Good morning, search marketers, how often do you delete your browsing history?
Users can now automatically have their Google history deleted on 3- or 18-month intervals. So far, this option is only available for location history, as well as for web and app activity, and it's still in the roll out phase. This may affect our ad targeting within Google Ads, but it's not clear how much of an impact it'll have.
Speaking of internet privacy, DuckDuckGo has proposed the "Do-Not-Track Act of 2019" — a draft legislation that would legally require sites to honor user tracking preferences. Less tracking means less data to inform our marketing and advertising campaigns, and although it's far from becoming a law, the feature is already available on most popular browsers and digital privacy issues have been drawing more attention from politicians.
You may have noticed that your Search Console data between April 9 and April 25 was filled in with the data from April 26. Though Google fixed the Search Console bug, it seems the reports for that period were lost, save for Performance reports. Marketers would be wise not to rely on data from that period and to communicate this news to their clients.
The Bing Partner Summit is going on right now and Microsoft is taking the opportunity to announce its unique ads features, including customizing ads by audience, video thumbnails for ads in position one, and a 3D view that users can manipulate. Additionally, the company is also investing in retail solutions, like the Microsoft Shopping Assistant, a browser extension for price comparison and price change notifications.
Last weekend, Google began surveying some of its My Business listing owners in what seems to foreshadow an upcoming paid subscription service for some of the features we're currently getting for free. Now, local SEOs are reacting to the idea: Some feel as though they're being threatened with competitors' ads on their listings. Others say the proposal hearkens back to the old-school Yellow Pages tactics. Many seem resigned to pay up if their competitors do as well, and a few admit that this move should at least alleviate their support problems.
One of the features that may be included in the paid subscriptions is CallJoy — a virtual agent and telephony product powered by the same tech behind Google Assistant and Duplex. Customers that call SMBs that use CallJoy will be greeted with an automated response that provides basic business information and can help fulfill customer requests, such as scheduling an appointment, via SMS. The business owner gets the benefit of transcribed calls and their staff should be a bit freer to step away from the phone.
Phew, that was a lot of information, but I know you're ready for more. Keep reading for your daily Pro Tip, Search Shorts, and to find out what we're reading.
George Nguyen,
Associate Editor
