5 new updates to Meta call ads

Meta just announced 5 new updates to their call ads. The new updates are intended to help businesses build better customer relationships, find more quality leads, and reach more potential customers to grow their business, they stated in a blog post.

1. Get a callback

This feature is currently being tested and gives customers the option to request a callback from a business.

2. Call Ads in Sales Objective

Businesses will now have the option to include call ads as a format under the Sales/Conversions objective in Ads Manager.

3. 60s call in Lead Gen, Traffic, and Sales objectives

Meta has added a 60-second call optimization option in lead generation, traffic and to-be-released sales ad objectives to allow businesses to optimize their ads to reach people who are most likely to engage in a longer conversation.

4. Pre-call business feature in Ads Manager

Businesses can provide additional context in ads to help educate potential customers to help them make informed decisions before they make a call.

5. In-app calling

Meta is testing a platform calling solution to enable businesses to connect with customers wherever they are browsing and allow them to continue that same experience within the app after the call is complete. Meta says that no call information is captured.

Dig deeper. You can read the blog post from Meta here.

Why do we care? Advertisers and brands on Meta such as stores, restaurants, or service-based businesses should make sure their phone numbers, business hours, and answering messages are up to date so they can be reached by potential customers utilizing these new features.

There’s no indication that these new features will increase the number of leads a brand is receiving. As with every new feature, test the optimization and reporting options to ensure they support your goals and conversion objectives.

Source: 5 new updates to Meta call ads

SEO is math

SEO often doesn’t get a fair seat at the table when marketing budgets are determined. 

Even though SEO is marketing.

As we’re approaching a time when many companies are having meetings in their conference rooms to determine budget allocations for the upcoming year, I want to help further the case as to why SEO should have a voice in the room (and budget in your marketing plans).

But first, let me address a bit more why I feel SEO doesn’t get its fair shake.

Proving the value of SEO is complicated

SEO can be a challenge for some in marketing departments to wrap their heads around. There are many moving parts and it’s not as easy as PPC when you understand exactly how that works. 

With PPC it’s generally a matter of:

• Choose keywords.
• Write/ place ads.
• Pay when someone clicks.
• Send that click to a landing page of your choosing.
• Report on results (sales/leads).

It’s true. SEO is more complex than this. And, because of its complexity, I will often instruct prospects to think carefully about not just when to invest in SEO, but whether SEO is even a really viable investment in the first place. Often, the answer to these questions is “it depends.” 

Size of the opportunity

When determining the “value” of an SEO effort, there are two sides to the coin. 

One easy metric is to consider the “replacement cost” of the traffic. If you were to buy this same traffic via PPC (that you’re considering targeting via SEO) what would it have cost? Semrush makes this available via their “Traffic Cost” metric:

Understanding the traffic potential of SEO efforts

But if you’re a mature marketer, you will try to move beyond just “click value” to something more meaningful. 

• Tangible value.
• Sales.
• Leads.
• Downloads of white papers. 
• Sign-ups for webinars.

How you measure this will depend upon whether your business is eCommerce or B2B/lead gen. For both verticals, you’ll need to do two things:

• Identify the possible keywords that you’ll want to target.
• Determine what it might take to compete (i.e., site structure/link acquisition).

Since I’m assuming that you’re a marketing head and perhaps not an SEO, here’s how I would quickly suggest you conduct this type of assessment. 

Source: SEO is math

Google Highlights Online Discussions & Forums In Search Results

A new feature in Google Search will highlight results from a wider selection of online discussions and forums.

Google is rolling out a new addition to search results that highlights what people are saying about a topic in online discussions and forums.

Announced today at Google’s ‘Search On’ virtual event, the discussions and forums feature expands on the search company’s efforts to serve links to relevant forum posts.

Also announced at Search On, Google is breaking down language barriers in news by making it easier to find translated stories.

Here’s more information about the features announced today at Google Search On.

Discussions & Forums

Google is delivering on a top request from searchers to surface more results from online discussions and forums.

Rolling out now, English users on mobile in the US will see a new search feature with links from a wide selection of forum posts.

You can see what the feature looks like in the example below:

Google says it may update the discussions and forums feature in the future as it learns which results are most useful for people.

Google launches its core and product review update

Google announced that it’s done with the new updates of September 2022. It will soon be rolling out the updates. The company confirms that the core algorithm update and product review update are complete.

The company informs this update through the search ranking update page. The work on the core updates began two weeks ago, on 12 September. However, the company started working on a product review update a week later.

No matter when the work began, both the updates are ready to go in the market on 26 September. The period for the updates is ideal. Now the credibility of the updates will be clear after the market reports. The website’s rankings and traffic patterns will eventually decide this.

Now when the users see any significant changes, they will become sure that it’s due to the result of one or both the updates. The core update and product review update will bring some major changes.

The updates that the company brings will affect the entire site. The core updates can affect all the search results. The core updates, unlike the updates, target the whole site rather than specific elements.

However, the core updates focus on the importance of the entire website rather than individual issues. The things like ads on the page, usability, etc., will come under core updates.

Source: Google launches its core and product review update

More news:

Windows 11 will now warn if you accidentally type out your password

TikTok video descriptions now have a 2,200 character limit

ACF 6.0 Introduces Refreshed Admin UI and ACF Blocks Version 2

Windows 11 will now warn if you accidentally type out your password

Microsoft has unveiled a new tool that it says should help keep Windows 11 users protected from losing their valuable passwords.

Part of the recently-announced Windows 11 22H2 update, the new Enhanced Phishing Protection feature will now warn users when they write out their passwords in certain applications or websites deemed to be possibly insecure.

This even includes Microsoft’s own apps, including the likes of Notepad and Microsoft Word, as the company looks to try and make sure users remain protected at all times.

Password protection

In a blog post announcing the launch, Microsoft says that the new tool should stop unsuspecting users from accidentally writing out their passwords in plain view, and keep them safe from hackers or scammers.

It uses the company’s SmartScreen protection platform to spot any saved passwords from being entered, displaying a warning that “It’s unsafe to store your password in this app…we recommend removing your password from this file”.

Users will need to toggle the feature on, as while Windows 11 22H2 has Phishing protection enabled by default, the password protection options are disabled.

To enable it, go to Start > Settings > Privacy & security > Windows Security > App & browser control > Reputation-based protection settings.

Scroll down to the Phishing protection section, where there are options labeled ‘Warn me about password reuse’ and ‘Warn me about unsafe password storage’.

Microsoft adds that IT admins can customize alerts using a mobile device management (MDM) solution like Microsoft Intune.

Source: Windows 11 will now warn if you accidentally type out your password

WooCommerce 7.0 Beta 2

Beta 2 for the October 2022 release of WooCommerce is now available for testing! You can either download it directly from WordPress.org or install our WooCommerce Beta Tester Plugin.

Highlights

• Only show the product image upload tip once, and on all product edit pages. (#34739)
• Remove typecasting to prevent fatal when $screen_id is null. (#34734)
• Bumped WooCommerce Blocks to 8.5.1 which ensure that scripts are loaded using absolute URLs to prevent loading issues with subfolder installs. (#7211)

Note that the first two highlight changes were already included in the public 6.9.3 release but was not in 7.0 beta.1. Thus this beta 2 release includes them.

The complete list of changes, tweaks, fixes, and improvements included in this release can be viewed in the readme.txt for the release.

Actions and Filters

This release doesn’t add any actions.

