SEO
8 Strategies From Actual Travel Publishers and SEOs
SEO is critical in the travel industry. While most travelers might gain inspiration on TikTok, YouTube, or Instagram, they will still search on Google before purchasing.
In fact, according to Kevin Indig, travel was the fifth largest industry on the web by organic visibility in June 2024.
If you want to generate more bookings or get more customers, you will need to do SEO. To write this guide on travel SEO, I interviewed seven experienced travel SEOs:
Kevin Indig also very kindly shared his paid publication on travel SEO with me.
The basics of SEO are the same for every industry. You need to create high-quality content, earn backlinks, and make sure your site is free of technical issues.
But travel SEO has some unique challenges:
- Travel isn’t just one industry but is made up of many different industries and players—there are online travel agencies, comparison sites, hotels, airlines, cruise operators, tour operators, car rental companies, travel technology companies, travel bloggers, and even travel insurance.
- You’re competing with Google itself. Google has its own travel product, which it’s happy to insert into the SERPs. Google also dominates the SERPs by showing many different SERP features for travel-related keywords, which usually answer the query (e.g., things to do in Barcelona).
- Popular keywords are also dominated by huge international brands like TripAdvisor and Booking.com.
- Many travel companies, such as tour operators, only serve a particular local area.
- Many travelers don’t visit or book trips via a business’s website. This is especially true for airlines and hotels. Instead, travelers might search via Skyscanner or Booking.com.
- Seasonality and real-world events (e.g., terrorism, pandemics, natural disasters) can impact your search visibility.
In this article, we’ll show you how to solve these problems.
The most popular travel-related keywords are dominated by Google, SERP features, and big sites.
Coupled with Google’s insistence on rolling out AI Overviews (now in six more countries, besides the U.S.), many terms are out of reach for most travel websites.
This is why most of the experts I spoke to are now focusing on keywords that actually drive business. Typically, these are middle- to bottom-of-the-funnel topics.
For example, instead of targeting top-of-the-funnel (TOFU) terms like “london tour” or “things to do in London”, a London-based tour operator could target keywords like “harry potter walking tour for muggles in london” or “world war 2 walking tour london” (provided they offer those tours.)
While search volume may not be high, these keywords demonstrate intent. Someone searching for “harry potter walking tour for muggles in london” is close to the purchase decision—they’ve already decided to visit London or are perhaps already in London. They’re likely to convert.
This keyword is also easier to compete for: Keyword Difficulty (KD) is only 6 and there are sites ranking in the top 10 with low Domain Ratings:
To find these keywords with business potential, enter a few seed keywords into Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer and go to the Matching terms report. For example, as a London-based tour company, I might enter the locations I cover (e.g., Westminster, Kensington, Paddington, Soho).
I’ll go through the report and pick out the keywords that are relevant to my site. I could even narrow down the report by specifically looking for keywords with the words “tour” or “tours”:
Once you have your list of keywords, you’d want to score them on their ‘business potential’, or how commercially relevant they are to your website. The simplest way is to ask whether your product or service fits in the topic. This is how we do it at Ahrefs too:
Alternatively, you can go in deeper with numbers and use this formula, as suggested by Brennen:
(Monthly Search Volume) x (Keyword Click-through Rate) x (Website Conversion Rate) x (Avg. Gross Margin or Revenue per Transaction)
Through this formula, you can see that even if traffic potential is low, as long as it’s commercially relevant, it can still be impactful to your company’s bottom line:
To get around competing with big sites in the SERPs, a common SEO strategy is to start with low-competition keywords. In the travel space, as Alex shared, this can manifest as targeting keywords for less popular destinations.
For example, look at the difference in search volume and keyword difficulty between these two keywords:
- Things to do in London
- Things to do in Southampton
It would be easier to target the keyword “things to do in Southampton”.
This would work even if you’re a London-based tour operator. You could easily create an article about the things to do in Southampton—and include a day trip to London as one of the items. (And pitch your tour, of course!)
