Google is testing the new Rewarded Ad Gate beta program for publishers
Google has just started testing a new rewarded ad beta program for publishers to serve their players long-form, playable ads.
How it works. As described by WebmasterWorld.com, “The Rewarded Ad Gate beta program will give you an opportunity to monetize your most engaged users. If a user frequently visits your site, you’ll have a way to collect additional ad revenue.”
1. The Rewarded Ad Gate will be displayed to a visitor on their fifth-page view of each month.
2. If the visitor chooses to view a short ad, a video or image ad will play for 30 seconds or less.
3. A “Thank you” message will appear after the ad is complete and the visitor will gain access to your site.
4. If the user chooses not to view a short ad, they won’t be able to access the site until their page views reset the following month or they choose to view the ad.
Dig deeper. There is no info from Google on the new test, but you can read the post from WebmasterWorld.com here.
Read more: Google is testing the new Rewarded Ad Gate beta program for publishers
Link juice: Is it the new snake oil of Google SEO?
Google’s Search Advocate John Mueller – in a rare case of annoyance – said that any SEO advice mentioning “link juice” is not to be trusted. Is it or not?
I wondered about the context and doubted whether it was true. There are different opinions.
After Barry Schwartz shared the news on LinkedIn, a lively debate ensued. Even Moz and SparkToro founder Rand Fishkin chimed in on the comments saying, “Maybe link juice is real after all. Maybe y’all should write more about it!”
On link juice and bad SEO advice
When he dismissed link juice, Mueller was answering a question about outgoing links. He essentially ignored the original question and solely responded to the undesirable “link juice” mention.
While Mueller is usually neutral in his tone this time he came close to a rant on Twitter:
- “Anything that talks about ‘link juice’ should be ignored.”
This is nothing new. He’s just reiterating what he expressed in the past more than once.
Here’s a similar quote from his Twitter account back in 2020:
- “I’d forget everything you read about ‘link juice.’ It’s very likely all obsolete, wrong, and/or misleading.”
So is link juice such a detestable term? Is it akin to the “snake oil” fringe SEO practitioners are still offering? Let’s take a look at the bigger picture.
Snake oil: A popular type of panacea in SEO
There’s a reason why the SEO industry had a bad rep for many years. Metaphorical snake oil has been sold in various ways and many websites have been harmed by misguided SEO advice or tactics.
The proverbial “snake oil” – a synonym for misleading promises of miraculous cures to all kinds of diseases – has often been likened to SEO.
Even in 2022, we see many more #seohorrorstories passed on Twitter and other social media than inspiring success stories. SEO experts themselves, not just outsiders, rather focus on those negative news.
Of course, the SEO industry is not the only one guilty of selling snake oil or spreading the word about it.
I had many clients asking me for unethical SEO practices over the years. To this day, you have to be very firm in your ethics in order not to get caught up in a downward spiral of shady SEO techniques. I also get requests for paid links and other similar offers regularly by mail.
The history of link juice
When Google started out in the crowded and messy search engine market, it had a revolutionary ranking algorithm that used the so-called “PageRank” to determine website authority. It was named after Google co-founder Larry Page, not (just) the actual “web page.”
SEO specialists started to use many different slang terms for PageRank – “Google juice” or “link juice” being among the most popular.
In the early years since its inception, Google performed pretty well by PageRank alone and grew its market share continuously.
First-generation search engines like AltaVista, Yahoo and Infoseek were easily gamed by simply using:
- Keyword stuffing.
- Hidden text.
- Misleading meta tags.
Read more: Link juice: Is it the new snake oil of Google SEO?
YouTube Brings Photo Editing & Quizzes To Community Posts
YouTube is adding photo editing features and quizzes to the set of tools available to creators when crafting community posts.
YouTube is giving creators new tools to work with when publishing community posts, with the addition of photo editing features and interactive quizzes.
Community posts are social media-style updates available to YouTube channels with 500 subscribers or more.
YouTube surfaces posts in users’ recommendation feed and the Community tab on channel pages.
Quizzes In YouTube Videos
YouTube is running an experiment with a small number of creators, which allows them to add quizzes to community posts.
Quizzes are a new, interactive way for creators to engage with viewers. Creators in the beta can create quizzes the same way as other kinds of community posts.
I am already brainstorming different ways YouTube channels can take advantage of quizzes in community posts.
An idea immediately comes to mind is running a quiz based on your latest video. You can include questions users would have to watch your latest video to answer.
If you incentivize users to take the quiz with a contest or a simple shout-out, you could potentially drive more repeat viewers to your content.
With this being an experiment, YouTube may expand access to quizzes if they receive positive feedback.
Photo Editing On YouTube On iOS
YouTube creators on Apple’s iOS can now add filters, text, and stickers to images when creating community posts in the YouTube app.
YouTube brought these features to Android earlier in the year, and now they’re rolling out on iOS.
A small, randomly selected group of creators with access to the Community tab can test this on iOS phones.
Read more: YouTube Brings Photo Editing & Quizzes To Community Posts
Divi 5.0 Aims to Bring Greater Compatibility with Gutenberg
BuddyPress will soon be improving the way it loads its JavaScript and CSS assets so that they are only loaded on community pages. Previously, the plugin would load them indiscriminately on every page.
BuddyPress lead developer Mathieu Viet said he’s not sure there is a specific reason explaining why this was kept in place. Before the plugin introduced the BP Theme Compat API in version 1.7, it was necessary to use a BuddyPress compatible theme like the one bundled by default (BP Default).
“I think we kept the way this theme was loading these assets into the first Template Pack (BP Legacy) we added to BuddyPress,” Viet said.
Users have often requested BuddyPress only load its assets on community pages in hopes of further optimizing their websites. For example, in 2020, a user on the BuddyDev forums requested custom code to accomplish this. Experts recommended against doing it
Read more: Divi 5.0 Aims to Bring Greater Compatibility with Gutenberg
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