This day in search marketing history: February 20

Google stops supporting meta news keywords tag

In 2018, we learned that Google had quietly dropped support for the news meta keywords tag.

Google did not announce this change, which had actually happened months earlier.

It was Google Webmaster Trends Analyst John Mueller who confirmed this on Twitter:

“It looks like we dropped support for this around the time when we removed it from the help center. Keeping it on pages is fine, we just don’t use it for Google News anymore.”

Using the news meta keywords tag no longer helped Google understand your news content. Google ignored it the same way they ignore the normal meta keywords tag.

Google introduced the news meta keywords tag specifically for publishers in 2012.

Also on this day

Google: Spam less than 1% of Maps content

2020: Spam represented less than 1% of the 20 million daily contributions Google received on Maps.

Google adds new image license metadata for licensable image label

2020: Google was beta testing a new way for sites to display licensing information about content that appears in Google Images.

Advertisers can now view Google mobile speed scores for more landing pages

2019: Google Ads tweaked its mobile speed score algorithm to reduce the number of ad clicks needed to generate a result.

Bing to require LegitScript certification for addiction recovery advertisers

2019: Drug and alcohol addiction recovery centers would have to be certified before running an ad campaign and could no longer use lead generators.

Yelp tests offline attribution using guest WiFi and email matching

2018: The company said that every $1 spent on Yelp ads resulted in a $110 offline return, based on aggregate transaction data.

Google says no algorithm changes in new deal to demote pirated content in UK search results

2017: Google and Microsoft Bing agreed to reduce pirated content from their search results in an agreement named the Voluntary Code of Practice.

New ‘Call-Only’ Ad Types Arrives In Google AdWords To Make Mobile Easier

2015: Ad type would give mobile-centric marketers the ability to set up phone call conversion only campaigns.

Yahoo Wants To Syndicate Search To 600,000 Mobile Apps

2015: Yahoo had an ambitious plan to extend the reach of its search, display and video ads through a new Mobile Developer Suite.

Search In Pics: Google Glass Book, Android Mobile & Pebble Beach Box Seats

2015: The latest images showing what people eat at the search engine companies, how they play, who they meet, where they speak, what toys they have and more.

Bing Webmaster Guidelines Updated To Include Demotions For Keyword Stuffing

2014: The warning said Bing may demote or delist a site that uses keyword stuffing.

Yahoo Gives $10 Million To Help Develop Next-Gen Siri And Better “Contextual Search”

2014: Yahoo gave $10 million to Carnegie Mellon University to support “InMind,” a project that sought to develop a next generation intelligent assistant and enhanced personalization capabilities.

Yandex Reports Revenue Up 37% In Q4, Ad Network Revenue Nearly Doubles

2014: The company said it had more than 270,000 advertisers, a 30% gain year-over-year and up 10% from Q3 2013.

No, Google Hasn’t Released Unannounced Penguin Updates

2013: A recent Google video might have suggested that Google was pushing Penguin Updates without announcing them, but Google said this wasn’t the case.

Google Shopping Tops Amazon Product Ads: 32.7% More Cost Effective

2013: In the second half of 2012, Google Shopping sent 120% more traffic to merchants than Amazon Product Ads.

Google Enables Blocking AdWords Results With Block Site Feature

2012: It appearsed you could block sites from showing up in the paid search ad results, whether signed into Google or not.

“Googler Killer”, Cuil, Patent Applications Acquired By Google

2012: Cuil, which launched in June 2008 and went defunct in September 2010, had their patent applications acquired by Google.

AdCenter Revamps Location Targeting To Mimic AdWords

2012: Microsoft adCenter made changes to its location targeting functionality that brought it into line with the industry standard Google AdWords.

The Microhoo Bunch

2010: The recently approved Microsoft-Yahoo search deal, set to a TV theme song.

Google Suggests Ways To Prevent Hacking

2009: Using Google site search could help identify if a hacker had added common spam content, or Google Alerts could be used to monitor spammy words and phrases.

Google Changes Display URL Policy: One Domain Per Ad Group

2009: Advertisers could only have the same domain showing in a specific ad group in the display URL field.

Google Maps: Transit Updates, Map Maker In 27 Languages

2009: The objective of the product was to enable local users/developers to build out maps data and content for places in the world where there are no commercial or other third-party databases that Google could easily implement.