To find keywords about these less popular destinations, Google for a list of cities or towns in your target country. For example, a search for “cities in England” brings up a list of cities from GOV.UK:
Copy and paste the cities into Keywords Explorer. Then, go to the Matching terms report, click Clusters by Parent Topic, select the Include filter, and add a few common modifiers, like “things to do”, “where to eat”, and “where to stay”. (James Brockbank has a list of common travel modifiers here.)
Going through the report will surface keywords for less popular destinations that we can target.
“Taylor Swift”.
If there was something surprising I heard from many of my interviews, it was the global superstar. The reason: She’s currently holding her Eras Tour all around the world. And search volume for her tour locations is spiking:
Which means: An opportunity for travel companies to take advantage of Swiftonomics.
It’s not just Taylor Swift. The Olympics, Tomorrowland, and even the Asian food festival in your local area could be topics you create content about. These trending events or topics may have low search volume but they could be the main reason why someone is traveling. It’s important to capture these opportunities.
As Kevin pointed out in his newsletter, only KLM bothered to seize the moment to rank for “flight paris Olympics”:
The easiest way to find trending topics or events is yourself. If you’re based in the area, you should be aware of most of the events that are happening. Alternatively, you can use Google Trends or enter your location (e.g., “London”) into Keywords Explorer. Then, click on the Growth column to sort by the most growth in search volume.
You can see why so many travel websites are targeting Taylor Swift (and don’t forget her boyfriend, Travis Kelce too!). There’s also interest in flying to Austin, Texas from London:
Topic clusters, or content hubs, are interlinked collections of content about a similar topic.
For example, our beginner’s guide to SEO is a content hub that links to the major aspects of SEO.
In the travel industry, you can make content hubs based on a potential traveler’s journey. Nina explains:
Start from “what would my audience need to know to plan a trip to this specific location based on their specific travel style?” Map out at least 10 posts in a topic cluster that helps someone go from “hmmm where should I go this summer?” to “I’ve got a fully booked trip and a great tour I can’t wait to go on!
Then rinse and repeat with different clusters, so that the blog becomes a one-stop shop for a person’s trip planning.”
What does a typical traveler’s journey look like? Here’s a diagram from Brennen that showcases the five stages of traveler intent:
For example, for an adventurous traveler, you could recommend a destination like Uzbekistan. A content hub for Uzbekistan may look like this:
- Why you should visit Uzbekistan
- When is the best time to visit Uzbekistan
- Things to do in Uzbekistan
- Best cities to visit in Uzbekistan
- The best Uzbek dishes you should try
- Where to stay in Uzbekistan
- Best restaurants in Tashkent
- Best restaurants in Samarkand
- Silk Roads tour Uzbekistan
- Uzbekistan Kygyrszstan 10 days tour
- Horse riding in Kygyrszstan and Uzbekistan
You can then take those ideas and put them into Keywords Explorer to see how searchers are searching for them and whether they have search volume:
Jared said something that surprised me during our interview:
People are still using offline, high-street travel agents because they want that first-hand experience.
Travel is very personal. Every travelers aspires to a different itinerary—some want to see every touristy attraction, while others want to go off the beaten track. Some just want to laze on the beach, while others don’t mind the challenging climb up Kilimanjaro.
This is what Google is trying to do in the SERPs as well. They’re trying to prioritize content that demonstrates expertise, experience, authority, and trust (also known as EEAT). And the travel SEOs I talked to agree with infusing first-hand experience into your content.
The best way is to visit those locations in-person. As Nina tells me:
I do lots of research before I go somewhere, take heaps of photos, and take notes along the way. I speak to locals as much as I can, and speak to other travellers because my experience may not be indicative of everyone’s.
Being honest about what you do and don’t know is incredibly important. Being okay with sharing the negatives will build more trust than sugar-coating everything.
Make sure you’re not boring your audience with random nonsense, but add in your experience face planting in the cobblestones when you tried to wear high heels or that the restaurant says it has parking but you’ll need to turn down the side street to access it.
But this strategy has limitations. After all, it’s impossible to visit every location. So, another way is to hire freelance writers.
