Tuesday 28 February 2017

Google: New Industry Benchmarks for Mobile Page Speed by @MattGSouthern

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According to Google’s latest research, the time it takes to load the average mobile landing page is 22 seconds. However, research also indicates 53% of people will leave a mobile page if it takes longer than 3 seconds to load.

Needless to say, the average mobile page is not meeting users’ expectations. This is true websites in all industries. People want to read an article as soon as it’s clicked on. Shoppers will abandon their cart on an e-commerce site if the website is too slow. Customers expect to be able to quickly pay bills on banking sites. Vacationers want immediate results when looking for reviews — and so on.

The reality is, as Google found out, 70% of pages take 7 seconds for the visual content above the fold to load. All visual content above and below the fold took 10 seconds to fully load. This is troubling because as page load time goes from 1 second to 7 seconds, the likelihood of a visitor abandoning the page increases 113%

Speed doesn’t just affect page views, it affects revenue. Google’s latest data shows conversions are lower on mobile than they are on desktop, despite the fact that over half of all web traffic comes from mobile devices.

After analyzing 900,000 mobile ads’ landing pages spanning 126 countries, Google came to the conclusion that “the majority of mobile sites are slow and bloated with too many elements.”

Google illustrates just how bloated mobile web pages are with further data — 70% of pages analyzed were over 1MB, 36% were over 2MB, and 12% were over 4MB. To put that in perspective, 1.49MB takes 7 seconds to load using a fast 3G connection.

This has a direct correlation with a drop in conversions. As the number of elements on a page goes from 400 to 6,000, the likelihood of users converting drops by 95%.

”No matter what, faster is better and less is more.”

What Should Site Owners Do?

Google says 30% of the pages it analyzed could save over 250KB simply by compressing images and text. Google recommends running your site through the Test My Site tool, which analyzes both mobile-friendliness and mobile page speed, then compare it against the latest benchmarks.

For more details about the latest industry benchmarks for mobile page speed, including how they differ amongst different market sectors, you can view the full report here.

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Author: Matt Southern

The post Google: New Industry Benchmarks for Mobile Page Speed by @MattGSouthern appeared first on On Page SEO Checker.



source http://www.onpageseochecker.com/google-new-industry-benchmarks-for-mobile-page-speed-by-mattgsouthern/

Yoast SEO Version 4.4 Now Available: Here’s What’s New by @MattGSouthern

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Yoast SEO, a WordPress plugin with over 3 million installs, has received updates to both its free and premium versions. Here’s what’s new in each.

What’s New in Yoast SEO Premium

The premium version of Yoast SEO has the ability to connect with Google Search Console. That’s not new — but what is new is that crawl errors will now show up in Yoast SEO. This gives users the ability to address their crawl errors without having to constantly go back and forth between WordPress and Search Console.

Yoast SEO Premium has also expanded on its ability to add redirects. Previously, it was only possible to redirect 404 pages using a 301. Now the company has added the ability to use 302, 307, 410, and 451 redirects.

Expanding on another existing feature, Yoast SEO Premium has updated its internal linking tool. The internal linking tool suggests other pages on your site that would make sense to link to from the content you’re currently writing. Now the tool will discern whether or not a suggested link has already been added to the text so you can avoid adding it multiple times. However, if you do want to link to the same page more than once you’re certainly able to do so.

What’s New in Yoast SEO 4.4

In addition to several bug fixes, the free version of Yoast SEO has been improved so the tables are now viewable on mobile. A minor update sees the option to disable the keyword and content analysis moved from the ‘General’ tab to the ‘Features’ tab.

The free and Premium versions of Yoast SEO 4.4 are available now to update from your WordPress dashboard.

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Author: Matt Southern

The post Yoast SEO Version 4.4 Now Available: Here’s What’s New by @MattGSouthern appeared first on On Page SEO Checker.



source http://www.onpageseochecker.com/yoast-seo-version-4-4-now-available-heres-whats-new-by-mattgsouthern/

Google Assistant Can Now Tell You About Slang, Beer, and Men’s Fashion by @MattGSouthern

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Google Assistant can now tell you more about what it means to “get lit” while drinking “small batch IPAs” and wearing the hottest in men’s fashion.