Filter	Description
woocommerce_product_reviews_list_table_prepare_items_args	Provides an opportunity to alter the comment query arguments used withinthe product reviews admin list table.
woocommerce_cot_shop_order_search_results	Provides an opportunity to modify the list of order IDs obtained during an order search. This hook is used for Custom Order Table queries. For Custom Post Type order searches, the corresponding hookis `woocommerce_shop_order_search_results`.

Source: WooCommerce 7.0 Beta 2

Google September 2022 Core Update rollout is now complete

Google has confirmed that the September 2022 Core Update – the second core update this year – has completed rolling out.

Released on Sept. 12, it took two full weeks to roll out. And it came three days after the helpful content update finished rolling out on Sept. 9.

Rollout complete. According to Google’s search ranking update page, “The rollout was complete as of September 26, 2022.” The page seems to have been updated about an hour ago.

September 2022 Core Update impact. Based on data from tracking tools, the September 2022 core update hit fast, but was less impactful than previous updates. While there was some rank volatility, the consensus was that it was weaker than past Google core updates.

What to do if you are hit. Google has previously given advice on what to consider if you are negatively impacted by a core update. Google has said you can see some recovery between core updates, but the most significant changes will come following a future core update.

Product Review Update sill rolling out. As a reminder, the September 2022 Product Review Update, released Sept. 20, is continuing to roll out now. We’ll let you know when it’s finished rolling out so you can see what impact, if any, it had on your site.

Source: Google September 2022 Core Update rollout is now complete

WordPress plans major development change through plugins

WordPress is making some major development change. WordPress is thinking of introducing a Plugin-first approach. This will promise fast core development, but the results are uncertain.

The developer of WordPress, Matt Mullenweg, informs that they will no longer add new updates to the features of WordPress. Instead, they will pivot to a Plugin-first policy.

This new development change already replaces some entirely old features. However, experts believe canonical plugins can improve WordPress faster.

Although WordPress raises the concern that publisher user experience may suffer. For users who don’t know, canonical plugins are a way to develop new features in the form of plugins.

The basic objective of introducing changes through plugins is to keep the WordPress core simple and fast. But at the same time, to keep experimenting with the new features in the form of plugins. We see this as a big development change.

The development of canonical plugins will be by a community of developers. A single person will not be responsible for creating the changes. Also, this development change will address the popular functionality requests.

The developers say that these plugins will have a close connection with the core WordPress. They will also run tests of the new versions of WordPress against the plugins.

This approach is Plugin’s first approach. This will help developers have an idea of how the features will look. The canonical plugins are different from the non-canonical ones. WordPress is adopting canonical plugins where the core development team of the company will develop the plugins.

In the other case, a third party creates the plugins. In such cases, they can limit the features to encourage the purchase of an advanced version.

Now the plugin technology is under scrutiny. If the technology finds popularity and validation among users, it can be in wide usage.

WordPress runs with a philosophy that it is Decisions, Not Options. And the development changes through plugins justify that. This will also help users avoid layers of technical options. The use will become simple.

Source: WordPress plans major development change through plugins

More News:

TikTok video descriptions now have a 2,200 character limit

Google Answers If Stop Words Should Be Used in URL

ACF 6.0 Introduces Refreshed Admin UI and ACF Blocks Version 2

TikTok video descriptions now have a 2,200 character limit

TikTok video descriptions, once limited to 300 characters, have now been updated to 2,200 characters.

What this means. The update was first noticed by social media consultant Matta Navarra on Twitter, who posted that the new character limit allowed users to express more details about their content, generate more engagement, and make their videos more searchable.

Early reactions. Some people on Twitter aren’t too thrilled with the update. Ash-win Fern-&-es posting “But no one really reads the description there. Would be helpful for some to add more hashtags though.” Grady Hopper says “I don’t get why this matters 95% of most people’s views probably come from fyp not search.” FYP is TikTok’s “For You” Page, where they show users suggestions of accounts to follow and videos to watch.

TikTok, the new Google. Though the general reaction here is “meh,” some people see the value in longer captions for optimizing SEO. In response to tweets saying that nobody reads the descriptions, Rhayven J says “Even if they don’t, the algorithm will. If folks know SEO, then this is a huge game changer.”

TikTok is known for trying to replace Google search among its Gen Z users. This latest update could be a step in that direction.

Source: TikTok video descriptions now have a 2,200 character limit

Are 301 Redirects A Google Ranking Factor?

Is there a relationship between 301 redirects and Google rankings? Read on and discover what the evidences have to say.

Using 301 redirects is crucial when permanently moving an old webpage to a new URL. They will ensure a positive user experience by instantly connecting users to the content they are looking for, even if they were given an old URL.

But do 301 redirects affect your rankings in organic search?

This chapter will cover the relationship between 301 redirects and improved Google rankings.

More questions about Ranking Factors? We cover all of them in Google Ranking Factors: Fact Or Fiction.

The Claim: 301 Redirects Are A Ranking Factor

What are 301 redirects?

A 301 redirect is a server-side redirection for a permanently changed URL.

You would use a 301 redirect for the following scenarios:

• You are going from HTTP to HTTPS.
• You are moving from an old domain to a new one.
• You are optimizing URL slugs for existing posts and pages.

Most of the discussion surrounding 301 redirects focuses on whether PageRank would transfer from the old URL to the new URL.

Or, if inbound links existed for the old URL, would they automatically be applied to the new URL?

The Evidence Against 301 Redirects As A Ranking Factor

Not much is officially said about 301 redirects as a ranking factor.

In 2012, Matt Cutts, former head of Google’s Webspam team, said that Google would follow an unlimited number of redirects from one page to another.

Google will even make multiple hops if a page is redirected to another page, then redirected again and again. He noted that the Googlebot might stop following redirects after four to five hops.

In 2013, Cutts confirmed that a small percentage of PageRank is lost in 301 redirects. While some SEO professionals quote a loss of 15%, Cutts doesn’t say there is a specific percentage.

Source: Are 301 Redirects A Google Ranking Factor?

WordPress Considers Historic Development Change

WordPress considers a Plugin-first approach that promises faster core development but some are skeptical

Matt Mullenweg, the developer of WordPress and CEO of Automatic, proposed no longer adding new features to WordPress, pivoting instead to a plugin-first policy.

This new approach to the future of WordPress has already resulted in a new feature intended for the next version of WordPress to be dropped entirely.

Canonical plugins are said to offer a way to keep improving WordPress on a faster schedule.

But some WordPress core contributors expressed the opinion that publisher user experience may suffer.

Canonical Plugins

First discussed in 2009, canonical plugins is a way to develop new features in the form of plugins.

The goal of this approach is to keep the WordPress core fast and lean while also encouraging development of experimental features in the form of plugins.

This approach to features and options is also referred to as Plugin First, to emphasize how features will first appear in the form of plugins.

These plugins are called canonical because they are developed by the WordPress core development team as opposed to non-canonical plugins that are created by third parties that might limit features in order to encourage purchase of a pro-version.

Integration of canonical plugins into the WordPress core itself would be considered once the plugin technology has proven itself to be popular and essential to the majority of users.

Canonical Plugins the Future?

Matt Mullenweg published a post titled, Canonical Plugins Revisited, in which he made the case that this is the way that WordPress should be developed moving forward.

The first casualty of this new approach is the cancellation of integrating WebP image conversion into the next version of WordPress, WordPress 6.1, currently scheduled for November 2022.

Plugin-First is Controversial

The shift to a plugin-first development process was subjected to debate in the comments section.

Some developers, such as core contributor Jon Brown, expressed reservations about the proposal to switch to developing with canonical plugins.

The commenter used the example of a commenting functionality that is currently served by multiple bloated plugins as a less-than-ideal user experience.

