Digital Marketing Updates: July 2023

Whilst most of the world suffered from blistering heat, SEOs were treated to a torrential downpour of digital marketing news and updates this July. In this blog we’ll cover the latest key changes to help you stay afloat, including:

• SEO Market Updates: from Google’s Misrepresentation Policy Update to the retiring of the related search operator.
• PPC Market Updates: what’s new in Google Ads Editor Version 2.4 and Performance Max updates.

SEO Market Updates

Update to Page Indexing Report within Search Console Sees More Fine-grained Issues 

If you’ve noticed a spike in issues being reported within the Search Console indexing report, don’t panic, you’re not alone.

Google updated said report to show “more fine-grained page indexing information”, however the annotation within the report was delayed – resulting in a lot of panicked site owners.

This update is purely a change within reporting rather than how Google processes your site.

The Great INP Panic

From one panic to another, Google startled site owners in July by sending out email notices to site owners whose Interaction to Next Paint (INP) scores under the good threshold.

INP is set to replace First Input Delay (FID) as a Core Web Vital metric in March 2024. Last month, we saw Google are preparing for this change by introducing a new report within Search Console to showcase INP scores.

This email caused panic amongst site owners, however there’s still time to prepare for the FID transition. Site owners should also be reminded that Core Web Vitals is not a direct ranking signal but rather a lateral understanding of whether your site offers a good page experience.

Google News Indexing Bug Fixed

If your publication saw a drop in traffic from the backend of June, it’s possible you were affected by a bug which caused issues with indexing within Google News.

The bug was identified by Google on the 10th of July and a fix was implemented on the 12th. Immediately publications saw an improvement in their traffic.

Google to Retire Related Search Operator

Google confirmed in July that the related search operator is to be retired as it “hasn’t really worked that well for some time”. 

The related search operator would allow users to find sites that related to the URL they were searching for. For example: “related:https://fusionunlimited.co.uk/”, in theory, would return similar digital marketing agencies.

It may be the case that this search operator’s function is best suited for Google Search Generative Experience or Bard, and is no longer needed in this new era of AI integrated search.

If you used this operator in your day to day, it might be worth letting the robots take over!

Google’s Misrepresentation Policy Receives Update

Google updated its Misrepresentation policy in July to detail how marketers can build trust.

The policy outlines how brands can guarantee that their products and/or offers are served in Search.

The document explains that there are four issues that need to be addressed to build trust:

1. Business Identity:

• Provide your official business name that is used across the web and make sure this matches your registered business and domain name.
• Make sure your website has an “about us” page to demonstrate authenticity and show customers your unique story.
• Include social media links on your website.

2. Transparency:

• Have clear and detailed information regarding your policies including shipping, returns, and privacy.
• Outline your business model and how your business operates.

3. Online reputation:

• Provide potential customers with an understanding of how to use your products or how other customers have used them.
• Include reviews and testimonials about your products and business.
• Make sure to mention badges or seals of approval from official third-party sources.
• Communicate clearly how customers can interact with your business by providing contact information and customer support.
• Make sure your customers know if you publish a blog post or were mentioned in an article.

4. Professional design:

• Get an SSL certificate so customers know how their data is retrieved and stored securely.
• Your brand’s website should be easily accessible for all customers, easily navigable, and shouldn’t contain unnecessary redirects or redirects to broken links.
• Avoid text and image placeholders so that your site doesn’t give the feeling of being unfinished.

Google also detailed how you can assist them in learning more about your business:

• Update your Business information settings in Merchant Center.
• Link relevant third-party platforms to Merchant Center.
• Create and verify a Google Business Profile.
• Follow Google’s SEO guidelines to improve online visibility and provide a good page experience.
• Opt into Google Customer Reviews, or other third-party review services, to improve your eligibility for seller ratings.
• Make sure your product data in your product feed match your website to guarantee customers see the same information and prices across both.

Google Mark AI-generated Reviews as Spam in new Merchant Center Policy

Last week a new Google Merchant Center policy was posted regarding automated content alongside a bunch of other policy clarifications.

The post outlined that using AI or automated programming for generating reviews is against the Google Merchant Center policies and will be considered spam.