You shouldn’t hire just any freelancer though. It seems outrageous, but freelance writers can lie, as Katie experienced once. A freelance writer told Katie she went to a particular class and so was qualified to write about it. Turns out, after some fact-checking with the teacher of the class, she was never a student. She merely took something similar and thought she could write about it anyway.
So, you’d want to seriously vet these writers.
Here’s what Katie suggests:
- Look at their writing portfolio — Have they written about the location or experience before? Do they live there currently and have lived there for a long time?
- Ask for photos from the writers — Real-world photos are less likely to be faked.
- “Grill” them about the specifics of their experience — For example, Katie might ask them about their best airline points redemption. That answer can’t be generated from AI or cobbled together from the top-ranking pages.
Matthew does things differently—he goes straight for the best. Most of his contributors have written for major publications and guidebooks.
Most of these writers are themselves entities on Google’s Knowledge Graph, which contributes to the EEAT of his site. Additionally, since they also write for other publications, they occasionally link back to their articles on Horizon Guides.
When it comes to first-hand experience, Matthew looks at what’s already on the SERPs, interrogates LLMs (ChatGPT, Claude) to find out what’s already known, then goes to his contributors and asks if they disagree with any of it or whether they can add something new.
An example he gave me was the topic “hiking in Vietnam”. Most websites that rank for that keyword want to sell the visitor a trip to Sapa. But in reality, at least in his opinion, Sapa is simply too busy and too touristy, which may make for a poor trip for someone who’s flying hours to Vietnam. So, they offer alternatives instead of following what everyone else is writing about.
How do they hire writers? It all comes down to relationships. Decades in the industry have built both Matthew and Katie a rolodex of writers they can reach out to.
Katie also recruits from travel writing groups she belongs to and X:
For an assignment, looking for a travel writer who has Frontier’s all-you-can-fly pass. Pay $400+, please fill out this form.https://t.co/np73qkabBz
— Katie Hammel (@KatieHammel) April 24, 2024
Backlinks are an important Google ranking factor. However, given how saturated the travel industry is, it’s incredibly difficult to build links to important commercial pages.
The one strategy that most of the experts I talked to use is digital PR.
For example, Katie ran a campaign where they used their internal data to find the best and worst U.S airports for cheap international flights. The page got a total of 91 backlinks from 76 referring domains:
Most of these links were from media sites like USAToday, LA Times, SFGate, and TimeOut:
Likewise, one of Jared’s digital PR campaigns for his client yielded a respectable 68 backlinks from 58 referring domains:
Again, this campaign got links from media publications like USAToday, San Diego Union-Tribune, and Frommers:
There are no surefire tips for making a digital PR campaign work, but here are some tips from the pros:
- Use your company’s internal data — For example, both Going and Hoppa used their booking data to create linkbait campaigns.
- Third-party data also works — Don’t give up just because you don’t have access to internal data. You can also use third-party data, like what Jared did for the best cities for biking campaign.
- Look at what’s trending or what people are talking about — What’s the cultural or societal hook? Jared’s campaign worked because there was a rise in interest in cycling due to the pandemic.
- Make your campaign hyper-local or design it to have a hyper-local angle — Local publications typically have less to report about, so they’re happy to feature or link to an interesting piece of content. For example, the best airports and best cities for cycling have individual hyper-local angles built in—the PR manager can reach out to each city’s newspaper to tell them they’ve been featured.
- Come up with multiple angles — When pitching journalists, don’t just use one angle. Brainstorm multiple angles — a national publication might be interested in the entire post, but an LA-based publication might only be interested that LA is featured.
You can learn more about digital PR in our guide: Digital PR: The Beginner’s Guide to Making Your Brand Unmissable
According to Brennen’s experience, page load time is strongly correlated with rankings in the travel industry.
Which makes sense, considering that pages for travel websites are media-heavy with lots of images, photos, and videos.
So, you’d want to make sure your site loads fast. To check your website’s speed, run a crawl with Ahrefs’ Site Audit. Then, head to the Performance report.
