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Showing posts from November, 2015

google’s App Interstitial Giant Ad Penalty Is Now Live

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Yesterday, Google released an update to their mobile-friendly algorithm, penalizing sites using giant app install interstitial ads. On September 1, Google told us that giant ads for apps may lead to ranking declines starting on November 1. Well, that algorithm, aka the “app install interstitial penalty,” went live a day late, on November 2. Google announced it on various social networks, including Google+, saying: Starting today, pages with an app install interstitial that hide a significant amount of content on the transition from the search result page won’t be considered mobile-friendly. This penalty will be built right into the overall Google mobile-friendly algorithm, so this makes November 2 the second day of Mobilegeddon. Or maybe not. I have yet to see complaints from webmasters about being hit by a penalty yesterday. Google’s advice? Instead of full page interstitials, we recommend that webmasters use more user-friendly formats such as app install banners. We

Android Marshmallow Series: Google's Private index

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As over-the-air updates for Android Marshmallow start slowly rolling out to some Nexus devices, many SEOs are wondering how this well-publicized update will impact mobile user behavior and search. This is especially true because Google’s enhanced predictive search utility, Now on Tap, will be deeply integrated in the browser and OS. Google’s Private Index: Google has always collected data from its users for the purpose of personalization (like query, browsing and click history), but now Google also keeps a searchable Private Index. “Phone” is a new search option/index that Google has made available to all users (with or without Android Marshmallow), as in “Search my phone.” You can find it hidden in the Google Now interface when you scroll to the right in the top navigation. This is Google’s entry to your Private Index, and it seems to be much like the Apple iOS 9 Private Index, in which information about your private mobile behavior is stored to your phone so that it