300,00+ Installations of Catch Themes WordPress Plugins Vulnerable

Cross Site Request Forgery (CSRF)

These vulnerabilities allow any logged-in user, even a subscriber, to perform changes that are usually reserved for WordPress users with the highest editing privileges, like the administrator of the website.

Wordfence Reports Vulnerability in Catch Demo Import WordPress Plugin

The Catch Themes Demo Import WordPress plugin was found to have an Arbitrary File Upload Vulnerability.

It’s unclear how severe this specific vulnerability is. The vulnerability was rated by Wordfence as 9.1 on a scale of 1 – 10 and described as Critical. However, the vulnerability was listed on the US government National Vulnerability Database with a rating of 7.2 (High).

Over 300,000 Installations Affected

Ten Most Popular Vulnerable Catch Theme Plugins:

1. To Top – 80,000 Installations
2. Essential Content Types – 50,000 Installations
3. Catch IDs – 40,000 Installations
4. Catch Web Tools – 20,000 Installations
5. Social Gallery and Widget – 20,000 Installations
6. Catch Infinite Scroll – 20,000 Installations
7. Catch Gallery – 20,000 Installations
8. Essential Widgets – 20,000 Installations
9. Catch Instagram Feed Gallery & Widget (Social Gallery and Widget) – 20,000 Installations
10. Catch Themes Demo Import – 10,000 Installations

Seventeen Catch Themes Vulnerable Plugins:

These are the seventeen plugins reported by WPScan to have a vulnerability that was subsequently patched:

1. Essential Widgets
   Fixed in version 1.9
2. To Top
   Fixed in version 2.3
3. Header Enhancement
   Fixed in version 1.5
4. Generate Child Theme
   Fixed in version 1.6
5. Essential Content Types
   Fixed in version 1.9
6. Catch Web Tools
   Fixed in version 2.7
7. Catch Under Construction
   Fixed in version 1.4
8. Catch Themes Demo Import
   Fixed in version 1.6
9. Catch Sticky Menu
   Fixed in version 1.7
10. Catch Scroll Progress Bar
    Fixed in version 1.6
11. Catch Instagram Feed Gallery & Widget (Social Gallery and Widget)
    Fixed in version 2.3
12. Catch Infinite Scroll
    Fixed in version 1.9
13. Catch Import Export
    Fixed in version 1.9
14. Catch Gallery
    Fixed in version 1.7
15. Catch Duplicate Switcher
    Fixed in version 1.6
16. Catch Breadcrumb
    Fixed in version 1.7
17. Catch IDs
    Fixed in version 2.4

Users Recommended to Consider Updating to Latest Plugin Versions

Publishers who use the affected Catch Themes plugins who wish to avoid unintended consequences from using vulnerable versions of those plugins should consider upgrading to the very latest versions of the plugins now available.

Failure to do so may lead to unnecessary exposure to a hacking event.

Citations

Read WPScan Advisory on Catch Themes Plugins

Multiple Plugins from CatchThemes – Unauthorised Plugin’s Setting Change

Wordfence Advisory of Catch Themes Plugin

Catch Themes Demo Import <= 1.7 Admin+ Arbitrary File Upload

National Vulnerability Database Catch Themes Plugins Advisories

Catch Themes Demo Import WordPress plugin vulnerability CVE-2021-39352 Detail

Source: 300,00+ Installations of Catch Themes WordPress Plugins Vulnerable

Google throttled AMP page speeds, created format to hamper header bidding, antitrust complaint claims

Newly unredacted complaints against Google allege that the search giant’s Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP), which the company claimed would “dramatically improve” mobile web performance when it launched in 2015, was in fact a scheme to coerce publishers into using the format in order to limit advertising dollars not spent on its own ad exchanges.

The complaint, which is led by the State of Texas on behalf of 12 mostly Republican states, goes so far as to allege Google even throttled the load speed of pages not using AMP in order to give a “nicer comparative boost” to AMP.

“Throttling non-AMP ads slows down header bidding, which Google then uses to denigrate header bidding for being too slow,” it reads. “‘Header Bidding can often increase latency of web pages and create security flaws when executed incorrectly,’ Google falsely claimed. Internally, Google employees grappled with ‘how to [publicly] justify [Google] making something slower,’” according to the complaint.

The lawsuit, which cites internal Google documents, was originally filed on Sept. 9 and was heavily redacted. However, a ruling by a Manhattan judge forced the release of the mostly unredacted version on Friday.

Targeting header bidding. At the center of the issue is header bidding, an advertising practice where publishers can place their ad inventory on numerous ad exchanges at once. It’s a method meant to sidestep Google’s “waterfall” approach to bidding, which often favors Google’s ad servers. Publishers generally like header bidding because of its potential for higher revenue and transparency.

A damning indictment of AMP. The complaint is not wrong that publishers have held a love/hate relationship with AMP. The premise itself goes against publisher instincts. AMP requires us to create versions of our content on servers we do not own using templates we have limited control over. The tradeoff meant improved user experience on mobile and a greater likelihood of showing up in Top Stories, a placement that can yield significant traffic. Using AMP wreaks havoc on internal analytics, too,  since it makes it very difficult to track users migrating across a site’s AMP and non-AMP pages.

Source: Google throttled AMP page speeds, created format to hamper header bidding, antitrust complaint claims

WPChill Takes Over Gutenberg Forms, Plans To Shake Up the Free Forms Market

WPChill is now the owner of Gutenberg Forms, a project created by Munir Kamal. While still rough around the edges a year ago, the plugin was updated regularly and was something to at least keep an eye on as it matured. Extendify acquired it alongside Kamal’s Editor Plus and Gutenberg Hub at the end of 2020.

Then, Gutenberg Forms seemed to stall. Since Extendify took over the project, outside of bug fixes, most of the changes revolved around the addition of its commercial template and pattern library. However, the plugin still racked up over 1,000 active installs and a 4.6-star rating.

Cristian Raiber, the CEO of WPChill, said he had discussed acquiring the plugin early on. However, he backed out before closing the deal because his company already owned Kali Forms, a commercial forms solution.

“After a while of not gaining enough market share with Kali Forms, we circled back, and luckily, this time around, Chris Lubkert, the CEO of Extendify, was actually looking for someone to take over the project (adopt it) and keep it going,” he said.

There are no plans to merge the two form solutions. Both plugins serve different markets.

“Kali Forms is a more complex and complete solution whereas Gutenberg Forms just focuses on simpler forms, which also makes it limited in functionality but also in scope,” said Raiber. “There’s a market for people who just need a basic form solution built into Gutenberg, and we just happen to be the new owners of that solution.”

Gutenberg Forms is still in its infancy, and there are many paths the new development team could take. Given enough time and resources, WPChill could shake up the free forms market.

Source: WPChill Takes Over Gutenberg Forms, Plans To Shake Up the Free Forms Market

Why Is TikTok So Popular?

A Neilsen study attempts to explain why.

Commissioned by TikTok, the study analyzes data from over 8,000 survey respondents who were asked questions regarding their perception of the site’s content.

The objective of the study is to understand what people value about TikTok. Results offer insight into why it’s become a cultural phenomenon.

Users Say TikTok Is Authentic

Users feel like they can be themselves on TikTok, which could be a contributing factor to its popularity.

Users Say TikTok Makes Them Happy

TikTok content brings joy, the study finds, and who doesn’t need more of that in their lives?

“An average of 31% of TikTok users included “lifting my spirits” as one of the top three reasons for returning to the TikTok platform again and again.”

TikTok Is Unique And Different

Users feel like they can go on TikTok and see content they can’t get anywhere else.

While they may see the same content shared across Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter— TikTok stands apart as a place to discover something new.

TikTok Is A Community

Among TikTok’s greatest strengths is the sense of community felt by its users.

That’s demonstrated by the viral challenges users take part in.

The ability to sample others’ content and add to it also helps users build stronger connections.

In short— TikTok users feel comfortable on the platform and are even excited to engage with one another.

A common theme throughout this data is positivity. Users enjoy their time on TikTok, they’re delighted by the unique content they find, and they feel safe expressing themselves with their own content.

Source: Why Is TikTok So Popular?