If you connect your API key from Google PageSpeed Insights to Site Audit, you can even check your Core Web Vitals, the three metrics that Google uses to measure a user’s experience on a webpage.
You can learn more about what Core Web Vitals are and how to improve them in our guide: What Are Core Web Vitals (CWVs) & How To Improve Them
Many travel queries are highly commercial. Even a TOFU query like “things to do in Barcelona” has tons of sponsored results:
The truth is that while you may rank high, get lots of organic traffic, and educate travelers on a destination, they might run a Google search and simply click on a paid result and end up purchasing from that page.
You need paid marketing to convert customers in the travel industry.
That’s why Brennen suggests that travel websites should run paid marketing campaigns too, specifically retargeting campaigns. For example, if someone has read your article on “things to do in Samarkand”, you might want to retarget them with your Silk Road tour or Samarkand tour pages.
Final thoughts
Travel is an extremely saturated and competitive industry. If you want to compete with the giants in the SERPs, you’ll need first-hand experience, targeting keywords that drive conversions, and creating content that people want to link to.
This guide should give you everything you need to rank high and get more bookings or affiliate income for your travel website.
SEO
Reddit Makes Game-Changing Updates to Keyword Targeting
In a big move for digital advertisers, Reddit has just introduced a new Keyword Targeting feature, changing the game for how marketers reach their target audiences.
This addition brings fresh potential for PPC marketers looking to tap into Reddit’s highly engaged user base.
With millions of communities and conversations happening every day, Reddit is now offering advertisers a more precise way to get in front of users at the perfect moment.
The best part? They’re leveraging AI to make the process even more powerful.
Let’s break down why this is such an exciting development for digital advertisers.
Keyword Targeting for Conversation and Feed Placements
Reddit has always been about its vibrant communities, or “subreddits,” where users connect over shared interests and discuss a wide range of topics.
Until now, keyword targeting has only been available on conversation placements. Starting today, advertisers can use keyword targeting in both feed and conversation placements.
The targeting update allows advertisers to place ads directly within these conversations, ensuring they reach people when they’re actively engaged with content that’s related to their products or services.
For PPC marketers, this level of targeting means a higher chance of delivering ads to users who are in the right mindset.
Instead of serving ads to users scrolling passively through a general feed, Reddit is giving you the tools to place your ads into specific conversations, where users are already discussing topics related to your industry.
According to Reddit, advertisers who use keyword targeting have seen a 30% increase in conversion volumes. This is a significant lift for marketers focused on performance metrics, such as conversion rates and cost per acquisition.
Scaling Performance with AI-Powered Optimization
While precision is key, Reddit knows that advertisers also need scale.
Reddit mentioned two AI-powered solutions to help balance keyword targeting and scalability within the platform:
- Dynamic Audience Expansion
- Placement Expansion
Dynamic Audience Expansion
This feature works in tandem with keyword targeting to help advertisers broaden their reach, without sacrificing relevance.
Reddit’s AI does the heavy lifting by analyzing signals like user behavior and ad creative performance to identify additional users who are likely to engage with your ad. In essence, it’s expanding your audience in a smart, data-driven way.
For PPC marketers, this means more exposure without having to rely solely on manually selecting every keyword or interest.
You set the initial parameters, and Reddit’s AI expands from there. This not only saves time but also ensures that your ads reach a broader audience that’s still relevant to your goals.
Reddit claims campaigns using Dynamic Audience Expansion have seen a 30% reduction in cost per action (CPA), making it a must-have for marketers focused on efficiency and budget optimization.
Placement Expansion
Another standout feature is Reddit’s multi-placement optimization. This feature uses machine learning to determine the most effective places to show your ads, whether in the feed or within specific conversation threads.
This multi-placement strategy ensures your ads are delivered in the right context to maximize user engagement and conversions.
For PPC marketers, ad placement is a critical factor in campaign success. With Reddit’s AI optimizing these placements, you can trust that your ads will appear where they have the highest likelihood of driving action—whether that’s getting users to click, convert, or engage.