They noted that having one canonical plugin to solve a problem is preferable to the current state where desirable options can only be found on bloated third-party plugins.

But they also said that having a settings option within the core, without the need for a plugin, could present a better user experience.

Source: WordPress Considers Historic Development Change

Google surveys will soon be closed

Google is making new updates almost every day. In one such update, the company announces shutting down Google surveys. Google is shutting down surveys 360 on November 1. Google is giving users time till December to download the historical data.

Also, Google informs the public that it is shutting down its market research surveys. The market research product Google surveys will go off now. From November 1, the surveys will be unavailable. However, users can download the historical data till December.

Google started releasing the notifications this week. Google plans to send emails to users spreading the information. The email takes users to a Google help page with full Q&A on the queries regarding the Google surveys.

Most users are curious about the reason the survey is going off. Although there were no direct answers, the company plans on reservicing the entire thing.

But apprehensions are that this replacement will take time. Google has no immediate plans to re-introduce the service. But there are replacements for Google surveys available on the web.

For users with recent surveys that they might not be able to finish before November 1, there is a way out. People can ask for refunds in such cases.

There is a Google Opinion Rewards for publishers that they can use. This app isn’t closing down any time soon. The shutdown of Google surveys will not impact this app. People can continue to use it freely.

Source: Google surveys will soon be closed

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ACF 6.0 Introduces Refreshed Admin UI and ACF Blocks Version 2

More Google Ad incidents and issues

Google Answers If Stop Words Should Be Used in URL

ACF 6.0 Introduces Refreshed Admin UI and ACF Blocks Version 2

Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) has announced the availability of version 6.0, an update that applies to both the free and pro versions of the plugin. This release introduces a refreshed admin UI that ACF product manager Iain Poulson said users had been requesting since 2021.

“We didn’t want this to be a huge change that would disrupt a user’s workflow, but instead a light reskin that focuses on bringing user experience improvements to the Field Group editor,” Poulson said.

“The team have done a great job with the new design, improving all the ACF plugin admin screens from the Field Group editor to the Tools page.”

The reskinning delivers the following improvements:

• Reduces the vertical height of the field settings
• Improved experience adding new fields to a Field Group
• Added a sticky “Save Changes” button to the header bar that is always visible without users having to scroll up to the top of the page
• Added more width to “Fields” box to reduce cramping from nested subfields
• Keyboard navigation for fields
• Improved focus states across the Field Group editor, toggle switches, radio buttons, and checkbox groups
• New opt-in setting for Repeater pagination

Version 6.0 also includes ACF Blocks Version 2, a feature included in ACF PRO. It allows developers to use a PHP-based framework for developing custom block types.

Source: ACF 6.0 Introduces Refreshed Admin UI and ACF Blocks Version 2

Content API for Shopping and Google Ads API updated for country targeting

Recent updates to the API. Last month we announced that Google was removing the country targeting requirements were being removed and replaced with a new feedLabel field. Today Google announced updates to those changes including:

For Google Ads

• Any Google Ads account can set the feed_label field in ShoppingSetting for Shopping and Performance Max campaigns. You can set feed_label in the Google Ads UI and the Google Ads API.

For Merchant center

• As of September 14th, 2022 we‘ve started the gradual rollout of feed labels in the Merchant Center UI. When this feature is enabled in the UI, merchants will be able to create a new feed with feed label set to any valid string. 

In the Content API:

• Products that have only feedLabel, and not targetCountry, if they were added in the Merchant Center UI.
• Products with feed labels that aren’t two-letter country codes.

API behavior summary. Additionally, the following is a clarification from Google about the current API behavior for feedLabel:

• Insertion: You can only call Products.insert on products with a matching feedLabel and targetCountry. Currently, Products.insert might return an error if you don’t provide a matching targetCountry. This behavior hasn’t changed if you continue to use only targetCountry.
• Targeting: If you set feedLabel to a valid 2-letter CLDR territory code, you must still set the shipping attribute of the products resource to the same country in order to target that country. For example, if you set a new feedLabel to “US”, you must also set the country field in the shipping attribute to “US”. If you don’t set both fields, the product might not be eligible to serve in that country. You can configure targeting for an entire feed in the Merchant Center UI.
• Get/List: When you use Products.list or Products.get, you might see products that only have feedLabel (and not targetCountry) set if they were added in the Merchant Center UI.
• Product IDs: Once a feedLabel is set for a product it becomes part of the product Id. This means you can’t modify the feedLabel for that product (this is similar to how language works). If you wish to change the feedLabel you will need to create a new product with a different product Id.

Coming next. Google says that once the rollout of feed labels is complete, they will accept Products.insert calls with feedLabel set to any string. targetCountry will be optional.

For datafeeds, the datafeeds resource will be updated to include feedLabel in the Content API for Shopping.

Source: Content API for Shopping and Google Ads API updated for country targeting

PublishPress Acquires MetaSlider Plugin and MetaSlider Lightbox

PublishPress, a company that develops free and commercial publishing and permissions plugins for WordPress, has acquired MetaSlider from Extendify. The plugin is used on more than 700,000 sites to build sliders, slideshows, carousels, and galleries. The company’s mission is to help publishers succeed, so this is a curious acquisition as sliders seem to have fallen out of favor on the web over the past seven years, due to problems with SEO, performance, and poor engagement.

“A traditional slider isn’t a good fit for a news website for a couple of reasons,” PublishPress founder Steve Burge said. “First, publishers want a display that they can update easily. Second, they can be worried about the performance slowdown from a slider.

“We aim to tackle those problems head-on. To solve the first issue, we plan to expand dynamic content features of MetaSlider so you can easily pull in fresh content. And secondly, we’ll focus on the speed of MetaSlider, so you don’t have to worry about a slow site.”

Burge said PublishPress will use MetaSlider as a platform for building a suite of image tools. As part of the sale, the company has also acquired MetaSlider Lightbox, which has 10,000 active installs, and a photo gallery that’s in a beta version.

Source: PublishPress Acquires MetaSlider Plugin and MetaSlider Lightbox

New Google issue may affect ad serving

It’s just not Google’s week… or month… or year. Today, Google Ads Liason Ginny Marvin just posted to Twitter that they’re currently aware of an internal issue impacting ads serving. Here’s what she said.

Is this related to the other Ads Manager issues they’ve reported this month? We’re not sure. The Tweet is too vague to know what specifically is happening.

This sounds familiar. Just yesterday we reported on other outages and “updates” from Google affecting publishers. This new issue could be related, but again, we’re not sure. Check that out here.

Source: New Google issue may affect ad serving

WordPress 6.1 Beta 1 Now Available

WordPress 6.1 Beta 1 is now available for download and testing.

This version of the WordPress software is under development. Please do not install, run, or test this version of WordPress on production or mission-critical websites. Instead, it is recommended that you test Beta 1 on a test server and site. 

You can test WordPress 6.1 Beta 1 in three ways:

Option 1: Install and activate the WordPress Beta Tester plugin (select the “Bleeding edge” channel and “Beta/RC Only” stream).

Option 2: Direct download the Beta 1 version (zip).

Option 3: Use the following WP-CLI command:

wp core update --version=6.1-beta1

The current target for the final release is November 1, 2022, which is about six weeks away. 

Additional information on the 6.1 release cycle is available.

Check the Make WordPress Core blog for 6.1-related developer notes in the coming weeks detailing all upcoming changes.

Source: WordPress 6.1 Beta 1 Now Available

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More Google Ad incidents and issues

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More Google Ad incidents and issues

The last few weeks have seen several problems with the Google Ads Manager, specifically affecting publishers and an incident dating all the way back to August 31.

