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Facebook begins thwarting ad blockers

Although Facebook now generates upwards of 80% of its revenue from mobile ads, the world's largest social network isn't waving the white flag on desktop ad blocking.

Yesterday, it announced that it's changing the way it delivers desktop ads in an effort to thwart ad blocking software.

Andrew Bosworth, Facebook's Ads & Business Platform VP, didn't mince words, telling the Wall Street Journal, “Facebook is ad-supported. Ads are a part of the Facebook experience; they're not a tack on.” In a blog post, he explained Facebook's position in slightly more diplomatic terms:

We've designed our ad formats, ad performance and controls to address the underlying reasons people have turned to ad blocking software. When we asked people about why they used ad blocking software, the primary reason we heard was to stop annoying, disruptive ads.

Facebook believes that it's well on its way to addressing concerns over annoying ads.

“As a result of what we've learned, we've introduced tools to help people control their experience, improved how we decide which ads to show and created new ad formats that complement, rather than detract from, people's experience online,” Bosworth stated.

Given this, Facebook says it will begin displaying ads to desktop users even when they're using ad blocking software.

At the same time, it's rolling out new ad controls that give users the ability to remove specific interests from their ad preferences and to disable ads from companies that have added them to Custom Audiences.

Good news for marketers?

At first glance, Facebook's stance vis-à-vis ad blocking looks to be a net positive for marketers active on the social network.

If Facebook can thwart desktop ad blockers, marketers won't have to worry that their ability to reach users through Facebook ads is being compromised.

At the same time, by allowing users to remove interests, Facebook could ironically help marketers using interest-based targeting improve the efficacy of their campaigns.

After all, if a user is so opposed to being targeted based on a specific interest (i.e. travel) that she removes it using Facebook's ad controls, a marketer is arguably better off not paying to reach that consumer based on that interest.

But one of Facebook's new ad controls could prove more problematic for marketers. For many marketers, retargeting through Custom Audiences is highly effective. If users opt out of this en masse, some marketers could find it more difficult to employ Facebook to run successful retargeting campaigns, hampering their Facebook ROI.

The big question is whether users will take advantage of Facebook's ad controls in sizable numbers.

Given the large number of settings Facebook already provides that aren't immediately apparent, it's probably a safe bet that the number of desktop users who are forced to view ads will exceed the number of users who take full advantage of Facebook's new ad controls.

Is Donald Trump's earned media hurting his brand?

The 2016 US election features a presidential candidate like no other.

Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, has more than 30 million followers across all of the social channels he's active on, and on Twitter, his most prolific channel, he has over 10 million, approximately two million more than his opponent, Hillary Clinton.

What's more: he's besting Clinton in engagement, generating double the number of retweets and three times the number of likes.

Trump's willingness to speak his mind, online and offline, has arguably been both a blessing and a curse, but one thing is for certain: it has attracted a lot of attention.

How much? By some estimates, Trump has already generated more than $2 billion – yes billion with a b – in earned media.

But according to data gathered by local search and discovery app Foursquare, the attention Trump has garnered isn't driving increased foot traffic to properties he owns or that bear his name. In fact, it might even be driving people away.

There's no such thing as bad PR, or is there?

Foursquare, which counts some 50 million users, says that since the Republican presidential nominee launched his campaign in June 2015, Trump-branded hotels, casinos and golf courses in the United States have seen their market share of foot traffic decrease, and that the decrease has intensified since spring:

Before Trump announced his presidential bid, foot traffic to his properties was steady year-over-year - and maybe even saw a small uptick. After he entered the race, his branded properties failed to get their usual summertime traffic gains. In August 2015, the share of people coming to all Trump-branded properties was down 17% from the year before.

These losses stabilized to single digits for a number of months, but as Primary voting season hit full swing in March 2016, share losses grew again. Trump properties did not get their usual springtime bounce of travelers and locals. March share was down 17% once more.

Several properties, the Trump SoHo hotel in New York City, the Trump International Hotel & Tower Chicago and Trump Taj Mahal casino resort in Atlantic City, appeared to be the hardest hit properties, with market share of foot traffic down between 17 and 24% year-over-year.