The Verge reports around 20 conversation actions or services were added to Google Assistant over the past few weeks. Notably, the virtual assistant has been enhanced with a beer guide, a slang dictionary, and information about men’s fashion.

The latest additions seem to be centered around fun, The Verge believes, providing further examples of what Google Assistant is now able to do:

”Narwhal Bacon will serve up random facts and posts shared on Reddit, while Able Style will tell you men’s fashion tips. Hop over to the Able Style website while Google Assistant is talking to you and you can see suggested wardrobe visuals live onscreen. Wardrobe recommendations are made based on local weather, and in the future will be based on your preferences.”

Also in this update are controllers for more Internet of Things (IoT) devices from Home Bond, Quick Remote, and Stringify.

Though Google Assistant is available on a slew of new Android Devices, the Allo messaging app, and several Android Wear devices — the third-party actions mentioned in this post are only available on Google Home.

This latest update sees Google Assistant’s conversation actions exceeding the 100 mark, making it possible to speak with around 105 third-party services. For a complete list of Google Assistant actions, go to “More settings” in the Google Home app and click on “Services.”

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Author: Matt Southern

The post Google Assistant Can Now Tell You About Slang, Beer, and Men’s Fashion by @MattGSouthern appeared first on On Page SEO Checker.



source http://www.onpageseochecker.com/google-assistant-can-now-tell-you-about-slang-beer-and-mens-fashion-by-mattgsouthern/

Google: How to Properly Close a Site For a Day by @MattGSouthern

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Google’s John Mueller penned an article in the Webmaster Central blog with advice on how to properly close down a site for a day. These tips outline the correct way to temporarily shut down a site without affecting its search presence.

Block Shopping Cart Functionality

If an e-commerce site simply needs to prevent people from making purchases, then Mueller’s recommendation is to just disable shopping cart functionality. In addition to communicating the shut down to customers, it’s also recommended to block the shopping cart page from being crawled through the robots.txt file, or blocked from indexing with a robots meta tag.

Use an Interstitial or Pop-Up

If it’s necessary to block the entire site from visitors, Mueller recommends using an interstitial or pop-up to communicate the site is temporarily unavailable. In addition, the server should return a 503 HTTP result code (“Service Unavailable”) so Google doesn’t index the temporary content. It’s safe to use a 503 for up to a week — after a week Google may drop the content from search results altogether.

Turn the Whole Website Off

Turning the entire server off is another safe option, provided you have a second temporary server with a 503 HTTP result code for all URLs. In addition, it’s recommended to switch your DNS to point to that server during that time.

Mueller explains how to do this step-by-step:

  1. Set your DNS TTL to a low time (such as 5 minutes) a few days in advance.
  2. Change the DNS to the temporary server’s IP address.
  3. Take your main server offline once all requests go to the temporary server.
  4. … your server is now offline …
  5. When ready, bring your main server online again.
  6. Switch DNS back to the main server’s IP address.
  7. Change the DNS TTL back to normal.

If you own a local business which will be closed throughout the same duration that your site will be down, it’s recommended to change the opening hours in your local listings to reflect the closure.

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Author: Matt Southern

The post Google: How to Properly Close a Site For a Day by @MattGSouthern appeared first on On Page SEO Checker.



source http://www.onpageseochecker.com/google-how-to-properly-close-a-site-for-a-day-by-mattgsouthern/

RIP Dmoz: The Open Directory Project is closing

DMOZ — The Open Directory Project that uses human editors to organize web sites — is closing. It marks the end of a time when humans, rather than machines, tried to organize the web.

The announcement came via a notice that’s now showing on the home page of the DMOZ site, saying it will close as of March 14, 2017:

Dmoz was born in June 1998 as first at “GnuHoo” then quickly changed to “NewHoo,” a rival to the Yahoo Directory at the time. Yahoo had faced criticism as being too powerful and too difficult for sites to be listed in.

