ADVERTISEMENT Instagram has been found testing several upgrades to stories that include a layout mode, new boomerangs, and redesigned icons. This test was discovered by reverse engineering expert Jane Manchun Wong, whose track record for finding unreleased features is second-to-none. In the screenshot Wong shared on Twitter you can see the new icons and several…
Google’s John Mueller recently advised the company’s mobile-friendly test doesn’t follow the rules written in robots.txt files. This topic came up in a Google Webmaster Central hangout where a question was asked about the mobile-friendly test and its relation to crawling and indexing. Here is the question that was submitted: “If I can see my…
Editor’s note: “Ask an SEO” is a weekly column by technical SEO experts Jenny Halasz and Kristine Schachinger. Come up with your hardest SEO question and fill out our form. You might see your answer in the next #AskanSEO post! Welcome to another edition of Ask an SEO! Here’s today’s question from Benu at Santa Clara: Does the content…
Google revealed new details about its indexing issues in April, saying part of the search index was temporarily lost. On April 5th, Google accidentally dropped pages from its search index while it was pushing out an update to its data centers. Apparently, this only affected a small number of documents, but it was not small…
Around three-quarters of U.S. internet users regularly or always search for visual content prior to making a purchase, according to eMarketer; only 3% never do. When it comes to shopping online, product images create a positive experience for potential customers. Many experts share that featuring multiple professional images for a product helps reduce customer uncertainty,…
A new report on retail digital ad spending in 2019 reveals that paid search is the fastest growing ad format. In total, retail advertisers in the US will spend $13.12 billion on search in 2019, which is up 22.5% from last year. In 2020, spending is projected to grow to $15.65 billion. It’s stated in…
Hotel listings in Google My Business can now customize their services and amenities in a new “hotel attributes” section. Now, hotel owners can edit their services and amenities in a specific “Hotel attributes” section of their Google My Business account. Learn more: https://t.co/690slzVtCS. — Google My Business (@GoogleMyBiz) August 9, 2019 By default, Google provides…
Google is now surfacing podcast episodes that can be played directly in search results. Playable podcast episodes will be displayed in addition to regular search results when users are specifically searching for podcasts. “Starting today, when you’re searching for a podcast about a topic on Google, such as “podcasts about Awkwafina” or “Instant Pot recipe…
Google’s new gallery ads, first introduced this past May, are now rolling out to advertisers in beta. Gallery ads were announced at the Google Marketing Live conference, with the company saying the ad units will be launching later this year. Well that time has come and gallery ads are now available in select languages. Those…
Google’s Top Places List feature is officially out of beta. Google updated the Top Places developer page with new information indicating that the Top Places List feature is now automated by a machine learning algorithm. What is Google Top Places List? The Top Places List is a Google feature that displays related information about a…