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The average Briton spends over 2 hours online per day

Several fascinating findings were revealed in Ofcom’s annual review of the UK communications sector. Key takeaways include:

On average, people in the UK spend the equivalent of a day online per week

Facebook’s reach among 18-24 year-olds is in decline (by 4% YoY)

The smartphone video advertising market is worth over 1 billion pounds

Read the full story (Linkedin)

Google risks class action due to “surreptitious” tracking of user location

A lawsuit was filed versus Google in California after it was found that Google still tracks a smartphone’s location, even when the “Location History” setting is turned off. Some of the implications may force Google to pay a substantial fine, together with deleting some its location tracking data. A few days after the lawsuit, the Location History support page on Google’s website was changed from “with Location History off, the places you go are no longer stored” to “some location data may be saved as part of your activity on other services, like Search and Maps.”

Read the full story (Marketing Land)

Google improves accuracy of Index Coverage report in Search Console

Google has updated the Index Coverage report within Search Console for the first time since its launch. This feature was originally introduced in 2017 in order to provide information on the pages of your website that have/have not been indexed (with instructions to fix issues). According to Google, the new update will heavily impact the accuracy of report starting from August. The only drawback of this refresh is that the index coverage data for the period July 14-August 1 was not fully recorded, so it was calculated as an estimate based on the values recorded on the 1st of August.

Read the full story (Search Engine Journal)

Google confirms core algorithm update

On August 1, Google confirmed industry rumours about remarkable ranking fluxes by stating the roll out of a core algorithm update. Named “medic update” in the SEO industry due to the large number of Health and Medical sites affected, it is worth mentioning how its reach expanded beyond just this bracket but affected the broader category of YMYL (Your Money or Your Life) sites.

Read the full story (Moz)

Study reveals truth behind shopping via voice search

Despite being one of the most hyped subjects of 2018, a recent study from The Information revealed that voice search does not yet seem to be driving sales. Only 2% of the customers who use Amazon’s Alexa intelligent assistant appear to have made a purchase via voice search, and only 10% of those have made a second purchase. This is probably due to an inefficient consumer journey, device limitations or simply that people are not generally aware of the capabilities yet. How soon might this change?

Read the full story (TechCrunch)

Schema markup for datasets now supported in the SERP

Google has confirmed that dataset markups will be supported in the SERP. By doing so, Google is trying to improve the way users visualise data in the search result page, rewarding organisations that mark up datasets such as tables, CSV files, images containing data and more.

As Google stated, this new markup aims “to improve discovery of datasets from fields such as life sciences, social sciences, machine learning, civic and government data, and more”.

Read our blog to learn how to understand and implement structured data.

Read the full story (Search Engine Land)

FB launches mobile-first video creation for better ads

Facebook has rolled out a new set of tools aimed at advertisers that produce assets with mobile-first in mind, since their research has proven that “mobile-first creative has a 27 percent higher likelihood of driving brand lift compared to ads that are not optimized for mobile.”

It is now possible to add motion to existing images/videos or create videos from assets such as pictures and logos.

Read the full story (Marketing Land)

Ad spend on Instagram on the rise

Despite Facebook having experienced the largest one-day fall in American stock market history on the 26th of July, the stock is still trading at May 2018 levels. In their latest earnings report, they disclosed strong growth in ad spend on Instagram in Q2, which was 177% compared to previous year.

Instagram’s customer base has surpassed a billion active users and, according to the social media listening company socialmediabakers, brands’ Instagram profiles have a much higher user engagement compared to their Facebook equivalents. While there are challenges around the advertising opportunities in the “stories” functionality, Facebook as a whole is continuing to see their playbook work supremely well.

Read the full story (Marketing Land)

Europe to fine sites for not taking down illegal content within one hour

The EU is planning to take a stronger position on illegal or controversial material posted online, especially on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Julian King, EU Commissioner for Security, has put forward legislation which would fine tech companies that do not remove illegal content within one hour. This follows wide reporting of a recent study which found a correlation between social media usage and hate crimes (study based on violence against refugees in Germany in 2018) though this study has received some criticism in particular related to its use of global “likes” for Nutella as a proxy for German Facebook usage.

Read the full story (Business Insider)

Twitter’s new tests: threaded replies and online status indicators

Twitter’s director of product management, Sara Haider, has posted a few screenshots that display some new features Twitter is working on to improve threaded conversations and add online status indicators. The reason behind these changes is to make Twitter “more conversational”. Neither feature appears to be groundbreaking if compared to other social media platforms: threaded replies will potentially look very similar to Facebook’s comments, while online status indicators have been used by Facebook Messenger and Instagram’s direct messages. The tech giant is currently collecting feedback before rolling out the changes.

Read the full story (Search Engine Journal)

Distilled News

We kick off the Distilled news this month with a post from Craig Bradford explaining what SEO split testing is. The post focuses on the simple principle of split testing, how it differs from CRO and UX testing and covers a few examples to outline Distilled’s methodology. As VP in charge of Distilled’s ODN platform, Craig has a front-row seat to this hot area of SEO.

Analyst Paola Didone took her recent experiences of handling large data sets and wrote up a blog post about how to use Regex formulae in Google Sheets.

From the US, SEO Analyst Shannon Dunn suggests an easy approach to optimizing website internal linking structures.

Outside the SEO world, our People Operations Executive Kayla Walker shares her thoughts on how to give better positive feedback.

Distilled’s CEO, Will Critchlow, tried to address the industry’s confusion on the differences between URL structures and Information Architecture.

Last but not least, SearchLove London is approaching! Get your tickets here and do not miss out on the newest and hottest topics in digital marketing. At the time of writing, only 1 VIP ticket is left and you only have two weeks to take advantage of our early bird pricing (£150 off!) which is only available until the 19th of September.

Need further convincing? Will has written up 8 reasons why Search Love London is worth attending.

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