Google has determined that when a page or document is granted the featured snippet, that the same document or page will not be listed anywhere else on page 1 of the search results. In some cases this might mean ranking #2 is a better option than ranking #1. Google also clarified that the featured snippet is position #1 in the rankings and not position 0 as it has been referred to in the past.
YouTube
No news
– Search
Google has stopped charging flight partners for being listed in their flight search engine and has dropped the ‘ads’ and ‘sponsored’ labels
- Search Engine Land – https://searchengineland.com/google-removes-ads-and-sponsored-labels-from-flight-search-results-327975
Google is dropping support for data-vocabulary.org in favor of Schema.org
- Search Engine Land – https://searchengineland.com/google-will-drop-support-for-data-vocabulary-org-structured-data-on-april-6-327927
Updated the Mobile-First indexing documentation
- Search Engine Roundtable – https://www.seroundtable.com/google-significant-updates-mobile-first-indexing-docs-28876.html
It does seem Google thinks URLs are irrelevant today, but that domains are relevant
- Search Engine Roundtable – https://www.seroundtable.com/google-domains-important-not-going-away-28861.html
Tweets have been showing up in Featured Snippets and the “People Also Ask” section
- Search Engine Roundtable – https://www.seroundtable.com/twitter-in-google-featured-snippets-people-also-ask-28859.html
– Ads
No News
– Search Console / Webmasters
No News
– Google My Business
No News
– Other Google
No News
Won’t be monetizing WhatsApp with ads
- Wall Street Journal – https://www.wsj.com/articles/whatsapp-backs-off-controversial-plan-to-sell-ads-11579207682
There’s a new feature that allows users to quickly see all story mentions, select them, style them, and share those mentions to their own stories
- Marketing Land – https://marketingland.com/new-instagram-stories-tool-lets-you-quickly-feature-story-mentions-from-other-users-274862
Removing the IGTV button
- The Verge – https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/20/21073680/instagram-igtv-button-home-screen-app-interface-long-form-video
University researchers published research showing that Instgram filters may lead to fewer likes on selfies
- Social Media Today – https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/new-report-suggests-that-adding-filters-to-your-instagram-selfies-could-res/570796/
No News
No News
TikTok
No News
No News
BONUS ROUND!!!
Apple will officially end support for Adobe Flash completely in an upcoming release of Safari
- Ars Technica – https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/01/apple-seems-poised-to-end-adobe-flash-support-in-the-next-safari-release/
Verizon Media, owners of Yahoo! and AOL, have launched a new privacy focused search engine called OneSearch
- Search Engine Journal – https://www.searchenginejournal.com/a-new-search-engine-enters-the-market-onesearch-from-verizon-media/344307/
Call tracking company CallRail can now directly integrate with Google My Business
Awesome post! Keep up the great work! 🙂