“Automated Content: We don’t allow reviews that are primarily generated by an automated program or artificial intelligence application. If you have identified such content, it should be marked as spam in your feed using the <is_spam> attribute.”

As AI cannot buy or use a product (…yet), it makes sense that a human must generate a review to give an unbiased understanding of what the product is and its quality. 

Google Launches Site Name Updates

Google has added further support for site names following their last update in May.

The previous update introduced support for subdomains on mobile for English, French, German, and Japanese. This new update now supports subdomains in these languages on all devices.

They also updated the site names system to “increase its ability to make selections that are representative of sites listed in search results.”

Google reminds us in this post that the best way to express your proffered site name is to use Website structured data which is explained in its site name documentation.

The site name documentation also has been updated to encourage site owners to use the alternateName property. Google explains that sometimes, your preferred site name isn’t available for use and providing an alternative name can allow their system to consider other options.

Whilst this is rare in case, it may be possible that Google’s system might not select either a preferred or alternative site name. If this is the case for you, Google has published a workaround.

Universal Analytics is Still Alive

A month after we mourned the loss of Universal Analytics (UA), it seems it’s still processing data.

It was previously stated that all site owners would be moved over to Google Analytics 4 (GA4) by the 30th of June 2023 or they would lose all tracking data, however this currently doesn’t seem to be the case.

It may be possible that UA is still processing data due to a small uptake in GA4 migration, however don’t get too comfortable as the full migration to GA4 is inevitable. If you need some assistance with moving over to GA4, get in touch and we would be happy to assist.

PPC Market Updates

Google Ads Launches Gen Z Music Lineup Tool

If you’re looking to expand your audience but your brand isn’t ‘down with the kids’, there’s a new tool that could help you diversify your advertising.

Google’s Gen Z Music lineup was launched last month and is a paid-for feature that uses data from audio, long-form, and YouTube shorts to identify cool and hip music (disclaimer: the author of this blog is 27 years old).

The tool uses this data to package trending music videos into the Gen Z Music lineup which then can be bought by marketers. After purchasing, advertisers can then serve their campaigns alongside content that plays the songs.

Google Ads Editor Version 2.4 Bring 8 New Features

Google Ads Editor version 2.4 is live, and with it is 8 new features for advertisers to take advantage of:

• Video asset library: All videos used in the account can now be found here. Access the feature by going to Shared Library > Asset Library > Videos. 
• Multi-account overview: Previously the overview tab could only show one account at a time, now it shows a summary across multiple accounts
• Google Drive integration: Editor now supports exporting to or importing from Google Drive.
• Scheduled Post: your posts can now be scheduled for a specific time.
• Editable product groups and listing groups: Previously you could only manipulate product groups and listing groups via CSV, now they can be added and modified within Editor. 
• One YouTube Network: Video campaigns now target YouTube Search and YouTube video networks, as a result these options have been removed from the Editor and only the Video Partners setting remains.
• Video enhancement opt-out: Enable or disable video enhancements for Video campaigns.
• Download: previously known as “Get recent changes”, this feature allows you to download previously downloaded campaigns, item types, and optimise downloaded data.

Google Rolls Out Performance Max Updates and Upgrades

July saw back to back additions to the Performance Max suite: Google Display Ad & Dynamic Search Ads upgrades and Collections.

Dynamic Search Ads and Google Display Ads

These opt-in campaign upgrades are available to all advertisers. Those who would like to take advantage can do so via a self-serve tool that should appear within your accounts.

These upgrades will give advertisers access to new tools that are aimed at maximising campaign performance and user experience. These include: 

• an inventory-aware ad serving feature that makes sure out-of-stock pages are not served within Search ads by automatically factoring in your brand’s product inventory.
• Google AI will use your campaign’s creative assets to find more converting search queries.

You can find the full post here.

Collections

This new PMax feature allows advertisers to combine products and create collections for ads or product listings.

Google explained that a collection “represents a group of products”, that a collection is “defined once, but can be used in multiple ways”, and each collection “can include up to 100 products”

As of right now, collections is still in pilot mode with no official roll out plan.

Struggling to Keep Up With Google?

We hope this run-down of the latest algorithm and product updates has helped you keep pace with the hectic search landscape. If you need further assistance with any individual items referenced in this blog, please get in touch and we’d be happy to help.