It’s been an interesting week at Google This Week with the company consolidating Smart and standard Display campaigns. There’s now a Google Ads Remarketing tag for server-side containers in Google Tag Manager and there are changes to unique product identifier enforcements on free listings in Merchant Center. Time-saving features have been added to Display & Video 360 and there’s news around Google removing the visit website button in Google Hotel Search results.
ICYMI, here’s what happened at Google This Week.
- New Capabilities for YouTube Creators
- Google Ads Remarketing Tag for Server-side Containers
- Changes to Unique Product Identifier Enforcement on Free Listings
- More Timesaving Features for Display & Video 360
- Smart Internal Linking Helps Google Trust Your Site
- Google Merges Smart and Standard Display Campaigns
- Google Hotel Search Results Removed Link to Website
New Capabilities for YouTube Creators
YouTube is adding additional features for YouTube creators. The new capabilities include:
- Evergreen video insights
- Trending hashtags
- AdSense blocking controls
- Bulk editing of video chapters
- Appeal of yellow monetisation icons in Studio Mobile
With AdSense blocking controls, creators can now indicate specific ads or ad types they don’t want to appear on their channel. This feature was previously only available to channels in the YouTube Partner Program. Now multi-channel affiliate networks (MCNs) have access.
Google Ads Remarketing Tag for Server-side Containers
Google Tag Manager has released a Google Ads Remarketing tag for server-side containers. This means you can now move your Google Ads remarketing tags from the webpage to the server to reduce the amount of code you have to run in the page which can help improve page load times.
Changes to Unique Product Identifier Enforcement on Free Listings
Google is expanding the enforcement of unique product identifiers (UPIs) to products listed in free listings in Google Ads. This specifically includes the enforcement for multiple different products using the same Global Trade Item Number (GTIN). Beginning 15 September 2021 “different products that use the same GTIN with the same variant attributes will be considered ambiguous and will be disapproved.” If a group of products are identified as duplicates, only one will remain active and eligible for free listings.
More Timesaving Features for Display & Video 360
Google is adding enhanced time-saving features in Display & Video 360 to combined, insertion order and line item views. These are the same time-saving functionalities found in combined view, plus new enhancements. You can pin which tab you want as your default and see improvements in how you see, filter and edit insertion orders and line items.
Smart Internal Linking Helps Google Trust Your Site
In an SEO Office Hours talk, Google’s John Mueller explained that new sites can use internal linking to funnel Google through the most trusted and quality pages on the site to earn trust before Google crawls more and more of the pages over time after earning that trust. At the end of his explanation, he said, “you have to create a more funnelled web structure in the beginning and then over time as you see that Google is doing more and more on your website then expand that and expand that step by step until you’ve reached kind of your end situation where Google is actually actively indexing all of the content on your website.” You can find this part of the chat at the 18:25 mark.
Google Merges Smart and Standard Display Campaigns
Google is merging Smart Display campaigns and standard Display campaigns into a single Display campaign. With new Display campaigns, you’ll have all of the reach and performance you’re used to and you’ll be able to choose the level of automation you prefer in bidding, creatives and audiences. You’ll also have the ability to change your automation choices at any point, without creating a new campaign. Google has also introduced optimized targeting to Display campaigns to replicate audience targeting previously available to Smart Display campaigns. Advanced advertisers can continue to add manual audience-finding options from standard Display campaigns for added control.
Google Hotel Search Results Removed Link to Website
According to multiple accounts yesterday, including Search Engine Roundtable, Google dropped the “website” button on the Google hotel search listings. The button on the listing detail page would take you to the hotel’s own website. Yesterday, the button was removed. It may have been a bug or a test. I have checked and I am seeing the website button has returned thankfully. I am hopeful that this was a bug, and Google is not testing this out to potentially remove in future.
Thank You for Reading
Have you noticed any changes from Google this week?
Check back next Friday for the latest from Google This Week.