It was soon acquired by Netscape in November 1998 and renamed the Netscape Open Directory. Later that month, AOL acquired Netscape, giving AOL control of The Open Directory.

Also born that year was Google, which was the start of the end of human curation of web sites. Google bought both the power of being able to search every page on the web with the relevancy that was a hallmark of human-powered directories.

Yahoo eventually shifted to preferring machine-generated results over human power, pushing its directory further and further behind-the-scenes until its closure was announced in September 2014. The actual closure came in December 2014, with the old site these days entirely unresponsive.

Dmoz continued on, although for marketers and searchers, it had also long been mostly forgotten as a resource. About the only surprise in today’s news is that it took so long.

DMOZ will live on in one unique way — the NOODP meta tag. This was a way for publishers to tell Google and other search engines not to describe their pages using Open Directory descriptions. While the tag will become redundant, it will also remain lurking within web pages that continue to use it for years to come.

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Author: Danny Sullivan

The post RIP Dmoz: The Open Directory Project is closing appeared first on On Page SEO Checker.



source http://www.onpageseochecker.com/rip-dmoz-the-open-directory-project-is-closing/

Daily Search Forum Recap: February 28, 2017

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.

Search Engine Roundtable Stories:

Other Great Search Forum Threads:

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Author: barry@rustybrick.com (Barry Schwartz)

The post Daily Search Forum Recap: February 28, 2017 appeared first on On Page SEO Checker.



source http://www.onpageseochecker.com/daily-search-forum-recap-february-28-2017/

SearchCap: Google site closed, penalty recovery & shopping ads

searchcap-header-v2-scap

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.

From Search Engine Land:

Recent Headlines From Marketing Land, Our Sister Site Dedicated To Internet Marketing:

Search News From Around The Web:

Industry

Local & Maps

Link Building

Searching

SEO

SEM / Paid Search

Search Marketing

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Author: Barry Schwartz

The post SearchCap: Google site closed, penalty recovery & shopping ads appeared first on On Page SEO Checker.



source http://www.onpageseochecker.com/searchcap-google-site-closed-penalty-recovery-shopping-ads/

YouTube debuts TV subscription service, at $35 a month for 6 accounts

Every day people spend almost as much time watching YouTube as TV. And now they can watch TV on YouTube.

On Tuesday YouTube debuted a cable TV-style subscription service so that people can pay to stream live and recorded shows from the four broadcast TV networks, and roughly three dozen cable networks through a new YouTube TV mobile app.

Called YouTube TV, the service will cost $35 a month for six accounts and will become available “in the next few months,” said YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki, who announced YouTube TV during an event at the company’s YouTube Space LA studio in Los Angeles.

YouTube TV will carry 40 total TV networks, including Bravo, E!, ESPN, Fox News, FX, MSNBC, National Geographic Channel and USA Network. People will also have the option of paying an extra fee for Showtime and Fox Soccer Plus. And YouTube is bundling in the original shows it has produced exclusively for its existing YouTube Red subscription service.

Using YouTube TV, people will be able to watch live TV, check out an on-demand library of past seasons and record shows to watch later. There is no limit to how many shows people can record simultaneously, and setting a recording from YouTube’s mobile app won’t use the phone’s data, said YouTube chief product officer Neal Mohan.

YouTube TV isn’t so different from YouTube proper, aside from a new “Live” tab cataloging shows currently airing. A home feed will list shows and categories that people might want to check out, like the videos YouTube features in its main app’s feed. People will be able to search for shows by title and keywords like the name of a sports team or a content category. YouTube TV will also work with Google’s Chromecast so that people can stream a live or recorded show from their phone to their TV.

This isn’t YouTube’s first subscription service. In October 2015 YouTube rolled out YouTube Red that has people pay $9.99 a month to watch all YouTube videos without ads, gain access to some exclusive original shows and download videos to watch offline. And a year before that, it introduced YouTube Music Key, a precursor to YouTube Red focused on YouTube’s music-related videos.


