Google makes 2 ad updates that will affect local search marketers
Google has made changes this week to local search results and Google Maps that will impact retailers and service providers with physical locations. Read more
Google has made changes this week to local search results and Google Maps that will impact retailers and service providers with physical locations. Read more
In the news: It’s official, Google has decided to fully kill off toolbar PageRank from their browser tools. Read more
Google has spoken — and an important part of the mobile web will never be the same. At least that’s the theory, and certainly the search giant’s intention.
Google sees app install interstitials — those big ads that pop up suddenly on the mobile web and monopolize all of your mobile device screen to prompt you to download an app, rather than let you keep surfing — as too annoying to users. On November 2, the company therefore put in place a new policy to discourage the ads.
According to this policy, Google has since penalized mobile websites that use such interstitials by declaring these websites mobile-unfriendly. According to Google’s more detailed blog post about the policy from September:
Mobile web pages that show an app install interstitial that hides a significant amount of content on the transition from the search result page will no longer be considered mobile-friendly. This does not affect other types of interstitials. As an alternative to app install interstitials, browsers provide ways to promote an app that are more user-friendly.
Here at Yozio, my employer, we specialize in growing mobile apps through organic channels. We also considered app install interstitials a very viable option to drive downloads prior to the new policy going into effect. Hence, we’ve been watching its effects closely.
Now that the policy has been in place for a couple of months, we wanted to explore some basic questions: Has Google’s decision actually affected how mobile websites attempt to drive visitors to download apps? And how have some of the most prominent and growth-hacking savvy companies dealt with the change?
To answer those questions, let’s start by understanding the real context for Google’s sudden change — and why app install interstitials may not be that bad after all.
Google published the results of an experiment on the effects of interstitials on one of its own mobile websites, Google+, earlier this year. In this study, Google compared the results of showing visitors to the Google+ mobile website an app install interstitial with the results of showing them a smaller and less intrusive app install banner.
When showing the banner, Google reported that the number of people installing the Google+ app stayed virtually the same compared to showing the interstitial, while the number of one-day active users on the mobile website actually increased by 17 percent.
Although Google did not mention this study in its announcement of the policy, it’s reasonable to assume that such a directly relevant experiment is related to the company’s decision.
However, the results of the study may not be as clear-cut as they seem at first glance, and Google’s case against interstitials not as simple as it appears.
First, this was but one experiment, by one company, for one kind of mobile website and app. Across Yozio’s customers, we’ve seen some who increased installs significantly through optimizing interstitials: by 100 percent for Pinterest and 300 percent for Airbnb, for example.
For other customers of ours, interstitials were much less important. This experience suggests Google should not necessarily draw conclusions from just one test for one app.
Second, the experiment involved an app that Google doesn’t seem to care about: As the post about the study mentions, Google since retired both the interstitial and the banner permanently, preferring to leave users on the Google+ mobile web pages.
Third, if you’re not using one of Google’s apps (or at least an app featuring Google’s advertising), it’s clearly in the search giant’s interest to keep you on the mobile web instead — where you can access its search engine and see its ads much more easily.
It turns out that app interstitials may not be that bad, then, and Google’s reasons for opposing them not that simple. And what if your app does actually offer a better experience for users than your mobile website?
Let’s look at how some of the best companies that now comply with Google’s policy — and still find ways to drive traffic to their mobile app.
One of the most innovative ways to circumvent Google’s new policy comes from — you guessed it — Google itself. This time, it’s for Google Docs, an app that’s decidedly better than its equivalent mobile web experience, and probably more valuable for more users than Google+.
What mobile users see when they arrive on the Google Docs site looks almost exactly like an interstitial, but it isn’t one. It’s the web page itself, only made to look like an interstitial. The navigation menu in the top right corner gives it away.
Yelp uses a similar strategy. No longer able to use a separate interstitial, Yelp (not affiliated with Yozio) simply made a mobile web page that looks exactly like one.
In fact, the page looks so much like an interstitial that we ran it through Google’s mobile-friendly test — and it passed with flying colors.
LinkedIn (again, no affiliation with Yozio) uses an equally innovative, but somewhat more sophisticated, approach. While the mobile web version of LinkedIn’s site does not use interstitials, when you request LinkedIn.com in your mobile browser, you’re instead redirected to a new, separate mobile web page. And this does look like an interstitial.
Cleverly, however, LinkedIn has excluded this new web page from Google’s indexing. So therefore, Google can’t penalize LinkedIn for using it, either.
