More help for hacked sites – Google was quick off the mark in October with news that it had increased its pool of resources for hacked sites. The search engine has seen a 180% surge in requests for help with hacked sites already this year, it says. As part of its new measures it says its tools have been improved and communication has been upgraded, with more personal help offered to webmasters.
The millennials are coming – the millennials were big news in October. Guest blogger Chris Woods rounded up all of the latest facts and figures surrounding their digital habits, concluding with practical advice for businesses marketing to that age group. This information has never been more relevant, as a survey released towards the end of the moth also suggested a big shift in social media habits…
Snapchat overtakes Facebook- The Piper Jaffray semiannual survey of American teens which was released towards the middle of the month demonstrated just how powerful the millennials are with Snapchat and Instagram pushing out Facebook in the popularity stakes.
Another new algorithm – At the end of October Google said that it had rolled out a new algorithm which would impact 5% of search queries. It will de-index pages that it considers to be the result of spam or hacking. For some search terms, users will notice fewer results being provided as a direct result of this change.
Yahoo and Google ink new PPC deal – Google and Yahoo turned back the clock with news that they were partnering up on a new search deal. The agreement would see Yahoo serving some of Google’s PPC inventory up on its search results page.
Yahoo named as a cause of PPC ad spend slowdown – Yahoo made headlines for all the wrong reasons at the start of the month as an analyst’s report suggested its Gemini platform could behind a dip in paid search spend in the US.
Yet another new algorithm – New algorithms continued apace at Google as the month drew to a close. It revealed it had been using a machine learning algorithm named RankBrain for the last few months to help make sense of new search queries.
The real cost of ad blocking software – Guest blogger Matthew Zajechowski’s latest infographic estimated that ad blockers cost Google around $1.86 billion annually, but publishers and advertisers also suffer.