The original issue. On August 31, Google reported an incident that “Google Ad Manager Historical Report stats are showing lower than expected for some networks. There’s no clear impact on Serving or Data Transfer at this point.”

Fast forward to this week. Yesterday Google reported an additional issue “We’re investigating reports of an issue with Google Ad Manager. We will provide more information shortly.  The affected users are able to access Google Ad Manager, but are seeing error messages, high latency, and other unexpected behavior.”

Additionally, they provided the following update from the August 31 incident “Ad Manager Reporting stats remains fixed with all new data since September 1st (PDT) being accurately reported. We are working on correcting the affected data (issue duration: August 30th, 8:00 PM PDT thru August 31st, 5:00 PM PDT). Our current ETA to have it fixed is September 23rd.

We received reports from multiple Publishers where Line Items were under-delivered around September 15th, which might be related to this incident. Engineering is investigating and we will provide more details today.”

Later that day. Around 7 pm UTC Google reported “The Reporting workaround fix introduced on September 13th to mitigate the missing stats for this incident has impacted the budget extractor causing under-delivery in a few Line Items. A Serving fix has been issued and will be released shortly (expected EOD PDT). This issue potentially only affected Line Items that meet these two criteria:

1. Line Item has been active through the 8/31 (PDT) incident and after the 9/13 (PDT) workaround fix.

2. Line Item had one or more of the following specific changes made on or after the 8/31 (PDT) stats incident: date duration, the actual budget goal, and delivery speed.”

September 21. Today Google posted an update “We expect to resolve the problem affecting a majority of users of Google Ad Manager on Sep 24, 2022, 6:59 AM UTC. Please note that this time frame is an estimate and may change.  The affected users are able to access Google Ad Manager, but may not have access to the most recent data.

Source: More Google Ad incidents and issues

TikTok will start banning political campaign fundraising

TikTok will soon start requiring accounts that belong to U.S. government departments, politicians, and political parties to be verified. They’ll also ban any videos and content that call for fundraising. 

Fighting political misinformation. TikTok and its parent company ByteDance are working to shut down political misinformation in time for the midterm elections in November. Previously they had allowed that content and faced scrutiny from US lawmakers because of it. As a result, TikTok started banning political advertising in 2019.

Request verification. Political accounts can request verification and the platform will also take added steps to confirm the identity of any profiles they believe to belong to politicians or political parties.

Enforcing the ban. TikTok will update its policies to prohibit campaign fundraising. Accounts belonging to politicians and parties will automatically be prevented from accessing any ad features. Additionally, those accounts will also be banned from using money-making features available to influencers on the app such as digital payments and gifting.

Source: TikTok will start banning political campaign fundraising

Google Answers If Core Update Ranking Losses Are A Soft Penalty

Google answers question about the causes of ranking drops after a core algorithm update

Google’s Office Hours Hangout featured a question about algorithm updates and whether the rankings of a negatively affected site are suppressed by a “soft penalty.”

The person asking the question made reference to a soft penalty, which is a phrase that’s been around for several years but isn’t really a thing.

They also make reference to suffering from a “flag” that’s been assigned to their site, which alludes to Google having marked the site in some way, as in flag.

Here is the question:

“Both of my websites have been hit by different updates, around 90% drops and are suffering from some type of flag that is suppressing our sites until the soft penalty is lifted.

Or… is there even a soft penalty? “

This is the answer:

“No, the named updates that we publish on the rankings updates page on Search Central are not penalties in any shape or form.”

That confirms that any ranking drops associated with a named Google update is not a penalty and should not ever be thought of that way because that’s not what is happening.

The Googler explained why it’s not a penalty:

“They are adjustments to our ranking algorithms, so they surface even higher quality and more relevant results to search users.

If your site has dropped in rankings after an update, follow our general guidelines for content.

Take a look at how you could improve your site as a whole, both from a content and user experience perspective, and you may be able to increase your rankings again.”

Source: Google Answers If Core Update Ranking Losses Are A Soft Penalty

Facebook introduces Collaborative Ads for local delivery

Facebook is rolling out Collaborative Ads for local delivery to help restaurants and grocery stores give people more ways to shop and order. The ads allow local businesses and packaged goods brands to display their products next to options for people to purchase.

Local delivery competition. Collaborative Ads for local delivery help brands and advertisers reach new customers by showing their products, restaurants, or grocery to new audiences on Facebook and Instagram.

Early testing. Meta reported that fast-food chain Wendy’s saw early success using Collaborative Ads for local delivery by reaching consumers who had shown previous interest in their products on Grubhub to drive high-value conversions.

A few helpful tips. Meta provides a few helpful tips to make the most of your Collaborative ads for local delivery.

• Use the Catalog Sales objective for lower-funnel activities such as retargeting and high-intent targeting.
• Use the Conversion objectives for prospecting activities such as targeting first-party audiences and general demographics that are important to your business.
• Consistently test, learn, and monitor your campaign performance to see how your ads perform and make changes that align with your goals.
• Negotiate access to Premium Options based on your business needs for Collaborative Ads with your retail partner. Premium Options by Collaborative Ads include extended audience retargeting, basket insights, and retailer-customized audiences.

Dig deeper. You can read the announcement from Meta here. To get started with Collaborative Ads for local delivery, visit the setup guide.

Source: Facebook introduces Collaborative Ads for local delivery

Google makes some core updates to improve search results

Google, in a small question-answer session, answers some basic core updates by users. Google answers queries about ranking drops due to core algorithm updates.

During Google’s office hours, a user asks a question on Hangout. The question about algorithm updates. The users are curious whether the soft penalty affects their ranking.

Nobody has come up with a proper definition for the term soft penalty. Although this term is quite in use. The user complains in the session that both his websites have lost ranking due to different updates. Also, the user says that some type of flag is suppressing his sites.

The user suspects that this is due to the soft penalty on his website. If Google lifts the soft penalty from the site, the user expresses his site might become functional again.

Google confirms that no such ranking drop due to a named google update is not a penalty. Google clears that people should not believe this penalty theory as it’s a misconception.

Also, Google explains that these are minor adjustments to ranking algorithms. The intention is to surface higher-quality content. Google wants its search engine to be very efficient and relevant to users.

Google advises website owners whose rankings have gone down. However, Google tells them to follow the general guidelines for content on the websites. The company asks them to take a look around their websites and make necessary changes.

Source: Google makes some core updates to improve search results

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Google Answers If Stop Words Should Be Used in URL

Search advertising is thriving amid economic uncertainty, a new report confirms

Over 280,000 WordPress Sites Attacked Using WPGateway Plugin Zero-Day Vulnerability

Google Answers If Stop Words Should Be Used in URL

Google’s John Mueller answered a question about whether stop words should be used in the URLs.

Mueller answered the question but also discussed the impact of words in URLs and recommended how to approach what words are used in URLs.

Background of Stop Words in Search

Stop Words are common words like “a”, “and”, and “the.”

In the early days of search, those kinds of words used to not be considered important for SEO because they weren’t considered important for search engines.

As I recall, in the early 2000s, stop words were not considered important because search engines of the time didn’t actually understand what a page is about. They worked by identifying what keywords a page was relevant for, with stop words being generally disregarded.

The result is that sometimes stop words like “a” and “the” were considered important to the meaning of keyword phrases, but this patent, like the previous patent Bill discussed, was limited to stop words in the content and in search queries.

The patents didn’t even bother with stop words in the URL.

So, do stop words matter when they’re in a URL?

Stop Words in a URL

John Mueller paraphrased the question:

“In Short, when using words from a page title in the URL, should I include stopper words, too?