Google recommends using App Install Smart Banners in Safari or Native App Install Banners in Chrome to replace interstitials. Unfortunately, these don’t offer much flexibility in design, which makes them a bad alternative for growth teams who need to experiment and iterate. The ability to do that is non-negotiable because it’s by far the best way to increase users, engagement and conversions.
Airbnb (a Yozio customer) is a growth-savvy company and currently experimenting with its own banners as opposed to the ones recommended by Google. We checked — and Airbnb’s site is still mobile-friendly.
It seems Google has left some wriggle room for the experimenters after all.
Beware of making those banners too large, though. We found an example on Zappos’ mobile web pages that ran into trouble in Google’s mobile-friendly test, which stated that the page “appears to have an app install interstitial” and “may not be mobile-friendly.” (Yozio is not affiliated with Zappos.)
We’ve seen our customers drive tens of millions of installs through organic channels such as mobile websites using app install interstitials or banners. Both can work — it all depends on the user.
Ultimately, understanding the user’s intent and presenting her with personalized content determines the click-through rate and install conversion rate. As Marketing Land editor Danny Sullivan’s excellent overview of Google’s policy explains, the company is ironically declaring war on the same problem it helped to create when it first started to drive users to download apps on its own sites.
By implementing this wide-ranging policy on the basis of questionable evidence, we don’t believe Google is putting the user first this time.
The move is now official: Bing has taken over serving search results and ads for AOL from Google. Initially announced in June 2015, the 10-year deal affects all AOL search traffic worldwide and on all devices. Here’s a look at what the move means for those managing Bing Ads campaigns.
First, the Ad distribution section under Ad Group level settings now includes AOL along with Bing and Yahoo.
You can now also change ad group level network distribution within Bing Ads Editor. Whatever your settings are now, they won’t change, other than the fact that AOL is now included.
Bringing AOL into the fold also includes AOL’s syndicated search partners in relevant locations. You’ll have insights into this type of traffic that wasn’t available when AOL ads were served by Google. In the Website URL (Publisher) report, the URLs of AOL owned and operated websites will be shown on separate lines and not consolidated with Bing and Yahoo’s owned and operated websites listed under “Bing and Yahoo! Search Properties Only.” You might not necessarily know that the site is part of the AOL syndication, but you will be able to add individual sites to exclusionlists.
AOL search also now appears as a new value in the Network and Top vs. Other columns in reports (including those run from the Reporting API), such as the Keyword performance report and Campaign performance report, and AOL is listed with Bing and Yahoo syndicated search partners.
AOL traffic now factors into both Bing Ads Campaign and Keyword Planners, as well. For more details, see the Bing Ads blog post on the updates.
Official Google Webmaster explains that when it comes to search on mobile devices, users should get the most relevant answers, no matter if the answer lives in an app or a web page.
Google have recently made it easier for users to find and discover apps and mobile-friendly web pages. However, sometimes a user may tap on a search result on a mobile device and see an app install interstitial that hides a significant amount of content and prompts the user to install an app. Our analysis shows that it is not a good search experience and can be frustrating for users because they are expecting to see the content of the web page.
They will now be updating the Mobile-Friendly Test to indicate that sites should avoid showing app install interstitials that hide a significant amount of content on the transition from the search result page. The Mobile Usability report in Search Console will show webmasters the number of pages across their site that have this issue.
After November 1, mobile web pages that show an app install interstitial that hides a significant amount of content on the transition from the search result page will no longer be considered mobile-friendly. This does not affect other types of interstitials. As an alternative to app install interstitials, browsers provide ways to promote an app that are more user-friendly.
App install banners are supported by Safari (as Smart Banners) and Chrome (as Native App Install Banners). Banners provide a consistent user interface for promoting an app and provide the user with the ability to control their browsing experience. Webmasters can also use their own implementations of app install banners as long as they don’t block searchers from viewing the page’s content.
If you have any questions on the latest updates on mobile-friendly web pages and app banners, contact one of our digital marketing experts at Onimod Global today.
Google’s Gary Illyes announced that the next Panda update will happen in the upcoming 2-4 weeks at SMX advanced.
Illyes referred to it multiple times as not an algorithmic change but a data and info refresh. This is an interesting piece of rhetoric as it has been noticed that the organic results in the last few weeks have been uncharacteristically stagnant. This data update refresh is sure to shake up the organic rankings a bit, however we are not expecting an algrothimic shift style change.
Illyes also explained that it is in Google’s best interest to keep this data fresh, so the they want to keep it updated as frequently as possible. This particular algorithm needing manual refreshes as it is not as automated as algorithms in the past.
