Greg Sterling says, “This afternoon Google parent Alphabet delivered a strong quarter, beating Wall Street’s revenue and earnings expectations. Revenues grew at 20 percent year over year. Net income was $6.3 billion. Total quarterly revenues were $22.25 billion (ad revenues were $19.8 billion), while so-called “other bets” generated $197 million (mostly Nest and Fiber). That was an increase vs. last year. There was also a smaller loss of $865 million on other bets compared to a year ago. Paid clicks were up an impressive 33 percent (Google website clicks were up 42 percent) however... [...]

Brian Ussery says, “With little fanfare, earlier this year Google rolled out a way to embed 360-degree VR media for headsets in search engine optimizable web pages accessible via desktop and mobile. That’s right, immersive VR videos and images for VR headsets can now be optimized for search, accessed directly from Google and experienced on desktops and mobile devices, with or without the need for a native mobile app or VR headset. (Full disclosure: I own stock in Google.) Considering Google has shipped over five million Cardboard VR headsets, and over 12 million VR headsets are expected... [...]

Matt McGee says, “Google on Monday announced a few mobile-related upgrades for Google Tag Manager. For starters, there’s news that Tag Manager now supports Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP), which opens up a variety of new measurement opportunities, as Google’s Ben Gram explains in the announcement: While implementing measurement solutions on AMP pages has already been possible, it can be confusing and cumbersome for folks who are new to AMP or who have tagging needs beyond tracking a basic page view. That’s why, in addition to Google Analytics, AMP containers in Tag Manager provide support... [...]

Todd Saunders says, ““OK Google, tell me how creepy things are going to get.” How would your 2006 selves respond to our advertising toolbox of today? You can target ads to people based on their income level who are also currently at the airportwith advanced geotargeting! You can follow your potential customers around with the very products they looked at but decided not to buy with dynamic remarketing. You can trigger ads to people based on what they say inside their emails with Gmail Ads. Much of what we internet users and advertisers deem as normal would have been considered creepy or... [...]

Ayaz Nanji says, “Google’s search engine is displaying fewer organic results on it first page this year than it was last year, and it’s increasingly presenting different experiences for desktop and smartphone users, according to recent research from Searchmetrics. The report was based on 2016 data from 500,000 general, frequently searched keywords. The researchers examined the first Google search results page for each term and analyzed how 11 features (text results, product listing ads, images, news, maps, etc.) were integrated. Whereas Google used to almost always display 10... [...]

Patricio Robles says, “If you needed any more evidence that mobile has taken over the world, you got it last week when news broke that Google is going to be creating a dedicated mobile index. Here’s what you need to know about it. It’s coming in a few months According to Google’s Gary Illyes, the new mobile index will be launched within “months.” So it’s right around the corner. It will be made the primary index Perhaps the most important aspect of Google’s announcement is that the new mobile index will be made the primary index. The decision isn’t... [...]

Ryan Shelley says, “The only constant in the world of SEO is change. In fact, Google is reported to change its search algorithm around 500 to 600 times each year.  While most of these updates are small and often aren’t even picked up by users and SEO, every once in a while, Google releases major updates. Over the past two years alone, we’ve seen about nine major updates to the algorithm. The two most recent, “Possum” (released on September 1, 2016) and Penguin 4.0 (released on September 23, 2016) caused a lot of stir in the SEO community. Over my years in the SEO community,... [...]

Matt McGee says, “Google has announced big changes to its four-year-old Google Consumer Surveys product. It’s essentially splitting the tool in two: a new version specifically for enterprise-level marketers that’s integrated into the Analytics 360 Suite, and the existing consumer-level survey tool that’s been renamed and moved under the Google Analytics umbrella. Google is also promising changes in design and functionality to the latter. New: Google Surveys 360 The new enterprise-level tool announced today is Google Surveys 360, which sits inside the Google Analytics 360 Suite. With... [...]

Ginny Marvin says, “Advertisers can now get forecasts for their existing keywords, in addition to campaigns, in Keyword Planner. If you haven’t checked out this feature in Keyword Planner, it’s worth taking a look. After clicking on the “Select from account” button shown above, there is an option to select Campaign or Keyword from a drop-down. After making your selections, the tool offers performance forecasting and various looks at search volume trends. In the performance forecast screen, you can see how changes in bids could affect performance for the campaigns or keywords selected.... [...]

Tony Edward says, “Google has been testing a new content platform called “Posts with Google,” and it could have a huge impact on brand searches, for both paid and organic. We all know that Google has had its struggles with trying to develop its own social network; Google Buzz is dead, and Google Plus seems to be on its way out. This new platform seems to have some social elements to it, though it is very different from a social network. On the official site for this platform, Google states the following: Every day millions of people search on Google, many of whom are looking for information... [...]