In May, Google announced it was running a beta test with advertisers to test driving traffic from mobile search ads to AMP landing pages. On Thursday, the company said all advertisers will be able to point mobile search ads to AMP landing pages beginning in two weeks. The functionality is limited to landing pages from search text ads for now. The lighter-weight AMP landing pages typically load instantly, as opposed to the lag of even speedy responsive landing pages on mobile, as illustrated in the demo below. AMP landing pages are supported for all mobile clicks, though caching is only available for Chrome on Android. Google says it’s working on support for other mobile browsers in the coming weeks. For testing and validation purposes, advertisers with access to the new AdWords interface will be able to see the percentage of clicks that go to invalid AMP pages. They can then identify issues and ensure the landing pages comply with AMP guidelines. On Wednesday, the AMP team … [Read more...] about Google rolling out support for AMP landing page in AdWords search campaigns globally
Chrome on Android
Andy Rubin Out, Sundar Pichai In, To Run Android For Google
Andy Rubin, who has lead Google’s Android operating system efforts, will now be replaced by Sundar Pichai. Google says the move today will leave Rubin time to work on a “new chapter” with the company. Google shared the news on its official blog today, saying: Andy’s decided it’s time to hand over the reins and start a new chapter at Google. Andy, more moonshots please! Going forward, Sundar Pichai will lead Android, in addition to his existing work with Chrome and Apps. Sundar has a talent for creating products that are technically excellent yet easy to use—and he loves a big bet. One Mystery Solved: Reason For Move Still Unclear This helps clear up the mystery about why Rubin suddenly was dropped from doing a keynote at the SXSW conference on Sunday. He was quietly replaced at the last minute by Google search chief Amit Singhal. As for why Rubin is moving off Android, that really isn’t clear. Perhaps it is that Rubin is looking for a new … [Read more...] about Andy Rubin Out, Sundar Pichai In, To Run Android For Google
Google Adds Rich Results For Podcasts
Google has quietly added new rich results markup for podcasts in the developer center. Aaron Bradley seemed to have first spotted this and posted it on Google+ saying that "a new data type has appeared in the Google reference library of structured data types: podcasts." Google said "you can enable your podcast to appear in Google Search results along with individual episode descriptions and an embedded player for each." This will however only work for searches done on the Google Search app version 6.5 or higher on an Android device or on Google Home. Google said they do want to add "support for Chrome on Android soon." Here is how it might look: So those of you who have Google Home can ask for it on demand. Maybe one day... In order to index a podcast, you must do the following: Expose a valid RSS feed describing the podcast that conforms to the RSS 2.0 specifications as well as the feed requirements described below. The feed must contain at least one episode that conforms to the … [Read more...] about Google Adds Rich Results For Podcasts
The Strange Explanation Of Why Windows Phone Users Lost Access To Google Maps
Windows Phone User? No Google Maps For You! To recap briefly, some Windows Phone users started reporting (as covered by The Verge) that they were unable to reach Google Maps using the Internet Explorer web browser on their phones. They got redirected instead to the Google home page. Google initially suggested (as covered by Gizmodo) that this was because Internet Explorer on Windows Phone wasn’t a WebKit-based browser and so Google Maps wouldn’t work for it. Google later added (as covered by The Next Web) that it was redirecting people on Windows Phone devices because of this incompatibility, but Google said this would soon change, since the latest version of Internet Explorer for Windows Phone was now apparently Google Maps-capable: Google sent us the same statement that The Next Web received, which says: We periodically test Google Maps compatibility with mobile browsers to make sure we deliver the best experience for those users. In our last test, IE mobile still did … [Read more...] about The Strange Explanation Of Why Windows Phone Users Lost Access To Google Maps
How and why the SEO tools industry should develop technical standards
The SEO technology space could benefit tremendously from the establishment of technical standards. Implementation of Google’s own specifications is inconsistent within our tools and can lead less-experienced SEOs to believe their sites are in better shape than they are. In the same way that the W3C rallied around the definition of protocol standards in 1994 and the Web Standards Project (WaSP) standardized coding practices in 1998, it’s our turn to button up our software and get prepared for what’s coming next. Stop me if you’ve heard this one. On December 4, I received an email from DeepCrawl telling me that my account was out of credits. That didn’t make any sense, though, because my billing cycle had just restarted a few days prior — and, frankly, we haven’t really used the tool much since October, as you can see in the screen shot below. I should still have a million credits. Logging in, I remembered how much I prefer other tools now. … [Read more...] about How and why the SEO tools industry should develop technical standards