For example, should I call a page why-is-the-sky-blue.html or why-sky-blue.html?”

Mueller answered:

“Words in URLs only play a tiny role for Google Search.

I would recommend not overthinking it.

Use the URLs that can last over time, avoid changing them too often and try to make them useful for users.

Whether you include stop words in them or not, decide to use numeric IDs, that’s totally up to you.”

Importance of Stop Words in URL is Minimal

Mueller minimized the importance to Google of words in the URL, to the point that he said it didn’t matter if one uses numeric IDs in a URL.

A numeric ID is a URL file name that doesn’t have any words, like /article-id-12345.

That answer is similar to a Google Office hours hangout answer he gave back in 2016 (watch at the 17:57 minute mark).

Six years later, Mueller didn’t even mention whether words in URL were even a tiny ranking factor, he just said that they played a “tiny role for Google Search.”

Circling back to the use of stop words in the URL, Mueller said to make the URLs useful for users and that’s good advice.

Google doesn’t show the URLs in the search results, so it doesn’t matter (for click through rate) if the URLs contain stop words or not because it won’t have an effect in any way.

It’s likely, in a context where a potential site visitor can see the URL, a URL that contains stop words that add meaningful context will look more natural than a URL that is missing those stop words and as a consequence may inspire more confidence and a higher click through rate.

There are many other recommendations and warnings about URLs on that Google Search Central page, but nothing about stop words.

That’s probably not an oversight, it may be an indicator that maybe it’s a consideration that is trivial in the bigger scheme of things.

Ultimately, as John Mueller said, “that’s totally up to you.”

Source: Google Answers If Stop Words Should Be Used in URL

Here’s how Google’s helpful content update is going to make AI better

Almost as soon as word broke out about Google’s latest algorithm, an update that advocates for “original, helpful content,” the questions started flying: Is this targeting AI content tools? Does this mark the end of artificial intelligence in content creation?

How to use AI to create high-quality, original content

Google has long asked content creators to stop writing content for search engines and start writing it for people. But the pressure to rank in business writing is ever-present, and despite Google’s own advice, creators are still trying to crack some Konami Code of SEO in how they write and structure content. I’ve been writing professionally for decades now and have seen every variation: specific word-length targets, hyper-frequency in publishing cadence. You name it. When you take those fictional hoops and add in tight deadlines and resource shortages, you’ll likely see even the highest skilled and best-intentioned writers make bad choices.

There are already great articles about how to ground your writing in good practice for Google’s latest update. Google’s guidelines are fairly clear here. Stay away from writing about topics that fall outside of your site’s core expertise just because you think they’re traffic magnets. Don’t create bandwagon content that just repeats what has already been said. Don’t write shallow summary content that never delivers on its promise. Don’t chase arbitrary word counts. These are pretty core to good writing regardless. Now, there’s also the matter of AI-generated content. Google mentions that creators shouldn’t use “extensive automation to produce content on many topics.”  That is open to some interpretation, so let’s go a step deeper into what we think constitutes good use of AI in content creation. 

AI should be your partner, not your replacement

Could you write an entire article using AI commands without a single original thought? Probably. Would the resulting content be shallow and a waste of everyone’s time? Most definitely. AI tools like those within Jasper’s Content Platform are built to help people convey their ideas. But you have to have original ideas for that partnership to work. AI works best when it helps you through common barriers writers face: suggesting a transition paragraph, for example, or rephrasing a line you can’t seem to get right. Every week writers and content creators lose precious time stuck in their own work. Think about how many books have gone unwritten and how many ideas are left to wither away in a digital doc somewhere because their originators got stuck and walked away. This is where AI shines.

Don’t rely on AI for your research

The good news is the time you save using AI tools to write your content can be put toward more in-depth research to strengthen the substance of the content. Research or first-hand experience is what turns a shallow, summary piece into an article of substance.

Leave the content farm for the editorial table

But content farms are bad for consumers and writers alike. And as a result, they’re pretty damaging to the reliability of search engines and the future of AI too. There’s no doubt about it. You will get your writing done faster with AI, but we can’t lose the plot here. The benefit of becoming more efficient in your writing is not that you can suddenly churn out twice as much content. On the contrary, the benefit of becoming more efficient is having twice as much space in your day and mind to pursue and develop original ideas. If you use it right, AI should unlock creative potential, getting content creators off the content hamster wheel and onto a more strategic and editorial track. Google’s Helpful Content roll-out was completed on September 9, 2022, and while we’re still waiting to see how it will manifest in rankings, the intent here is one we support. We all want an internet with better quality content and writers who are incentivized and enabled to create their best.

Source: Here’s how Google’s helpful content update is going to make AI better

Granite Digital in €3.1m partnership deal with WP Engine

Irish digital agency Granite Digital has today announced a new partnership with WordPress technology company WP Engine.

Granite said today’s deal is set to generate €3.1m in additional revenues for it by the end of 2023.

It said the new partnership will strengthen its enterprise offerings such as hosting and infrastructure architecture, enabling it to grow its client portfolio across Ireland and the UK.

WP Engine has played a major role in the recent shift for businesses to expand across all digital touchpoints.

WordPress technology is used by 41% of the global internet and WP Engine hosts 1.5 million websites in more than 150 countries.

It has 185,000 customers worldwide including the Irish Heart Foundation, Riverdance, Avvio, Microsoft, eBay, and Volvo.

WP Engine also operates a global customer support centre in Limerick, employing more than 120 people.

Robert Carpenter, founder and partner of Granite Digital, said that WordPress is growing at an incredible pace with more than two out of every five websites now powered by its technology.

Source: Granite Digital in €3.1m partnership deal with WP Engine

New Block Diffusion Plugin Creates AI-Generated Images from Text Prompts

AI image generation has quickly become more accessible over the past few months and is making its way into different industries that require asset creation. Although it’s still somewhat limited, AI image generators can create breathtaking photorealistic images from complex prompts. AI-assisted artists have even begun selling their works on stock photography sites.

DALL-E 2 was the first to make a big splash on social media. Its closed platform and invite-only beta has kept many potential creators on the sidelines, but open source alternatives like Stable Diffusion are taking off. The machine learning, text-to-image model is improving thanks to its growing ecosystem of contributors and extenders.

Kevin Batdorf, an Application Developer at Extendify, has created a free plugin called Block Diffusion that uses Stable Diffusion to generate images inside the block editor based on text prompts.

Block Diffusion uses the public Replicate API to generate images in the cloud. This requires users have an account at replicate.com. It will generate some images for free but thereafter will be $0.01 USD per image using Replicate’s Stable Diffusion model. Images generate in six seconds.

The model was trained on LAION-5B, an open AI training dataset containing over five billion image-text pairs. It has some limitations in that it cannot achieve perfect photorealism or render legible text. It also may have difficulty rendering faces and people.

For many WordPress content use cases, the Stable Diffusion model should be adequate for illustrating posts and creating unique featured images. Batdorf plans to add the following features in future releases:

• Use an existing image as starting point
• Add an image mask to only generate specific areas
• Help with prompt ideas and inspiration
• Run multiple image predictions at once
• Have more control over the image generation steps
• View your prediction history
• Model selection from collections

The Block Diffusion plugin is a personal side project for Batdorf and he doesn’t plan to turn it into a commercial plugin.

Source: New Block Diffusion Plugin Creates AI-Generated Images from Text Prompts

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Search advertising is thriving amid economic uncertainty, new report confirms

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Search advertising is thriving amid economic uncertainty, new report confirms

If you’re waiting for search ad spending to slow down any time soon, you’ll be waiting a while. A new report shows that CTV, linear TV, and video are the most vulnerable when cutting ad budgets.