Google AdSense Adds Font Selection

2009: Publishers could pick between Arial, Times, and Verdana font types and they would be present on all of their Latin-based character units.

Google Brings Back Video & Drops Shopping From Top Navigation

2009: In November 2007, Google did the exact reverse.

Search In Pictures: Ask.com At Daytona, Vint Cerf At SMX & Yahoo Hack Day India

2009: The latest images showing what people eat at the search engine companies, how they play, who they meet, where they speak, what toys they have, and more.

Lee Odden Interviews Google’s Adam Lasnik

2008: Topics included duplicate content issues, and if there are penalties, and using the nofollow to “sculpt PageRank.”

Microsoft & Google Sued Over Paid Search Patent Infringement

2008: A company named Paid Search Engine Tools of Liberty Township said Google’s AdWords and Microsoft’s adCenter products infringe on their patent, “Paid search engine bid management.”

Gates On Yahoo Acquisition: It’s The Engineers We Want

2008: It wasn’t the advertisers, the brand, or the traffic so much as the engineers that Microsoft wanted in the Yahoo acquisition.

Yahoo Search Index Now Supported By Open-Source Hadoop Architecture

2008: The benefits, among others, were cost savings and scalability.

Van Natta To Leave Facebook, Yahoo Offers Enhanced Severance To Retain Employees

2008: The reason given for the packages was employee retention in a climate of uncertainty, which had accelerated the departures of a number of high profile Yahoo employees.

Newspond Lauches News Aggregation Site That Uses A “Tireless Electronic Brain”

2008: Newspond was a news aggregation site that boasted “No editors. No voting. Just an AI news engine.”

SES London 2008 Day Two Recap

Mobile Search Still A Close Race

2007: Google had about 4.75 million U.S. subscribers in the fourth quarter of 2006, roughly 1.1 million more than Yahoo.

New Stats On Google’s Products Show Video & Blog Increasing While Froogle & Directory Decreasing

2007: “Super performers”: Google Video, Google Blog Search, Google Scholar and Google Desktop.

Listing Of Lists Of Google Products

2007: A listing of lists of Google products.

Let Google Drive Your Car For You

2007: Page “proposed giving computers control over cars” so that there will be fewer accidents.

Google Teaches Programming Class At University Of Washington

2007: This course would “teach students to use 40 computers to solve problems such as how many times the word ‘mild’ appeared on the Internet and which ‘mild’ was most relevant to Internet users.”

Viacom To Sign With Joost Over Google’s YouTube

2007: Joost was like YouTube but they specialized in commercial video.

Text Messaging: Where The Volume And The Dollars Are Today

2007: Mobile advertising as a mass medium would take off, but the question was: when and in precisely what form?

From Search Marketing Expo (SMX)

E-commerce category pages outperform product detail pages in SERPs

How digital commerce marketing is reshaping search, marketplaces and social

A quick guide to understanding Google’s quality rater guidelines

Bing’s holistic view of search on display at SMX West

Past contributions from Search Engine Land’s Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)

These columns are a snapshot in time and have not been updated since publishing, unless noted. Opinions expressed in these articles are those of the author and not necessarily Search Engine Land.

2019: How lucrative is local search? by Jamie Pitman

2019: Advanced YouTube tactics: Create custom audiences to pursue, and watch that fine print by Amanda Farley

2018: Why entities may power the future of location-based data by Adam Dorfman

2018: Enterprise SEO and cross-channel performance: Activation and integration by Jim Yu

2018: How to sync your keywords and ad labels with an AdWords Script by Daniel Gilbert

2017: Dos and don’ts of PPC advertising for universities by Pauline Jakober

2017: 6 business types that reap the most reward from local SEO by Pratik Dholakiya

2015: 5 Techniques To Safely Get Links In 2015 by Neil Patel

2014: How To Use AdWords Scripts Efficiently In Agencies And Enterprise SEM by Frederick Vallaeys

2013: What B2B SEOs Need To Know About Buyer Personas by Derek Edmond

2013: Why Do Big Data & Programmatic Marketing Actually Matter? by Dax Hamman

2012: Have You Been The Target Of A Google Places Hit Job? by Andrew Shotland