The Week In Search & Social Ending June 26, 2020

The Week In Search & Social Ending June 26, 2020

It’s been a huge week with multiple changes in SERP layouts, a massive Google Analytics security breech, and a big feature rollout from Microsoft Advertising.

Top Global Search News

Google Will Automatically Delete Your History Over Time
Google announced yesterday that instead of just giving you the option to set your deletion settings to happen, it will do so for you. Instead of defaulting to not deleting your Google history, Google will set your search data to delete after 18-months, YouTube data after 36-months, etc. The new setting will just default to auto-delete as opposed to never delete:

Google Tests Star Rich Results With Only One Star Icon

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-single-star-rich-results-29674.html

Google is testing showing just a single star icon for the star rich results, even if the rich results should show multiple stars. Both search result snippets have over 4 stars listed numerically in the snippet but the star icon only shows a single star. For example, Best Buy has a 4.8 star rating with 505 ratings but it shows a single star icon.

Google Agrees to Start Paying for News Content

Germany, Australia and Brazil are the first three countries, with more coming. European news publishers and governments have been trying to get Google to pay them to license content for years. There have been legal and legislative fights and tortured battles over copyright laws. After fighting the idea of paying publishers to display or link to their content, Google is now ready to comply.

Top Local Search News

Google My Business Adds 4 New Attributes

Google My Business Adds 4 New Attributes

Google has quietly rolled out a total of four new attributes businesses can add to their GMB listing.

  • Online Care
  • Online Appointments
  • Online Estimates
  • Online Classes

Google to Shutter CallJoy, Virtual Agent for SMBs, on July 22

Another Area 120 ‘experiment.’ A Google spokesperson provided the following statement: “Like all projects from Area 120, CallJoy was an experiment. We’re proud of the team’s work and achievements, and we look forward to seeing the great things they’ll continue to do at Google.”

CallJoy was launched in May 2019. The virtual agent SaaS offering answered calls, filtered spam (including inside sales calls) and provided basic business information (e.g. , hours) to consumers. It cost $39 per month.

Google Maps Street View Adds Icon To Launch Business Knowledge Panel

Google Maps Street View Adds Icon To Launch Business Knowledge Panel

Thibault Adda noticed that now when in Google Maps Street View imagery, and you are looking at a specific business, you might get an icon that you can click on to trigger the launch of the local business knowledge panel. This makes a lot of sense and can be useful for searchers.

Top PPC News

Bing Shopping Adds Image-Based Product Search

JUNE 25 2020 Bing shopping: Introducing new image-based product search

Bing has announced some new functionality in shopping search, allowing users to select items they like from photos and use their systems to discover where to purchase it, or find ones like it.

Top Social Media News

Facebook Goes After Companies For Fake Likes & Comments

Facebook has filed lawsuits in the United States and Europe against companies for the use of unauthorized automation software.

TikTok launches TikTok For Business for marketers, takes on Snapchat with new AR ads

TikTok For Business

TikTok has announces a new TikTok For Business, making it far easier to advertise on the platform. Depending on your target demographic, this could be big news.

Advertisers Boycotting Facebook

Advertisers are boycotting Facebook in support of the Stop Hate movement, which asserts that Facebook has facilitated hate speech on the Internet.

It seems kind of convenient that it’s while they’re all trying to save money, and justify spending cuts, but whatever gets the job done.

Internet Marketing-Related Tech

Hackers Use Google Analytics to Steal Credit Cards

Big Google Analytics hack reported by Roger Monti. Basically, they’re using the fact that browsers trust analytics, to piggy back the transport of confidential data like credit cards, location, username and passwords, etc. into analytics.

Definitely a piece to read. And avoid checking your site in developer mode.

Google Ads Moving Some To Target Impression Share Strategy

Google announced that it will soon move existing campaigns using Target Search Page Location and Target Outranking Share bid strategies to Target Impression Share strategy based on previous target locations and historical impression share.

Best Opinion Pieces

Beanstalk’s Dave Davies is Judging the Canadian Marketing Awards

Canadian Marketing Awards

That Dave is judging the Canadian Marketing Awards is not an opinion piece, but worth a mention.