Navigating Google’s title changes: The rollout, what’s happening now and what you can do about it

In August, Google introduced a new system for generating title links (the title of a search result in Google Search). “This is because we think our new system is producing titles that work better for documents overall, to describe what they are about, regardless of the particular query,” the company explained.

However, during the new system’s initial rollout, SEOs provided example after example after example of titles that not only failed to describe what the page was about, but may also confuse users and deter them from clicking through. Fortunately, the situation has since improved, but placing blind faith in Google’s new system can mean that you’re ceding control over a crucial aspect of your content, which could ultimately affect your business. Below, you’ll find a synopsis of how Google’s title changes have evolved, how you can verify whether your titles have been changed and what you can do to regain control over them.

Title changes: Then and now

A tale of two title changes. Google has been adjusting titles links for a long time. In 2014, the company explained that it might change a title to match the query (to a certain extent). This is an important detail because Google would later cite these historical practices as precedent for its new system — a justification that some SEOs found misleading as the magnitude and impact of the changes contrast sharply.

The first weeks of the title change rollout. When the new title change system rolled out in August, SEOs took to Twitter to share examples of poorly rewritten titles in the search results. “While many of the title overwrites made sense and were unlikely to negatively affect performance, there were many (too many) examples of title overwrites gone awry,” said Lily Ray, senior director, SEO and head of organic research at Amsive Digital.

The nature of Google’s title rewrites. “It appeared that Google was truncating some article headlines in strange ways that changed the meaning of the title,” said Ray, “In other cases, it seemed that punctuation, like quotation marks or dashes, caused the title to break early. In even rarer and stranger situations, Google would choose anchor text or other article text to display as the title, which was occasionally taken out of context and was a poor representation of the full page content.”

Google has since improved its title rewrites. After the initial blowback from the SEO community, Google’s Danny Sullivan published a post explaining why Google made the title changes. Several weeks after that, the company published more help documents on controlling titles and descriptions in Search. Just as important, Google’s explanations seem to be accompanied by improvements to its title change algorithm.

What to do if you suspect Google is changing your titles

“Essentially, you’ll need a way to start tracking and trending titles. You’ll need to collect your site’s popular search terms, and then gather the Google SERPs title and compare it to the actual title,” Sliva said. In addition to that, there’s Thruuu, Keywords in Sheets solution, and this creative bookmarklet to inject titles into a SERP.”

Ahrefs users also have a new tool that enables them to export title changes for deeper analysis. Brodie Clark has provided instructions on how to get started with it and how he analyzes the data.

The new tool is in the “Top pages” tab underneath the “Site Explorer 2.0” heading. Once you’re there, you’ll have to toggle the “SERP titles” button and change the date for comparison. Next, you can export the data for analysis.

“There are important aspects to keep in mind when interpreting the data to ensure you’re getting an accurate depiction,” Clark said, recommending that SEOs remove new URLs and URLs that are no longer ranking so that they’re only looking at titles that are eligible for comparison.

“Changing the grouping of the rows to the top pages based on est. traffic that has had a title link change, we can see trends for what has changed,” Clark said. At this point, you’ll have to perform a manual review. “When completing the manual review, you’ll also need to look out for titles that have manually changed for pages during the comparison period,” he added.

What you can do if you’re unhappy with how Google changed your titles

Some titles may still be unsatisfactory — it can be argued that the example in line #3 from the chart above is less informative than the original title, for example. Unfortunately, there is little you can do to directly change Google’s title links, but embracing a more holistic view of the issue can help you craft more informative titles and avoid bad rewrites from Google.

One thing you can do to bring a particularly inaccurate title change to Google’s attention is to submit feedback: “Google created a form where you can submit your feedback for incorrect or egregious titles,” Lily Ray pointed out, “Otherwise, pay attention to when the overwrites take place and what they look like; this could provide insight into potential issues Google may have with your titles and offer some inspiration about how to adjust them. Google also offers clear examples about the types of titles it intended to overwrite, so you can evaluate whether your titles fall into any of those categories.”

The more things change, the more they stay the same

For SEOs. We’re now accustomed to optimizing for rich results, featured snippets, knowledge panels and dozens of other non-traditional search features, but titles — as Google has now reminded us — are one of the oldest forms of on-SERP SEO. 

For the industry. We rely on Google for traffic and Google relies on us for content to show users. When the title changes rolled out in August, Google said it wasn’t new, which was only half-true as the search engine has been known to replace titles, but had not done so to the extent that we’ve recently experienced.

Source: Navigating Google’s title changes: The rollout, what’s happening now and what you can do about it

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Shopify & Microsoft Team Up To Help Merchants Reach More Shoppers

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Shopify & Microsoft Team Up To Help Merchants Reach More Shoppers

Microsoft announced a new Shopify partnership today that gives merchants access to more customers via the updated Microsoft Channel app in Shopify.

Currently available to merchants in the U.S. and Canada, the updated Channel app enables advertisers to utilize both the Microsoft Search Network and Microsoft Audience Network.

Products are then automatically eligible to display in the Microsoft Bing Shopping tab and the Microsoft Start Shopping tab free as Product Listings.

Bolar also revealed that Product Ads and Product Listings will “soon” have a Buy Now button to give shoppers a quick checkout option directly from the ad experience. The timeline for that rollout was not given.

These are the latest in a series of Microsoft Advertising updates designed to engage consumers and expand advertiser reach.

Source: Shopify & Microsoft Team Up To Help Merchants Reach More Shoppers

Google extends its shopping integrations to include BigCommerce

Google has rolled out an integration with BigCommerce, the company announced Thursday. Similar to Google’s integrations with Shopify, WooCommerce, GoDaddy and Square, which were announced earlier this year, this partnership will enable BigCommerce merchants to show their products for free on Google, create ad campaigns and review performance metrics from their BigCommerce store.

Why we care

The new integration provides BigCommerce retailers with an easy way to make their listings more discoverable across Google properties, which can help drive traffic to their products. This may be especially helpful for merchants that can’t or aren’t able to dedicate extra staff or enlist the help of an agency.

For Google, all these integrations may mean more product listings it can show to users, which strengthens it as a shopping destination and helps it compete with other e-commerce platforms. If Google is able to generate value for merchants via these integrations, then merchants may also be inclined to try the platform’s advertising tools, which is also good for Google.

Source: Google extends its shopping integrations to include BigCommerce

Facebook Has New Communication Tools For Businesses

Facebook is rolling out a series of updates targeted at small businesses, including audio & video calls in Messenger, live audio rooms, and more.

These updates are coming just in time for the holiday shopping season, which reportedly counts for 20% of annual revenue for small businesses.

Businesses will have more ways to communicate with customers this season, the ability to book more appointments directly in Facebook, and easier ways to create ads.

New Facebook Features For Businesses

Audio & Video Calling

Facebook is starting to test audio and video calling with select small and medium sized businesses using Business Inbox in Messenger.

Live Audio Rooms

Live Audio Rooms were introduced earlier this year and are widely regarded as Facebook’s answer to Clubhouse.

Small businesses can host live conversations on topics relevant to their customers, and people can discover them across Facebook.

Hosts can invite friends, followers, creators or any listeners in the room to be a speaker. Speakers can be invited in advance or during the conversation.

Appointment Bookings

Small business owners can receive and manage appointments from new and existing clients using their Facebook page.

The ability to book appointments is being offered at no added cost to businesses.

Changes to Personalized Ads

The message will reinforce to the user that their engagement is helping the small business grow and get found by more customers.

Updates to Facebook Business Suite

Updates to Business Suite will streamline the ad creation process and provide business owners with new insights.

The full list of changes includes:

• Ability to create Instagram-only ads on desktop.
• New insights to help measure ad performance.
• Recommendations on audience targeting.
• Recommendations on campaign optimizations.
• Easy access to official best practices.

Updates to Ad Creation

Facebook is aligning the ad creation process in Ads Manager to better align campaign objectives with traditional marketing goals such as awareness, site traffic, leads, or sales.

