There has been some exciting news from Google This Week with the announcement today of continuous scroll on mobile Google Search. Earth Engine is expanding to commercial customers, there are now 3D product images in the Search results snippet, plus there are updates to Google Search Console with new features for Search Console tools and a logging change in the performance report.
ICYMI, here’s what happened at Google This Week.
- Big Moments for Breaking News
- New Features for Search Console Tools
- Google Enables Pharmacies in France to Promote OTC Drugs
- Earth Engine Expanding to Commercial Customers
- 3D Product Images in Search Results Snippet
- Logging Change in Performance Report in GSC
- Google Search to Continuously Scroll on Mobile
Big Moments for Breaking News
Google is developing a ‘Big Moments’ feature for breaking news which aims to highlight important information about breaking news events in real-time. The Information reported that Big Moments has been in development for over a year. Google wants to be peoples’ one-stop source for news. Big Moments may list authoritative facts around breaking news such as deaths and injury counts. It will partially rely on the machine learning capabilities added to Google News in 2018.
New Features for Search Console Tools
Google is making changes to the AMP, Mobile Friendly and Rich Results tools, improving their designs and features to be fully aligned with the URL inspection tool. The changes include the standardisation of previous features, plus new features you may already know from the URL inspection tool.
From now, the following fields will be reported both on public testing and URL inspection tools:
- Page availability
- HTTP headers
- Page screenshot
- Paired AMP inspection
Google Enables Pharmacies in France to Promote OTC Drugs
Google is updating the Healthcare & medicines policy to enable online pharmacies in France to promote the sale of approved non-prescription (over-the-counter) drugs. Online pharmacies will need to be registered with the Pharmacists Guild and certified merchants. Starting November 1, online pharmacies in France can apply for certification.
Earth Engine Expanding to Commercial Customers
Google is expanding Earth Engine with a commercial offering for select customers in preview as part of its integration with Google Cloud Platform.
“Organizations in the public sector and businesses can now use insights from Earth Engine to solve sustainability-related problems, such as building sustainable supply chains, committing to deforestation-free lending, preparing for recovery from weather-related events and reducing operational water use.”
3D Product Images in Search Results Snippet
Google can now show 3D product images that rotate within the search result snippet. Google announced more visually browsable search results with larger images at the Search On event. This now includes 3D product images. Search Engine Roundtable stated that the feature appears to be coming from the 3D/AR images Google search feature that was talked a lot about in 2020 and 2019.
Logging Change in Performance Report in GSC
Google has updated the performance report in Google Search Console. Google had added an annotation to September 13, 2021. Google wrote “Due to a logging change, you may see an increase in the number of clicks and impressions for Good Page Experience search appearance for the “News” search type filter. This change does not reflect a change in user behavior or search results, only a change in Search Console logging.” If you experience a spike in your data, this may be why.
Google Search to Continuously Scroll on Mobile
Google announced today that it is changing how search results show on mobile devices for US-English users. When users reach the bottom of the search results page, Google will automatically load the next page of results. Pages will continue to automatically load until approximately four pages are shown. The change is rolling out today and will continue over the next two weeks.
Google stated that this does not affect how the ad auction works or the way Ad Rank is calculated. Google said that now text ads will show up at the top of the second page and beyond, while fewer text ads will show at the bottom of each page.
“Search, Shopping, and Local campaigns that serve ads on US-English queries may see more mobile impressions, which could result in lower CTR. We expect clicks, conversions, average CPC, and average CPA to remain flat. Additionally, Search campaigns may see more impressions from top ads and fewer impressions from bottom ads. To understand your performance based on where your text ads show on the search results page, consider segmenting your performance data by “Top vs. Other” and reviewing your prominence metrics. There is no change to these reports.”
Thank You for Reading
Have you noticed any changes from Google this week?
Check back next Friday for the latest from Google This Week.
