Daily Archives: February 20, 2020

Google has launched a new structured data element for image license metadata that allows Google Images to show a licensable image label in the search results. The CEPIC, the European picture agency, wrote about this on its blog saying “We are happy to share now that Google Images is releasing a metadata framework through Schema.org for licensable images. Google will also be supporting the IPTC metadata standard. Content creators and distributors will be able to include the licensing information for pictures on their site, and it will be reflected on Google Images.” What is looks like. Here is a screen shot that shows the licensable label or badge in the […]

“You can view the rater guidelines as where we want the search algorithm to go,” Ben Gomes, head of search for Google, once explained to CNBC. Gomes’ statement highlights the document’s relationship with Google’s algorithm, yet despite its relevance for publishers and SEOs, the quality rater guidelines (QRG) remain an intimidating resource for many digital marketers. At SMX West in San Jose, Jennifer Slegg, editor for The SEM Post, discussed how Google views the QRG, what quality raters do, and explained four of the guidelines’ most important themes for publishers. Quality raters are not SEO professionals and do not know whether algorithm changes that get tested will actually go live. […]

SAN JOSE – The rise of digital commerce is causing a sort of “renaissance” in today’s largest digital marketplaces, Search Engine Land Editor-in-Chief Ginny Marvin said Wednesday during her keynote at SMX West. This rebirth is driven by retailers that, seeing the monumental growth of Amazon, are seeking out richer ways to integrate and monetize their own first-party shopper data. Walmart Marketplace is one example, as is Microsoft’s acquisition of PromoteIQ which powers sponsored product ads that can be attributed to in-store and online sales among other capabilities for retailers like Kroger. First-party data is powerful – and is enabling brands to own direct, one-on-one relationships with consumers. Marvin also […]

E-commerce category pages represent a larger opportunity for ranking and driving organic search traffic than product detail pages, according to research unveiled at SMX West 2020 on Thursday. Across nearly 30 top U.S., e-commerce sites ranking for more than 25 billion keywords, category pages outperformed product detail pages, driving more keyword rankings and estimated traffic, as well as showing higher potential to capture additional traffic with optimization. The data – culled by JumpFly and seoClarity from Google’s rankings in the U.S. – highlight the outsized role that category pages play in upper-funnel marketing efforts to drive brand awareness and interest. Specifically, e-commerce category pages – which include parent category, subcategory […]

Google posted about how it continues to build out Maps with community content on Thursday. It cited the myriad contributions made by its more than 120 million Local Guides. It also discussed spam, which it said represents less than 1% of the 20 million daily contributions it receives on Maps. Machine learning to detect spam. To combat listings spam, policy-violating images and fake reviews, the company says it uses “a combination of people and technology.” In addition to community reported spam (e.g., reviews), Google says its machine learning models “watch out for specific words and phrases” and various content patterns to detect suspicious content. Despite Google’s claims of diligence, there’s […]