The 11 goals businesses were previously asked to choose from are being consolidated into three:

Automated Ads

Create an Ad

Boost Existing Content

Source: Facebook Has New Communication Tools For Businesses

Jetpack Launches Commercial Backup Feature as a Standalone Plugin

Jetpack is splitting out its commercial Backup feature into a standalone plugin that can be used without installing the core Jetpack plugin.

The commercial product includes automated daily or real-time backups with one-click restores, even for sites that are offline. Backups include all WordPress database, theme, and plugin files, which are stored on WordPress.com’s infrastructure with redundant copies on multiple servers. The product was built with WooCommerce in mind and can restore a site to any past state while keeping current orders and products in place.

Jetpack representative Rob Pugh said the product was split out of the core plugin because “many developers and site owners asked for the flexibility to use specific components of Jetpack as part of their own, custom-built ‘tech stack’ of plugins.”

The standalone plugin is available on WordPress.org and requires a user connection to WordPress.com. It is essentially a shell for connecting the commercial product, as the plugin doesn’t have a free tier or perform any function unless you click “Upgrade Now.”

The plugin’s description on WordPress.org is somewhat misleading, as it isn’t explicit that this is a commercial-only product. The “Get Started” section states, “Installation is free, quick, and easy. It only takes a few minutes to install Jetpack Backup.” The fact that it’s a paid product isn’t evident unless you dig into the accordion FAQ section about how to create a backup: “As soon as you purchase Jetpack Backup, it will be activated, and the first backup will be completed.”

Source: Jetpack Launches Commercial Backup Feature as a Standalone Plugin

Free AI Content Optimization Tool by MarketMuse

MarketMuse recently released a free version of their sophisticated AI powered content writing tool. This tool automates the content creation process so that the team can focus on the content plus it provides insights to help optimize the content before it is published rather than refining it after it’s been published.

AI Content Planning and Optimization

First-hand Experience With MarketMuse

The free version of MarketMuse is similar to the paid version. The free version contains the primary features of MarketMuse. The biggest difference in those primary features is scale. The paid version can focus on more queries.

Screenshot of Traffic Metrics Showing Increase After Using MarketMuse:

MarketMuse Free Version

The MarketMuse free version of their product was designed to be useful for smaller sites. The functionality is basically the same as the paid version which offers more queries to work with.

The free version of MarketMuse offers these primary applications:

• Optimize
• Connect
• Compete
• Research
• Questions.

Users of the free version receive 35 queries per month to run the applications and optimize their content before publishing it.

According to MarketMuse:

“Those who leverage our Free package will be able to improve the quality of select articles each month by ensuring:

• They answer the right questions
• Identifying the right links
• Covering the right topics before publication.”

Should You Try the Free Version of MarketMuse?

There are some content optimization tools that claim to optimize content but all they provide is a simple analysis of the search results consisting of statistical data about keyword usage of the top ranked websites. That’s not machine learning. That’s not AI.

MarketMuse helps automate the entire content creation process with AI and machine learning created by data scientists and computer engineers and experts in SEO.

MarketMuse is used and trusted by top organizations like The Motley Fool and Discover.

Source: Free AI Content Optimization Tool by MarketMuse

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Facebook plans to change its name as part of company rebrand

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Facebook plans to change its name as part of company rebrand – report

Facebook plans to make a dramatic break with its past by rebranding the company next week, according to a report.

Facebook’s founder and chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, is preparing to talk about the name change at a company event next week, but it could be unveiled sooner, reported the Verge, a US tech news website.

Under the plans, Facebook would change the name of its holding company but not that of its eponymous social media platform, known internally as the “big blue app”. As well as its founding site, the company also owns Instagram, WhatsApp and the virtual reality brand Oculus.

The Verge reported that the new name for the holding company could be linked to Horizon, a word used in at least two virtual reality products that the company is developing. Zuckerberg launched his company as TheFacebook 17 years ago.

Source: Facebook plans to change its name as part of company rebrand – report

PayPal Offers $45 Billion For Social Photo Sharing Network Pinterest

PayPal Holdings Inc. is looking to acquire social media company Pinterest Inc. for $45 billion, according to reports from both Reuters and Bloomberg (each of whom cites anonymous people familiar with the matter).

The pandemic and resultant acceleration of ecommerce adoption have left PayPal in a position to finance the deal “mostly with stock,” their sources say.

PayPal stock is up 36% in the last 12 months, giving the O.G. fintech brand a market cap of almost $320 billion.

Pinterest has grown its audience to over 400 million monthly active users.

That audience could prove incredibly lucrative for PayPal, given that Pinterest’s userbase is more than 60% female and consists of 45% of people in the U.S. with an annual household income over $100,000.

Rumors Coincide With Launch Of More Shoppable Idea Pins & Creator Rewards

News of the potential acquisition broke just as Pinterest announced the launch of:

• A redesigned home feed with Browse and Watch tabs.
• Takes, a new engagement tool available on iOS and Android for Pinners and creators worldwide.
• Creator Rewards, Pinterest’s first in-product monetization program for creators.
• Augmented reality integration for Idea Pins, via AR Try on.
• Creator Originals, a new content series of 100 episodes featuring 10 different Pinners.
• Amazon Associates Program product tagging for U.S. Pinners, who are now able to add affiliate links from Amazon and earn commission on qualifying purchases.

Pinterest Adds Visual Search to Video Content

Pinterest’s new features start rolling out on iOS, Android, web, and desktop today.

Even in a record-breaking year for M&As, this is certainly one to watch.

Source: PayPal Offers $45 Billion For Social Photo Sharing Network Pinterest

Gutenberg Contributors Propose Renaming Reusable Blocks

WordPress’ Reusable blocks may soon be getting re-named, as the feature’s distinct capabilities are less recognizable from its name following the introduction of patterns.

When the Gutenberg project first took off, nobody had any idea how important patterns would become in the page building experience, or that they would be getting their own directory on WordPress.org. During a demo at WordCamp Europe 2021, Gutenberg lead architect Matías Ventura commented on how transformative patterns have been for making page design approachable for users.

“Perhaps it was a smaller part of the roadmap initially but it’s becoming a centerpiece – especially because it allows…world class designers to provide a starting point for users and users get to learn design as they are interacting with themes,” Ventura said. 

A year later, patterns have made their way to the forefront of theme design and development with an excitement that rivals the introduction of widgets in WordPress’ earlier days. WordPress 5.9 will feature pattern insertion directly from the Pattern Directory so users will be able to change their patterns as often as they like, without having to switch themes. Coming in Gutenberg 11.8, the pattern inserter will highlight featured patterns from the directory in the initial view, instead of displaying the first alphabetical category. Contributors are also considering a path for allowing themes to surface specific patterns from the directory instead of bundling them.

Source: Gutenberg Contributors Propose Renaming Reusable Blocks

Instagram Collabs: Team Up & Boost Engagement

Instagram is introducing a way for users to publish content together as a “collab.”

Engagement signals earned from the collab are shared between each user.

A Facebook representative confirms the ability to co-author content on Instagram is being tested for feed posts and Reels.

Collabs offer an easy way for users to get in front of new audiences while strengthening their relationships with other creators.

One use case that immediately comes to mind is influencer marketing.

If you’re a brand launching a product you collaborated on with a popular influencer, you can co-author an announcement post and share all the engagement signals generated by their larger audience.

How to Use Instagram Collabs

You can check if your account has access to Collabs in the account tagging screen.

Create a post and select the option to tag people.

If you have Collabs you’ll see a new button on the tagging screen that says: “Invite Collaborator.”

After selecting that option you can invite another Instagram account to be an official collaborator on the post.

Co-Author, Not Co-Create

Instagram makes it clear Collabs is designed for co-authoring content— not co-creating it.

The content has to already be created. Then Collabs can be utilized to give both parties credit for the work.

To illustrate the difference, a good example of a feature designed for co-creating content is TikTok’s Duets.

Will Collabs Help Instagram Be More Like TikTok?

That’s a pain point for Mosseri, who wants Instagram to be as good as TikTok at spotlighting new creators.

“Instagram is much better at helping creators that have already made a name for themselves do more online. TikTok is better at identifying new and young talent and helping them break out in the first place.

And we want to be really good at that. We have historically focused on that less, but I’m pushing my teams hard at getting better at doing well by the little guy.”

