Google News – August 2022

Google Product Reviews July 2022

At the end of July, Google has introduced another product reviews update, which release continued in August as well. As you know, this algorithm update focuses on websites about product reviews. The last update of this type was in March 2022.

The full release will be finished in 2-3 week’s time.

It should be aimed at websites in English, but since it’s a global update, other languages should gradually follow suit.

If you’ve been hit by this update, Google recommends following steps in this document.

Source: Google Search Central Blog

Google To Introduce New Measurement

Google is introducing a new tag called Google Tag, which should simplify tracking implementation, while improving data quality as well.

Google Tag supposed to be a new, centralized way of tagging, which enables combining multiple implementations of gtag.js into one tag. This unified implementation should improve tracking, which should reflect in better and more quality data. Moreover, the tag should be easier to manage to people who have access to it.

According to Google, there’s no need to change anything on the user’s end. The current gtag.js implementation will continue to work as usual. After a time, it will be automatically converted into Google Tag.

To find out more about the new Google tag, explore Google’s official statement or Google Support.

Source: Google Ads & Commerce Blog

 

New Image Preview in Google Search

It seems like Google has officially launched a new image preview in Google Search.

In the past, when you clicked on an image you it took you to Google’s image search. Now, after clicking the image a new image preview shows with related images, but you remain on Google Search without leaving to the image tab.

How do you like this new change? We think it was long overdue.

Source: Search Engine Land

Apple Stepping Up Its Ads Game

According to Apple’s Ads vice-president, Todd Teresi, Apple’s goal is to increase their ads revenue to double digits from their current 4 billion. As for now, Apple is showing ads in its apps News, Stocks, App Store and TV+.

Additionally, ads would start showing in other apps like Maps, Books and Podcasts. Apple’s expanding ad inventory could be a new opportunity for advertisers. At the first stage, ads should be cheaper, but there are questions raised, mainly about the precision of tracking and performance evaluation.

Would you try advertising on Apple’s devices?

Source: Search Engine Land

Welcome The Helpful Content Update

There’s a new Google algorithm update on the horizon and it should be a big one. Its name Is Helpful Content Update and it focuses on websites that doesn’t provide helpful and useful content for users, but rather appealing to search engines.

It concerns websites in all segments, but mainly online tutorials, entertainment, shopping and technologies. The full implementation should end around September.

The interesting thing is that not only poorly performing pages will lose ranking in Google Search, but the whole website as well. If you will be hit by this update, it would take months to recover from it. Google recommends to revise or delete low-quality content a produce useful and helpful one for the users.

Read Google’s official statement here.

Source: Google – The Keyword

Local Campaigns Converting to PMax

After Smart Shopping Campaigns, the time has come for Local Campaigns to be converted to Performance Max. The one-click migration should be available in Google Ads.

Google says, if your local campaign is not yet eligible to be migrated and It would be till September, the local campaign would be converted to Pmax in 2023. The same applies if your campaign is eligible to be migrated, but you decide not to. This is Google’s way trying to prevent any disruptions in performance during the busy holiday season.

However, Google recommends converting your local campaigns to PMax if possible.

Find out more here.

Google Testing a New Label in Search

Google has been testing an interesting SEO feature in Search. When searching for an answer Google shows a new Quick read or 5 min. read label. It indicates you can find your answer quickly without the need of reading a long article.

Pretty neat feature.

Source: Search Engine Land

 

Facebook & Instagram News – August 2022

Instagram Being Inspired by Competition

BeReal is a new social media boasting with more than 10 million downloads. Its uniqueness is in its unpredictability and realness. The app randomly prompts its users during the day to simultaneously take a photo with the front and back camera. They have 2 minutes to do it. This ensures the photo will be real and authentic without any filters or being staged.

And yes, Instagram has been testing BeReal’s dual camera mode. But there’s one more function that Instagram is willing to steal.
It’s a QR code that can be added to your post, which reveals your precise current position. However, if you don’t have a private account on Instagram, this can be a huge issue. Say hello to stalkers!

Find out more here.

Source: Social Media Today

How Instagram Recommends Posts

The main goal of Instagram is to increase engagement, which leads to users spending more time in the app, thus seeing more ads and generating more revenue.

Over the last months, Instagram has been pushing recommend posts into users’ feeds more aggressively. The mastermind behind this is an AI that recommends posts based on your direct activity and people you follow in order to push suggested posts to your feed that looks organic.

If there’s not enough direct activity, it can take a look at accounts you follow and get some inspirations from what they post or like.Find out more here.

Source: Engineering at Meta