Barry Schwartz says, “Google has announced that the Google Search Console now has more reporting options for your property sets. Property sets is Google’s way of allowing you to combine different profiles in Google Search Console into one report. When it first launched several months ago, it basically let you view the Search Analytics report for all the properties you combine with the property set. But you couldn’t see many of the other reports within the Google Search Console. Now you can. With this update you can see mobile usability report, review your AMP implementation, double-check... [...]

Tom Bailey says, “Fancy hardware and ‘moonshots’ are all very well but it’s the seemingly small innovations that Google makes to its search results which are really exciting. 2016 has seen lots, especially on the mobile side, and this is a look at the impact of some of the tiny yet mighty updates Google has made this year. You may or may not have noticed them but they’ve changed how marketers, brands and ultimately users interact with the search giant. For example, earlier this year Google veered course from how it has historically served desktop ads. Right-hand ads were removed... [...]

Tim Peterson says, “If you’re running video campaigns on Google properties and have set ad rotations to Optimize for conversions or to Rotate evenly, you’ll want to take note that Google will be switching your rotation setting to Optimize for views — if it hasn’t already. Advertisers are seeing a notice in AdWords that Optimize for views is now the only ad rotation setting available for video campaigns and that all campaigns will be automatically changed to that setting in January. Under campaign settings for video campaigns, Optimize for conversions and Rotate evenly options are... [...]

Ginny Marvin says, “If you’re running video campaigns on Google properties and have set ad rotations to Optimize for conversions or to Rotate evenly, you’ll want to take note that Google will be switching your rotation setting to Optimize for views — if it hasn’t already. Advertisers are seeing a notice in AdWords that Optimize for views is now the only ad rotation setting available for video campaigns and that all campaigns will be automatically changed to that setting in January. Under campaign settings for video campaigns, Optimize for conversions and Rotate evenly options are... [...]

Barry Schwartz says, “Google has just removed another feature from the Google Search Console: the content keywords report, one of the earliest features found in the Google Search Console when it was first built. Google said when the tool first launched, this report was the “only way to see what Googlebot found when it crawled a website.” Now, you have features like Search Analytics and Fetch, and others. Google also said “users were often confused about the keywords listed in content keywords.” So Google decided to remove the feature for those reasons. This is not a surprising move;... [...]

Zak Stambor says, “Google adds distance and location reports to AdWords reporting tools to help retailers understand where their store visitors come from. Google is bolstering its AdWords reporting tools with an eye toward helping omnichannel retailers better understand which shoppers search online and then visit their stores. That information is important, Google says, because 76% of consumers who search for something nearby on their smartphone visit a related merchant within a day, and 28% of those searches result in a purchase. That’s why the search giant today added distance and location... [...]

Ginny Marvin says, “Image extensions have come and gone and come again. Google tested them in 2013, but they never got off the ground. Bing Ads brought its own version of image extensions out of beta just over a year ago. Now, Google appears to be giving images in text ads another spin. This time in a type of Sitelinks test. In a screen shot provided by The Zebra, a mobile ad for Quotewizard.com includes a swipeable carousel of sitelinks with accompanying images. It’s not clear if this test is also running on desktop. The inclusion of images in these extensions is interesting, as is... [...]

Annie Pilon says, “If you’re hosting or attending a Thanksgiving dinner this year, there’s a good chance you’ve used Google to help with the planning. And for businesses, all of those searches can lead to some really helpful insights. The search engine giant just released a search trends report that shows some of the most popular search terms around Thanksgiving. Not surprisingly, the most popular searches revolve around how to cook turkey. And people also searched for other alternative recipes, like prime rib, green bean casserole and pumpkin pie. But there are also other trends that... [...]

Ryan Shelley says, “Google has started testing its mobile-first index. This new index will look first at the mobile version of your website for its ranking signals and fall back on the desktop version when there is no mobile version. Google has been slowly moving toward a mobile-first index for quite a while now. Google first hinted at their intentions of a mobile-first index about a year ago, but November 4 was the first time Google has posted details about the mobile-first index on their own blog. So if you have been slow in joining the mobile revolution, now is the time to take action.... [...]

Greg Sterling says, “Many critics of the presidential election are partly blaming false information and fake news stories propagated on Google and Facebook for influencing the outcome. While some Facebook employees share this concern, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has largely dismissed the notion that fake news on Facebook contributed to Trump’s victory. Despite this, both Google and Facebook have now taken steps to address the challenge of false news. Google is implementing a policy change that bars sites displaying fake news from using ads from the Google Display Network. This is an attempt... [...]