Source: Instagram Collabs: Team Up & Boost Engagement

WordPress Cache Plugin Exploit Affects +1 Million Websites

WP Fastest Cache Plugin Vulnerabilities Description

WP Fastest Cache is a WordPress plugin used by over a million WordPress websites. The plugin creates a static HTML version of the website.

There are multiple vulnerabilities that were discovered:

• Authenticated SQL Injection
• Stored XSS via Cross-Site Request Forgery

Authenticated SQL Injection

The Authenticated SQL Injection allows a logged-in users to access administrator level information through the database.

A SQL Injection vulnerability is an attack that’s directed at the database, which is where the website elements, including passwords, are stored.

A successful SQL Injection attack could lead to a full website takeover.

Stored XSS via Cross-Site Request Forgery

XSS (Cross-site Scripting) vulnerabilities is a somewhat common vulnerability that results from a flaw in how inputs to the website are validated. Anywhere a user can input something to a website, like a contact form, can be vulnerable to an XSS attack if the input isn’t sanitized.

Jetpack Security Research Warning

The security researchers at Jetpack recommend that all users of WP Fastest Cache WordPress plugin updated their plugin right away.

The Jetpack security researchers posted:

“We recommend that you check which version of the WP Fastest Cache plugin your site is using, and if it is less than 0.9.5, update it as soon as possible!”

Source: WordPress Cache Plugin Exploit Affects +1 Million Websites

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Google search quality guidelines update expand YMYL category, defines lowest quality content and more

A year ago Google updated the company’s search quality raters guidelines, and today, it has been updated once more – this time to expand on the YMYL category, it clarified what constitutes lowest quality content, simplified the definition of upsetting-offensive and the overall document has been refreshed and modernized with minor updates throughout. In fact, the old document was a 175 page PDF, the new one is 172 pages.

The last update to this document was on October 14, 2020, before that was December 5, 2019.

What is new? Here is a changelog of what is new in this document:

• Expanded the definition of the YMYL subcategory ‘Groups of people’
• Refreshed guidance on how to research reputation information for websites and
  content creators
• Restructured and updated ‘Lowest Page Quality’ section; reorganized and
  refreshed examples to reflect new structure
• Simplified the definition of ‘Upsetting-Offensive’ to remove redundancy with
  Lowest Page Quality section
• Minor changes throughout (updated screenshots and URLs, wording, and
  examples for consistency; removed outdated examples; fixed typos; etc.)

YMYL – Groups of people subcategories. Google expanded this subcategory to include more examples of YMYL, your money – your life, a section for this groups of people section. The updated section is named groups of people and is now defined as:

“Information about or claims related to groups of people, including but not limited to those grouped on the basis of age, caste, disability, ethnicity, gender identity and expression, immigration status, nationality, race, religion, sex/gender, sexual orientation, veteran status, victims of a major violent event and their kin, or any other characteristic that is associated with systemic discrimination or marginalization.”

The other changes. Google said the bulk of the changes in this update are “refreshing the language for clarity and updating organization.” These updates “included clarifications of what constitutes lowest quality content and refreshed and modernized guidance on researching the reputation of websites,” Danny Sullivan of Google said.

Read more: Google search quality guidelines update expand YMYL category, defines lowest quality content and more

Clarity in an uncertain future: Cookies, privacy, and marketing roadblocks

The numbers are compelling. The 2021 Digital Consumer Trends Index polled over 5,000 global consumers, and 66% declared that ads based on cookies and tracked behavior were creepy, not cool. Furthermore, numbers show a mere 4% of Apple users are opting in to app tracking for advertisers, and that number is predicted to only dwindle.

It’s unlikely Google FLoC (cohort-based advertising) is going to be the silver bullet, and I like to think as marketers, we’ve matured beyond shouty spray-and-pray advertising formats. There isn’t going to be a magic replacement for the cookie, so what do marketers do next to deliver more personalization and also meet privacy demands?

To move forward and build lasting, more meaningful relationships with consumers, marketers need to embrace the zero-party data economy. 

Read more: Clarity in an uncertain future: Cookies, privacy, and marketing roadblocks

IndexNow – new initiative by Microsoft and Yandex to push content to search engines

Microsoft and Yandex announced a new initiative today named IndexNow, a protocol that any search engine can participate in to enable site owners to have their pages and content instantly indexed by the search engine. Currently, Microsoft Bing and Yandex are the two search engines fully participating in the initiative but others are welcome to adopt this open protocol.

IndexNow allows “websites to easily notify search engines whenever their website content is created, updated, or deleted,” Microsoft wrote on its blog. The goal is to make for a “more efficient Internet,” the company said, by reducing the dependency on search engine spiders having to go out into the web and crawl each URL they find.

How it works. The protocol is very simple — all you need to do is create a key on your server, and then post a URL to the search engine to notify IndexNow-participating search engines of the change. 

Read more: IndexNow – new initiative by Microsoft and Yandex to push content to search engines

Microsoft Advertisers can analyze post-click behavior, analyze engagement with new Clarity integration

What is Microsoft Clarity? First launched as a closed beta in 2018, Microsoft Clarity provides site owners with visual heatmaps that illustrate user engagement, individual session replays, a dashboard to help them get an overall understanding of user interactions and filters to drill down on various types of interactions.

How to get started. Get in touch with your Microsoft account manager to enroll in the pilot program. In addition, your Universal Event Tracking (UET) tag must be up to date in JavaScript. Microsoft recommends placing the tag across your site to gather as much information on user behavior as possible.

In November, UET tag creation will be compatible with the Clarity tool by default. In mid-November, the company will migrate all existing UET tags to include Clarity insights (except for sites that are excluded from this update, such as sites that contain sensitive data). Once your UET tag is updated, you should be able to access Clarity from your Microsoft Advertising account

Read more: Microsoft Advertisers can analyze post-click behavior, analyze engagement with new Clarity integration

Messy SEO Part 3: How to find cached images and improve user experience

Messy SEO is a column covering the nitty-gritty, unpolished tasks involved in the auditing, planning, and optimization of websites, using MarTech’s new domain as a case study.

SEO is incomplete without good UX

Regardless of how well Google and other search engines crawl your website, few people will interact with your brand if they have a poor experience. Broken and non-HTTPS links discourage many from trusting what your page has to offer. People want relevant links and engaging images in their content, not outdated links no longer working.

Fixing broken links

Virtually all of these instances had nothing to do with negligence; they were largely the result of old domain URLs on the site. The link issues we chose to tackle first were those that were completely broken, undoubtedly leaving visitors wondering why they were included within the article at all.

Replacing images that no longer exist

Search marketers run into this messy problem most often during migrations. If the old site domain isn’t set to redirect every image file to its new URL, the new site will fail to pull the old, non-existent content.

The Internet Archive and Wayback Machine

In scenarios such as this, some marketers opt to view cached images from their old domain in the search results. The problem is that search engines such as Google only store cached images for a limited amount of time. And this is only helpful if your domain URLs are still indexed post-migration.

Read more: Messy SEO Part 3: How to find cached images and improve user experience

More news:

Google Search Console testing tools to match URL Inspection tools

Google AdSense moves to a first-price auction model

Microsoft Advertising: ETA deprecation, auto-generated remarketing lists, and Audience Network updates

Podcast knowledge panels go live in Google Search

Google seems to be rolling out podcast-based knowledge panels in Google Search. When you search for your favorite podcast, you might see a new knowledge panel show up in the search results.

Example. Here is an example for the Azeem Digital Asks podcast showing up with a new knowledge panel on the right hand side of the desktop Google search results page:

This shows for many podcasts, although not all, so it seems like Google is still trying to roll this out more fully. Google has yet to officially announce this new search feature.

Here are some more examples the SEO community is talking about on Twitter:

Source: Podcast knowledge panels go live in Google Search

WP Fastest Cache Patches Authenticated SQL Injection and Stored XSS Via CSRF Vulnerabilities

The Jetpack Scan team has published a summary of two issues recently discovered in the WP Fastest Cache plugin – an Authenticated SQL Injection vulnerability and a Stored XSS Via CSRF vulnerability.