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Author: Tim Peterson

The post YouTube debuts TV subscription service, at $35 a month for 6 accounts appeared first on On Page SEO Checker.



source http://www.onpageseochecker.com/youtube-debuts-tv-subscription-service-at-35-a-month-for-6-accounts/

Marketing Day: Martech data, avoiding fake news on GDN & YouTube’s latest milestone

marketing-day-header-v2-mday
Here’s our recap of what happened in online marketing today, as reported on Marketing Land and other places across the web.

From Marketing Land:

Online Marketing News From Around The Web:

Analytics

Blogs & Blogging

Business Issues

Content Marketing

Conversion Optimization

Copywriting, Design & Usability

Display & Contextual Advertising

Email Marketing

General Internet Marketing

Internet Marketing Industry

MarTech

Mobile/Local Marketing

Other Items

Social Media

Video


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Author: Amy Gesenhues

The post Marketing Day: Martech data, avoiding fake news on GDN & YouTube’s latest milestone appeared first on On Page SEO Checker.



source http://www.onpageseochecker.com/marketing-day-martech-data-avoiding-fake-news-on-gdn-youtubes-latest-milestone/

Sharing is caring: Click share and post-holiday shopping success

google-shopping-cart-2016b-ss-1920

Click share is a key way to gauge the success of your Shopping campaigns. The metric shows you the percentage of total possible clicks you are receiving with your Shopping ads. If you aren’t reviewing this metric on a regular basis, 2017 is officially the time to start the habit.

Incorporate click share into your daily optimizations

Click share can be an incredibly useful metric because it delivers the type of insight that you’re used to receiving from average position in your Search campaigns. Shopping ads can take a lot of different forms, which means that we can’t calculate an average position in the same way as we can for Search ads. Enter click share for Shopping.

By regularly reviewing this metric on your product group tab, you can see how well you’re doing at driving traffic to your site for high-value shoppers. You should use it in concert with impression share.

Impression share tells you how you’re doing at getting your items in front of shoppers looking for your products, while click share tells you how effective you are in winning those shoppers that see your products. A 100 percent impression share, while great, might not reveal anything about your true potential. Here’s one of my favorite sayings from business school:

30 percent of 40 percent is greater than 10 percent of 100 percent.

It’s possible to underperform even with a 100 percent impression share because it doesn’t reflect whether those shoppers chose to visit your site. That’s why click share is such a crucial metric to monitor. And once you’ve started to monitor it, what can you do with it? Why, increase it.

How to increase your click share

There are a few ways to do this. It’s a similar process to Search ads. Exactly like you work to improve your average position, you can take steps to increase your click share for Shopping ads:

1. Increase your bids

An increased bid is often the most effective way to be more competitive in the auction. Review your click share by individual product groups. If there are certain product groups that you want to drive more clicks, look at your bids and increase them where it makes sense.

It’s always a tricky balance between volume and return to maximize profitability. Increasing bids to grow your click share will increase volume — just make sure never to bid beyond the point of profitability. Check out the Bid Simulator to see your potential.

2. Increase the quality and relevance of your ads (which means ‘product data’ in this case)

Your product data is what we use to create your Shopping ad. Take a look through your search terms and see if your product title and description text aligns with the most common user searches. Put the most important details first in your product title, like size, color or brand. Increasing the relevance of your ads can help your ads get better placements and more clicks.

It’s also crucial to use high-quality images for your products. With higher screen resolutions in current smartphones, a high-quality image can be the difference when showing up alongside other competing ads.

3. Opt into the different enhancements for your ads

There are a couple of ways to make your ads even more appealing on the results page. For example, Merchant Promotions allows you to distribute your online promotions with your Shopping ads, including discounts, free gifts and “buy more save more” promotions. You can even add different codes for people to redeem. Product ratings can build trust right on the results page while qualifying customers as they click to your site.

You can use each of these three methods to create better ads that have a better shot at driving interested customers to a purchase.

