Webmaster

When the COVID lockdowns began in March, Google local business profiles saw a massive drop-off in directions requests and a corresponding spike in local calls and website clicks (61% increase in calls). Since that time, call volumes fluctuated but, according to CallRail, have now stabilized at levels that are 27% …

COVID-19 has taken a disproportionately large toll on Tripadvisor’s two primary customer audiences, hotels and restaurants, which have seen double-digit revenue declines compared with 2019. The company has been trying to help these groups with a number of new products and services that meet perceived needs and generate new subscription …

  Roku is the world’s most popular connected-TV platform with almost 40 million active accounts. This number is expected to climb even higher, which will also boost the ad revenue Roku channel owners collect per annum. Statistical trends, effectiveness and the simplicity of doing business with Roku are the main …

Recently I’ve seen people mention the difficulty of generating content that can garner massive attention and links. They suggest that maybe it’s better to focus on content without such potential that can earn just a few links but do it more consistently and at higher volumes. In some cases, this …

Following the lead of Apple’s Safari and Mozilla’s Firefox, this January Google announced the end of support for third-party cookies in Chrome by 2022. Simultaneously, the company promoted its “Privacy Sandbox” initiative as an industry collaboration to develop new privacy friendly methods of audience targeting that don’t rely on unique IDs or …

Along with updates for merchants’ holiday Shopping campaign efforts, on Thursday, Google announced consumer-facing updates in Shopping that retail marketers should pay attention to — particularly as it relates to the importance of pricing and promotions. Retail advertisers will also have access to more reporting and performance insights for Shopping …

As we head into the holiday season, Facebook is rolling out several new features for e-commerce marketers and brands. It is also launching promotional support for Black-owned businesses and training and software discounts for small businesses. Instagram ads with product tags. For more than a year, Instagram has been testing …

  Explore Silicon Valley and you’ll see the bubble-topped Waymo minivans essentially “self-teaching” how to drive without a human in charge. In air transportation, the largest and most modern jets are becoming almost foolproof, with the pilots in command for less and less of any given flight. Automation is great… …

At its virtual SearchOn event Thursday, Google made a range of announcements about how it’s making search more sophisticated and user friendly. The company also announced that it now uses its natural language understanding BERT algorithm on almost every query to better understand search intent. Many of the announcements shared …

After 10 months since the last update to the Search Quality Raters guidelines (PDF), Google has pushed out another update. The update came out Wednesday night. The Search Quality Raters guidelines document is now 175 pages, up from 168 at the last update on December 5, 2019. What is new? …