“If exploited, the SQL Injection bug could grant attackers access to privileged information from the affected site’s database (e.g., usernames and hashed passwords),” Automattic security research engineer Marc Montpas said. This particular vulnerability can only be exploited on sites where the Classic Editor plugin is both installed and activated.

“Successfully exploiting the CSRF and Stored XSS vulnerability could enable bad actors to perform any action the logged-in administrator they targeted is allowed to do on the targeted site,” Montpas said. He also found that attackers could “abuse some of these options to store rogue Javascript on the affected website.”

Source: WP Fastest Cache Patches Authenticated SQL Injection and Stored XSS Via CSRF Vulnerabilities

Google Mobile Search Updated With Continuous Scrolling

Google Search on mobile is getting updated with continuous scrolling, which will automatically populate more results when users scroll to the bottom of the page.

For searchers this is a welcome quality of life upgrade, as it’s now possible to scroll through an almost endless list of results to find right content.

Now, the ‘see more’ button isn’t gone for good, but Google says searchers will be able to scroll through “many more” results before triggering it.

This change can be hugely beneficial to publishers, because we all know page two of Google doesn’t see nearly as much traffic as page one.

With continuous scrolling on mobile, it’s almost like all results are page one results now.

This change can create the illusion that the user hasn’t left the first page of SERPs, leading to them discovering and potentially clicking on URLs they otherwise wouldn’t have.

It’s a user interface design that works extremely well on mobile for apps like TikTok and Instagram’s Explore page.

On TikTok, users can continuously scroll down their feed and the app will keep populating more videos to look at.

This endless stream of content keeps people on the app for hours.

With the same design being applied to Google Search, this can increase content discovery significantly.

Websites ranking on the second page of Google (and lower) may start to see their traffic go up as a result of this update.

We’ll see as the months go on if this change helps increase traffic for low ranking pages.

Source: Google Mobile Search Updated With Continuous Scrolling

Nothing is wrong with your ABM strategy, but your execution fails

The verdict is in: Sales and Marketing are aligned on ABM strategy but are falling short on execution. While 96% of Sales and Marketing leaders agree that personalized communications to prospects are the most effective, the majority agree that feasibility is a major challenge to personalization at scale. Stop missing opportunities! It’s time you got the most out of your investments in ABM.

Join this webinar to learn new research findings from Renegade and Conversica and explore practical tips for executing lead outreach like a champ.

Register today for “Nothing Is Wrong With Your ABM Strategy, But Your Execution Fails,” presented by Conversica.

Source: Nothing is wrong with your ABM strategy, but your execution fails

Instagram’s new practice mode will help you avoid live video goof ups

To avoid live video startup mistakes, Instagram is adding a new feature called ‘practice mode.’ It’ll let you and your guests join the live video before it’s broadcasted to your followers.

This will help you set up the video and check the sound, light, and stability of connections so it looks like a professional production when it goes live. The firm said the practice mode feature will be rolling out soon.

Apart from this, Instagram is also launching a scheduling feature for live video creators so that they can notify their audience in advance. The company will let you schedule a session 90 days before the event, and notify your viewers when you create it.

Starting today, the scheduling feature will be rolled out to all creators.

Instagram is a bit late to the party when it comes to scheduling live videos. Facebook and YouTube have offered this feature for many years now. TikTok rolled it out last year with its new set of creator tools.

Source: Instagram’s new practice mode will help you avoid live video goof ups

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Microsoft will shutter LinkedIn in China by the end of the year

Google is Developing ‘Big Moments’ Feature For Breaking News

WordPress Releases Gutenberg 11.6 – Top 4 Achievements

Microsoft will shutter LinkedIn in China by the end of the year

Microsoft will shut down its localized version of LinkedIn in China by the end of the year, the company announced Thursday.

“A significantly more challenging operating environment.” The company cited a difficult operating environment, enhanced compliance requirements and a lack of success with the social aspects of its platform as reasons for shutting down LinkedIn in China.

“While we’ve found success in helping Chinese members find jobs and economic opportunity, we have not found that same level of success in the more social aspects of sharing and staying informed,” the company said, “We’re also facing a significantly more challenging operating environment and greater compliance requirements in China. Given this, we’ve made the decision to sunset the current localized version of LinkedIn, which is how people in China access LinkedIn’s global social media platform, later this year.”

InJobs to launch in China. As it sunsets LinkedIn, Microsoft plans to launch InJobs, a new, standalone jobs application for China, later this year as well. Unlike LinkedIn, InJobs will not have a social feed or the ability to share posts or articles.

Source: Microsoft will shutter LinkedIn in China by the end of the year

Why automation is the future of lead management (and RevOps)

RevOps is trending toward low-code automation that closes software gaps and solves fundamental marketing and sales challenges.

Fast and reliable lead routing is extremely important for lead management.

Delays in your revenue processes, especially in lead follow-up, decimate funnels. Slow lead processing makes it 7x less likely you’ll ever qualify your leads. Most RevOps pros understand this, but lead management is a deceptively complex set of processes, oftentimes built on the back of a house of cards.

Consider the overall “jobs to be done” of the lead lifecycle:

1. Lead Intake – Capture a lead from a given source (e.g., website forms, live chat, list uploads, Ad vendors, etc…)
2. Validation – Ensure an email is valid before allowing it into any system of record
3. Creation – Create leads in the system of record if there are not any existing records for the prospect already
4. Enrichment – Programmatically enrich data required for routing or accurate scoring. Send those still missing important data to manual enrichment
5. Lead to account match – If lead belongs to an existing account in system of record, associate to account
6. Attribution – Give credit to programs driving engagement for each touch
7. Scoring – Apply a score using demographic, firmographic, and behavioral attributes
8. Routing – Check rules of engagement for a prospect in order to route appropriately (e.g., round robin, direct assignment, etc…)
9. Sequencing – Start sales outreach asap

The future of revenue ops 

By learning to leverage General Automation Platforms (GAP) like the Tray Platform. These automation platforms close the resource gap for semi-technical ops professionals, empowering them to build multi-step, automated processes called “workflows.” These workflows focus on the job to be done first, not the technology vendor that does it.

Introducing RevOps frameworks: Lead management

Using a lead management framework built on the Tray Platform provides your team with control and visibility into every possible aspect of your lead funnel. You can quite literally measure your funnel’s reliability and speed at every step. Meanwhile, you will prepare yourself for a future in which Citizen Automators (that’s you) build processes tailor-made to your organization’s needs, without ever having to worry again about whether your software tools “do that” or wait for engineering support.

The Foundation: A lead processing pipeline workflow

At the center of this framework is a workflow we call the “Lead processing pipeline.” The pipeline is responsible for orchestrating each of the essential lead management jobs to be done. From intake to creation to enrichment and beyond, you can use this process for any lead, no matter the source.

Source: Why automation is the future of lead management (and RevOps)

Where Do SEO Professionals Spend Time & Budget? [Survey Results]

How Do Decision-Makers in SEO Allocate Digital Marketing Budget?

In the last 12 months, 6.2% of SEO professionals said they applied all of their digital marketing budget to content marketing. With a weighted average of 2.98, content marketing has the greatest budget allocation in digital marketing.

Meanwhile, 17.9% of SEO professionals said they didn’t apply any budget to digital PR and 30.4% said they allocated little budget. With a weighted average of 2.55, Digital PR has the least budget allocation in digital marketing.

The Difference in Budget Allocation Between Agencies and In-House Brands

• An agency is more likely to spend most of its budget on SEO than an in-house brand at 29% compared to 20%.

The Differences Between B2B and B2C for Digital Marketing Budget Allocation

• 19% of B2B SEO professionals spend no budget on digital PR, compared to 14% of B2C.
• 17% of B2C SEO professionals spend most of their budget on digital PR compared to 12% of B2B.
• 23% of B2C SEO professionals spend most of their budget on social media compared to 18% of B2B.
• 28% of B2C SEO professionals spend most of their budget SEO compared to 23% of B2B.

When Working on SEO, Where Do We Allocate Our Time to Tasks?