Google dominates the search ad market in the US, holding steady at about 56.1% of the total ad revenue share amongst platforms like Amazon, Microsoft, and Yelp. But even as the market shifts to other platforms, Google’s growth outpaces all other traditional formats. If we’re talking about general search, though, Microsoft holds the #2 position as Google’s top competitor.

Going beyond Google. Though Google leads the charge in search, other platforms like Apple and Amazon are slowly gaining speed. Apple Search Ads are growing to the tune of a predicted $5 Billion in revenue in 2022. New ad inventory is making room for additional developers and advertisers to advertisers to promote their apps and businesses in a less competitive, relatively underutilized space.

When consumers are closer to making a purchase, they tend to go to Amazon, which seems to be the catalyst behind growth in overall search ad spending in 2022. Even TikTok is picking up momentum in the search game with reports that eCommerce brands had spent 60% more on TikTok ads in Q2.

TikTok may even be on its way to being a direct competitor for Google, with reports indicating that 40% of 18- to 24-year-olds in the US go to TikTok and Instagram over Google for their searches.

Managing various networks. Managing various retail media platforms is a real pain point for advertisers. For this reason, analysts predict that this is what could be keeping many of them from gaining market share. “If every single retailer has its own platform, learning to use and optimize would be a lot for the advertiser and that’s where the consolidation of a few big players would be a real competitor to Google as opposed to fragmenting in these small, small areas,” said Prerna Talreja, managing director of digital activation at independent agency Crossmedia.

Mobile versus desktop trends. Search ad spending for mobile is exceeding search spend on the desktop by about two-thirds. It should also be noted that more than half of the US population used a smartphone to search online in 2016. By next year, it’s predicted that that number will reach about 70%. Analysts predict that the gap will continue to widen over the next few years.

Source: Search advertising is thriving amid economic uncertainty, new report confirms

Chrome Uses Interactive Screenshots To Speed Up Sites

Chrome now uses interactive screenshots, speeding up webpages by up to 20% with a technology called Freeze Dried Tabs. The new technology is used during transitional moments such as in a cold startup

Google announced a new technology used in Chrome that creates interactive snapshots of webpages that speed up the user experience. Chrome calls it Freeze Dried Tabs and it’s in use right now.

What Google is doing goes beyond a screenshot placeholder. It’s more of a hybrid of a screenshot because it can be scrolled and links can be clicked. When the actual page finishes downloading Google seamlessly transitions to the actual webpage.

The idea is to speed up the web experience of site visitors by showing them a screenshot with functional links and content that users can scroll through.

Showing Websites on Mobile Devices Faster

The process of delivering websites is slow because of all the different parts that need loading, such as the raw HTML, CSS, JavaScrip, and Fonts (which present multiple problems of their own).

Chrome’s solution is to show interactive screenshots.

Freeze Dried Browser Tabs

Google calls this new hybrid of a screenshot and interactive webpage, Freeze Dried Tabs.

Freeze-dried browser tabs are a new way to deliver webpages but it’s not shown for every site that a Chrome user visits.

Rather, this is a solution to speeding up transitional moments like switching between tabs or during browser startup.

Freeze-Dried Tabs Are Live in Chrome

This technology that speeds up the creation of an interactive webpage is currently in use right now in the Chrome browser.

While it’s only used in cold startup situations right now, the Chrome team indicated that they are studying where else it can be used.

This is good news for all web publishers because this may mean that pages load faster for site visitors, which could potentially result in higher rates of visitor satisfaction.

Source: Chrome Uses Interactive Screenshots To Speed Up Sites

Adobe acquires rival Figma in a $20 Billion deal

Company takeovers and business expansion are the ladders of corporate success. In one such instance, Adobe buys Figma. The multimedia software products maker company, Adobe, buys Figma for $20 billion.

The deal will eventually expand the portfolio of collaboration tools for Adobe. The announcement came at the same time as the quarterly earnings report. Adobe makes several announcements on Tuesday. Adobe informs that it is going to buy the online collaborative design software company Figma.

The deal is worth $20 billion in cash and stock. This deal will open many prospects for Adobe. The deal will also expand Adobe’s collaboration. The company seeks to capture market share in remote or hybrid work areas.

This collaboration promises to boost diversity in the market. Adobe and Figma will together reimagine the future of creativity and productivity. This will boost creativity on the web and advance product design.

The collaboration will also inspire the global communities of creators, designers, and developers. The company will accelerate growth in the market. A fast-growing market opportunity and capabilities to drive significant value for customers, shareholders, and the industry is what will follow this collaboration.

Figma is a cloud-based design software company. The company has been running since 2012. Figma directly competes with XD. It works to allow collaboration in real time.

The collaboration benefits the buyer in terms of web capabilities. This area was troublesome for the company in the past. However, Figma will continue to operate free for educational use.

The company will operate freely shortly. Both companies are optimistic about the collaboration. Even the market is hopeful.

Source: Adobe acquires rival Figma in a $20 Billion deal

Gutenberg 14.1 Improves Navigation Block, Adds Experimental Zoomed-Out View

Gutenberg 14.1 was released today with some much-needed improvements to the Navigation block, which still seems to be on a rocky journey toward better usability. Contributors are moving functionality around the Navigation interface to figure out where it works best.

The menu selector has been removed from the Navigation block toolbar in favor of placement in the inspector sidebar. This was done to reduce the crowding in the block toolbar, which previously stitched together disconnected actions, hampering the user experience. Automattic-sponsored Gutenberg contributor Carlos Bravo published a gif demonstrating the moved menu:

This release also adds new features like a select icon for the Navigation block’s menu button. It’s easy to see how the interface can get crowded fast when adding new capabilities. This particular enhancement was added to the block inspector under Display. If this method works well, contributors may look into adding the ability to add custom icons next.

Source: Gutenberg 14.1 Improves Navigation Block, Adds Experimental Zoomed-Out View

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Over 280,000 WordPress Sites Attacked Using WPGateway Plugin Zero-Day Vulnerability

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Over 280,000 WordPress Sites Attacked Using WPGateway Plugin Zero-Day Vulnerability

A zero-day flaw in the latest version of a WordPress premium plugin known as WPGateway is being actively exploited in the wild, potentially allowing malicious actors to completely take over affected sites.

Tracked as CVE-2022-3180 (CVSS score: 9.8), the issue is being weaponized to add a malicious administrator user to sites running the WPGateway plugin, WordPress security company Wordfence noted.

“Part of the plugin functionality exposes a vulnerability that allows unauthenticated attackers to insert a malicious administrator,” Wordfence researcher Ram Gall said in an advisory.

WPGateway is billed as a means for site administrators to install, backup, and clone WordPress plugins and themes from a unified dashboard.

The most common indicator that a website running the plugin has been compromised is the presence of an administrator with the username “rangex.”

Additionally, the appearance of requests to “//wp-content/plugins/wpgateway/wpgateway-webservice-new.php?wp_new_credentials=1” in the access logs is a sign that the WordPress site has been targeted using the flaw, although it doesn’t necessarily imply a successful breach.

Wordfence said it blocked over 4.6 million attacks attempting to take advantage of the vulnerability against more than 280,000 sites in the past 30 days.

Further details about the vulnerability have been withheld owing to active exploitation and to prevent other actors from taking advantage of the shortcoming. In the absence of a patch, users are recommended to remove the plugin from their WordPress installations until a fix is available.

