YouTube is testing new search and engagement insights for Creator Studio
YouTube has unveiled some new analytics options for Creator Studio that provides more data on what your audience is interested in, based on search and engagement activity, and also how those users are interacting with different topics on the app.
Not new. The Search Insights tool was announced late last year and the first phase was released in April which gave advertisers more data on what data people are searching for on the app. YouTube is now adding more data to help creators identify additional trends.
New elements. There are two new elements being added to the Search Insights tool.
Watch Interest. The first new element is Watch Interest.
“Currently, Search Insights on desktop only shows what viewers are searching for, but now, we’re adding ‘Watch Activity’ for a topic. Creators can now review top, rising or recent videos in a topic so you can get a sense for what’s new.”
Advertisers and creators will now be able to get a better idea of actual engagement trends on YouTube clips based on searches, what people are watching, and “how they move from video to video based on recommendations.”
YouTube is also adding new insights into your audience’s watch activity based on a given topic. That data will show related elements of interest on a given topic.
Personal insights. The second new element is new personalized insights based on your audience’s unique interest or your saves. YouTube is looking to provide additional engagement data to help with planning while also displaying interest in other niches.
Source: YouTube is testing new search and engagement insights for Creator Studio
Vulnerability in WordPress BackupBuddy Plugin Exploited By Hackers
Hackers have attempted to exploit a zero–day flaw in a WordPress plugin called BackupBuddy five million times, sometimes successfully.
The news comes from WordPress security–focused company Wordfence, which published an advisory about the flaw earlier this week.
“This vulnerability could allow an attacker to view the contents of any file on your server that can be read by your WordPress installation,” reads the blog post.
According to the security experts, this could include the WordPress wp–config.php file, which contains information about the website’s database, name, host, username and password, and depending on server setup, sensitive files like /etc/passwd.
For context, the BackupBuddy plugin, currently estimated to have 140,000 active installations, allows users to back up their WordPress installation, including theme files, pages, posts, widgets, users and media files.
“Unfortunately, the method to download these locally stored files was insecurely implemented, making it possible for unauthenticated users to download any file stored on the server,” Wordfence wrote.
After reviewing historical data, the team determined that attackers started targeting this vulnerability on August 26, 2022. Wordfence claimed to have blocked 4,948,926 attacks targeting this vulnerability since that time.
The vulnerability affected versions 8.5.8.0 to 8.7.4.1 of WordPress and was fully patched on September 02, 2022, in version 8.7.5.
The vulnerability comes months after WordPress forcibly updated over a million sites to patch a critical vulnerability affecting the Ninja Forms plugin.
Source: Vulnerability in WordPress BackupBuddy Plugin Exploited By Hackers
Google’s Search On event is on Sept. 28
Google has announced it will hold its annual search event named – Search On – on Wednesday, Sept. 28 at 1 p.m. ET / 10 a.m. PT.
Search Engine Land will be covering the news coming out of Search On, so make sure to check back here for any breaking news from that event.
Google said the search company will tell us “how Google is reimagining its core information products to help people make sense of the world in more natural and intuitive ways.”
Where to watch it live. You can watch the event live at searchon.withgoogle.com or on YouTube.
Past Search On event announcements. Google has held Search On events in the past and here are some of the headlines from those past events:
- Google: BERT now used on almost every English query
- How Google indexes passages of a page and what it means for SEO
- Google Search gets deeper into the ‘real-world’ with Busyness, Duplex and AR in Maps
- Google refine this search and broaden this search now live in search results
- MUM brings multimodal search to Lens, deeper understanding of videos and new SERP features
Source: Google’s Search On event is on Sept. 28
Matt Mullenweg Renews Push for Canonical Plugins
During WordCamp US’ contributor day this weekend, Matt Mullenweg published a renewed call for WordPress’ Make teams to adopt a plugin-first approach when developing new features for core. He revived the notion of canonical plugins, first introduced to the WordPress community in 2009 as a means for delivering optional features to users with a higher level of confidence than regular plugins:
Canonical plugins would be plugins that are community developed (multiple developers, not just one person) and address the most popular functionality requests with superlative execution. These plugins would be GPL and live in the WordPress.org repo, and would be developed in close connection with WordPress core. There would be a very strong relationship between core and these plugins that ensured that a) the plugin code would be secure and the best possible example of coding standards, and b) that new versions of WordPress would be tested against these plugins prior to release to ensure compatibility. There would be a screen within the Plugins section of the WordPress admin to feature these canonical plugins as a kind of Editor’s Choice or Verified guarantee. These plugins would be a true extension of core WordPress in terms of compatibility, security and support.
The WordPress Plugins Directory is just one plugin away from crossing 60,000 (at the time of publishing). In contrast to the idea of canonical plugins, the official directory is still like the wild west in terms of what users can expect from plugin authors. Mullenweg cited several plugin scenarios that are not ideal for users – such as a plugin being controlled by a single company and evolving to go more towards a pro version or removing previously free functionality and putting it behind an upgrade.
Canonical plugins are meant to provide a trustworthy alternative to plugins where authors’ motivations may not put users first. It also provides an avenue for core contributors to demonstrate the demand for features they want to land in WordPress. A few projects like MP6, Gutenberg, and the REST API have taken this path into core.
In a related post that inspired the renewed discussion on canonical plugins, Mullenweg weighed in on the controversial WebP by default proposal that had recently received new objections from WordPress lead developers. Contributors have been working feverishly to revise their approach in time for 6.1.
Source: Matt Mullenweg Renews Push for Canonical Plugins
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