• 36.3% of SEO professionals say they apply most of their time to keyword research. With a weighted average of 3.28, keyword research has the most time allocated as a task for SEO.
• Local SEO has 11.4% of SEO professionals applying no time and 7.1% applying all their time. This polarized split of results indicates that local SEO is an area of specialization in SEO.
• 8.2% of SEO professionals said they apply all their time to analytics and this is the one task that is most likely to have all time allocated in SEO.

Source: Where Do SEO Professionals Spend Time & Budget? [Survey Results]

WordPress Proposes Team to Improve Core Web Vitals

WordPress Admits Falling Behind Wix, Shopify and Squarespace

The proposal by the WordPress Core Developer was blunt in its assessment that WordPress was falling behind:

“Compared to other platforms (e.g., Wix, Shopify, Squarespace), WordPress is falling behind.

Other platforms are on average faster – and becoming increasingly faster – than WordPress websites…”

That’s not an opinion, it’s a statement of fact that WordPress is falling behind Wix.

WordPress Needs a Performance Team

The proposal states that it needs an official team to coordinate the performance side of WordPress core development.

So instead of performance being almost an afterthought to improvements to other areas of WordPress, speed performance can move to the front because of advocates who can now help coordinate improvements.

Why WordPress Needs a Performance Team

“Users expect and prefer fast experiences (consciously or otherwise). Research shows that fast websites can provide a better user experience, increase engagement, benefit SEO, increase conversion, and be more economically and ecologically friendly.”

WordPress Speed Should Not be the Job of a Plugin

The proposal says that the job of optimizing WordPress should not fall to third party plugins and that it should not be the burden of those who use WordPress to fix it and make it better.

Source: WordPress Proposes Team to Improve Core Web Vitals

WhatsApp now offers encrypted backups. Here’s how to opt in

WhatsApp is finally letting users encrypt the backups of their messages.

Facebook owner Mark Zuckerberg announced on Thursday that the feature is now being rolled out to iOS and Android users globally.

The feature secures backups stored on Google Drive or Apple’s iCloud with end-to-end encryption.

This encryption will provide more privacy and security, but it’s not enabled by default. Here’s how to turn the feature on:

1. Make sure you’ve got the latest version of WhatsApp.
2. Open Settings.
3. Tap Chats > Chat Backup > End-to-end Encrypted Backup.
4. Click Continue, then follow the prompts to create your password or 64-digit encryption key.
5. Hit Done, and wait for your end-to-end encrypted backup to be prepared. You may need to connect to a power source.

Source: WhatsApp now offers encrypted backups. Here’s how to opt in

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YouTube Shorts: An Introductory Guide

Google Search Console testing tools to match URL Inspection tool

Google Search Console’s public-facing testing tools will be aligned more closely to the URL Inspection tool, the company announced today. Google said it is updating these tools’ “designs and improving features to be fully aligned with the URL Inspection tool.”

Which tools are impacted. Google said this is impacting specifically the AMP, Mobile Friendly, and Rich Results testing tools.

What is changing. Google is updating the design and improving some of the features of these three public-facing tools. Specifically, these fields will be both on the public-facing tools and the URL inspection tool:

• Page availability – Whether Google was able to crawl the page, when it was crawled, or any obstacles that it encountered when crawling the URL.
• HTTP headers – The HTTP header response returned from the inspected URL.
• Page screenshot – The rendered page as seen by Google.
• Paired AMP inspection, Inspect both canonical and AMP URL.

Read more: Google Search Console testing tools to match URL Inspection tool

Yelp announces new features for services businesses, including custom search filters, a new review flow and themed ads

On Tuesday, Yelp announced new features for services businesses and the users that may be looking for them, including custom search filters, a new review flow, themed ads and Project Cost Guides.

Custom search filters for services. New search filters for service queries enable users to filter for fast-responding businesses, businesses that provide virtual consultations or businesses that specialize in a specific type of job or repair.

These filters can be found for services like movers, plumbers, HVAC, auto repair, roofing, real estate agents, home cleaners, painters, electricians, landscaping, pest control and flooring.

Themed ads. Yelp is introducing a new feature for services businesses that are running search ads. Themed ads highlight aspects of a business that may differentiate them from competitors.

Generating more reviews for services businesses. When customers submit a project with Yelp’s Request-A-Quote, the platform will now use the submitted information to prompt users to write reviews. To start, Yelp prompts the user with a series of questions to kick off the review writing process.

New Project Cost Guides. Yelp’s Project Cost Guides provide information and tips on what hiring a professional for a given project might entail. Each guide contains a pop-up form (“Get personalized quotes from top pros”) that can be used to input project details to obtain quotes from service providers.

Yelp announces new features for services businesses, including custom search filters, a new review flow and themed ads

3 tips for winning with real-time, inventory-driven ads

Here are three tips for executing on the new game plan that can help you win as supply chains wreak havoc on your competitors’ campaigns.

The three steps outlined below won’t solve every problem in Q4, but these steps can help you conquer some of the most pressing challenges marketers are facing in the coming few months: 

Step 1: Connect your ads to real-time supply chain and inventory data

After all, you can only sell what you’ll ACTUALLY have on hand or on the way. By connecting real-time data right into a PPC workflow, marketers can pivot quickly and automatically when one line of product sells out, and a much-delayed shipment finally arrives. 

Automated ad creation instantly reflects the new inventory and makes it possible to serve up ads for only the items you can actually deliver. And when automating ads from inventory, there’s no need to stop at simple text ads. Extend the automation to also create RSAs (Responsive Search Ads), RDAs (Responsive Display Ads with images), and DSAs (Dynamic Search Ads). 

Step 2: Optimize your feed to show better ads

While structured data like that found in spreadsheets are commonly used by PPC teams, automatically turning that data into ads may present some problems, especially when the data feed wasn’t built specifically with PPC ads in mind. The problem is that data may be formatted inconsistently, incorrectly, or certain required fields to run ads are simply missing. This is when the need arises to optimize the feed data, a process that must be automated with rules if the advertiser hopes to gain the full time-saving benefits of data-driven ads. 

Step 3: Use Google’s Drafts and Experiments to explore what works best. 

With new data-driven ad strategies in place, it’s time to start testing what works best and prove to your stakeholders that the new strategy is paying off. Drafts and Experiments is a feature-rich tool from Google that offers a lot of horsepower for search marketers but isn’t the most intuitive, fluid add-on in the Google environment. For example, monitoring experiments in Google across more than one account or across multiple experiments can be cumbersome. 

Read more: 3 tips for winning with real-time, inventory-driven ads

NerdWallet blames Google ranking issues in S-1 filing

NerdWallet, the popular personal finance company, cited Google as a concern for financial growth and said the company saw a Google Search ranking decline in 2017 within its recent S-1 filing.

S-1 filing statements. The S-1 filing specifically cited Google as a factor that “could harm our business, operating results, and financial condition.”

Read more: NerdWallet blames Google ranking issues in S-1 filing

Google rolling out continuous scroll on mobile

Google’s mobile search results now offer infinite scroll, what Google is calling continuous scroll. So as you scroll, Google will not show you the “more results” button when you reach the bottom of the page, instead, Google will just load the next page of results automatically.

Google said “with this update, people can now seamlessly do this, browsing through many different results, before needing to click the “See more” button.”

Google added that while “you can often find what you’re looking for in first few results, sometimes you want to keep looking.” And for those searchers who want to keep on looking, you will be able to continuously scroll “up to four pages of search results” without clicking to load more.

When can I see it? Google has been testing this for some time, in fact, I’ve seen it myself over the past couple of weeks. Google did say it will “gradually roll out today for most English searches on mobile in the U.S.”

Read more: Google rolling out the continuous scroll on mobile

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Google AdSense moves to a first-price auction model

Microsoft Advertising: ETA deprecation, auto-generated remarketing lists, and Audience Network updates

Chrome tests Google side search in the browser

Google AdSense moves to a first-price auction model

Google will move AdSense from a second-price auction model to a first-price auction by the end of 2021, the company announced Thursday. There is no action for advertisers or publishers to take and these changes will occur automatically.

First-price vs. second-price auctions. In a second-price auction, the final price paid by the winner is determined by the second-highest bid. In a first-price auction, the final price is the same as the winning bid.

