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Google Responds To Rachel Maddow's Complaint About Unlabeled Ads Search Engine Suggests that Malware Could be the Source of Google Ad Confusion

author image Written by: Nicole McCormick           Categories - In The News, Paid Ads

Have you ever seen Google ads that weren’t properly labelled as ads? MSNBC journalist Rachel Maddow recently did, and took to Twitter last week to call out Google for  allegedly attempting to hide its ads within regular search results.

Maddow claimed that when she performed a search in Google, search results would jump down the page when clicked on, triggering an unwanted ad that opened in a new window. 

After Maddow called out the search engine on Twitter, Google issued a response in the form of a short video, explaining that ads are always labeled as such, and how they appear in Search. 

Check out the video below:

Google’s public search liaison, Danny Sullivan, also posted about the video on Twitter, saying:

“Our new 2-minute video explains how ads are always labeled plus the basics of how they appear (and often don’t appear for most searches) in Google Search.”

Sullivan also suggested that Maddow’s experience could have been caused by Malware on her computer.

“We’ll probably look at doing a blog post or a fresh help page from this to better help people understand how to identify if there’s malware that might be impacting their results,” he said.

Maddow has yet to respond to Google’s explanation.

Tags - In The News, Paid Ads, google, Google ads, Malware, PPC, Rachel Maddow, search results

Nicole McCormick

Nicole is a wordsmith wizard, passionate about the written word and an avid storyteller who uses creatively crafted prose to help bring your brand’s story to the next level. A former journalist with writing credits in both local and national news publications and a few newspaper awards under her belt, Nicole now enjoys telling your stories and finding new and creative ways to create valuable content that resonates with audiences in the digital landscape.

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TikTok More Popular Than Google In 2021

 12/30/2021

For the first time in the last 20 years, Google wasn’t the most popular web address in a year – the title now belongs to TikTok.

The social video app owned by ByteDance has been a key digital platform for a while now. Gaining popularity during the pandemic, TikTok is now an opinion-maker of its kind and a go-to solution for targeting the younger generation, Gen Z.

According to Cloudfare, TikTok gained (and remained) number one in the global ranking on August 10, 2021. Before that, it was a back and forth battle with Google, but since then, the video app has mostly taken the lead.

Even though Google managed to come first again a few times, it didn’t win for the holidays. On Black Friday, TikTok rose again – a key fact for e-commerce businesses that rely on Google during the holidays shopping spree.

In comparison, TikTok was number seven in ranking after Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, Netflix and Amazon in 2020.

The app now has more than 1 billion monthly active users and doubled down on privacy, ad measurement and commerce, so it isn’t surprising that brands and marketers are getting more comfortable with advertising on it. The fact that the number of consumers exposed to ads nearly doubled, going to 37% this year, also helps.

After managing to surpass the potential ban in the U.S last year, TikTok continued attracting users and gaining more downloads. It became the first non-Facebook mobile app to surpass 3 billion downloads.

While staying in touch with its users and adapting to changes such as the return of longer videos, TikTok might have the potential to become a leader in the advertisement in the future.

The Year’s Winners By Cloudfare

Top 10 — Most popular domains (late) 2021

  1.  TikTok.com
  2. Google.com
  3. Facebook.com
  4. Microsoft.com
  5. Apple.com
  6. Amazon.com
  7. Netflix.com
  8. YouTube.com
  9. Twitter.com
  10. WhatsApp.com

Top 10 — Most popular social media domains (late) 2021

  1. TikTok.com
  2. Facebook.com
  3. YouTube.com
  4. Twitter.com
  5. Instagram.com
  6. Snapchat.com
  7. Reddit.com
  8. Pinterest.com
  9. LinkedIn.com
  10. Quora.com

 

 

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Google’s December Product Reviews Update Now Rolling

 12/02/2021

Google is rolling out a new search algorithm update called December 2021 Product Reviews. This is the first major update since April when the update was promoting high-quality product reviews. According to Google, the December update could change how your product reviews rank in search results. The update is currently rolling out for pages in English and will take about three weeks for its full completion.

What does it mean?

As explained by Google – if you have improved your content, good things might happen. Or not happen – you’re never really sure when it comes to Google. In other words – if you’ve made positive changes, you may see improvement with this update. But, since ranking depends on various other things, changes can happen at any time for any reason.

Google also said it had received more feedback from users and realized people like reviews with proof of using the products. They like reviews that seem trustworthy and useful. They also prefer to have more options to buy the product. That’s why it offered some advice.

Google’s Best Practices For Product Reviews

  • Give Evidence – visuals, audio, or other links of your experience with the product. This way, you are supporting your expertise and making your review authentic.
  • Provide Links – include different sellers to give an option of purchasing from your reader’s favourite merchant.

It seems like Google wants you to write high-quality, over-the-top product reviews, not a vague description of the product. Show that your content is more than just a necessity and tell a story in a way you know your customers will like. Test the product, evaluate it from a user’s perspective and explain what sets your product apart from your competitors. Here’s some more advice for writing high-quality product reviews.

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