SEO Wash-up Monday 24th September

Google Updates

Google instant apps in mobile search results – On Android devices, when you search Google, you may see a link for instant apps. This is when Google lets you try apps without installing them. Typically you would see these links in the Google Play store to try out the app before you install it on your mobile device. But sometimes they also show in Google mobile search on Android devices.

Google tests new video search results box – You will now see a new user interface for videos showing up in the mobile search results. Usually you would get a carousel of videos, but now you should see a large video at the top, with two videos below and the option to show more videos. When you expand the videos, it shows a whole range of videos below.

Google My Business adds localized business names – Google My Business lets you now edit the localized version of the business name. However, it is not currently available in the Google My Business dashboard but it is available when you edit a Google My Business listing directly in web search.

Google Ads tests headlines and URL without descriptions – The search giants are testing an ad format on mobile search where they remove the description section from the ad. The ad copy is removed, so the only thing you see are the headlines and URL. This was being tested on mobile in the bottom ad units.

Bing Updates

Bing drops public URL submit to index tool – Bing announced they have dropped their public submission tool just like Google did back in July. So, the way to submit any URL to the Bing index anonymously has been removed. They mention that the URLs received are by far too low quality to be trustable, and that webmasters prefer having more ownership of the URLs for their site. If you want your URLs indexed quicker, then you can simply login to Bing Webmaster Tools and use the feature within the tool itself.

Bing adds AMP to search results – Bing has rolled out AMP to the news section of the search results. Therefore, if your site comes up in Bing search news and has AMP, whilst searching in the United States, then you will see the AMP lightning bolt next to those stories and when you click on the story, you will get served the AMP version.

Bing Ads gives advertisers machine learning-powered insights – Bing Ads announced that they are rolling out the first set in a series of machine learning-powered insights. This will help advertisers to analyse performance and take action more quickly in their accounts.

• Competition tab – Bing added a tab for auction insights and another for recommendations. The auction insights reporting includes trending charts of how the advertisers account has managed against the competition over time and more. The recommendations tab provides automated insights based on ads of the account and its competitors.
• Performance insights –This is a notification which advertisers can click to see the root of cause analysis of why there was a spike or dip in the performance.
• Location targeting recommendations – These appear wherever advertisers can manage location targets in Bing Ads. It will suggest locations that similar advertisers have had success targeting. However, the location targeting recommendations will be based on the locations where the advertiser does business.