This week at SEOPartner, we’re sharing: SEO updates that can deliver significant impact to your results, exciting changes in the online marketplace to watch out for, good-to-know studies and information, and tips to try based on recent findings.
Google moves to make mobile content easier to access and Twitter rolls out changes that are hoped to deter abuse and hurtful statement in their platform. These and more are just some of the recent releases that are currently making the online marketing space abuzz.
What’s Hot
It’s Official: Google Increases Required Reviews for Seller Ratings in Ads
Up until recently, the minimum required number of reviews for the Seller Ratings extensions to display on AdWords is pegged at 30. The policy screencaptured by Search Engine Journal just last August 25 reads so:
Around that time, some users have received notifications that the required number of reviews will be increased to at least 150 reviews over the past year. And now, the AdWords Help page reflects this change:
If a business fails to meet this new requirement, its ads will no longer show the Seller Ratings. Many businesses, especially the smaller ones, may thus need to take a more serious look into gathering more reviews.
What’s Cooking
Google will be rolling out two new changes that will make it easy for mobile users to find content: remove the mobile-friendly label in search results and devalue pages with intrusive pop-ups. These changes are in line with their continuous aim to “help users quickly find the best answers to their questions, regardless of the device they’re using,” the search giant said.
Time to Bid the Mobile-Friendly Label Farewell
With 85 percent of pages in mobile search results now mobile-friendly, there is longer a need for the label, according to Google. The mobile-friendly criteria will remain to be a ranking signal, and website owners are advised to still refer to the mobile usability report in Search Console and the mobile-friendly test to gauge the impact of the mobile-friendly signal on their pages.
Intrusive Pop-Ups Will Pull Down Page Rankings
Pop-ups often make content difficult to access, especially on the smaller screens of mobile devices. To discourage this practice (which often leads to poor user experience), Google announced that “after January 10, 2017, pages where content is not easily accessible to a user on the transition from the mobile search results may not rank as highly.”
Not all pop-ups (also called interstitials) are deemed problematic, however. Pages using pop-ups responsibly won’t be affected by the new signal.
Good to Know
Twitter Adds 2 New Settings That May Help Ward Off Abuse
Twitter recently introduced two new features that aim to “give you more control over what you see and who you interact with on Twitter.” Observers say this move may be Twitter’s way of reducing the level of harassment and abuse that reign free on its platform.
Two simple settings to give you better control over your Twitter experience. https://t.co/pEJuMUhCYs pic.twitter.com/jmFd0rDoV6
— Support (@Support) August 18, 2016
The two new settings are:
1. An option for users to receive notification only from people they follow;
2. A quality filter setting that filters the content each user sees, based on various filters such as account age and user behavior.
Source: http://marketingland.com/twitter-quality-filter-notification-188610
Visuals-Oriented Search Engine Launched
Searching for something? You may now do so by color or by drawing a rough sketch – using Splash, a new type of search engine designed by 500px Labs.
While Splash seems to be clearly targeted to creatives, this innovation is also another revelation of how search can go beyond keywords, and how it continues to evolve.
Source: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/meet-splash-search-engine-lets-search-colors-sketches/171359/
SUMMING IT ALL UP
Here are the top takeaways from this week’s SEO news roundup:
What’s Hot
Google Increases Required Reviews for Seller Ratings in Ads
Businesses now need to have at least 150 unique reviews from the past 12 months for their seller ratings to appear.What’s Cooking
Time to Bid the Mobile-Friendly Label Farewell
The mobile-friendly label will soon be a thing of the past. Google is removing it to unclutter mobile search results
and content.Intrusive Pop-Ups Will Pull Down Page Rankings
Google is rolling out a new signal that aims to clamp down on the use of pop-up ads that block content access.Good to Know
Twitter Adds New Settings That May Help Ward Off Abuse
Users will have more control of their interactions, a move seen to address harassment concerns on Twitter.Visuals-Oriented Search Engine Launched
In this search engine, colors, not keywords, are used for getting answers.