Jack Simpson says, “No doubt you’re all aware by now that Google is removing ads from the right-hand side of its search results pages (SERPs). Ads will now only appear at the top and bottom of SERPs. To give some context around what this means for search marketers, we asked several experts for their take on why Google made this decision, and also how marketers need to adjust their PPC campaigns as a result. Why did Google remove the ads? Richard Hartley, PPC Director at Jellyfish These days, Google is ‘mobile first’ due to mobile searches beginning to overtake desktop searches,... [...]

Ben Davis says, “Google Accelerated Mobile Pages entered the world on February 23rd, a day earlier than expected. If you have been a little dozy for the past few months, here’s a quick skill pill to bring you up to date. They load hella fast Fairly obviously, given the name of the project (Google Accelerated Mobile Pages). This new open source approach to HTML is designed precisely to enable seemingly instant loading of mobile pages. Probably best to get the official Google Developers introduction, so here it is”. Four things you need to know about Google Accelerated Mobile Pages... [...]

Jack Simpson says, “The rise of influencer marketing doesn’t seem to be slowing, and it’s easy to see why. It is the inevitable result of content and social coming together, and many brands have already seen some impressive results from this channel. But with it comes a number of challenges that many marketers are struggling to overcome, as outlined in our recent report, The Rise of Influencers, in collaboration with Fashion and Beauty Monitor. In this post I’m going to cover the top three challenges that marketers face when it comes to working with influencers, and how you can overcome... [...]

Matt McGee says, “Google’s desktop search results page is undergoing a change that will mean fewer ads displaying for many queries. The company is rolling out a change worldwide that eliminates ads on the right side of a desktop search results page. It affects all queries in all languages around the world. It also brings Google’s desktop search results page in closer alignment with its mobile search results, which (obviously) don’t have any space to the right of the screen. There’s one exception when ads may still show on the right side of desktop search results: Product Listing Ads... [...]

Zachary Evans says, “Ever click on a result in the Google Search Results Page only to have some annoying video start playing or huge pop-up ad block your entire screen? Annoying, right? Well, the good news is that Google is aggressively tweaking its search algorithm to remove pages and websites that do the kinds of things that infuriate visitors. The latest algorithmic update came at the end of 2015, and was dubbed Phantom III (because it wasn’t initially confirmed by Google) and followed two other Quality Updates designed to boost sites that provide favorable user experience. This is... [...]

Barry Schwartz says, “AdAge has confirmation that Google is launching AMP search results mid-next week, on Wednesday, February 24th. AMP stands for Accelerated Mobile Pages, a Google-backed project intended as an open standard for any publisher to have pages load quickly on mobile devices. Searchers should be able to begin seeing AMP in the news carousel this coming Wednesday but if you want to see them now, you can access a demo on your mobile device by going to g.co/ampdemo. Google told us they would be launching AMP sometime in February and they held true to their word. Google has been... [...]

David Meyer says, “Engineers at Google and Red Hat independently found an egregious bug in very widely-distributed computer code library known as “glibc”. The bug, which dates back to 2008, affects hundreds of thousands of devices and programs that use software derived from the GNU free-software project. The products, which range from servers to routers to Internet-of-things devices, are vulnerable when they try to use a certain function to translate web addresses into their underlying, numerical IP addresses. If an attacker controls the web server or domain name the victim is trying... [...]

Christina Warren says, “Adobe Flash’s death march continues. Google announced Tuesday that beginning June 30, display ads built in Flash can no longer be uploaded to AdWords or DoubleClick Digital Marketing — its two biggest ad products. In a Google+ post announcing the news, Google added that it will stop running Flash ads on Jan. 2, 2017. The one minor caveat is that video ads using Flash will still continue to work and be served. This is just the latest sign that Flash on the web is truly coming to an end. And that’s a good thing, because despite the major role Flash played... [...]

Ginny Marvin says, “In the ongoing battle against scammers that unleash malware on unwitting users through ads, Google announced Tuesday that it has added a new feature to automatically filter traffic from three of the biggest ad fraud botnets. Vast networks of malware-infected computers, known as botnets, generate vast sums of revenue for perpetrators while depleting advertiser budgets on fake traffic by mimicking ad traffic patterns that look nearly identical to usual user behavior. Google says the trio of ad malware targeted in this latest filter action — Bedep, Beetal and Changthangi... [...]

Ginny Marvin says, “After taking many steps in this direction, Google announced Tuesday that it will finally stop serving Flash formatted display ads. As of June 30, 2016, advertisers will no longer be able to upload new Flash ads into AdWords or DoubleClick. The final hit will happen on January 2, 2017, when Flash ads will no longer be eligible to run on Google’s ad networks. All display ads are to be built in HTML5. Oddly, video ads built in Flash won’t be affected by these deadlines, the company says. There’s no word when similar changes will affect video. This is the final of many... [...]