Introducing AI Keyword Suggestions
Reddit’s new AI Keyword Suggestions tool helps with this by analyzing Reddit’s vast conversation data to recommend keywords you might not have thought of.
It allows you to discover new, high-performing keywords related to your campaign, expanding your reach to conversations you might not have considered. And because it’s powered by AI, the suggestions are always based on real-time data and trends happening within Reddit’s communities.
This can be particularly helpful for marketers trying to stay ahead of trending topics or those who want to ensure they’re tapping into conversations with high engagement potential.
As conversations on Reddit shift, so do the keywords that drive those discussions. Reddit’s AI Keyword Suggestions help keep your targeting fresh and relevant, ensuring you don’t miss out on key opportunities.
New Streamlined Campaign Management
Reddit has also made strides in simplifying the campaign setup and management process. They’ve introduced a unified flow that allows advertisers to combine multiple targeting options within a single ad group.
You can now mix keywords, communities, and interests in one campaign, expanding your reach without overcomplicating your structure.
From a PPC perspective, this is huge. Simplifying campaign structure means you can test more variations, optimize faster, and reduce time spent on manual adjustments.
In addition, Reddit has enhanced its reporting capabilities with keyword-level insights, allowing you to drill down into what’s working and what’s not, giving you more control over your campaigns.
The Takeaway for PPC Marketers
For marketers working with Google Ads, Facebook, or Microsoft Advertising, this new update from Reddit should be on your radar.
The combination of keyword targeting, AI-driven audience expansion, and multi-placement optimization makes Reddit a serious contender in the digital advertising space.
If you’re looking to diversify your PPC campaigns, drive higher conversions, and optimize costs, Reddit’s new offerings provide a unique opportunity.
You can read the full announcement from Reddit here.
SEO
What The Google Antitrust Verdict Could Mean For The Future Of SEO
In August 2024, Google lost its first major antitrust case in the U.S. Department of Justice vs. Google.
While we all gained some interesting insights about how Google’s algorithm works (hello, NavBoost!), understanding the implications of this loss for Google as a business is not the easiest to unravel. Hence, this article.
There’s still plenty we don’t know about Google’s future as a result of this trial, but it’s clear there will be consequences ahead.
Even though Google representatives have said they will appeal the decision, both sides are already working on proposals for how to restore competition, which will be decided by August 2025.
My significant other is a corporate lawyer, and this trial has been a frequent topic at the dinner table over the course of the last year.
We come from different professional backgrounds, but we have been equally invested in the outcome – both for our respective careers and industries. His perspective has helped me better grasp the potential legal and business outcomes that could be ahead for Google.
I will break that down for you in this article, along with what that could mean for the SEO industry and Search at-large.
Background: The Case Against Google
In August 2024, Federal Judge Amit Mehta ruled that Google violated the U.S. antitrust law by maintaining an illegal monopoly through exclusive agreements it had with companies like Apple to be the world’s default search engine on smartphones and web browsers.
During the case, we learned that Google paid Apple $20 billion in 2022 to be the default search engine on its Safari browser, thus making it impossible for other search engines like DuckDuckGo or Bing to compete.
This case ruling also found Google guilty of monopolizing general search text advertising because Google was able to raise prices on ad products higher than what would have been possible in a free market.
Those ads are sold via Google Ads (formerly AdWords) and allow marketers to run ads against search keywords related to their business.
Note: There is a second antitrust case still underway about whether Google has created illegal monopolies with open web display ad technology as well. Closing arguments will be heard for that in November 2024 with a verdict to follow
Remedies Proposed By The DOJ
On Oct. 8, 2024, the DOJ filed proposed antitrust remedies for Google. Until this point, there has been plenty of speculation about potential solutions.
Now, we know that the DOJ will be seeking remedies in four “categories of harm”:
- Search Distribution and Revenue Sharing.
- Accumulation and Use of Data.
- Generation and Display of Search Results.
- Advertising Scale and Monetization.
