Google has used page speed as a ranking factor for desktop websites for some time. And now it’s about to become a ranking factor for mobile sites.
Later this month Google will start using mobile page speed as a ranking factor in their mobile search results. So all things being equal, faster pages will rank higher than slower pages.
Whilst you should be concerned about ensuring your website is as fast as possible — as much, or more, for user experience than Google — there’s no need to panic.
Google has advised the mobile “Speed Update will only affect pages that deliver the slowest experience to users and should only affect a small percentage of queries. It applies the same standard to all pages, regardless of the technology used to build the page. The intent of the search query is still a very strong signal, so a slow page may still rank highly if it has great, relevant content”.
Speed matters — but having good relevant content is more important.
Facebook lets Group Admins charge monthly subscriptions
It was really only a matter of time, wasn’t it?
Facebook is now monetising groups by giving admins the option to implement monthly membership fees.
Subscriptions are currently being piloted with a select number of groups and may be rolled out more widely depending on user feedback.
Facebook says that subscriptions are being introduced as a way to support group admins who give their time and energy to maintaining communities.
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Starting this month, Chrome will mark all HTTP sites as “not secure”
Have you made your website secure and switched it to SSL yet? If you haven’t, you may start to see a decline in traffic from this month.
As we’ve advised previously, Google is about to start highlighting web pages that are NOT secure. And that’s going to happen when Chrome 68 gets released this month.
So now is the time to switch to SSL if you haven’t made the leap already.
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Google tests new Detailed Demographics
We’ve seen Google’s new “detailed demographics” in only a few Google AdWords (sorry... Google Ads) accounts to date, but we like what we see.
More granular targeting opportunities are always welcome in our house, and Google is now letting select advertisers target searchers by their marital, home ownership, education, and parental status.
Demographic targeting is not the be-all, we get that, but the new options will be welcomed by advertisers wanting to make the most of their budget (as Google Ads CPCs trend ever upwards).
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Bing can search what you see in your smartphone camera
Take or upload a picture from your smartphone, and Bing can now determine what’s in your photo and give you more information about it. Great for travellers, and for shoppers (who can get prices and details on whatever interests them).
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