It should be noted that the Trump Taj Mahal, which is closing at the end of August, bears his name but is not owned by Donald Trump.

While it's difficult to conclusively establish cause and effect, Foursquare did observe that the decreases in Blue States “[run] deeper than the national average” and that visits from women to Trump-branded properties are down sharply.

Given the candidate's high unfavorability ratings with Democrats and women, Foursquare's segmented data hints at the possibility that at least some of the declines could be a result of the properties' association with the Trump name.

Either way, Foursquare's data, which has been normalized against Census data, seems to suggest that all the earned media Trump has gained through his presidential bid has not increased the share of foot traffic to Trump-branded properties.

So even if there's no such thing as bad PR, bad PR apparently isn't always good.

Google Trends Explore tool gets a facelift

Google Trends Explore tool launches a new interface this week, but is it much better?

Unlike other Google changes, the only people that would notice this update are marketers, researchers and the periodic journalist from time to time.

I've examined the new look and feel, as well as features and functionality to see how impactful this change can be. Below is a quick breakdown of what's changed, and what hasn't:

New features (mostly look and feel, some functionality)

• Updated interface: The look and feel has been refined to allow for easier navigation and simpler, single screen viewing of data.


• Historical data by day: Archived trend data can now be viewed down to the day (upgraded from a month only view). This is perhaps the most important feature update, as we can now customize the range for specific dates when we know events are happening, such as news, sales, and product launches.

• Geographic comparison: Comparing two or more search terms will now show you which terms are stronger by sub region on a single map.

• Search term filtering: When comparing two or more search terms, you can individually filter by geography and time.


• Export to Excel: All of the data components in the trend interface can now be exported to an Excel CSV file.


• Mobile embed update: Mobile versions of charts for imbedding purposes is now available. 

Features that have been removed (and likely won't be missed)

• News & Forecast buttons: Users can no longer view “notable” news stories on your trend line nor can you forecast future search interest. We've found that this feature has typically been unavailable over the last few months.


• Trending over time (MAP): The feature, which would allow you to view the geographic search interest changes over time, has also been removed. This feature was interesting for some very high volume searches, but also seemed to be pretty inconsistent.

Consistent features (under the surface, still the same)

• Trend results: Results (the actual data) appear to have remained unchanged. It looks like you still get different results for pretty similar terms, plurals and misspellings.

• Individual search term details: The ability to look at geographic search term performance as well as rising/top related queries remains intact.


•  Share & embed: Users can still share the results on social media as well as embed the charts on HTML pages.

Overall the new Google Trends tool just looks better, rather than being a total overhaul. But it does feature some improved functionality and everything useless has been removed.

Despite all the changes, it's still the same basic tool inside.

Michael Gauld is the VP/Director of Search Marketing at DigitasLBi.

What are the top 10 most popular search engines?

You know, apart from the most obvious search engine. And possibly the second most obvious one too. In fact I'll start again, what are the eight most popular search engines after Google and Bing?

The first list below contains the most popular search engines currently available, ordered by most to least popular in the US. The ranking is according to eBiz, it's in order of estimated unique monthly visitors and is accurate as of August 2016.

The second list is a global overview of most popular search engines, according to Net Market Share, which is ranked in order of market share and is again accurate as of August 2016.

As opposed to our previous list of search engine alternatives to Google, this list will concentrate purely on informational searches rather than say… Gifs or copyright free images.

US

1) Google

Estimated Unique Monthly Visitors: 1.6 billion

Alexa Rank: 1

Why should you use it?

With 72.48% of the world's market share of search, as a marketer you don't really have a choice not to use it for both paid and organic reach.

As an every day user, for all of our cynicism and occasionally flippant references to The Circle, you have to admit Google is utterly indispensable in your every day life. For every interference (the constant curtailing of organic results) there are 10 triumphs… Google Maps, Gmail, the terrifying relevance of Knowledge Graph, the killing of payday loan ads, AMP…

Where the heck would we all be without the… yes, I'm going to say it… search giant.

2) Bing

Estimated Unique Monthly Visitors: 400 million

Alexa Rank: 22

Why should you use it?