Source: Over 280,000 WordPress Sites Attacked Using WPGateway Plugin Zero-Day Vulnerability

Google ad extensions are being rebranded as assets

Google just announced that ad extensions will be rebranded to assets in the Google Ads UI. The change will be rolled out over the next couple of weeks.

What this means. Previously, creating and managing assets such as call extensions or sitelinks were done in a separate step of the campaign creation process. Now, when you set up a Search or Performance Max campaign, the extensions (now assets) are created in the same step.

What it looks like. The preview tool in the ads manager will automatically update so you can see the extension assets for your ads. Google will also show recommended assets based on your campaign goals. Assets that are created during this stage of the setup process will be available when you work on other campaigns and ad groups.

The new “Ads & assets” menu. The “Assets” page will have reports for all assets across the account. Headlines and descriptions are in the “Asset” view while the “Association” table shows segments such as images and prices. For easier viewing and performance analysis, you can also filter the reports by asset type.

A new combinations report. With this report, you’ll be able to see how assets such as callouts and sitelinks perform against headlines and descriptions.

Launch ETA. Unified reporting in the “Assets” page will roll out over the coming weeks for all campaign types that previously supported ad extensions and the updated combinations report will roll out in the next few months. 

Source: Google ad extensions are being rebranded as assets

BuddyPress Plugin Usage Declining, Remaining Contributors Discuss Path Forward

In the most recent BuddyPress developers’ chat, contributors discussed progress on the upcoming 11.0.0 release, which is expected on December 14, 2022.

Mathieu Viet, one of BuddyPress’ lead developers who spearheaded the effort to get the BP Attachments API into BuddyPress 2.3 in 2015, has been working on templating to display single media items on the front-end. He made it possible to share media using the Activity Block editor when the BP Attachments plugin is active. The BP Attachments Admin UI has been updated to include an “Edit Item” view.

In addition to updates related to the upcoming release, contributors addressed the important topic of BuddyPress‘ declining usage over the past five years. WordPress.org reports active installations at 100,000+, whereas last month they were at 200,000+. The directory rounds that number so it’s not always representative of the number of people using the plugin. After digging further into the numbers, contributors found that installs are hovering at just under 200,000, but growth is steadily declining and contributors are dwindling.

“The trend is really not great,” Viet said. “We are slowly losing users and the red line is even more concerning. We’re doing worse compared to last year.

“My analysis is: we’re not getting enough new users to compensate for users loss.”

BuddyPress’ growth and usage seemed to have peaked around 2016/2017. Participants in the dev chat speculated on the reasons for the decline, which Viet summarized in a writeup of the meeting:

• lack of cool front-end things added to the plugin recently
• hesitancy to install a big plugin like BuddyPress for a single feature
• lack of privacy tools, of a media component
• growth of the use of things like Teams and Slack
• BuddyBoss’ commercial aggression (eg: Google Adwords) or their slick-looking theme

Source: BuddyPress Plugin Usage Declining, Remaining Contributors Discuss Path Forward

Microsoft 365 apps will now update themselves as if by magic

Microsoft has announced an update for its suite of office and productivity software that will help IT departments ensure applications are always up to date.

As explained in a company blog post, a new feature for Microsoft 365 now allows IT administrators to push updates to business laptops and PCs while they are idle or locked down.

If an outdated application is open, the feature will shut it down (when safe to do so), apply the update and restore the instance to its original state. Apparently, this whole process is conducted in roughly four seconds.

Microsoft 365 updates

Throughout the year, Microsoft rolls out hundreds upon hundreds of feature updates and security patches across its office software. The problem for businesses is that employees will rarely go out of their way to install updates manually, while forced update models typically involve a level of disruption.

The goal of the new “update under lock” feature, Microsoft says, is to help customers ensure their deployments are as secure and up to date as possible, without pulling employees out of their work mid-flow.

“Are you or your end-users annoyed with update notifications? Do you struggle to reach compliance?” asked the firm. “Well fear not, because Microsoft has developed an optimization that applies a pending Microsoft 365 apps update while a machine is in idle or locked mode, even if apps are running.”

Source: Microsoft 365 apps will now update themselves as if by magic

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Google now has recommendations for Analytics

New properties may not show recommendations right away, as they need time to learn from your account’s history.

Google Analytics now has tailored recommendations to help users become aware of new features by reviewing your property’s history, settings, and trends across Analytics.

The recommendations appear in the Insights and Recommendations section of the homepage and throughout Analytics wherever they’re relevant.

Learn more. You can read more about Analytics recommendations in their help documentation.

Why do we care? Advertisers should check their Google Analytics accounts regularly for outages, updates, and, now, recommendations. As always, we suggest never enabling auto-apply recommendations and always testing new features. Isn’t Google just so helpful?

Source: Google now has recommendations for Analytics

Walmart is expanding their self-service Marketplace platform

Walmart Connect, the retailer’s marketplace media platform, is increasing and making it easier for advertisers and brands to promote their products by introducing self-service.

Introducing Search Brand Amplifier. Search Brand Amplifier gives products listed in the Walmart marketplace higher visibility by boosting advertised products to the top of search results. Walmart says this benefits newer and smaller brands that haven’t achieved high organic listings within the Walmart platform.

Search Brand Amplifier was previously limited to only managed sellers and a limited number of suppliers, but now it’s widely available to Marketplace brand owners that are registered with Walmart’s Brand Portal.

Sellers can access the Search Brand Amplifier through Walmart Platform Partners.

Enter self-serve. Eligible Marketplace sellers will be able to launch and manage their own ad campaigns through the Walmart Ad Center. Once a three-day enrollment period, users can now complete it in a matter of minutes. Additionally, existing Marketplace sellers will be onboarded automatically.

Walmart is also updating the look of the Ad Center and easier instructions to “reduce the guesswork” for launching and optimizing campaigns.

The platform. Walmart offers sellers two different ad choices. Display and Sponsored Products.

Display. Display ads are featured both on the Walmart site and off, across the website and social channels
Sponsored products. These are featured on the Walmart website as visible placements as users browse

Source: Walmart is expanding their self-service Marketplace platform

New Apple Ads Spot Available To Advertisers In Q4

Apple is reportedly unveiling new ad inventory spots before the end of this year. 

The new spots open up additional advertising opportunities just in time for the holiday season when competition is at its peak.

Currently, Apple ad inventory is only available on the Apple Search results page and the Search tab.

Apple first reached out to developers to announce the expansion of ad spots across the app store.

There is also discussion that ad units will be available directly within app product pages, however, it is not confirmed yet.

Eric Seufert, the founder of Mobile Dev Memo, tweeted his exclusive invitation to the conversation on September 13th:

Apple announced the App Store menu expansion back in July, so the Today tab is a likely contender in the placement expansion.

Apple is holding its virtual event for developers on September 21, where more details are likely to be uncovered.

Who Can Advertise On Apple Search?

The Apple Search advertising requirements have not changed with the expected inventory expansion.

Currently, businesses must have an approved App Store product page to advertise on Apple Search.

The Looming Marketing Attribution Challenges

In the midst of Apple’s ad placement expansion, it’s going to be harder for advertisers to measure success.

Apple previously introduced App Tracking Transparency (ATT) to protect user privacy. With this feature, users are able to turn off personalized ads on the App Store.

Additionally, Apple doesn’t allow advertisers to target users by account information or past purchase history, leaving targeted options limited.

Source: New Apple Ads Spot Available To Advertisers In Q4

WhatsApp share feature now on Twitter

It’s not the first time that Twitter is trying or testing some new feature in the app. Twitter is wholly dedicated to updating its app more than often. The competition among social media apps is huge, and thus all the companies are on their toes. Twitter introduces the “Whatsapp share” feature.

