3rd May 2021 - What articles you need to be reading
Here are the articles that are making waves in digital and search that you should be aware of because they are going to be game changers
Learning about SEO?
FREE Keyword mapping cheat sheet
Everyone’s favourite SEO Aleyda Solis has rolled out a nice blog post covering some great resources for better keyword mapping. As Aleyda points out keyword mapping for eCommerce, SaaS or location based services can be completely different so these templates are sure to help to speed things up.
How Google fought spam in 2020?
Google’s webspam team released a report to show all the effort that goes into the arms race against spammers with over 40 billion spammy pages found each day. Their team seems to be more heavily relying on AI after last year building their own spam-fighting AI that allowed them to reduce sites with auto-generated/scraped content by 80% over the last few years and detection of hacked websites improved by 50%.
What product reviews algorithm update can teach us about quality content
In a detailed breakdown Jono Alderson from Yoast digs into the April 2021 change to how Google views “reviews” for products and services. Yes it’s likely that this algorithm update won’t be the last one but maybe if we can focus on producing genuine and quality content Google will continue to train it’s AI to spot and de-index that which doesn’t live up to it’s expectations.
Software of Note?
Twitter bookmarks meet Dewey
Twitter bookmarks are something of a mess and ask anyone on Twitter how they use them and you will get several different answers. So Yuriy starting building Dewey as the Global Build Weekend that seeks to make Twitter bookmark collections more useful and even exportable.
Social Media
Facebook pushes to create new revenue from Instagram
Mark Zuckerberg announced last week that they are working on increasing the functionality of Instagram with the launch of two new features creator shops & marketplace. Some tier 1 influencers like Kim Kardashian already have shops enabled but creator shops will allow more creators to monetise their audience. Marketplace is designed to match brands with creators which seems more focused on killing off influencer marketing platforms and agencies. To try and take a share of the revenue generated outside of Facebook there will also be an affiliate marketplace to allow creatures to take a % of sales for products mentioned in their content.
Google Products
Google Play store to enforce stricter policies
In what seems should have been something done years ago, it seems finally Google has got embarrassed enough to actually start to clean up the Google Play store. But it will still be second half of 2021 before Google actually starts to enforce these new rules so until then it’s a free for all to confuse and trick consumers into downloading Android apps. The new guidelines focus on app meta data shown in the example below and Store listing preview assets.
YouTube tests timed comments
This week a new beta feature rolled out to allow viewers to view the comments timed to the exact time stamp you are watching in a video. It is unclear what is the use case for it but it could be to stop spoilers during content which often happens with comments that are too hard to avoid.
Media & Tech
Netflix counts viewership after just 2 minutes
Previously Netflix required 75% of a show to be watched to count towards viewership but @BluthCapital flagged that this has now been lowered to just 2 minutes in their Q4 2019 shareholder letter.
AI writing software review by SEObook
SEOBook reviewed Conversio.AI one of the growing number AI powered content creation platforms that appear to be launching almost weekly. His writer took a deep dive into the platform and tested the various types of content it can produce which should help you understand if this can save you time. The general insight is the content produced requires some editing and maybe it’s not idea for long-form writing on complex topics.
Amazon creates new ad units for Fire TV
Amazon is seeking to better monetise their 50 million Fire TV devices but also it’s Prime Video streaming service with new screensaver ads and sponsored content rows. The interest in Fire TV is being driven by brands looking to grow their exposure within Amazon but also drive uplifts in sales on Amazon.
Conversion Rate Optimisation
PageSpeed Insights now includes screenshots
In a step forward to help find issues and share them Lighthose will now allow you to click the element to see it in context of the entire page. This should help make JIRA tickets a bit more detailed and hopefully fixing CWV much faster and easier.
Ecommerce
MailChimp shifts into ecommerce
MailChimp is in the process of rolling out two new features Stores & Appointments which is a new service that starts with a free tier that makes it free to build and host but transaction and Stripe processing fees apply. MailChimp Stores are rolling out in beta now and will be available to all US and UK customers by May 18th 2021 and MailChimp Appointments will be available to all beginning April 28th 2021.
Stores - online storefront to sell products and process orders
Appoints - offer service bookings online & manage schedules
Security, Data & Privacy
iOS 14.5 - The guide to new app-tracking controls
Joanna Stern has a detailed overview of how iOS 14.5 will help give power back to consumers with their new App Tracking Transparency feature. I would suggest you read the article in full here where she has an exclusive interview with Apple’s Craig Federighi on the privacy changes. It has a massive potential impact on how Facebook & Google monetise their consumers/audience. It’s also possible by forcing app developers to explicitly ask for permission to track users via IDFA Facebook have said their ad network revenue could drop by 50% according to the BBC.
Clickstudios asks to stop tweeting about data breach
In a very strange response to downplay the data breach Clickstudios have asked their customers to not post correspondence on social media. The data breach relates to their password management software Passwordstate which is used by 29,000 customers across Fortune 500, banking, government, banking, defence, aerospace and other key industries. The news of the Passwordstate supply chain attack came vis CSIS group who dubbed this malware “Moserpass”, you can follow Peter Kruse the founder of CSIS for more details.
Stopping dark patterns that are manipulating consumers
Greg Bensinger at the NYTimes takes a deep look into how platforms are pushing deeper into manipulating consumer via Dark Patterns. Some common ways websites manipulate consumers include multiple opt-out screens and the use of double negatives to confuse consumers. Greg highlights that a recent study shows around 10% of eCommerce websites use dark patterns to some extent.
Pulse Connect Secure hacked
Yet another supply chain cyberattack has caught up popular enterprise VPN provider Pulse Connect Secure. As Reuters reported Ivanti the software developer behind Pulse Secure plans to patch the problem by Monday 2nd May 2021 which is two weeks after it was first acknowledged. But the initial investigation has been happening with CISA & FBI over the last 2 months, it will be interesting how many other VPN providers might susceptible to the same exploit.
Paleohacks data leak exposes 70k members
vpnMentor found the content was stored on an openly accessible misconfigured S3 bucket on AWS and data spanned from 2015 and 2020 and included personally identifiable information that including full names, email addresses, IP address, login time stamps, home locations, dates of birth, bios, and also user profile pictures.
Vivaldi is to block annoying cookie pop-ups
Vivaldi continues it’s path to make the web enjoyable again with the new ability to block the super annoying cookie preference pop-ups on it’s Android & desktop browser. The new feature called “Cookie Crumbler” and is powered by two third-party block lists and yes it might break some websites so it’s not enabled by default. Ad Blockers can technically do the same thing but it’s designed to be more flexible on what cookie warnings are blocked while ensuring visitors don’t have unnecessary clicks.
DigitalOcean’s customer billing data breached
An email was sent out to around 1% of DigitalOcean users to explain that details from their billing profile had been accessed by an unauthorised user.
Jobs & Careers
Reddit - Country Manager, Australia
Reddit’s mission is “Bringing Community and Belonging to Everyone in the World” and we do this by bringing over 52 million people together each day (DAU) through their common interests, inviting them to share, vote, comment, and create across thousands of communities. Come for the cats, stay for the empathy.
Our International team is growing and we are looking for a Country Manager to lead Australia. You would be responsible for setting the overall strategic direction of the country, by working cross-functionally with other teams across Reddit dedicated to your country. Apply directly here