The following sections highlight potential remedies the DOJ proposed in that filing.
Ban On Exclusive Contracts
In order to address Google’s search distribution and revenue sharing, it is likely that we will see a ban on exclusive contracts going forward for Google.
In the Oct. 8 filing, the DOJ outlined exploring limiting or prohibiting default agreements, pre-installation agreements, and other revenue-sharing agreements related to search and search-related products.
Given this is what the case was centered around, it seems most likely that we will see some flavor of this outcome, and that could provide new incentives for innovation around search at Apple.
Apple Search Engine?
Judge Mehta noted in his judgment that Apple had periodically considered building its own search technology, but decided against it when an analysis in 2018 concluded Apple would lose more than $12 billion in revenue during the first five years if they broke up with Google.
If Google were no longer able to have agreements of this nature, we may finally see Apple emerge with a search engine of its own.
According to a Bloomberg report in October 2023, Apple has been “tinkering” with search technology for years.
It has a large search team dedicated to a next-generation search engine for Apple’s apps called “Pegasus,” which has already rolled out in some apps.
And its development of Spotlight to help users find things across their devices has started adding web results to this tool pointing users to sites that answer search queries.
Apple already has a web crawler called Applebot that finds sites it can provide users in Siri and Spotlight. It has also built its own search engines for some of its services like the App Store, Maps, Apple TV, and News.
Apple purchased a company called Laserlike in 2019, which is an AI-based search engine founded by former Google employees. Apple’s machine learning team has been seeking new engineers to work on search technologies as well.
All of these could be important infrastructure for a new search engine.
Implications For SEO
If users are given more choices in their default search engine, some may stray away from Google, which could cut its market share.
However, as of now, Google is still thought of as the leader in search quality, so it’s hard to gauge how much would realistically change if exclusive contracts were banned.
A new search engine from Apple would obviously be an interesting development. It would be a new algorithm to test, understand, and optimize for.
Knowing that users are hungry for another quality option, people would likely embrace Apple in this space, and it could generate a significant amount of users, if the results are high enough quality. Quality is really key.
Search is the most used tool on smartphones, tablets, and computers. Apple has the users that Google needs.
Without Apple’s partnership with Google, Apple has the potential to disrupt this space. It can offer a more integrated search experience than any other company out there. And its commitment to privacy is appealing to many long-time Google users.
The DOJ would likely view this as a win as well because Apple is one of the few companies large enough to fully compete across the search space with Google.
Required Sharing Of Data To Competitors
Related to the accumulation and use of data harm Google has caused, the DOJ is considering a remedy that forces Google to license its data to competitors like Bing or DuckDuckGo.
The antitrust ruling found that Google’s contracts ensure that Google gets the most user data, and that data streams also keep its competitors from improving their search results to compete better.
In the Oct. 8 filing, the DOJ is considering forcing Google to make: 1) the indexes, data, fees, and models used for Google search, including those used in AI-assisted search features, and 2) Google search results, features, and ads, including the underlying ranking signals available via API.
Believe it or not, this solution has precedent, although certainly not at the same scale as what is being proposed for Google.
The DOJ required AT&T to provide royalty-free licenses to its patents in 1956, and required Microsoft to make some of its APIs available to third parties for free after they lost an antitrust case in 1999.
Google has argued that there are user privacy concerns related to data sharing. The DOJ’s response is that it is considering prohibiting Google from using or retaining data that cannot be shared with others because of privacy concerns.
Implications For SEO
Should Google be required to do any of this, it would be an unprecedented victory for the open web. It is overwhelming to think of the possibilities if any of these repercussions were to come to fruition.
We would finally be able to see behind the curtain of the algorithm and ranking signals at play. There would be a true open competition to build rival search engines.
If Google were no longer to use personalized data, we might see the end of personalized search results based on your search history, which has pros and cons.
I would also be curious what would happen to Google Discover since that product provides content based on your browsing history.
The flip side of this potential outcome is that it will be easier than ever to gamify search results again, at least in the short term.
