlights Meta’s Future

Outrank in organic search with these 5 core tactics

Not all SEO tactics are created equal. In fact, many SEO teams spend time working on issues that rarely move the needle.

If you want to generate impression share, drive clicks and bring intent-driven traffic to your site, you need to learn and implement these five core SEO tactics today. 

To learn more, register today for “Outrank in Organic Search with These 5 Core Tactics,” presented by Strategic SEO Solutions.

Source: Outrank in organic search with these 5 core tactics

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