Good morning search marketers, GSC testing tools just got more useful.
The new evergreen Googlebot is now being used in many of the testing tools in Google Search Console and Google developer portal. The new Googlebot, which launched three months ago, uses the latest version of Chromium, the rendering engine that's also used by Chrome. The update to the testing tools means that the results you see in Chrome and what Googlebot sees will match what shows up in the testing tools. If you want to catch up on the Googlebot changes, see our initial coverage and then get the deeper dive from Editor at Large Detlef Johnson.
If you're not familiar with local SEO veteran Mary Bowling, yet, now's your chance to get to know her a bit and hear her insights on helping small businesses succeed with SEO. Search Engine Land's News Editor Barry Schwartz sat down with Mary in the latest installment of his interview series. "I think the more effort you put into feeding that [business information] knowledge to Google, the more reward you're going to see from Google for that." She cites the example of an HVAC client. Her team added his brand product line to Google, and said, "We could see within a month that he was starting to get more and more searches, more and more clicks from brand searches." She also discussed how measurement in local search has evolved. Watch the full interview here.
Read on for more. If you've got video assets, be sure to read Joe Martinez' Pro Tip below on creating custom lightbox ads for YouTube campaigns.
Lastly, before you head off to start your day, I'd like to ask for just five minutes of your time to take our annual reader survey. It helps us get to know you and your marketing interests better. Rest assured, your responses will remain anonymous and confidential — even if you enter the Amazon gift card giveaway. Click here to take the survey. Thanks in advance!
Ginny Marvin
Editor-In-Chief