If everyone knew what makes pages rank in Google, we would be back in the early days of SEO, when we could easily manipulate rank.
But if others take the search algorithm and build upon it in different ways, maybe that wouldn’t be as big of a concern in the long term.
Opting Out Of SERP Features
The DOJ filing briefly touched on one intriguing remedy for the harm Google has caused regarding the generation and display of search results.
The DOJ lawyers are proposing that website publishers receive the ability to opt out of Google features or products they wish to.
This would include Google’s AI Overviews, which they give as an example, but it could also include all other SERP features where Google relies on websites and other content created by third parties – in other words, all of them.
Because Google has held this monopoly, publishers have had virtually no bargaining power with Google in regards to being included in SERP features without risking complete exclusion from Google.
This solution would help publishers have more control over how they show up in the search results.
Implications For SEO
This could be potentially huge for SEO if the DOJ does indeed move forward with requiring Google to allow publishers to opt out of any and all features and products they wish without exclusion in Google’s results altogether.
There are plenty of website publishers who do not want Google to be able to use their content to train its AI products, and wish to opt out of AI Overviews.
When featured snippets first came about, there was a similar reaction to those.
Based on the query, featured snippets and AI Overviews have the ability to help or harm website traffic numbers, but it’s intriguing to think there could be a choice in the matter of inclusion.
Licensing Of Ad Feeds
To address advertising scale and monetization harm caused by Google, the DOJ filing provided a few half-baked solutions related to search text advertising.
Because Google holds a 91% market share of search in the U.S., other search engines have struggled to monetize through advertising.
One solution is to require Google to license or syndicate its ad feed independent of its search results. This way, other search engines could better monetize by utilizing Google’s advertising feed.
It is also looking at remedies to provide more transparent and detailed reporting to advertisers about search text ad auctions and monetization, and the ability to opt out of Google search features like keyword expansion and broad match that advertisers don’t want to partake in.
Implications For SEO
I don’t see obvious implications for SEO, but there are plenty for our friends in PPC.
While licensing the Google ad feed is intriguing in order to help other search engines monetize, it doesn’t get at the issue of Google overcharging advertisers in their auctions.
More thought and creativity might be needed here to find a solution that would make sense for both creating more competition in search and fairness for advertisers.
They are certainly on the right track with more transparency in reporting and allowing advertisers to opt out of programs they don’t want to be part of.
Breaking Up Of Google
The DOJ lawyers are also considering “structural remedies” like forcing Google to sell off parts of its business, like the Chrome browser or the Android operating system.
Divesting Android is the remedy that has been discussed the most. It would be another way to prevent Google from having a position of power over device makers and requiring them to enter into agreements for access to other Google product apps like Gmail or Google Play.
If the DOJ forced Google to sell Chrome, that would just be another way to force them to stop using the data from it to inform the search algorithm.
There are behavioral remedies already mentioned that could arguably accomplish the same thing, and without the stock market-shattering impact of a forced breakup.
That said, depending on the outcome of the U.S. election, we could see a DOJ that feels empowered to take bigger swings, so this may still be on the table.
The primary issue with this remedy is that Google’s revenue largely comes from search advertising. So, if the goal is to reduce its market share, would breaking up smaller areas of the business really accomplish that?
Implications For SEO
If Android became a stand-alone business, I don’t see implications for SEO because it isn’t directly related to search.
Also, Apple controls so much of the relevant mobile market that spinning Android off would have little to no effect in regards to addressing monopolistic practices.
If Chrome were sold, Google would lose the valuable user signals that inform Navboost in the algorithm.
That would have some larger implications for the quality of its results since we know, through trial testimony, that those Chrome user signals are heavily weighted in the algorithm.
How much of an impact that would have on the results may only be known inside Google, or maybe not even there, but it could be material.
Final Thoughts
There is so much to be decided in the year (potentially years) to come regarding Google’s fate.
While all of the recent headlines focus on the possibility of Google being broken up, I think this is a less likely outcome.
While divesting Chrome may be on the table, it seems like there are easier ways to accomplish the government’s goals.
