News in brief from the world of Search and marketing:
Google publishes Search trends for May 2022
How Google generates titles for documents with language or script misalignment
New features for Instagram Reels
Google Ads - preparing for the end of Expanded Text Ads
Google publishes Search trends for May 2022
Google’s global insights for the month of May show people are budget and eco conscious and also preparing for summer. 70% of consumers across surveyed countries reported concerns about the rising costs.
Budgeting concerns are reflected in searches both for essentials (searches for cheap food near me up 70% year on year) and budgeting for non-essentials (cheapest countries to visit up 7,000% year on year).
People are getting ready for summer (water park ticket, sundress) and searches show increased interest in eco-friendly transport solutions (searches for best electric cars up 100% year on year, electric bike price up over 40% year on year).
Check out the blog post by Think with Google for more details.
How Google handles titles for documents with language or script misalignment
Google introduced a change to the way web titles were generated last August. It has now rolled out an "algorithmic improvement" that identifies documents where the title element is in a different language or script from its content and which may modify the title for the search result snippet. This is “based on the general principle that a document’s title should be written by the language or script of its primary contents”.
Multilingual titles repeat the same phrase with two different languages or scripts. In the example below, the title expresses the same content in two languages (Hindi and English):
गीतांजलि की जीवनी - Geetanjali Biography in Hindi
If the document itself is only in Hindi, Google’s system will detect the inconsistency and might use only the Hindi headline text:
गीतांजलि की जीवनी
Latin scripted titles have content transliterated from one language to another that uses a different script or alphabet. This example shows a page title for a song written in Hindi, but transliterated to Latin characters:
jis desh me holi kheli jati hai
The system would try and find an alternative title using the script that’s predominant on the page, in this case Hindi:
जिस देश में होली खेली जाती है
Google’s advice is to follow good practice by providing a title which matches the language and/or the script of the page's main content.
See Google's blog post for more details.
New features for Instagram Reels
Instagram has released a set of new features and functionality for Reels. These are:
- A refreshed collection of sound effects.
- Import your own audio - add from any video at least 5 seconds long on your camera roll. These will be available also for others to use in their Reels.
- Increased length for Reels - now extended to up to 90 seconds.
- Interactive stickers: previously only available on Stories, enabling further audience engagement via polls, quizzes and emoji sliders.
Full details on Instagram’s blog post.
Google Ads - preparing for the end of Expanded Text Ads
A reminder: Google is to sunset Expanded Text Ads this month. After 30 June, advertisers will no longer be able to create or edit ETAs in standard Search campaigns.
Existing ETAs will continue to serve alongside Responsive Search Ads and advertisers will still be able to pause, resume or remove them.
Google has published a blog post with detailed advice on how to prepare for the change, and also a Search Ads automation guide for advertisers which aims to ease concerns and provide guidance on best practice:
Unlock the Power of Search - Inside Search automation with Google Ads.
The sunsetting of ETAs is another step in Google’s continuing push to automation, which leaves advertisers with less scope to make changes and more reliant on Google’s technology for the effectiveness of ads.
