Search engine legends, Google and Yahoo have been noticed experimenting their new user interfaces.

One of the Google’s representatives, Ruben Gomez from All Google Testing recently captured search engine giant Google testing gray background on their homepage. Gomez even spotted Yahoo testing their top search bar.

Google homepage

A couple of week ago, Google changed the look of their search platform, when they introduced a grey color background for their homepage, instead of older white background. Now the search box is slightly larger than the older one with more space.

Check with the screen shot:

The white background version that users utilized so far:

Yahoo search bar test

Simultaneously, Yahoo is also playing with their user interface and currently they are testing a new search bar on the top of the page. The new bar is more spacious and larger than the older. The purple color drop out of the search box has been replaced with the magnifying glass icon.

Here is the screen shot:

The version that was live so far:

Earlier this month, many Webmasters reported that Google has been testing long text ads in the search results for numerous platforms. This report came out to be true on May 24^th 2016, when Google officially announced the availability of Expanded Text Ads for the advertisers later this year.

After removing right-side ads, Google now has the flexibility to show text ads with more characters so that they appear uniform across multiple devices. These expanded text ads will easily run across different devices and soon be optimized for smartphones.

On Tuesday 24^th May 2016, Google’s Senior Vice President, Ads and Commerce, Sridhar Ramaswamy, in a blog post talked more about this and other news from Google Performance Summit, “These upgrades help your ads work harder across screens, especially for the on-the-go mobile consumer that wants to know exactly what you offer before tapping into your website.”

This updated ad format will now have two longer headlines of up to 30 characters and a description of up to 80 characters long.

Moreover, the display URL can also include up to two directory paths, which can be effectively utilized by the advertisers to describe the landing page content. One does not need to match the landing page URL.

Here are the features that are being changed by the Google.

Further stating, Mr. Ramaswamy said, “This deviation from the 25-35-35 character format that has perhaps been the only constant throughout AdWords’ 15-year history will be a big change for advertisers. We encourage you to start planning for this upgrade before it rolls out later this year.”

A few days back, Google confirmed that they have rolled out an update for their mobile search results.  Now, if any user’s search query has local intent, and it shows up the “3-pack” or “local pack” in the search results, then search engine giant might offer users additional search filters for that query.

Below is an example for search la bella. Here Google has provided additional filters option to show results “within 5 miles,” or “open now,” or “top rated,” or even more. Moreover, depending on the location of the searcher, one might see “pizza”, “hair salon” and other options. These search filters on the local pack provide searchers additional dynamic filters based on the query, searcher’s location and their history.

Here is the screen shot for the search “la bella” from iPhone, which shows the filter bubbles below the map, but above the listings.

Over the last weekend, search engine giant, Google took manual action for outbound links that was associated with the warning Google gave a few weeks ago for bloggers exchanging links for free products and services.

On April 11, 2016, a report circulated over the web that Google sent outbound linking penalties to a huge number of webmasters past weekend. These penalties were directly linked with the warning that search engine giant gave a few weeks ago for bloggers who exchanged links for the free products and services.

Google asked bloggers to, “nofollow the link, if you decide to link to the company’s site, the company’s social media accounts, an online merchant’s page that sells the product, a review service’s page featuring reviews of the product or the company’s mobile app in an app store.”

After a few weeks of the announcement, Google took manual actions in typical Google style against those who regulated their guidelines.

Google’s John Mueller stated about the warning given by them in a few threads in their support forum. Individuals can now about the warning on https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2016/03/best-practices-for-bloggers-reviewing.html.

He further added, “In particular, if a post was made because of a free product (or free service, or just paid, etc.), then any links placed there because of that need to have a rel=nofollow attached to them. This includes links to the product itself, any sales pages (such as on Amazon), affiliate links, social media profiles, etc. that are associated with that post. Additionally, I imagine your readers would also appreciate it if those posts were labeled appropriately. Its fine to keep these kinds of posts up, sometimes there’s a lot of useful information in them! However, the links in those posts specifically need to be modified so that they don’t pass PageRank (by using the rel=nofollow).

Once these links are cleaned up appropriately, feel free to submit a reconsideration request, so that the webspam team can double-check and remove the manual action.”

Search engine giant, Google, recently introduced a new feature in Google AdWords that will automatically apply recommended bids when setting up categories in AdWords dynamic search ad (DSA) campaigns.

A few days back, Google clarified marketers about their new roll out of bidding in AdWords. With this update, Google AdWords will now automatically apply recommended bids in dynamic search ad (DSA) campaigns while setting up the categories.

It looks terrifying, but marketers will have the opportunity to override these automated recommended bids when it comes to setting up new categories.

Through this new feature, marketers will get benefitted in easily setting up a lot of dynamics search ad categories quickly and efficiently, without any hassle.

