In this week’s digital news to watch, our Senior Performance Marketing Executive, Kylie discusses everything you need to know about Google’s Page Experience update, Bing’s new content submission API and how popular retailers are moving into the metaverse to attract potential customers.
Google Page Experience update finished rolling out
Google announced on Twitter last week that their Page Experience update, started on the 15th June, has fully rolled out.
The focus has predominantly been on Core Web Vitals over the past year that the SEO community have been talking about this, but there are other factors to consider. As a reminder, the four categories for Page Experience tanking factors are:
• Core Web Vitals
• Mobile Friendly
• HTTPS
• No intrusive interstitials
Whilst the impact of this doesn’t seem to be quite what we expected this time last year, this update is still worth paying attention to as the above factors are still important ranking factors.
Although it was previously believed that these ranking factors could be perceived as more of a “tie breaker”, the official Google Search Central page for the Page Experience ranking factors states:
“…in cases where there are many pages that may be similar in relevance, page experience can be much more important for visibility in Search”
We strongly recommend keeping an eye on this over time using your Google Search Console reports and, if you haven’t already, work on improving these as much as possible.
AMP pages no longer required to appear in Google News
Another announcement from Google revealed that, as part of the Page Experience update, the Google News app will improve its support for we content, displaying both AMP and non-AMP content.
Previously, using AMP was a requirement to show up in Google News. So, for publishers who never used AMP, due to the trade-off of giving up some control over page assets, this is good news. It does, however, mean you could have some work to do, even though Google stated that “no action is required of you to enable this”, which is only true if you already appear in Google News.
Google News works a little differently to standard Google Search. Instead of bots crawling and indexing as much web content as they can find, Google News doesn’t actively seek out content to index. Instead, publishers must manually apply and meet certain criteria to appear. For more information on how to get your site listed in google news read more here.
Bing Content Submission API now available
Last week, Microsoft announced that site owners can now push all of their content directly to Bing Search, using the Bing content submission API, without the need for crawling.
The API means that site owners can push not only URLs, but content, images, HTML and more directly to Bing as soon as any site changes happen or new content is published, so they don’t have to wait for it to be crawled. This will help you to get your content appearing in Bing Search faster and will also reduce BingBot crawl load on your site.
Fake news fuels Facebook clicks
A recent report into the misinformation shared on Facebook has highlighted that fake and agenda-driven news overshadows and drowns out factual content.
Researchers from New York University and the Université Grenoble Alpes in France conduced a behavioural study of Facebook users and found that during the 2020 US election, these sharers of misinformation were generating six times as many clicks as authoritative sources such as CNN or the World Health Organization.
The future of retail through the metaverse
Hyundai and Vans are the latest marketers to experiment with the metaverse on Roblox, an online gaming platform and game creation system. Just so you’re up to speed, the metaverse is a collective virtual shared space, created by the convergence of virtually enhanced reality.
Automotive retailer Hyundai have created the “Hyundai Mobility Adventure“, a shared virtual space of its kind, which features five themed parks and showcases the company’s future products, in the hopes of familiarising young consumers with their offerings. This will launch in October after a beta test.
Similarly, Vans have built the “Van World skatepark” which is an online venue where Roblox players can gather to practice tricks and try on virtual gear, including four customisable shoe silhouettes. Is this what the future holds for retail?
Are you looking for support with your digital marketing? Our team of specialists in SEO, PPC and affiliate marketing are happy to help. Drop us an email on team@modo25.com to find out how we could work together.
