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. [su_accordion] [su_spoiler title="Top Global Search News" style="fancy" class="greenfaq" icon="chevron-circle" open="yes"] 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 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. [/su_spoiler] [su_spoiler title="Top Local Search News" style="fancy" class="greenfaq" icon="chevron-circle"] 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 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. [/su_spoiler] [su_spoiler title="Top PPC News" style="fancy" class="greenfaq" icon="chevron-circle"] Bing Shopping Adds 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. [/su_spoiler] [su_spoiler title="Top Social Media News" style="fancy" class="greenfaq" icon="chevron-circle"] 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 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. [/su_spoiler] [su_spoiler title="Internet Marketing-Related Tech" style="fancy" class="greenfaq" icon="chevron-circle"] 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. [/su_spoiler] [su_spoiler title="Best Opinion Pieces" style="fancy" class="greenfaq" icon="chevron-circle"] Beanstalk's Dave Davies is Judging the Canadian Marketing Awards That Dave is judging the Canadian Marketing Awards is not an opinion piece, but worth a mention. [/su_spoiler] [/su_accordion]