December 2019 – SEO and marketing news

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Dec 20, 2019 / by
December 2019 – SEO and marketing news

The laborious year that is and was 2019 is finally drawing to a close and we all got a general election as an early Christmas present this year! While it might seem like coal in the stocking, it has at least meant that attention has been drawn away from what has been a rather quiet month in the world of SEO and marketing.

Save for a few announcements from Google it was slim pickings this time around. Still, with Christmas only a couple of weeks away, I’m sure there are plenty of announcements waiting in the wings – so be sure to keep your ears to the ground.

Google rollout BERT worldwide

Google announced this week that the BERT algorithm officially rolled out this week. They say it will enable the platform to better understand search queries and currently affects around 10% of global searches. As BERT is meant to improve how Google understands search queries, that means it should be able to direct more organic search traffic to the most appropriate web pages.

Google explains: “We’re applying BERT to make Search better for people across the world. A powerful characteristic of these systems is that they can take learning from one language and apply them to others. So we can take models that learn from improvements in English (a language where the vast majority of web content exists) and apply them to other languages. This helps us better return relevant results in the many languages that Search is offered in.”

Conductor sold back to it is own CEO after two years

It’s been less than two years since WeWork announced the acquisition of SEO and content marketing company Conductor but those two years have been far from successful.

So it’s no surprise that Conductor is already being sold on — not to another company, but its own CEO and co-founder Seth Besmertnik, COO Selina Eizik, and investor Jason Finger (managing partner of The Finger Group and founder of Seamless).

The company says that Conductor’s employees will be given a new category of stock that they’re calling founder-preferred shares, turning them into “250 employee co-founders” who can appoint a representative to the board of directors. This should give them a bigger stake and a bigger say in where Conductor goes from here.

Google Publisher Centre drops

Google has launched a new tool designed to help publishers manage how their content appears across Google products. Google Publisher Centre merges two old tools – Google News Producer and Google News Publisher Centre. Google says the user experience and functionality has also been improved.

Publisher Centre is an interface that helps publishers submit, manage, and monetise content in Google News. The new Publisher Centre has unique features that didn’t exist in the old tools. Publishers now have an easier way to manage their identity, such as adding different logos depending on whether the user has their phone set to light or dark mode.

Another new feature offers people that manage multiple publications an easier way to organise and switch between them. This includes improved permission settings, which allows for easier collaboration with colleagues.

Publishers also no longer have to rely on RSS to configure sections in Google News – they can now point directly to URL. That means content for Google News will come directly from the web, similar to how Google indexes content for search results.

Facebook introduces new ad reporting tools

Facebook is rolling out new tools to assist advertisers with analysing campaign performance. The social media company is making it easier for advertisers to measure ad performance across accounts, channels, and publishers. With this data, advertisers can better understand how ads are performing, which demographics they are reaching, and where the conversions are coming from.

The tools in question include Cross-account reporting, which allows advertisers to see metrics from multiple ad accounts all in one place; Custom Metrics that will allow advertisers to build their own custom metrics to track the data they genuinely care about. Conversation path reporting, which allows advertisers to view the publishers in the most frequent conversion paths across channels and devices. With this data, advertisers can identify the most impactful conversion paths.

Google reveals the top searches of 2019

Finally, Google released its annual list of top trending searches of 2019 this week across various categories. In the UK, the top trending searches were as follows:-

  • Rugby World Cup
  • Cricket World Cup
  • Game of Thrones
  • Chernobyl
  • Thanos
  • Notre Dame
  • Avengers Endgame
  • iPhone 11
  • Caitlyn Jenner
  • Joker

So, it would appear that entertainment was very much on the minds of UK internet-users this year. Given the sorry state of affairs politically, we’re honestly not surprised!

To check out what was big in the world of SEO, digital marketing and the digital realm in general last month, click here for more news.

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