Recently Twitter is testing the “WhatsApp Share” option replacing the traditional share button. Whatsapp share was previously not available on the microblogging app. The app features a traditional button. On clicking this button, users navigate to several apps that enable sharing.

Although Twitter is adding this new “Whatsapp share,” the functionalities more or less remain the same. Twitter, in a tweet today, informs the users in India about this new change.

The feature is currently under testing. Twitter is testing this new feature on some accounts. The first WhatsApp share button is available on Adam Mosseri’s profile.

Whatsapp share feature replaces the traditional share button. But it provides the same functionality. When a user clicks on the icon, the same options are available. Users can copy the link to a tweet, share a tweet via other social media platforms or send a direct message. Users can also bookmark the tweet.

So basically, all the features are similar. This new WhatsApp share button adds more aesthetics to the page without changing the functionalities. This feature aims at improving engagement.

Source: WhatsApp share feature now on Twitter

Microsoft ads upscale its game

Advertising is an important feature of any business. The more you invest in marketing, the better the chance of growth of your business. Several companies offer advertising services. Microsoft Ads simplifies a new smart campaigns setup experience on Thursday.

The update includes a new feature that is different from Google Ads. Anyone who runs paid media Ads, then they can explore this new experience.

Microsoft will be launching the feature next few months. However, the current advertisers will receive early access.

These Ads smart campaigns originally started in 2021. The campaign runs for the US, UK, and Australia. The brand also suggests that this campaign is expensive and not user-friendly.

To make the Microsoft ads campaign accessible to all SMBs, Microsoft has made some changes. Microsoft ads are trying to make the experience more streamlined.

The Microsoft ads smart campaign includes several updates. The campaign experience will receive guidance now. Users can also chat with the support system.

The ad set will be very simple and user-friendly. Advertisers can self-create or auto-generate ads. The ads will also offer artificial intelligence solutions for optimizations.

There is one very unique feature specific to Ads. This smart campaign update has a multi-platform capability. This feature also gives an edge to the company. The ads are giving heavy competition to Google.

Source: Microsoft ads upscales its game

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YouTube is testing new search and engagement insights for Creator Studio

YouTube has unveiled some new analytics options for Creator Studio that provides more data on what your audience is interested in, based on search and engagement activity, and also how those users are interacting with different topics on the app.

Not new. The Search Insights tool was announced late last year and the first phase was released in April which gave advertisers more data on what data people are searching for on the app. YouTube is now adding more data to help creators identify additional trends.

New elements. There are two new elements being added to the Search Insights tool.

Watch Interest. The first new element is Watch Interest.

“Currently, Search Insights on desktop only shows what viewers are searching for, but now, we’re adding ‘Watch Activity’ for a topic. Creators can now review top, rising or recent videos in a topic so you can get a sense for what’s new.”

Advertisers and creators will now be able to get a better idea of actual engagement trends on YouTube clips based on searches, what people are watching, and “how they move from video to video based on recommendations.”

YouTube is also adding new insights into your audience’s watch activity based on a given topic. That data will show related elements of interest on a given topic.

Personal insights. The second new element is new personalized insights based on your audience’s unique interest or your saves. YouTube is looking to provide additional engagement data to help with planning while also displaying interest in other niches.

Source: YouTube is testing new search and engagement insights for Creator Studio

Vulnerability in WordPress BackupBuddy Plugin Exploited By Hackers

Hackers have attempted to exploit a zero–day flaw in a WordPress plugin called BackupBuddy five million times, sometimes successfully.

The news comes from WordPress security–focused company Wordfence, which published an advisory about the flaw earlier this week.

“This vulnerability could allow an attacker to view the contents of any file on your server that can be read by your WordPress installation,” reads the blog post. 

According to the security experts, this could include the WordPress wp–config.php file, which contains information about the website’s database, name, host, username and password, and depending on server setup, sensitive files like /etc/passwd.

For context, the BackupBuddy plugin, currently estimated to have 140,000 active installations, allows users to back up their WordPress installation, including theme files, pages, posts, widgets, users and media files.

“Unfortunately, the method to download these locally stored files was insecurely implemented, making it possible for unauthenticated users to download any file stored on the server,” Wordfence wrote.

After reviewing historical data, the team determined that attackers started targeting this vulnerability on August 26, 2022. Wordfence claimed to have blocked 4,948,926 attacks targeting this vulnerability since that time.

The vulnerability affected versions 8.5.8.0 to 8.7.4.1 of WordPress and was fully patched on September 02, 2022, in version 8.7.5.

The vulnerability comes months after WordPress forcibly updated over a million sites to patch a critical vulnerability affecting the Ninja Forms plugin.

Source: Vulnerability in WordPress BackupBuddy Plugin Exploited By Hackers

Google’s Search On event is on Sept. 28

Google has announced it will hold its annual search event named – Search On – on Wednesday, Sept. 28 at 1 p.m. ET / 10 a.m. PT.

Search Engine Land will be covering the news coming out of Search On, so make sure to check back here for any breaking news from that event.

Google said the search company will tell us “how Google is reimagining its core information products to help people make sense of the world in more natural and intuitive ways.”

Where to watch it live. You can watch the event live at searchon.withgoogle.com or on YouTube.

Past Search On event announcements. Google has held Search On events in the past and here are some of the headlines from those past events:

• Google: BERT now used on almost every English query
• How Google indexes passages of a page and what it means for SEO
• Google Search gets deeper into the ‘real-world’ with Busyness, Duplex and AR in Maps
• Google refine this search and broaden this search now live in search results
• MUM brings multimodal search to Lens, deeper understanding of videos and new SERP features

Source: Google’s Search On event is on Sept. 28

Matt Mullenweg Renews Push for Canonical Plugins

During WordCamp US’ contributor day this weekend, Matt Mullenweg published a renewed call for WordPress’ Make teams to adopt a plugin-first approach when developing new features for core. He revived the notion of canonical plugins, first introduced to the WordPress community in 2009 as a means for delivering optional features to users with a higher level of confidence than regular plugins:

Canonical plugins would be plugins that are community developed (multiple developers, not just one person) and address the most popular functionality requests with superlative execution. These plugins would be GPL and live in the WordPress.org repo, and would be developed in close connection with WordPress core. There would be a very strong relationship between core and these plugins that ensured that a) the plugin code would be secure and the best possible example of coding standards, and b) that new versions of WordPress would be tested against these plugins prior to release to ensure compatibility. There would be a screen within the Plugins section of the WordPress admin to feature these canonical plugins as a kind of Editor’s Choice or Verified guarantee. These plugins would be a true extension of core WordPress in terms of compatibility, security and support.

The WordPress Plugins Directory is just one plugin away from crossing 60,000 (at the time of publishing). In contrast to the idea of canonical plugins, the official directory is still like the wild west in terms of what users can expect from plugin authors. Mullenweg cited several plugin scenarios that are not ideal for users – such as a plugin being controlled by a single company and evolving to go more towards a pro version or removing previously free functionality and putting it behind an upgrade.

Canonical plugins are meant to provide a trustworthy alternative to plugins where authors’ motivations may not put users first. It also provides an avenue for core contributors to demonstrate the demand for features they want to land in WordPress.  A few projects like MP6, Gutenberg, and the REST API have taken this path into core.

In a related post that inspired the renewed discussion on canonical plugins, Mullenweg weighed in on the controversial WebP by default proposal that had recently received new objections from WordPress lead developers. Contributors have been working feverishly to revise their approach in time for 6.1.

Source: Matt Mullenweg Renews Push for Canonical Plugins

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