Google research: PPC ads drive 50% incremental clicks In 2012, Google released a study, Impact Of Ranking Of Organic Search Results On The Incrementality Of Search Ads. It looked at whether clicks from organic search results substituted for ad clicks when PPC ads were turned off. Google found that, on average: 81% of ad impressions and 66% of ad clicks occurred in the absence of an associated organic result on the first page of search results. 50% of the ad clicks that occurred with a Position 1 organic result were incremental. 82% of the ad clicks were incremental when the […]

The 2023 local search ranking factors survey is now out, it is a survey of what local SEO experts rank the most important ranking factors are for both ranking in the Google local pack and also in the Google organic local results. More survey details. This survey was conducted by Whitespark and surveyed 44 different local SEO experts. It asked these local SEO experts to rank 149 potential local search ranking factors in order of importance across both the local pack and organic rankings. Local pack factors. The local pack findings showed that these were ranked the most important ranking […]

More sites move to Google mobile-first indexing In 2018, Google announced it had enabled mobile-first indexing for more websites. This was the first time Google had confirmed it was moving a large number of sites to this mobile-first indexing process. Google told us in October 2017 that a limited number of sites had been moved over. Websites that were migrated in this batch were following mobile-first indexing best practices and were notified of the change via a Google Search Console message. Read all about it in Google begins rolling out mobile-first indexing to more sites. Also on this day Now, analyze more accounts in Google […]

Google Panda patent granted In 2014, a patent (Ranking search results) written by Google’s Navneet Panda and Vladimir Ofitserov – possibly describing the Google Panda algorithm update, or parts of it – was granted. However, the fact that Google was granted this patent didn’t necessarily mean it was being used by Google at the time, or that it hadn’t been modified since the application was filed.  Read all about it in Google Granted Patent For Panda Algorithm and dive deeper into Bill Slawski’s Google’s Panda Granted a Patent on Ranking Search Results and Is Ranking Search Results the Panda Patent? […]

Is paid verification through Twitter Blue and Meta Verified worth it? Learn more about the benefits and drawbacks of paying for notability. The post Should You Invest In Paid Verification From Twitter Blue Or Meta Verified? appeared first on Search Engine Journal.

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today…

WordPress plugin vulnerability allows full site takeover by unauthenticated attackers. Affects over 500,000 WordPress WooCommerce sites The post WordPress WooCommerce Payments Plugin Vulnerability appeared first on Search Engine Journal.

Google search advocate John Mueller has always downplayed the value of HTML sitemaps. Recently, he reiterated his dissatisfaction with HTML sitemaps, saying:  “I changed my mind on HTML sitemaps over the years, they should never be needed. Sites small [and] large should always have a clear navigational structure.” This is a slightly stronger stance than what he’s expressed in the past: “When it comes to SEO … for small sites, your site should be crawlable anyway (and if you’re using a common CMS, it’ll almost always be fine) & for large sites, they’re not going to be useful anyway (use […]

The other day, John Mueller of Google tweeted something true but sarcastic and it seems some took it the wrong way. He said In case you’re curious, the rel=dofollow works on links. The thing is, it could have been any rel attribute, such as rel=cheese and it would be treated the same as rel=dofollow, Google would ignore the attribute.

As we approach the Google Analytics 4 migration deadline, Google Ads Liaison, Ginny Marvin reminds advertisers that some “advertisers could see a significant performance impact” in their ad campaigns if they do not migrate.

Google Business Profiles seems to have launched a new manage menu feature for restaurants in the web version of the business profile tool. It opens a “your menu on Google” box that lets you either manually build your custom menu in Google or link to your third-party menu partner.

A few days ago, I reported that Bing Chat has now integrated the Bing Image Creator tool. But the truth is, it was not integrated, not until at least after 4:30 pm ET yesterday, March 23rd. It now works in Bing Chat under “Creative” mode.

As you know, Google has started to roll out the Google March 2023 Broad Core update on March 15th, it should probably continue to roll out through the first half of next week and complete. But like most Google updates, we see tremors and fluctuations during (and sometimes after) the roll out.

If your brand is like most, you create various types of content across multiple channels. You might even have more than one creator on your content marketing team. How do you ensure the content you publish stays consistent in look, feel, and sound anywhere it appears online? How do you make sure it stays true to your brand voice and style no matter who creates it? If you want consistency in your brand content and presence – and you should! – you need to create brand style guidelines. This guide will explain how. What are brand style guidelines? Brand style […]

The Google broad core update for March is not done yet, and we see tremors. Google started to roll out Bard, and while it is fast and has a sleek interface, it was a bit underwhelming when compared to Bing Chat. In fact…