SearchCap: Google Home Updates, Possum Changes & Expanded Text Ads

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.

From Search Engine Land:

• For answering questions, Google Home bests Amazon Echo & Alexa
  
  Nov 3, 2016 by Danny Sullivan

  If you’ve always wanted someone around the house to answer all the questions you have during the course of your day, that someone is a something — Google Home.

• How Google Home turns voice answers into clickable links
  
  Nov 3, 2016 by Danny Sullivan

  It turns out Google’s new hands-free voice-based assistant has a way to let users click to the answers it gets from publishers. That’s via the companion app.

• Expanded text ads that kick butt
  
  Nov 3, 2016 by Mona Elesseily

  Wondering how to write great ads that convert in the age of expanded text ads? Columnist Mona Elesseily shares her tips and observations.

• Introducing Open Garden
  
  Nov 3, 2016 by Digital Marketing Depot

  A new movement in marketing is growing — and you’re probably starting to hear about it in the media, at events and in the boardroom. Open Garden is a blueprint for a marketing and advertising ecosystem that’s connected at the data layer. It’s a simple, transformative idea. By building your own Open Garden, you can […]

• Study shows Google’s Possum update changed 64% of local SERPs
  
  Nov 3, 2016 by Joy Hawkins

  How significantly did the Possum update impact local search results in Google? Columnist Joy Hawkins shares data and insights from a study she did with BrightLocal, which compared local results before and after the update.

• Meet a Landy Award winner: For its work with Lane Bryant, Razorfish wins Best Mobile SEM & Best Retail SEM Initiatives
  
  Nov 3, 2016 by Ginny Marvin

  Razorfish didn’t miss a beat when shifting to a mobile-first, omnichannel strategy for the retail clothing chain.

Recent Headlines From MarTech, Our Sister Site Dedicated To Internet Marketing:

• 5 ingredients for writing the perfect expanded text ad
• Election 2016: Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are failing at mobile
• Choosing the right local marketing automation software for your business
• Uncover hidden potential in your paid search and shopping campaigns
• Should you be using LinkedIn Ads?
• Report: More marketers are becoming early adopters of marketing tech, although half can’t keep up with the changes
• Mastering the email ecosystem for effective marketing
• How to make Google Home & Amazon Echo talk to each other in an infinite loop
• Google Home’s arrival ushers in the era of the virtual assistant
• Facebook’s Q3 2016 earnings call: Ad load issues, ad-blocker blocking, a video-only feed
• Facebook’s Q3 2016 earnings report in 7 charts

Search News From Around The Web:

Local & Maps

• Tornado tracks in Google Earth imagery, Google Earth Blog

Link Building

• 70+ Backlinking Resources You Need to Know | Chapter 10, Ignite Visibility

Searching

• Google Testing Dark Green URLs in Search Results, thesempost.com

SEO

• Entities in the Google Knowledge Graph Search API for Google, SEO By The Sea
• Google: Requesting A Crawl Doesn’t Hurt Your Rankings; Faster Crawl Doesn’t Improve Rankings, Search Engine Roundtable
• I’ve Optimized My Site, But I’m Still Not Ranking—Help! – Next Level, Moz
• November 2016 Google Webmaster Report : Penguin, Mobile Index, Algorithms & Search Console, Search Engine Roundtable

SEM / Paid Search

• A PPC Toolkit: 15 Tools That Helped SEMrush PPC Team Double Its Revenue, semrush.com
• Instagram Shopping Ads: A Simpler Path to Purchase, PPC Hero
• Introducing the AdWords Marketing Goals Website, Inside AdWords
• Strengthen Your Core: Paid Search Landing Page Best Practices Part 1, Merkle
• When You Should Ask Your PPC Manager for a Deep Dive, Metric Theory

Search Marketing

• The Google Trump vs Hillary Conspiracy, Search Engine People