Talking more about this new feature, one of the representatives of Google stated, “For example, if you have four categories selected: “sandals,” “running shoes,” “loafers,” and “flip flops,” you no longer have to manually set bids for each one. You can also adjust recommended bids or leave the field empty to use the ad group’s default bid.”

These automatic bid recommendations are based on the performance of the existing keywords that target similar search queries. This means that the bid recommendations are based on the Google AdWords account activities and thus needs to be absolutely reviewed by the marketers before launching the new campaign. Besides this, individuals will also have the opportunity to review everything and adjust bid as per their needs. Here is the picture showing this new feature of Google AdWords.

A few days back, search engine giant, Google rolled out a new feature “Add a Pitstop” within their Google Maps. This feature is presently available for iOS devices in the countries where navigation is offered. Earlier, for viewing the direction of the location outside the route, one needs to leave the navigation mode. But, with this new update, individuals can now add a detour, or ‘pit-stop’ to their route, while still staying within the navigation mode.

This feature was launched in October 2015 for Android devices, and now it is has finally made a way to iOS. This amazing feature can only be accessed in the navigation mode. In the navigation mode, individuals have to tap the top left magnifying glass option, and search for the next destination where they like to stop at.

On tapping the magnifying glass option, a number of locations, like gas stations, restaurants, grocery stores, coffee shops and many others, are displayed that individuals can choose as per their requirements. Users can even search the name or address of the location they exactly know where to go.

In the search results, individuals can even see review stars for the locations and the estimated time for which the pit stop will add to your trip. While driving, users can even use voice commands to add detours to their routes. Users need to update their Google Maps app from the App store to enjoy the benefits of this feature.

Google App Streaming is now showing up in the Android Google App search results. Individuals can now preview the apps before downloading them, directly from the search results.

Last year in November 2015, search engine giant, Google prototyped app streaming on a few selected apps. But, now it appears like the app streaming feature is available for most of the apps in the Google mobile search results.

The requirements for utilizing this feature apply: Individuals must be running Android L or greater and should be on Wi-Fi when searching within the Google Search App. The app that comes up may have a button “Try Now” adjacent to the green “Install” button. On clicking the “Try Now” button, the app streaming starts right on your device – in real time.

The ability of app streaming is that it allows individuals to try the app before installing it on the device.

The picture below represents the results for a search on [word search]:

When the button “Try Now” is clicked, an app streamer is launched that allows users to utilize the app for a limited time duration:

Users can easily see a text message appearing at the bottom that reads, “App streamed by Google (beta).” On clicking the banner present at the bottom, users will see options like to install the app, learn more about app streaming, go back to the Google search results or close out the window.

The user interface looks similar to the examples from November, but now it looks like it is working for many apps under the conditions mentioned above.

Search engine giant’s AdWords Automated Bidding gets an overhaul and has added with portfolio bidding strategies. This will help the advertisers in setting different CPA targets at the ad group level within the same bid strategy.

Recently, Google has announced that they are now revamping AdWords automated bidding. Some of these changes will be semantic, but the workflow is also getting an update

Here are the naming changes:

• The flexible strategies will now be called “portfolio” bid strategies. This change indicates that in some cases a single strategy can be fully applied across multiple campaigns, ad groups and keywords.
• Strategy for a single campaign will now be known as a “standard” bid strategy.
• Target CPA is the new name for Conversion Optimizer that will be used for all the new bid strategies for simplifying the nomenclature. The Target CPA can still be applied as a “standard” or a “portfolio” bid strategy.

Following are the functionality updates of the Google AdWords:

• Advertisers will now be able to create or add the bidding strategies from their Campaign Setting tab without diving into Shared Library.
• Portfolio bid strategies for Target CPA will now have different CPA goals for separate ad groups. One of the examples of this update is, “If you’re a clothing retailer with multiple ‘Accessories’ ad groups in a bidding portfolio, you may want to set a lower CPA target for ‘Socks’ compared to other product categories with higher average order value.”

These portfolio bid strategies can’t be applied to video or universal app campaigns.

Back in December, search engine giant, Google introduced new reporting features for automated bidding. All these updates will be reflected in the users’ accounts in the upcoming few weeks.

Social Media Giant, Facebook, recently introduced a new audience optimization tool that allows advertisers to target organic posts to their specific audiences. This tool has the ability to make posts more relevant in people’s news feeds that are being displayed to Facebook users may keep them engaged.

While making a Facebook post, users will soon get an option to add interest tags. Through these tags, Facebook will then prioritize the content in the news feeds of the people who share same interests and tastes.

Social media giant stated that there is a slight difference between this new audience optimization tool and the existing Interest Targeting feature, which doesn’t restrict the post’s reach unless stopped by the user.

