Good morning, search marketers, is there a shark in your office?
There can be now… Google's 3D objects with AR support in search results is now live on mobile. To see how it works, search for [shark] or [lion] for example. Scroll down and you may see the option to "View in 3D". You can then click to load the object and select the AR option to project it into your environment through your mobile phone's camera. It's supported on Android and iOS devices.
If you're not seeing it live on your phone yet, you can check out Barry Schwartz' videos showing how it works in his article on the news. For now, these objects are showing for non-commercial queries, but it's easy to see the opportunities for retail when AR is supported right in the SERPs.
SEOs have been reacting to the addition of favicons in Google mobile search. Veteran SEO Bill Hartzer managed to briefly get a copy of the "Ad" label to show as his site's favicon. Two days later, Google removed the favicon and instead shows a big "Ad" logo in his listing. (I'm still seeing that live as of this writing.)
Google Maps will start showing popular dishes in restaurant listings. The new feature is powered by (what else?) machine learning and matches dish names, provided by Google Maps users, with relevant photos and reviews. So don't be surprised if restaurants start encouraging more food pics.
Read on for a Pro Tip from first-time columnist Amalia Fowler on running tests in low volume PPC accounts and more.
Ginny Marvin
Editor-In-Chief