As I said in earlier in the year in the aforementioned 'alternatives to Google' post, there are some great reasons to choose Bing:

• Bing's video search is significantly better than Google's.


• Bing often gives twice as many autocomplete suggestions than Google does.


• Bing has a great linkfromdomain:[site name] feature that highlights the best ranked outgoing links from that site, helping you figure out which other sites your chosen site links to the most.

3) Yahoo

Estimated Unique Monthly Visitors: 300 million

Alexa Rank: n/a

Why should you use it?

Well that's all a but up in the air at the moment, as Verizon has just purchased Yahoo for $4.8 billion dollars and is planning on merging it with AoL.

Yahoo will continue to operate independently pending regulatory approval of the deal, which is expected to be completed by early 2017. After this, all of Yahoo's news, finance and sports platforms will be added to AOL's media assets, which include The Huffington Post and TechCrunch.

4) Ask

Estimated Unique Monthly Visitors: 245 million

Alexa Rank: 31

Why should you use it?

Despite Google's determination to be the ultimate font of all knowledge on its own SERP, Ask is still good for specific question related searches, with results centring on Q&A related matches.

And hey, sometimes it's nice to get help from a butler.

5) Aol Search

Estimated Unique Monthly Visitors: 125 million

Alexa Rank: n/a

Why should you use it?

As mentioned above, the AOL you know and possibly love may become a different beast once Verizon Communications merges it with Yahoo.

Let's remember simpler times…

6) Wow

Estimated Unique Monthly Visitors: 100 million

Alexa Rank: 767

Why should you use it?

Because it works more like a news site then a search engine, which is handy if you want everything in one place. There is a strong lean towards news and celebrity based articles rather than pure Wikipedia-style information, but the handy links to related social channels and wiki pages are useful.

7) WebCrawler

Estimated Unique Monthly Visitors: 65 million

Alexa Rank: 674

Why should you use it?

WebCrawler has a far clearer delineation between paid search ads and organic results. It also seems to feature far more natural 'blue links' than Google.

8) MyWebSearch

Estimated Unique Monthly Visitors: 60 million

Alexa Rank: 405

Why should you use it?

Uh… don't.

According to the Malware Wikia, MyWebSearch is a spyware and search toolbar program that allows the user to query various popular search engines and comes bundled with an exhausting suite of 'goodies' such as such as Smiley Central, Webfetti, Cursor Mania, My Mail Stationary, My Mail Signature, My Mail Stamps, FunBuddyIcons… the fun goes on and on.

Most damningly of all though, Malware Wikia reports that despite it not carrying any malware attributes, an independent repair lab has classified the toolbar as a nuisance because of “slowdowns in return for features that are already built into many modern web browsers.”

9) Infospace

Estimated Unique Monthly Visitors: 24 million

Alexa Rank: 2,110

Why should you use it?

You may be using it already… InfoSpace is a “provider of white label search and monetization solutions” and it also operates its own branded search sites, including the metasearch engine Dogpile, as well as Zoo.com and WebCrawler (as mentioned above.)

10) Info.com

Estimated Unique Monthly Visitors: 13.5 million

Alexa Rank: 1,938

Why should you use it?

Info.com aggregates results from the indexed web AND social media channels. It monitors real-time social conversations and according to them, it delivers “newsworthy, trending, and popular results before they hit the indexed web.” These streams are classified into structured topics which provides additional context and insight.

Bonus: 11) DuckDuckGo

Honourable mention to DuckDuckGo, the new kid on the block that doesn't store your personal information, which has managed to accrue 13 million unique monthly visitors and is currently the 11th most popular search engine in the US.

Worldwide

Here's the marketshare worldwide for search engines…

1) Google – 72.48%

2) Bing – 10.39%

3) Yahoo – 7.78%

4) Baidu – 7.14%

5) Ask – 0.22%

6) AOL – 0.15%

7) Excite – 0.01%

Digital Altitude Aspire Review Former Network Marketer Joins DA

Digital Altitude Aspire Review Former Network Marketer Joins DA

via https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtEc-WTq7uPoVuEFP1FEY-Q

What should I do when I discover a competitor's Private Blog Network (PBN)?