Going beyond click share

Click share is super-important, and hopefully, now you have taken that to heart. It’s not the only way to take advantage of whatever search volume you’re seeing, though.

Some holiday-friendly strategies still work in non-holiday months. Strategic, time-specific campaigns let you make more specific decisions about your bidding and budgeting. Custom labels can be great for product groups that have peak seasons. If you label them, the stuff that’s currently in season (or that’s about to be in season) can get the attention it deserves. And remember to keep an eye on product status insights to keep items approved.

Conclusion

Click and impression share are liable to change over time based on user search behavior and auction dynamics. Be sure that you aren’t losing click share to your competitors by checking in regularly.

Make click share a part of your regimen for Shopping optimizations. By combining this metric with the insights you’re already getting from impression share, you can understand both how you’re doing in the auction and how you’re doing on the results page itself.

Some opinions expressed in this article may be those of a guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.

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Author: Matt Lawson

The post Sharing is caring: Click share and post-holiday shopping success appeared first on On Page SEO Checker.



source http://www.onpageseochecker.com/sharing-is-caring-click-share-and-post-holiday-shopping-success/

Need to contact Google My Business support? Use Twitter!

It’s the end of the month, and that means it’s time for another edition of Greg’s Soapbox! Except this time, it’s not so much me standing on the soapbox and ranting; I’m more standing near it and politely providing helpful advice.

Almost two years ago, I wrote a post here about using Google phone support if you had issues with Google My Business (yes, I’m not linking to the post on purpose). Depending on your particular keyword phrase when you search, that post usually ranks anywhere from #2 to #5 for any variation of “Google My Business support” — and it’s always the highest-ranking non-Google result.

The problem is, while phone support supposedly still exists, it’s IMPOSSIBLE to get to anymore. And, since it’s the highest ranking non-Google answer, a ton of messages come through every month from people who are pointing out that the method in the post doesn’t work anymore.

I wanted to write this month’s post and update everyone on the best way to get support for any problems you might be having with your Google My Business listing.

We all know that Google My Business can be frustrating. All too often, the person with access leaves a company and doesn’t share that access. It’s incredibly difficult to get access to an account once it’s lost.

You might need to update your address, or phone number, or uploaded photos. You’ll definitely need to reply to reviews. Without easily accessible phone support, it doesn’t appear that there are any alternative options.

In reality, there’s a much better support option that most people don’t know about: Twitter support! Simply shoot a quick tweet over to @GoogleMyBiz, and their support team will jump on your request and help you out.

When the service first rolled out, responses were incredibly quick. Now that more people know about it, you might have to wait up to 30 minutes for a response, but once you get a response, they’re amazingly fast at resolving your situation. They’ll ask you to send a Direct Message with full details of your situation, and in almost every situation, the issue will be resolved shortly thereafter.

Big shoutout to Jared, who’s an absolute beast. I know there are other people on the team, but somehow he’s been the one to help with every request I’ve made in the last six months or so.

It’s all US-based, Google employee-staffed support. They won’t follow any sort of script; they’ll simply ask for more details, then they’ll jump in and get you sorted out. If you haven’t used it yet, you need to try it — it’s amazing.

[This article was originally published on Search Engine Land.]


Some opinions expressed in this article may be those of a guest author and not necessarily Marketing Land. Staff authors are listed here.


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Author: Greg Gifford

The post Need to contact Google My Business support? Use Twitter! appeared first on On Page SEO Checker.



source http://www.onpageseochecker.com/need-to-contact-google-my-business-support-use-twitter/

Brand safety: Avoiding fake & hyperpartisan news on the Google Display Network

What does online brand safety mean in the age of hyperpartisan, sensationalized and fake news content?

With programmatic targeting and retargeting, brands can find themselves cozied up to content that may not match up with their values and messaging. That’s not new, but the proliferation of sites aimed at attracting clicks by appealing to humans’ basest need to have their viewpoints validated adds another layer of complexity for brands buying ads on open ad exchanges and ad networks like the Google Display Network.

