Good morning search marketers, let's kick off the week.
A fresh Twitter thread is once again rekindling a debate over whether Google uses click-through rate as a ranking factor after a document surfaced that suggested that. In our view, this is settled. Google has long said it is not a factor for non-personalized search, and it's important for SEOs to know that history. Is Google always forthcoming? We know it isn't. But we see no reason for it to lie here.
Meanwhile, Google Search Console has quietly added a new section to help you see how well your product markup is performing in search. It's an exciting addition for e-commerce sites.
But let's get technical for a second. Services workers have brought a whole new realm of app-like functionality to developers, and there are some key SEO considerations to working with them. Detlef's latest column breaks it down.
On the paid search side, now you can add YouTube video to responsive display ads in Google, a move that marks the first substantial updates for RDAs since the initial rollout.
Lastly, the vast majority of questions asked on Google My Business pages are going unanswered, and the answers they do get are often unreliable. That's an opportunity, for sure.
And here's today's advice from the SMX stage: Building a competitor analysis is a process, not one and done.
There's more below, including a ProTip on data and a note on .dev.
Henry Powderly,
VP, Content
