Google Ads API, Partner badges, and reputation algorithms; Friday’s daily brief

I can, but that’s only because I know how hard the Search Engine Land and SMX teams, expert speakers, and generous sponsors have been working behind the scenes to bring you this event. Not only will we have tracks on SEO and PPC, but we’ve also got a whole path focused solely on user experience.

It’s no coincidence. With Google’s page experience update rolling out as you’re reading this (through August) and data privacy on the mind of many consumers, user experience is more critical than ever in both PPC and SEO. Make sure you snag your ticket so you can catch all the sessions (and, of course, a keynote from yours truly). Check out the full agenda here, and I hope to see you there!

Carolyn Lyden,
Director of Search Content

Google released Google Ads API version 8.0

Google has released version 8.0 of the Google Ads API, announcing the key highlights of what is new in version 8.0.

What’s new. Google added dozens of features and released numerous changes in version 8.0, the exhaustive list is located in the release notes. Here are a few of the highlighted changes from Google:

• Added cross-account bidding strategies, which allow for attaching manager-owned bidding strategies to client accounts. Also included is a new resource, AccessibleBiddingStrategy, which provides a read-only view of all bidding strategies accessible to the current customer (including portfolio strategies owned by the customer and cross-account bidding strategies shared with the customer).
• You can now retrieve labels managed by the manager account using CustomerClient.applied_labels.
• CallOnlyAdInfo is replaced with CallAdInfo to support more capabilities of this ad type. This includes the ability to append text after the URL displayed in the Ad using fields CallAdInfo.path1 and CallAdInfo.path2.

Why we care. If you, your customers or toolset providers are using the Google Ads API, you can now explore more features within the API to get more done and in a more efficient way.

Read more here.

We’ve updated our comprehensive guide to Bing SEO

Did you know? Bing accounts for 26.5% of all desktop searches in the U.S., according to Comscore (April 2021). With the recent prevalence of working from home, people are spending more time on their desktop computers, which might also mean that more people are now using Bing.

Not your grandma’s search engine. If you do nothing, then you’re leaving your competitors with the opportunity to outperform you in the search results for Bing’s share of desktop queries. On the other hand, if you optimize your content with Bing in mind, you’ll also be optimizing for DuckDuckGo, Yahoo!, Ecosia and Qwant, because those search engines are also powered by Bing.

The machines have it. “I don’t think it even makes sense for us to talk about the top five ranking factors,” said Frédéric Dubut, principal project PM manager, core search & AI at Microsoft. “The model is changing all the time, so you get new data from the web, you get new user behaviors; even the same query doesn’t mean the same thing in 2019 as it does in 2021. The model is learning all the time, and so what it’s doing is taking into account all these different factors . . . and it’s combining all of them and it’s trying to see what are the signals that are the most predictive of relevance. That changes all the time, and the weights that it’s putting on all of these factors are also changing all the time.”

Read the guide here.

Google to release new Partner badge for those already meeting Feb 2022 requirements

After the initial Program changes were delayed, Partners asked Google if they could receive the new badges if they met the 2022 requirements before the due date. Now, any Google Partners who meet the new February 2022 Partner requirements early will be able to get the new badge later in June.

The requirements.

• Partners can either dismiss or apply recommendations to achieve a 70% optimization score.
• The spend threshold will remain at a 90-day spend of $10,000 US across all of a partner’s managed accounts.
• Partners will need to ensure that 50% of the account strategists identified are certified in Google Ads.

Read more here.

Google demotes libelous content in search through its predatory sites algorithms

Google updated its algorithm to help victims of online libel, wrote Kashmir Hill and Daisuke Wakabayashi for the New York Times. “Websites solicit lurid, unverified complaints about supposed cheaters, sexual predators, deadbeats and scammers. People slander their enemies. The anonymous posts appear high in Google results for the names of victims. Then the websites charge the victims thousands of dollars to take the posts down,” said the NYT authors.

Google has already deployed changes to its algorithms but it plans to continue to make changes to catch these exploitative sites, the company told Search Engine Land. “We’ve had a policy in place for these sites for a number of years and a demotion signal based on valid page removals under this policy,” a spokesperson said.

Google will continue to improve these algorithms and you should see fewer exploitative or predatory websites surfacing in Google Search results for name queries. But, like anything in search, some sites will find methods around the current algorithms and Google will have to address those workarounds with new and improved preventative search algorithms.

Why we care. If you are in the online reputation management space, these algorithms may aid you in helping your clients with their reputation issues in Google Search.

Read more here.

Yelp is giving dads decks for Father’s Day, looking at GSC data with Python and BrightLocal gets an SEO great

Decks for dads. Yelp’s latest campaign offers to help you give dad “the ultimate Father’s Day gift” a finished deck. “Dads may start these home improvements with the best of intentions, but then life takes over and – like many of us who lost interest in our newfound hobbies during quarantine – they may have left half-finished projects around the backyard.” If users hire a professional using the Request a Quote features, Yelp will cover the cost of up to $2,000 to finally finish that deck.

Analyzing Google Search Console data with Python. Masaki Okazawa from AutoZone demonstrates how to automate Google Search Console insights with URL segmentation, sorting, and pivot tables in this RankSense webinar.
Local SEO expert Claire Carlile joins BrightLocal. “Claire’s one of the most respected and well-loved people in the local search industry, always bringing a wealth of first-hand experience and unique perspectives to the content she produces and the wisdom she shares,” said Kristian Bannister, Head of Marketing.