Well over 1,000 advertisers have reportedly pulled out of Breitbart, and yet that site is part of the Google Display Network. So are hundreds of other hyperpartisan political sites — both left-wing and right-wing, with content that ranges from flirting with untruths to outright lies — on which brands might be surprised to find their ads appearing (more on that below). Here we are looking at websites only, but ads can also appear alongside YouTube and apps should also be considered.

“Fake news” definitions can vary widely, from misinformation to conspiracy theories, to hoaxes to blatantly false reports. Google’s take as it pertains to the GDN is different still. Google has no publisher policy against sites running false news stories, as long as they aren’t misrepresenting who they are or the intention of the content — i.e., sites can’t impersonate a news outlet, and news headlines can’t link to diet pill promotions. We’ve written about what exactly the policy covers and doesn’t in our companion piece, “Google isn’t actually tackling ‘fake news’ content on its ad network.”

This can be awkward. Here are some examples:

Smartfood “You deserve delight” ads appearing next to NSFW headlines.

Planned Parenthood “Give Now” ads showing up on a far right-wing website that hasn’t even bothered to fully update its “Sample Page” template.

Bergdorf Goodman and Alliance for Healthcare Security ads on shock-pundit AnnCoulter’s site.

How does this happen?

There are several ways ads can show up on sites in the Display Network. First, these placements could be intentional — with the sites chosen specifically as “managed” placements on the Display Network by the advertisers.  That’s not likely the case here, but it’s possible.

The other scenarios rely on automation. Google has added more targeting controls to AdWords, and even more in DoubleClick, for the Display Network from the original contextual targeting with keywords (e.g., ads for health insurance plans can appear alongside articles about the ACA). Other targeting options include demographics, interest and affinity audiences, topics, and of course, retargeting to customers and/or past site visitors.

Targeting options on the Google Display Network in AdWords

The ads in the examples above were not served as the result of retargeting campaigns. The Bergdorf Goodman ad shown above could be the result of interest targeting, which can include in-market (like “Women’s Apparel”) or affinity audience targeting (like “Fashionistas”) based on my previous browsing behaviors, including visits to other high-end retail sites. Google’s interest targeting is built on a mix of third-party data and browsing behavior on pages, apps, channels, videos and content on YouTube and the Google Display Network sites.

Topic targeting isn’t as simple as targeting websites that cover specific topics such as Right-Wing and Left-Wing Politics, which are both options. Topic targeting occurs at the time an impression becomes available and is based on the content on the page, not the overall political vantage, for example, of the site overall. That means advertisers targeting Right-Wing Politics can find their ads shown on sites that skew left-wing if the content includes keywords that signal a right-wing context, and vice versa. For that reason, the topics that are listed with websites in the Display Planner will not necessarily correlate to the types of content ads can display against with topic targeting.

Retargeting may be the trickiest decision for brands to weigh when considering where their ads should appear. Here are several examples of retargeted ads for retail brands appearing on far-left- and far-right-wing sites. These ads happen to be for retail brands, but Marketing Land also saw examples from CPG, telecommunications, automotive and financial services advertisers, among other verticals, while reporting this story.

Retargeted ads from Neiman Marcus, Macy’s, Nordstrom and Gap

The ad company you keep

Often, it may not be the content but the content recommendation ads and ads from other networks on a lot of the sites that are more unsettling to brands. Many of these sites are absolutely safe to visit, others less so.

Pop-ups, fake virus alerts and other low-quality ad content proliferate on many of the sites, particularly those that appear to exist solely to generate ad revenue. TheTrumpMedia.com example below is one of dozens of sites seen with large portions of real estate taken up with content recommendation blocks throughout its pages. That site also has no contact information available on the site. RedStateWatcher.com has 21 ad trackers on it, according to Ghostery, but the links to its Privacy Policy and Contact Us pages in the footer aren’t clickable. Others, like EagleRising.com, regale visitors with not one but two pop-ups before loading the Contact Us page, which has no contact information, just a submission form. 

