🔍 From Corona to COVID: Tracking a SERP evolution

Mar 24, 2020

Good morning search marketers, search behaviors are changing.

Want to see how the SERP for "corona" has evolved over the past month as search intent has shifted? George Nguyen dug into Wayback Machine to chart the transformation of the search result page from one highlighting the beer brand and the city in California to one almost entirely devoted to information on COVID-19.

Bing has added support for the SpecialAnnouncement markup which can be applied to coronavirus-related business, travel, health agency and testing center announcements. Google doesn't support it yet, but may in the future.

Google announced a slew of updates and features for mobile game marketers that will be rolling out over the coming weeks. We've got the rundown on the App campaigns and analytics-related announcements, which include more asset reporting and open testing ads to bring more users into the mix during beta testing and game-specific funnel reporting in Analytics.

Yesterday Barry Schwartz and notable SEOs Pedro Dias, Lily Ray, Alexis Sanders as well as Daniel Waisberg of Google had a terrific video chat. Yes, it was supposed to be live — oops! We had some technical challenges and truly apologize. The good news is we recorded it, and you can tune in at your convenience. The panel discussed how the coronavirus and social distancing have changed search behaviors, the impact on their clients and their own work — and they answered readers' questions. Watch the full discussion here. Our next one will focus on local search and dealing with some of the current challenges of GMB — stay tuned.

Keep reading for a wonderfully simple stress-relieving exercise, plus your daily Pro Tip — this one's on using FAQ schema for e-commerce sites — and more.

Take care,

Ginny Marvin
Editor-In-Chief

Pro Tip

When should e-commerce sites use FAQ schema?

"Using FAQ schema should be employed for two reasons," explains SMX West speaker Tony Verre of Integer Group. "One, the mark-up will help make the product page a more viable candidate for the Answer Box results to provide the answer to the user's questions. And two, it will help search engines digest this content better."

More from SMX »

Mindful Moment

We'll be sharing daily mindfulness exercises to help us all take some time to decompress. If you have a suggestion, please email me at gmarvin@thirddoormedia.com.

Today's mindfulness exercise comes from Third Door Media's Marketing Manager, Allison Walter. Its genius is in its simplicity. Simply watch the circle expand and contract while you Just Breathe.

(Google began featuring a similar version in its search results in 2018, but we found the version Allison shared is easier to follow.)

Webinar: Retargeting in 2020: Key Insights to Help You Succeed

Nearly half of digital marketers say that retargeting is their most effective tactic for improving search performance. But that also means that half of digital marketers are not getting the best ROI on their retargeting efforts. Join our retargeting experts as we discuss forward-looking strategies and best practices for building and optimizing a powerful, integrated retargeting practice that reaches potential customers across multiple channels.

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Search Shorts

Google Myth: AMP gets prioritized

AMP prioritized. The idea that Google gives priority to AMP pages is a myth, says Martin Splitt.

Event schema alerts. Some SEOs have received notices via Google Search Console for event schema issues and problems. This seems to be related to the coronavirus changes with schema.

Google I/O canceled. Instead of postponing or going virtual for Google I/O, Google is going to cancel the event this year.

"What should I look for in an SEO solution?"

There's nothing like curling up with a good book — or good Marketing Intelligence Report — when you're stuck inside. MarTech Today's Enterprise SEO Tools For Content Marketing, Search Intelligence, UX, And More guide is an insightful and informative read that will help you understand who the leading players are and what capabilities these platforms provide.

Get your free copy now! »