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