Content recommendation blocks are used heavily on many of these sites, including full-screen pop-ups from Spoutable.

Some mobile experiences include pop-up ads and content recommendation ads that display between an article title and body.

One of the worst examples of ad loading I saw was on a site called LeftLiberal.com. The page below had 75 ad trackers on it. There is a Google-served banner at the top, a block of sponsored links from Content.ad, a virus alert ad in the bottom right, and a video ad served by Epom in the bottom left that is covering up another Google-served responsive text ad. This site was also one of the many using  popups Dingit.tv.

I should also offer a consumer warning here: some sites I visited while reporting this story automatically opened a new browser tab with phony virus protection alerts designed to be hard to close out of or had sketchy virus warning ads appear in the bottom right corner of the page. The worst of these scenarios opened up a new browser tab automatically with a “safety alert” that claimed my Facebook login, credit card number, email account login and photos had been compromised and that I needed to call support. (Do not

call or click on these kinds of ads.) Several sites also triggered background pop-up video ads.

A site called Prntly.com that dubs itself “America’s Top News Site” took nearly 30 seconds to load and had 66 ad trackers on the home page alone.

Marketing Land found and reported to Google several examples of apparent violations of the Misrepresentative content policy, and we have asked questions about violations of the Valuable content policy that covers ad-to-editorial content ratios. We have also asked about whether certain examples violate Google’s AdSense hate speech policy that prohibits content that advocates against an individual, group or organization. We will update here when we hear back.

Does environment matter?

Somehow, in the age or programmatic ad buying, context seems to have taken a back seat to audience reach for many brands. When aiming to reach certain audiences or retargeting, does it matter if a brand’s ads show on content it wouldn’t otherwise target if that’s where their site visitors and customers are going?

Different brands will have different answers to questions about context and environment. When brands set impression and audience quotas, they and their media buyers may be reluctant to cut of significant sources of reach.

But in this new landscape, marketers running campaigns on ad networks like the GDN need to be asking these questions for themselves, because Google won’t do it for them.

How to opt out

Many companies will have no problem with their ads appearing next to hyperpartisan content or on sites with fake news. And some may want to explicitly target audiences reading this type of content.

For AdWords users that want to opt out, there is no Site Category exclusion option for political content, but there are other options  — none quite perfect.

Placement exclusions are the primary way Google suggests addressing opt-outs. Advertisers can exclude individual sites and even individual pages on which they don’t want their ads to appear. This can be hard to manage when there are new sites coming into the GDN on a regular basis, and in many cases, advertisers won’t know to exclude a site until after their ads run and the sites show up in site placement reports. Another thing to note in terms of brand safety is that AdSense publishers have the option of making themselves anonymous to advertisers. These sites show up as anonymous.google in advertisers’ placement reports. It is possible to exclude all anonymous.google sites, though this can be a blunt instrument that excludes brand-appropriate sites and even converting sites.

Topics exclusions are also a blunt tool. There are several granular options under Topics, including Right-Wing and Left-Wing Politics, but as discussed above, this targets content not sites. Excluding Left-Wing Politics could mean ads won’t show next to right-wing content.

Topics exclusions can also cut off access to content that isn’t necessarily extreme, too. Similarly, interest exclusions can paint too broad a brush in many cases.

Advertisers can also add contextual exclusions by adding negative keywords to their display campaigns.

I’ve compiled a Google Sheet of some sites included in the right-wing and/or left-wing politics topics in Display Planner (reminder these topics don’t align to Topics targeting in campaigns and the list is always subject to change). There is a mix of mainstream, left-wing and right-wing sites. It’s meant to give advertisers a sense of the political content inventory in which their ads might appear on when running GDN campaigns.


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Author: Ginny Marvin

The post Brand safety: Avoiding fake & hyperpartisan news on the Google Display Network appeared first on On Page SEO Checker.



source http://www.onpageseochecker.com/brand-safety-avoiding-fake-hyperpartisan-news-on-the-google-display-network/