NEWS

Pinterest adds favorites, notes and a new toolbar after increased use of boards during pandemic

Published

1 year ago

December 10, 2020

techcrunch

Pinterest today is adding a few new features — notes, favorites and a board toolbar — aimed at helping those who use their boards for making lists of gift ideas, or who have a hard time navigating and sorting through boards with a larger number of items. The additions follow a blowout third quarter for the social platform, which benefited from the increases in screen time during the COVID-19 pandemic, which kept people indoors to shop, socialize, and plan online.

According to Pinterest, there’s been a 35% increase in the number of monthly boards created during the last six months, and a 30% increase in the number of collaborative boards.

To make it easier for those who are using boards to remind them of things to try or — as the holidays roll out — buy as gifts, a new “Notes to self” feature could be useful. This allows users to add private notes to their Pins on either their public or private boards, including on boards where they’re collaborating with others. This feature is interesting because it could also serve as a rudimentary communication system between multiple parties who are working on projects together, where resources are organized on Pinterest’s platform.

Image Credits: Pinterest

Connecting Pinterest users with a broader audience is something the company has been experimenting with, as of late. As we reported in November, Pinterest has been testing an online events feature that allows influencers and creators to use the platform to host classes, organize class materials and group chat with attendees. A “notes” feature was part of this test, as well.

Another new addition rolling out today is a board toolbar designed for active boards with more than 150 Pins. The toolbar makes it easier to sort through the Pins by offering to connect users to actions that can be taken on board. This includes things like organizing the board, creating to-dos or exploring more ideas that are related to the Pins.

Image Credits: Pinterest

Similarly, a board favorites feature is being launched today to help users better organize boards that have many Pins. Though it doesn’t require a large board to work, the feature could help to surface a user’s top Pins from a larger list of items. To mark a Pin as a favorite, you’ll just use the star icon on the board toolbar.

Pinterest says the features were built with user feedback and none of the new additions will be used for ad targeting. All three features are available globally and will roll out across all platforms starting today.

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NEWS

Google December Product Reviews Update Affects More Than English Language Sites? via @sejournal, @martinibuster

Published

5 months ago

December 28, 2021

Roger Montti

Google’s Product Reviews update was announced to be rolling out to the English language. No mention was made as to if or when it would roll out to other languages. Mueller answered a question as to whether it is rolling out to other languages.

Google December 2021 Product Reviews Update

On December 1, 2021, Google announced on Twitter that a Product Review update would be rolling out that would focus on English language web pages.

Our December 2021 product reviews update is now rolling out for English-language pages. It will take about three weeks to complete. We have also extended our advice for product review creators: https://t.co/N4rjJWoaqE
— Google Search Central (@googlesearchc) December 1, 2021

The focus of the update was for improving the quality of reviews shown in Google search, specifically targeting review sites.

A Googler tweeted a description of the kinds of sites that would be targeted for demotion in the search rankings:

“Mainly relevant to sites that post articles reviewing products.
Think of sites like “best TVs under $200″.com.
Goal is to improve the quality and usefulness of reviews we show users.”

Continue Reading Below

Google also published a blog post with more guidance on the product review update that introduced two new best practices that Google’s algorithm would be looking for.

The first best practice was a requirement of evidence that a product was actually handled and reviewed.

The second best practice was to provide links to more than one place that a user could purchase the product.

The Twitter announcement stated that it was rolling out to English language websites. The blog post did not mention what languages it was rolling out to nor did the blog post specify that the product review update was limited to the English language.

Google’s Mueller Thinking About Product Reviews Update

Product Review Update Targets More Languages?

The person asking the question was rightly under the impression that the product review update only affected English language search results.

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But he asserted that he was seeing search volatility in the German language that appears to be related to Google’s December 2021 Product Review Update.

This is his question:

“I was seeing some movements in German search as well.
So I was wondering if there could also be an effect on websites in other languages by this product reviews update… because we had lots of movement and volatility in the last weeks.
…My question is, is it possible that the product reviews update affects other sites as well?”

John Mueller answered:

“I don’t know… like other languages?
My assumption was this was global and and across all languages.
But I don’t know what we announced in the blog post specifically.
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But usually we try to push the engineering team to make a decision on that so that we can document it properly in the blog post.
I don’t know if that happened with the product reviews update. I don’t recall the complete blog post.
But it’s… from my point of view it seems like something that we could be doing in multiple languages and wouldn’t be tied to English.
And even if it were English initially, it feels like something that is relevant across the board, and we should try to find ways to roll that out to other languages over time as well.
So I’m not particularly surprised that you see changes in Germany.
But I also don’t know what we actually announced with regards to the locations and languages that are involved.”

Does Product Reviews Update Affect More Languages?

While the tweeted announcement specified that the product reviews update was limited to the English language the official blog post did not mention any such limitations.

Google’s John Mueller offered his opinion that the product reviews update is something that Google could do in multiple languages.

One must wonder if the tweet was meant to communicate that the update was rolling out first in English and subsequently to other languages.

It’s unclear if the product reviews update was rolled out globally to more languages. Hopefully Google will clarify this soon.