It’s been an interesting week at Google This Week with a new Mobile Search Feature: ‘People Search Next’, ‘Indexifembedded’ Robot Tag For Iframes Indexing, Favicons In Google Text Ads, Smart Shopping and Local Campaign Upgrades to Performance Max, and more.
ICYMI, here’s what happened at Google This Week.
- New Google Mobile Search Feature: ‘People Search Next’
- Google Updates Product Structured Data For Car Review Snippets
- Google Releases ‘Indexifembedded’ Robot Tag For Iframes Indexing
- Confirmed Bug With Google Ads Discovery & Performance Max Campaign
- Google Ads Tests Favicons In Text Ads
- Google Drops Federated Learning Of Cohorts (FLoC) And Launches Topics
- Google Ads Scripts Now Supports Asset-Based Video Ads
- Smart Shopping And Local Campaign Upgrades To Performance Max
- Google Search Console Logging Issue May Cause Drop In Image Search Performance Data
New Google Mobile Search Feature: ‘People Search Next’
Google has confirmed a new feature in its mobile SERP called ‘People search next‘, meant to “help people more easily get to and see popular next searches based on what they’re searching. The People Search Next search feature is currently available on mobile in the U.S. for English-language queries.
It joins other Google search features like People also ask, People also search for, Refine this search, and Related searches. Google says that People search next will appear “when our systems have a good sense of what might be a helpful next search.”
Google Updates Product Structured Data For Car Review Snippets
Google has updated the structured data for car review snippets by adding a note to the product structured data help documentation explaining how to specify car markup and still have Product review snippet feature eligibility.
Google said “currently car is not supported automatically as a subtype of Product.” “So for now, you will need to include both Car and Product types if you would like to attach ratings to it and be eligible for the Search feature,” Google added. Here is a screenshot of this new note added to the help document:
Google Releases ‘Indexifembedded’ Robot Tag For Iframes Indexing
Google introduced a new robots tag called indexifembedded which makes it easy to crawl pages marked with noindex tag and embedded in third party pages through iframes.
The new robots tag works in combination with the noindex tag only when the page with noindex is embedded into another page through an iframe or similar HTML tag, like object. The indexifembedded is ideal for content publishers who don’t want their pages to be indexed by Googlebot but would have no problem if their content is indexed when embedded in external websites or pages via iframes.
Confirmed Bug With Google Ads Discovery & Performance Max Campaign
A technical issue that impacted the serving of ads on YouTube inventory between January 18 and January 21, 2022, for some Discovery and Performance Max campaigns, has been resolved and Google’s ad delivery systems are now working as intended.
Here is the official statement from Google:
“Our team uncovered a temporary technical issue that affected serving on YouTube inventory between January 18 and January 21 for a subset of Discovery campaigns and a small portion of Performance Max campaigns. We have resolved the issue and everything is now working as intended.”
Google Ads Tests Favicons In Text Ads
Google’s Ads product liaison Ginny Marvin has confirmed that the company is running a small experiment by including a favicon beside the URL in text ads, which might help users to easily identify an advertiser.
Ginny Marvin confirmed what Burk tweeted about is part of a small, ongoing test for advertisers. According to Marvin:
“This is part of a series of small experiments to help users more easily identify the brand or advertiser associated with the Search ads they may see for a given query.”
Google Drops Federated Learning Of Cohorts (FLoC) And Launches Topics
Google will replace Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC) with a new Privacy Sandbox proposal for interest-based advertising called ‘Topics’. The new proposal determines Topic API to share with sites and advertisers based on the user’s previous three weeks of browsing history.
The successor “Topics” that is now being presented aims to eliminate the biggest point of criticism – users have more insight, the data no longer belongs exclusively to Google, the history is automatically deleted after a few weeks, website operators are no longer left out.
Google Ads Scripts Now Supports Asset-Based Video Ads
Google has announced Google Ads scripts now supports the new asset-based video ads, replacing the previous media-based video ads.
Advertisers have until February 28, 2022, to migrate their code from the previous media-based video ads, or else your script will begin to fail with errors after that date. Media-based video ads will no longer be supported. For those that haven’t created a new video ad, you aren’t affected.
Smart Shopping And Local Campaign Upgrades To Performance Max
Google Ads will automatically transition its existing Smart Shopping campaigns into Performance Max campaigns between July and Sept 2022. Google will also launch a “one-click” self-service tool for advertisers that would like to transition their campaigns ahead of the deadline.
You’ll get the same foundational features of Smart Shopping and Local campaigns while accessing brand new inventory and formats across YouTube, Search text ads and Discover. From early testing, advertisers who upgrade Smart Shopping campaigns to Performance Max see an average increase of 12% in conversion value at the same or better return-on-ad-spend (ROAS).
Here’s a preview of the upgrade process so you know what to expect and how to plan ahead to set your campaigns up for success.
Google Search Console Logging Issue May Cause Drop In Image Search Performance Data
Google announced a “logging issue” with Google “Search data for images” that’s currently still ongoing since January 24, 2022, which may result in a drop in the number of clicks and impressions you see in your Google Search Console Performance reports for images.
Google confirmed that the “issue is a logging issue only.” Google added that “it does not reflect a drop in either user behaviour or search results on Google” and that the search company is “working on resolving this issue.”
Thank You for Reading
Have you noticed Google’s new mobile search feature ‘People Search Next’ or any other changes from Google this week?
Check back next Friday for the latest from Google This Week.