This will simplify things for advertisers, Google says. “We are aligning our AdSense process with other ad selling platforms in the display advertising ecosystem, which we think will simplify the experience for buyers who can now use a single approach to bidding across AdSense, Ad Manager and AdMob, and improve advertiser spending confidence,” a Google spokesperson told Search Engine Land.

Which AdSense products are affected. The transition to a first-price auction only affects AdSense for Content, AdSense for Video and AdSense for Games. It does not affect AdSense for Search or AdSense for Shopping.

Transitioning to a first-price auction aligns AdSense with Ad Manager and AdMob, both of which are already operating under that model. Making the winning bid the actual price advertisers pay may make it easier for some advertisers to plan their spending.

However, a first-price auction means that the final price the winning advertiser pays will be higher than it was under a second-price model if advertisers bid the same amount. 

Read more: Google AdSense moves to a first-price auction model

AMP links in Google Search break with iOS 15

With the iOS 15 release on September 20th, AMP URLs in Google Search just stopped working. Google is aware of the issue and said the issue should be resolved soon. This is only impacting Google searchers using Google Search on iOS devices that have been upgraded to iOS 15.

What happens. If you are on iOS 15 and you click on a website listing in the Google Search results, you will not be taken to an AMP URL, even if the AMP URL exists for that listing. Instead, you will likely be taken to the main site’s URL for that page, or a link to their mobile app – if you have the app pre-installed on your device.

Jeff Johnson, an iOS developer, dug into this and said with the iOS 15 Safari “User-Agent, there are no AMP links in Google search results, but if I simply change Version/15.0 to Version/14.0 and keep the rest the same, Google search results suddenly have AMP links again!” “This is reproducible on my iPhone, in the Xcode iPhone simulator, and also in desktop Safari Mac with its User-Agent spoofed as iPhone,” he added.

Read more: AMP links in Google Search break with iOS 15

Google takes stand against climate change deniers with new ads and monetization policy

Google will introduce a new policy for advertisers, AdSense publishers and YouTube creators that prohibit ads for, and monetization of, content that contradicts authoritative scientific consensus around the existence and causes of climate change, the company announced Thursday. Google will use its automated systems as well as human reviewers to enforce the policy, which will take effect next month.

Why Google is making this change. “In recent years, we’ve heard directly from a growing number of our advertising and publisher partners who have expressed concerns about ads that run alongside or promote inaccurate claims about climate change,” the company said, “Advertisers simply don’t want their ads to appear next to this content. And publishers and creators don’t want ads promoting these claims to appear on their pages or videos.”

What kind of content and ads are prohibited? The new policy prohibits ads for, and monetization of, the following: content that refers to climate change as a scam or a hoax, claims to deny that long-term trends show the global climate is warming, and claims denying that greenhouse gas emissions or human activity contribute to climate change.

Sorting out offending content and ads. “We’ll look carefully at the context in which claims are made, differentiating between content that states a false claim as fact, versus content that reports on or discusses that claim,” Google said in its announcement.

Read more: Google takes stand against climate change deniers with new ads and monetization policy

Google publishes new help documents on controlling titles and descriptions in search

Google has just published two new help documents to help publishers control what Google shows in the search results for the title and description of the listing. Also, Google introduced a new term for the title of a search result, “title link.”

Control your title links in search results. The first document is named control your title links in search results and it first defines what a “title link” is. A title link “is the title of a search result on Google Search and other properties (for example, Google News) that links to the web page.”

What changed. What changed with the help documents is that Google made two separate documents, instead of having these in a single document. Google also added the term title links, added examples of how Google adjust title links and other minimal changes to the text.

Read more: Google publishes new help documents on controlling titles and descriptions in search

Introducing the new Analytics 360

Earlier this week, we announced that the new Google Analytics is ready to help you meet the challenges of an evolving measurement landscape and get better ROI from your marketing for the long term — with privacy-safe solutions and machine learning at its core. Today, we’re introducing the new Analytics 360, which builds on the foundation of Google Analytics 4 properties to address the measurement needs of large advertisers and agencies with more customizations, increased scale, and enterprise-level support.

As a large company, you may have multiple teams that need access to different insights, depending on their job function, products and markets. Let’s say your teams in the United States, Canada,https://toplistwp.com/weekly-news-google-adsense-moves-to-a-first-price-auction-model/ and Mexico need to view the data about your four product lines to understand what’s driving sales in their markets. With the new Analytics 360, you can create four product line sub-properties for each country team and customize their settings. 

Read more: Introducing the new Analytics 360

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Microsoft Advertising: ETA deprecation, auto-generated remarketing lists, and Audience Network updates

Beginning June 30, 2022, responsive search ads (RSAs) will be the only search ad type that can be created or edited in standard search campaigns, Microsoft Advertising announced in its October product updates on Tuesday. The announcements also included reporting improvements for Microsoft Audience Ads with view-through conversions, In-market Audiences expansions, an open beta for auto-generated remarketing lists, several Microsoft Audience Network updates and expansions and more.

Sunsetting ETAs

As stated above, starting on June 30, 2022, advertisers will only be able to create or edit RSAs in standard search campaigns. Existing expanded text ads (ETAs) will continue to serve, but advertisers will not be able to edit or add them.

This move brings Microsoft Advertising in line with Google Ads, which announced in August that it would sunset ETAs on the same date (June 30, 2022).

Microsoft Audience Network updates and expansions

Feed improvements. Now, advertisers can filter their feed by ID and category, enter multiple values at once, and exclude values. This may enable advertisers to more easily manage their feed-based campaigns and filter with more granularity.

Introducing CPM pricing. CPM pricing (cost-per-thousand impressions) is coming to standalone audience campaigns targeting users in the U.S., Canada, U.K., Australia, France, Germany, or New Zealand.

New metrics for view-through conversions. View-through conversions are conversions that customers make after seeing your ad, even though they did not click on your ad. Microsoft has added four new view-through conversion types.

Read more: Microsoft Advertising: ETA deprecation, auto-generated remarketing lists, and Audience Network updates

Google Analytics 4 updates include data-driven attribution, machine learning models to fill in measurement gaps and a Search Console integration

Google hasn’t said when it will deprecate Universal Analytics, but the updates and language in the announcement suggest that search marketers should prepare for the change.

A new Search Console integration, data-driven attribution, and new machine learning models meant to fill in measurement gaps are coming to Google Analytics 4 (GA4), Google announced on Tuesday.

The company has not said when site owners will have to switch over from Universal Analytics to GA4, but these new features and the language in the announcement (“With these additional capabilities, we encourage you to use the new Google Analytics as your primary web and app analytics solution going forward,”) suggest that search marketers should prepare for the change.

Search Console integration. A new Search Console integration enables marketers to view data, such as their site’s rank and queries that led to clicks, from within Google Analytics 4.

Data-driven attribution makes its way to GA4. In the coming weeks, data-driven attribution without minimum thresholds will be available in attribution reports. This update is a follow-up to Google’s announcement last week that it would be moving away from last-click by making data-driven attribution the default model for all new Google Ads conversion actions.

Machine learning to address measurement gaps. Google is bringing two new modeling capabilities — conversion modeling and behavioral modeling — ​​to GA4, which may help marketers fill in gaps in their understanding of customer behavior when cookies or other identifiers aren’t available.

Read more: Google Analytics 4 updates include data-driven attribution, machine learning models to fill in measurement gaps, and a Search Console integration

We asked, you answered: Should Google add noindex support to robots.txt? Poll results

In the current environment, robots.txt is used exclusively for guiding the behavior of web crawling. Further, the current approach to marking a page “NoIndex” is to place a tag on the page itself. Unfortunately, if you block it in robots.txt, Google will never see the tag and could still potentially index the page even though you don’t want that to happen.

On large sites, this presents some challenges when you have different classes of pages that you’d like to both block from crawling AND keep out of the Google index. One way that this can happen is in complex faceted navigation implementations where you have pages that you create that have significant value for users but end up presenting way too many pages to Google. For example, I looked at one shoe retailer website and found that they have over 70,000 different pages related to “Men’s Nike shoes.” This includes a wide variety of sizes, widths, colors, and more.