Keep an eye on our Blog for more updates as these changes come live. As always do not hesitate to contact an Onimod Global expert to discuss your organic rankings and website visibility.
Google has noted the local ranking changes but won’t say whether it was related to the Googlebomb fix for the racist local results in Google Maps. Read more
It’s happened, Google Algorithm Update is now upon us. But what’s changed? And how has the world reacted?
Web publishers around the world are commenting on Google’s mobile-only algorithm and the common theme is one of concern for the deadline, but also a desire to do what’s best for their site visitors and the long-term goals of the business. Jim Olenbush, a real estate agent in Austin noted:
“The old site works well and it is quick loading and error free. The new responsive design was slower initially and required some work to speed it up, plus we kept finding crawl errors. We have been working on the new site for a long time, and I thought I would have it online by Jan 1st at the latest. And when Google announced their mobile “deadline” later I thought we would be online with the new site in time. But ultimately it is not quite ready, and I would rather miss out on some mobile traffic for a little while than to release a new site with issues such as broken links, missing canonicals and other errors. Those errors are bad for users, and they are also harmful to future rankings if you accidentally send Googlebot crawling a bunch of duplicate content pages on your site.”
According to Neil Marshall, the head administrator at WebmasterWorld.com, there are four major concerns dominating discussions:
1. Inherent shortcomings of mobile friendly designs
2. Lingering uncertainty as to the best solution; responsive design or a dedicated mobile site
3. Degradation of the search results if the best sites aren’t mobile friendly
4. Surprise that so many competitors aren’t already mobile friendly
There are indeed many shortcomings in mobile designs, including aesthetics, particularly the awkward placement of various navigational links. And there is no clear choice as to the best solution, responsive design or dedicated mobile. Responsive designs often make compromises in site design which may not be favorable to either desktop or mobile visitors. While creating a strictly mobile solution means dealing with essentially two websites, and the headaches that come with maintaining two designs for the same content.
The concern that the mobile algo will favor lower quality mobile-friendly sites at the expense of the best sites is justified. Content hosted on .edu websites represents some of the most authoritative information available online. Will that content disappear if it’s not mobile friendly? I spoke with Gregg Banse, the Web Services Manager at George Mason University who noted that many university websites are composed of independently developed websites, with each department responsible for their own web design.
“The sites are undergoing a major overhaul as I write this. The issues stem from the fact that George Mason University departments (much like many of the larger universities) developed websites on their own because of a lack of central leadership back when it mattered most. The result is 500+ silos that we’re working to apply a common brand and bring on board a brand new CMS platform. The initial launch will be late this summer and won’t be completed until summer of 2018.”
If George Mason University is typical, then this could pose an issue with the quality of Google’s search results for which university websites are the most relevant result. 2018 is a long time to go with what may be compromised search results.
According to Neil Marshall, web publishers have noted that many competitors are not yet mobile friendly.
“There’s surprise amongst many how few sites in their niche’s are mobile friendly, especially as we all know mobile was the next big thing a few years back.”
This is true even in Japan. I asked Daisuke Nakata, a search industry authority in Japan if Japanese websites were mobile friendly by now and he responded, “Not in general.” Then added that web publishers are concerned,
“Japanese web masters are serious about this algorithm change.”
Lada Kalashnickova of the Russian search industry news site, SearchEngines.ru, noted that web publishers have been anticipating this deadline with great interest.
“Russian web publishers are concerned with the mobile update, of course. We are trying to stay up to date with mobile friendly sites regardless of Google’s deadline, we find it very important. It is not so much fear that is motivating concern for the deadline, but then again we can not say it is business as usual either.”
That may very well sum up the general mood of web publishers around the world. For many this may be a non-event because they’ve already updated their sites. For others it’s business as usual, just one more thing to deal with. How this affects .Edu websites is an important consideration and how that will be resolved remains to be seen. Will high quality university sites be whitelisted and receive a free pass or will their authoritative information go missing on Google? How about you, are your sites mobile friendly? What is happening where you are at?
R/T Search Engine Journal. Featured Image: Create by Author for Search Engine Journal Using Shutterstock Images 1, 2 and feature image Google Images.
As we noted earlier this year, today’s the day we begin globally rolling out our mobile-friendly update. We’re boosting the ranking of mobile-friendly pages on mobile search results. Now searchers can more easily find high-quality and relevant results where text is readable without tapping or zooming, tap targets are spaced appropriately, and the page avoids unplayable content or horizontal scrolling.
Today is the big day, known as Mobilegeddon, with the Google Mobile Friendly Update starting to roll out today.
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