Bing has added a robots.txt tester to its Webmaster Tools, the company announced Friday. The new feature allows SEOs to analyze their robots.txt files and highlights issues that may hinder Bing from optimal crawling. The robots.txt tester and editor within Bing Webmaster Tools. How it works. SEOs can use this tool to test and validate…
A burning question this holiday season is whether people will return to physical stores or buy substantially everything online? The Mary Meeker formulation is: what percentage of retail spending will move online? But that binary “brick and mortar vs. e-commerce” narrative is crude and fails to appreciate the role stores play in driving online sales.…
Virtual events are the talk of marketing departments these days. We know, we’re putting on a host of them. But the big question that has remained since COVID-19 put an end to large-scale, in-person gatherings has been, “When will conferences, trade shows and other in-person business events come back?” The answer: You tell us. For…
It’s an understatement to say ad budgets are in flux right now. Some forecasters see a flat to declining outlook for the rest of the year and into 2021, while others see growth. The truth is, there are lots of numbers and none are very precise. The IAB’s latest survey of 242 media buyers and…
Apple Maps currently relies on Yelp and TripAdvisor for local business reviews and related content such as images. That could begin to change with iOS 14; the question is: how disruptive will it be for Apple’s partners and the “review economy” in general? First reported by 9to5Mac, based on this tweet, iOS 14 will allow…
Google’s “licensable” badge in Image results is now out of beta. Google also changed the “Usage rights” search filter to let users search for images with creative common or other licenses to address concerns about digital images being commodified and used for free. Licensable badge. Google began testing the badge in February after working with…
This story is developing. Some search marketers reported Friday that the “Text ad” option is not available from the Ads dropdown for Search campaigns in the Google Ads interface. Instead, the ad options from the Ads dropdown are limited to Responsive search ad (RSA) and Call ad. Frederick Vallaeys, CEO of Optmyzr, is among those…
This story is has been updated with a statement from Google. Several search marketers reported Friday that the “Text ad” option is not available from the Ads dropdown for Search campaigns in the Google Ads interface. Instead, the ad options from the Ads dropdown are limited to Responsive search ad (RSA) and Call ad. Frederick…
Google’s COVID-19 Community Mobility Reports show how visits and length of stay in various place categories have changed compared to a baseline period before the pandemic. The reports, which are published on an ongoing basis, illustrate movement trends over time with respect to geography (including country, state and county) over a six-week period, with the…
Part of Google’s mobile search success relies on the fact that it’s the default search engine for the iPhone. The company has paid billions for that privilege over the years. But there’s evidence that Apple might be building a search engine to take on Google – for real this time. First the evidence. As Coywolf’s…