David Nield says, “The battle for the mobile payment market can begin in earnest now: On Thursday, Google announced the official launch of Android Pay in the U.S. for later this month. Similar to Apple Pay, Android Pay will allows users to pay for goods and services with a tap of their smartphone in stores—assuming that the device supports Near Field Communication (NFC) short-range wireless technology and runs Android 4.4 KitKat or above. (The terminal itself must also support Android Pay and NFC.) However, the component of Android Pay of most interest to developers—the ability to make in-app... [...]

MOZ team says, “Through experimentation and analysis of patents that Google has submitted, we’ve come to know some interesting things about what the engine values. In today’s Whiteboard Friday, Rand covers some of what Google likely learns from certain user behavior, specifically queries, CTR, and long vs. short clicks“. The Impact of Queries, Long and Short Clicks, and Click Through Rate on Google’s Rankings – Whiteboard Friday MOZ Blog  [...]

Ginny Marvin says, “To combat ad injectors, Google has added a filter on DoubleClick Bid Manager to automatically keep advertisers from buying injected ad inventory across the exchanges it has access to. Google says it has already received nearly 300,000 complaints in 2015 from Chrome users about ad injectors. Ad injector programs can take over legitimate ad placements or put ads in places that are not designed for ads at all. Google provided the example below showing a scam ad injected on the New York Times site, complete with a pop-up. The programs often end up on users’ machines... [...]

Angela Patteys says, “If the name “Google Webmaster Tools” rings a bell for you, then you might already have an idea of what Google Search Console is. Since Google Webmaster Tools (GWT) has become a valuable resource for so many different types of people besides webmasters—marketing professionals, SEOs, designers, business owners, and app developers, to name a few—Google decided to change its name in May of 2015 to be more inclusive of its diverse group of users. If you aren’t familiar with GWT or Google Search Console, let’s head back to square one. Google Search... [...]

Andrea Francis says, “Every marketer has a story about getting penalised by Google. Evidence suggests that though many websites have been penalised (not just by the big updates, but also by one of the thousands of tiny little manual Google updates), the average marketer or webmaster hasn’t noticed. According to Kissmetrics, only 5% of penalised websites are submitting a reconsideration request every month to recover their rankings. Since we are all reliant on search engines for traffic, we have to stay in the know about the latest updates — and make changes if we’re affected. Not... [...]

Christopher Lochhead says, “Asking why Google created Alphabet is the wrong question. The right questions to ask are: Why did Google miss social networking? How is it that limo company Carey didn’t see the opportunity in smartphone-powered transportation and Uber’s founders did? Why did it take SAP until 2011 to get into cloud apps, twelve years after the founding of Salesforce.com? And how come most of the innovation in technology security is coming from startups and not Symantec, McAfee, or Bluecoat? Existing Markets Have Gravitational Pull We believe the answer to these questions... [...]

Roy Hinkis says, “When Moz undertook this year’s Ranking Correlation Study (Ranking Factors), there was a desire to include data points never before studied. Fortunately, SimilarWeb had exactly what was needed. For the first time, Moz was able to measure ranking correlations with both traffic and engagement metrics. Using Moz’s ranking data on over 200,000 domains, combined with multiple SimilarWeb data points—including traffic, page views, bounce rate, time on site, and rank—the Search Ranking Factors study was able to measure how these metrics corresponded to higher rankings. These... [...]

Jack Simpson says, “Google is increasingly valuing ‘quality content’ when it comes to search rankings, according to a new report. This isn’t exactly news to most marketers, but the way in which Google determines quality is evolving. According to the study, positive signals such as the amount of time spent on a page are having an increasingly significant impact on rankings. This means it’s more important than ever to keep the reader engaged. With that in mind, I’m going to use this post to try and explain how you can achieve ‘quality content’ on your site based on some of the... [...]

Farooq Bhatti says, “Street View Trusted, formerly known as Google Business View, is a tool for businesses to showcase their premises via a virtual tour hosted on the world’s leading search engine. Utilising the same technology as Street View, the platform allows businesses to show their ambiance, décor and style to online users in a visually engaging manner. The Basics Unlike Street View, the photography is taken by independent local photographers that are trained and certified by Google. The photos are subject to Google quality assurance inspections to verify that the imagery and user... [...]

Greg Sterling says, “The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that The European Commission (EC) is expanding its antitrust probe of Google. Currently, the EC is in the late stages of its vertical search inquiry and has filed formal charges, which Google has until August 31 to rebut. It’s at an earlier stage of investigating Google’s management of the Android operating system. According to the Journal report, the EC is now investigating whether Google “abuses its dominance in advertising contracts with website operators and copies content from rival sites.” The first question goes... [...]