And Android and Google Play are both free to customers and rely on open-source code, so mandating changes to them doesn’t seem the most logical way to solve monopolistic practices.
I suspect we’ll see some creative behavioral remedies instead. The banning of exclusive contracts feels like a no-brainer.
Of all the solutions out there, requiring Google to provide APIs of Google search results, ranking signals, etc. is by far the most intriguing idea.
I cannot even imagine a world where we have access to that information right now. And I can only hope that we do see the emergence of an Apple search engine. It feels long overdue for it to enter this space and start disrupting.
Even with Google appealing Mehta’s decision, the remedy proposals will continue ahead.
In November, the DOJ will file a more refined framework, and then Google will propose its own remedies in December.
More resources:
Featured Image: David Gyung/Shutterstock
SEO
Snapchat Is Testing 2 New Advertising Placements
The Snapchat ad ecosystem just expanded with two new placement options.
On Tuesday, Snap announced they started testing on two new placements:
- Sponsored Snaps
- Promoted Places
While not available to the general public yet, Snap provided information on the test, including their launch partners and more about the ad placements.
The goal of these placements are for brands to expand their reach across some of the most widely adopted parts of the platform.
Sponsored Snaps Ad Placement
Snapchat is testing a new Sponsored Snaps placement with Disney, in the announcement from October 8th.
The Sponsored Snaps placement shows a full-screen vertical video to users on Snapchat.
Users can then opt-in to opening the Snap, with options to engage with the advertiser in one of two ways:
- Sending a direct message to the advertiser by replying
- Use the call-to-action to open the link chosen by the advertiser.
Sponsored Snaps aren’t delivered via a push notification and will appear differently than other Snaps in a user’s inbox.
After a certain amount of time, any unopened Sponsored Snaps disappear from a user’s inbox.
Promoted Places Ad Placement
Snap partnered with two other brands for their Promoted Places ad placement test: McDonalds and Taco Bell.
This new ad placement shows on the Snap Map, which is meant to help users discover new places they may want to visit.
Promoted Places will highlight sponsored placements of interest within the Snap Map.
In early testing, Snap said they’ve found adding places as “Top Picks” drives a typical visitation lift of 17.6% for frequent Snapchat users.
They also mentioned the possibility of exploring ideas around customer loyalty on the Snap Map in future phases.
Summary
Snap hasn’t yet announced how long these ad placement tests will run, or when they’ll be available for broader advertisers.
Snap said the Sponsored Snaps and Promoted Places placements will evolve from feedback within the Snapchat community and the brands partnered with them at launch.
In the future, there’s possibility of integrating features like CRM systems and AI chatbot support to make communication more streamlined between brands and Snapchat users.
Google’s AI Overviews Avoid Political Content, New Data Shows
5 Most Profitable Online Businesses You Can Start Today for Free!
Google Shopping Researched with AI
The WordPress Saga: Does Matt Mullenweg Want a Fork or Not?
8 Best Banks for ECommerce Businesses in 2024
Google AI Overview Ads, New Link Format, AI Organized Search Results & Plus More
Executive Director Of WordPress Resigns
Learn a New Language with This Fresh Approach
Google Showing Competitor Ads Above Local Reviews
Hostinger Review: Website Creation Made Easy
-
SEO6 days agoGoogle’s AI Overviews Avoid Political Content, New Data Shows
-
WORDPRESS6 days ago5 Most Profitable Online Businesses You Can Start Today for Free!
-
SEARCHENGINES5 days agoGoogle Shopping Researched with AI
-
WORDPRESS7 days agoThe WordPress Saga: Does Matt Mullenweg Want a Fork or Not?
-
WORDPRESS5 days ago8 Best Banks for ECommerce Businesses in 2024
-
SEARCHENGINES6 days agoGoogle AI Overview Ads, New Link Format, AI Organized Search Results & Plus More
-
SEO7 days agoExecutive Director Of WordPress Resigns
-
AFFILIATE MARKETING6 days agoLearn a New Language with This Fresh Approach