Wherever you land on the private blog network (PBN) argument, it always pays to have a plan in place for when you encounter a competitor's network.

For many, the adherence to Google's policies on search ranking manipulation resembles that of a religious zealot. For others, a PBN is simply a component part of getting ahead of the game.

Regardless of where you fall on the spectrum, you will from time to time discover a competitor's PBN lurking behind an entry above you in the SERPs, or perhaps powering up from below.

I frequently find PBN's when doing link research, and often find myself wondering what should I do. I even spent some time trying to research if there was an effective way for Google to use Recaptcha to detect spun content on PBNs.

First: determine just what type of PBN you are dealing with

Are you looking at a group of sites that have been built from the ground up, just to be used for ranking their clients or themselves?

A PBN of this nature will often rely on some other more rudimentary grey/black hat tactics, such as web2.0 link wheels and directory links.

Or is the majority of the network built from 'resurrected' sites. In this scenario you will see that the domain does not always match the theme of the site itself, and that the links coming in don't always seem to match the content of the site either.

In this scenario, someone purchased a domain that already had authority and trust flowing to it from other sites, and then built their new site on the old domain. This can be easily verified by going to archive.org and inspecting what the site used to contain.

Or simply check to see if there seems to be a juxtaposition between the anchor text hitting the pages and what the page actually contains.

Second: map out as much of the network as you can

If you have discovered the PBN it is because you have used a third party crawler such as Majestic or ahrefs to notice the backlinks coming out of it and towards your competitor.

There are of course ways that a PBN owner can block these third party crawlers and still allow Google and Bing crawlers in, however since you found it this is beside the point.

If the PBN owner has allowed you to discover their network, then there is a good chance that they are also breaking a few of the other age-old PBN rules, such as not having the network overlap and link to multiple sites.

Try and build up a spreadsheet of every site that is benefiting from the PBN, in fact there is a good chance that this research will actually show you who owns the PBN in the first place.

Once you have a list of everyone benefitting (quite often this is simply the SEO agencies entire client book), then it is time to make a list of every site that is contributing to the network.

This will quite often include many sites that linked to one of the domains before it actually became part of the network.

Third: decide if you will intervene or observe

Some people have a staunch position against filing webspam complaints, or any form of negative SEO what so ever. If you don't believe in running to Google and reporting violations, there are still some very valuable options for you upon mapping out the PBN.

If you keep the client list monitored, then any time that there is another large algorithm update, such as a new instalment of Penguin or some other algorithm change specifically designed to take out PBN's, then you already have a spreadsheet of domains that you can check.

When the update comes, you can check to see if the domains that were previously being propelled forward by a PBN have in fact been penalized. If they have, then you are in a unique position to provide services to them.

You pre-empted the penalty, so you are in the perfect position to help them recover from the penalty.

The choice simply becomes a) do you warn them before or b) let them know you can help after the matter.

If you decide to intervene, there are a few options

The most obvious option is to file a webspam complaint in which you alert Google to the existence of the PBN. Many webmasters complain that this often does not seem to achieve very much, almost as though they were expecting the internet police to bust down some doors and immediately right the perceived wrong doing.

Just remember, this path will not typically bring about fast-paced action.

A less common alternative for intervening

Sometimes you know that the network is bolstered by links that are coming in that were never intended to be there. For example a link built from a reputable website that went to a site that has since had its domain name dropped.

In this situation, you can perform an outreach campaign to the contributing sites, alerting them to the fact that they have links directed to a site that has since changed ownership.

An email would be as simple as:

Hi

I see that you linked to XYZ from your page *url* some time ago. I thought you may be interested to know that XYZ is no longer in business, but their domain name has actually been bought by someone else.

If you look again at the URL you originally linked to, you will see that it is no longer the same website.

I thought you would like to know

Regards

This is a much less direct form of intervention, but by all accounts it can actually yield some great results; albeit negative results.

Even if you don't want to run to the authorities when you discover your competitors PBN, you can still actively work to strip it of its power!

Joshua Ballard is the founder of Paradox Marketing and a contributor to SEW. You can connect with Joshua on LinkedIn.