Good morning search marketers, will Google really hand over its algorithm?
It would seem unlikely, but there's a new twist in a case over "search bias" in Google shopping results that has dragged on for seven years. Comparison shopping engine Foundem accuses Google of demoting it in search results in favor of its own Shopping results. Now, a judge has said Google can either hand over documents about its search ranking algorithms for examination by Foundem expert witness and Berlin-based SEO consultant Phillipp Kloeckner, or withdraw them as evidence. So will Google expose its secrets or potentially weaken its defense instead?
Many businesses are seeing conversion rate fluctuations during this time. We've heard some advertisers say they've started using Google Ads' seasonality adjustments to account for drastic conversion rate changes in their campaigns. The problem is that's not how the tool is designed to work. Seasonality adjustments are designed for short time periods — ideally from one to seven days.
"Seasonality" in this case is somewhat of a misnomer, and just as you wouldn't use a seasonality adjustment to inform your bidding models for the entire duration of the holiday shopping season, you shouldn't use it to help manage the effects of the coronavirus outbreak on your conversion rates — unless, of course, you're going to run a three-day sale, for example. Then have at it.
Today at 4 p.m. EST, Barry Schwartz will host our next Live with Search Engine Land. He'll chat with search consultant Marie Haynes, Olga Andrienko of SEMRush, Mordy Oberstein of Rank Ranger and Peter Meyers from Moz about algorithm volatility and shifting search behavior since the global coronavirus pandemic broke out. Watch the livestream here starting at 4 p.m. EST.
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Ginny Marvin,
Editor-In-Chief