Talking more about this new development, one of the Facebook’s staff members stated, “You can exclude sub-sections of your audience from seeing certain posts if that’s how you want to target them. For example, if you’re going to publish something that would only be relevant to your local area, you can exclude non-locals from seeing it. In addition to location, you can also restrict posts based on language, age, or gender.”

This feature comes along with new audience insight capabilities and allows advertisers to check the performance of the post with breakdowns of total reach by interest tag. The data received from the reach and engagement metrics for each interest tag can help advertisers in targeting the right audience for their future posts. Plus, it can also help in knowing the segments of the audience that one might have not ever thought to engage with.

Adding to the statement, the representative stated, “The variety and amount of content available to people is growing, so having more information about who is likely to be interested in your content helps us get your posts to the people who will care about them most.”

Here the following steps that can help individuals in enabling the tool before accessing it.

• Go to your Page.
• Click ‘Settings’ in the top right hand corner.
• Click ‘General’ in the tab column on the left side of the page.
• Find the row labeled ‘Audience Optimization for Posts’ in the middle of the page and click ‘Edit.’.
• Check off the box that allows you to begin using the feature.

The Audience Optimization tool will be available for English language pages pretty soon through the page post composer, graph API, third-party publishing tools, and Instant Articles.

Google’s non-paid modules are only available for candidates appearing for the 2016 elections

Search Engine Giant, Google is currently giving the Republican and Democratic candidates a special place in 2016 searches. As per their saying, the company has recently launched an experimental feature that will generate a prominent place in the horizontal carousel in search results for the candidate’s messages and contents.

However, it is not an ad unit. The results will appear in a similar fashion as the Twitter posts presently appear for candidate-related results. But, the module is more flexible. The features of this latest add-on are:

• Candidates will be able to publish the text with lengths up to 14,400 characters
• Candidates will be able to add up to 10 images or videos per post

Talking more about the upcoming Republican debate, Google stated in their official BlogSpot that, “Political search interest spikes 440 percent on average during live televised debates as people turn to the web to learn more about the candidates and their platforms.” Through this new candidate card, candidates will get access to speak a mouth of words directly to the voters and control some of the content in search about them.

As shown in the picture, candidates can incorporate text, images and videos for directly communicating with their voters. This feature will be live for the upcoming televised Republican debate on January 28 and will continue throughout the election in November.

The above picture shows that the changes appearing in mobile. Presently, there are no corresponding pictures showing the desktop view, but for sure they will also appear in PC search results.

Search engine giant is planning to show the new ranking cards based on what their ranking algorithms figure out whether a searcher wants to know about the candidate or wants to directly hear him or her. This will work on the same methodology as Google determines how and when to show Knowledge Graph results.

With this feature of Google, the present Democratic and Republican presidential candidates will get access to share & supply content and use the module. Moreover, Google has also indicated that the result of these cards will not replace Twitter in search results.

However, Google has yet no plans to expand this feature beyond politics to commerce or other content areas.

Bing recently dropped two features from its own Bing Ads Intelligence, but they will be present in the web based user interface.

Recently, Bing made an announcement that they are eradicating two features from Bing Ads Intelligence. The two features that advertisers will not be noticing from the New Year are Auction Insights and the Opportunities tabs.

Though being dropped from Bing’s Ads Intelligence, these features will still be present and available within the Bing Ads web user interface.

Advertisers can track Auction Insights feature in the “Details” drop-down menu in the Campaigns, Ad Groups and Keywords tabs. They can also export them. Here is the picture showing Auction Insights in Details menu.

While Broad Match Opportunities can be found in the “Opportunities” in Bing Ads web based user interface.

For those looking for more information about these changes can visit Bing’s official blog.

Google is currently testing the new schema to markup local business data for updating the local information of any business.

Search engine giant, Google recently announced that they are adding a new structured markup page that will help businesses in providing local business data to Google.

Google presented the document about these changes and wrote “We are currently piloting this feature with a restricted set of initial data providers. We hope to soon open up the feature so any provider who implements spec-compliant markup is eligible to participate.”

Though being in testing phase, the benefit of this new schema is that now businesses can easily markup their web pages and can efficiently communicate these updates to their local business data to Google. These changes by search engine giant can make the process simpler for both Google as well as local businesses in showing more accurate and real-time data in the Google local knowledge panel that shows up in the search results.

What’s more interesting is that Google released the Google My Business API last week that aimed at making the task simpler for the businesses to send updated local business information in a programmatic manner to Google.

This new schema is far different as in this the markup is added directly to the website. When Googlebot crawls the site and notices the markup, the latest data found can be used by Google to update the local business data.

Although the update is yet not out for public, but you can likely start adding this markup to your own site.