14 Feb 2024
- 02 Mar 2017
- 5 Min read
SEO news & Google updates: February 2017
- by Emily Park
February 2017 was a busy month in the world of SEO. Google changed the look of paid search results, announced that Google Assistant will soon be coming to more Android devices, and joined other search engines in agreeing to penalise illegal torrent sites.
To ensure you’re bang up to date with the latest news from the digital marketing industry, we’ve pulled together some of the most important stories from February 2017. And, to help you stay ahead of the game, we’ve looked into how each one could affect your business. Read on to find out more.
Google’s new ad labels are going global
Over the last few weeks, Google has been trialling new ad labels on its search results pages. These have a green outline and white background, rather than the green background we’re used to seeing.
Google has confirmed that the new look will roll out globally. The company says testing proved new labels do not affect users’ ability to distinguish ads from organic search results. However, there’s no denying that they are subtler than their predecessors. Therefore, this could make SERPs a lot more competitive.
Google Assistant is coming to more Android devices
Google has announced that Google Assistant will soon be coming to more Android phones, including those in the UK.
Google Assistant is similar to Siri and Cortana — it’s an intelligent personal assistant who is on hand to help you get things done. It can do a whole host of things, such as give you reminders and translate words or phrases for you.
From this week, the Google Assistant will be available on smartphones running Android 7.0 Nougat and Android 6.0 Marshmallow. As it responds to both voice commands and typed queries, this means that it’s likely voice search will soon be on the up. And, as digital marketers, this is the aspect we’re most interested in.
As we explained in a previous blog post, voice searches are phrased more naturally than those that are typed. So, if you want to rank for voice search queries, it’s important that you take this into account.
Google and Bing will penalise torrent sites
Google and Bing have agreed to sign up to a voluntary code that will penalise torrent sites in their SERPs.
This agreement will make it much harder for people to find the likes of unofficial football streams, pirated films, and illegal music download sites online. Instead, the search engines will direct users to more reputable websites that charge them for this content.
The hope is that this new initiative will keep people from visiting illegal sites, as well as protect them from the spam, adverts and malware that often come alongside disreputable streams and downloads. Of course, it should help to protect the creators of content that is often stolen or pirated online, too.
Google now showing emojis in results pages
In mid-February, Google confirmed that its snippets can now feature emojis where “relevant, useful and fun”, according to Search Engine Roundtable.
Google promised to remove emojis from its results pages back in June 2015 due to webmaster abuse, but it’s clearly had a change of heart. So, what does this mean for business owners looking to get noticed on Google’s search results pages?
Quintly recently carried out a study to see whether the presence of emojis increased users’ engagement on Instagram. The company’s research found that images with emojis in their captions receive 17% more interactions than those that don’t. Of course, it’s too soon to tell whether emojis will have the same effect on Google click-through rates, but it’s certainly worth experimenting with them. Just remember that they’ll only show up where relevant, so it’s wise to use them sparingly and where they make the most sense.
Google confirms the end of Site Search
It has been revealed that Google Site Search will be completely shut down next year. This means that no new licences or renewals will be issued after 1 April 2017.
Google Site Search has been around since 2008 and allows web publishers to apply the industry’s leading search technology to their own sites. Once companies have come to the end of their contract or their allocation of search queries is exhausted, they will automatically receive the ad-powered, free Custom Search Engine.
If your website uses Google Site Search, there’s no need to worry just yet. The company has said that it will provide customers with technical support for the duration of their licence agreements. Plus, any Google Site Search users whose contracts are going to expire between 1 April and 20 June 2017 will be given a free three-month extension to help with the transition.
So, there you have it: five of the biggest SEO and digital marketing stories of February 2017. Consider yourself up to date! We’ll be back again at the start of next month to let you know what happened in March.
We also post daily updates on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. So, if you would like to keep up to date in real time, make sure you follow us there!