Read more: We asked, you answered: Should Google add noindex support to robots.txt? Poll results

Google Search Console adds new rich results status reports errors

Google announced it has added a new set of detailed errors to the rich results reports to Google Search Console for some sites. These are called the rich results status reports and you will see a report only if Search Console has data for that rich result type on your site, and Search Console implements a report for that type.

The announcement. Google said on Twitter “Today we’re adding more details to some errors on Search Console Rich Results status reports to make them more actionable and help you understand how to solve those issues.”

What specifically are the new errors. Here is a list of the specific new detailed errors you will see with this enhancement:

1. Invalid attribute string length
2. Invalid attribute enum value
3. Invalid object
4. Type conversion failed
5. Out of numeric range

Read more: Google Search Console adds new rich results status reports errors

Built on GA4, Google announces the new Analytics 360

On Thursday, Google announced a revamped version of Analytics 360, the company’s suite of products designed for enterprise-level companies, which builds on Google Analytics 4 as a foundation. The new features include the ability to create product line sub-properties, custom user roles, and larger caps on dimensions, audiences, and conversion types.

New collaborative capabilities. In the new Analytics 360, advertisers can create product line sub-properties and customize their settings.

Additionally, advertisers will be able to create user roles to control feature access for certain groups of users. These custom user roles can be assigned to reporting collections (groups of reports based on topics, such as customer acquisition). Custom user roles and user-assigned reporting collections will be rolling out to all Analytics 360 accounts in the coming months.

Bigger dimension, audience, and conversion type limits. This iteration of Analytics 360 will have a limit of up to 125 custom dimensions, 400 audiences, and 50 conversion types.

Read more: Built on GA4, Google announces the new Analytics 360

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YouTube Rolls Out Automatic Live Captions to All Channels

YouTube is rolling out a series of updates to make content more accessible, which includes bringing automatic live captions to all channels.

Previously, this feature was only available in beta for select channels with over 1,000 subscribers.

Live automatic captions enables livestreams to display dialogue on the screen as it’s being spoken.

The captions will also be available if a recording of the stream is made available as a VOD (video on demand), making it a quick and easy alternative to manually transcribing streams.

In addition, YouTube is launching an update that will make content more accessible on mobile, and introducing a way to make video transcripts searchable.

Here’s more about the changes coming to YouTube captions and transcripts.

YouTube Live Automatic Captions For All

YouTube is making live automatic captions available for all creators.

With this expansion all creators can now have access to this feature regardless of subscriber count.

While streaming, creators can go into their live control room and enable or disable live automatic captions on a per stream basis.

Auto-Translated Subtitles Coming to Mobile

Today on desktop users can auto-translate available caption tracks in their CC menu to another language.

YouTube plans to expand the auto-translated subtitles option to mobile.

Searchable Transcripts

In a mildly confusing update, YouTube is making video transcripts searchable on desktop.

Transcripts were already searchable, however, just like text on any website is searchable by hitting Ctrl+F on your keyboard.

Perhaps this is intended to expand accessibility to the less tech savvy YouTube viewers out there?

New Channel Permissions For Subtitles

YouTube is adding a new subtitle role to channel permissions subtitle role.

With this subtitles role creators will be able to delegate the ability to create captions or subtitles for the videos to someone that they trust.

Source: YouTube Rolls Out Automatic Live Captions to All Channels

Google is Developing ‘Big Moments’ Feature For Breaking News

Google is reportedly developing a new search feature called “Big Moments” to highlight important information about breaking news events in real-time.

Google wants to be peoples’ one-stop source for news whether they need information about something that happened yesterday, or they want the latest details of an event happening right now.

Big Moments will provide historical context about events when possible, and go beyond what Google typically shows in search results for news stories.

If the story is a natural disaster like a hurricane, for example, Big Moments may list authoritative facts about deaths and injury counts, as well as data about the frequency of hurricanes in the area.

Google may pull in information for Big Moments from open source data repositories such as Data Commons, which gathers data from US government agencies and is hosted by Google.

Too Ambitious For Google?

With Big Moments, Google is moving closer to making the kinds of editorial decisions news publications have to make every day.

The key difference is those decisions will be made by algorithms, while editorial decisions for news publications are made by humans.

Even with advances in machine learning, is it possible to replicate the level of critical thinking that goes on in a newsroom?

Source: Google is Developing ‘Big Moments’ Feature For Breaking News

Squid Game VR game: How to play Red Light, Green Light

Soaring Roc have wasted no time in getting a game off of the ground but we feel we should temper expectations – this is obviously not a full game like the ones we see in the show. Instead, this takes its inspiration from Red Light, Green Light.

Red Light, Green Light is a pretty simple game that does not require much knowledge to understand the rules. In the show, the Squid Game contestants are pitted against a seriously creepy mannequin and when it calls ‘green light’, the players can move. When ‘red light’ is called, they have to stop. If they don’t, they get shot and die. Lovely.

In this VR version of the game, you do the same. You pump your arms to move but when the mannequin turns to face you, you need to instantly stop or risk meeting the same fate, just, happily, it’s only virtual. You are pitted against other players, but be careful about looking around for them as if your head is seen to move… well, you know what happens.

Source: Squid Game VR game: How to play Red Light, Green Light

WPCloudDeploy Brings Site and Server Management to the WordPress Admin

WPCloudDeploy recently launched version 4.10.5 of its rapidly-maturing WordPress plugin of the same name. The project is a WordPress-native replacement for SaaS services like Cloudways, Ploi, SpinupWP, and others.

Customers still need to hook up to a cloud server provider, such as Digital Ocean, Linode, AWS, or elsewhere. However, the project seeks to cut out the middleman for developers and agencies running multiple sites. They are specifically targeting those who would routinely manage 20 or more.

“It’s a true plugin where everything you need runs on your own site (except, of course, the other servers you are provisioning and managing which reside at their respective cloud server providers),” said WPCloudDeploy owner Nigel Bahadur.

The plugin promises its customers that they can deploy unlimited WordPress-optimized servers and sites to any cloud or bare-metal server. It has direct integration with 10 of the most popular cloud server providers.

However, provider integration is limited to which pricing plan the customer decides on. The core tier, which costs $199 per year, only works with Digital Ocean. The business tier runs $499 and adds Linode, Vultr, and UpCloud to the mix. For the full range of providers, customers must upgrade to the all-access plan for $799. Both of the top tiers also have a lifetime purchase option.

Selling Subscriptions through WooCommerce

WPCloudDeploy allows agencies to sell subscriptions to cloud servers or WordPress sites through WooCommerce. Because of the feature’s recent interest, Bahadur said it will likely be a focus area next year for more enhancements.

They have their own separate service that builds on top of this called WPCloudPanel. The team created it with Beaver Builder, WooCommerce, WooCommerce Subscriptions, and Ninja Tables. The entire site required no additional custom code.

From Inception to the Future

Bahadur said his team started the project to meet their own needs. “We really liked the idea of being able to use our own servers for WordPress sites. But at the time, there were still a lot of security questions and other usability and support issues that we were running into from the usual pool of SaaS providers.”

Source: WPCloudDeploy Brings Site and Server Management to the WordPress Admin

First Look at WordPress’ Upcoming Twenty Twenty-Two Default Theme: “The Most Flexible Default Theme Ever Created for WordPress”

Twenty Twenty-Two, the new default theme coming in WordPress 5.9, was unveiled today on WordPress.org. The design goes full steam ahead in support of full site editing and new customization capabilities.

Like its predecessor, Twenty Twenty-One, the new default theme makes some bold design choices wrapped around a central theme. In this case it’s bird illustrations, complemented by Source Serif Pro for headlines, and a delicious array of patterns for limitless combinations.

The theme will be developed on GitHub until it’s ready to be merged into core. Kjell Reigstad, an Automattic sponsored full-time design contributor to WordPress.org, is leading the design with Jeff Ong leading development. In the announcement he sets expectations high for users to be able to make the theme their own.

Source: First Look at WordPress’ Upcoming Twenty Twenty-Two Default Theme: “The Most Flexible Default Theme Ever Created for WordPress”

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