June really has been a busy month for the entire industry. In addition to the usual coneyor belt of Google product and services updates, Amazon has been busy buying Whole Foods and turning Echos into intercoms. Facebook is gearing up to take on Netflix and The Wall Street Journal has been leaking traffic. However, this has all somewhat been dwarfed by the huge fine levied against Google by the EU Commission...
Industry news
Google fined €2.4 billion for unfair shopping searches
Google has been fined over €2.4 billion by the EU Commission for abusing its position and dominance as a search engine, by giving an unfair advantage to its own shopping comparison service over competitors. The huge fine has drawn a lot of support and criticism, and Google has responded defiantly. Distilled CEO Will Critchlow has also given his snap analysis to the ruling.
Read the full story (Europa)
Amazon’s new customer
Amazon announced an agreement to buy the groceries retailed Whole Foods for $13.7 billion - an agreement with many possible explanations and motives. Ben Thompson argues that this acquisition continues a process Amazon has used extremely effectively in their core technology - decoupling different elements of providing different services and unbundling them into “primitives”. The key differentiator between the successes and failures of this strategy, he argues, is the existence of a “first-and-best” customer within Amazon to spur the effort along and keep it on track. Whole Foods has the potential to be the “first-and-best” customer for Amazon’s grocery delivery and supply-chain innovations.
Read the full story (Stratechery)
Google Posts now live for all Google My Business users
Google has announced the rollout of Google posts to all small businesses that use the Google My Business platform. Posts give you the option to add an image, write up to 300 words of text, add call-to-action buttons and more. The posts will appear in standard Google search results, but also on Maps results. Google says the addition is to help promote events, highlight promotions and share new products and services.
Read the full story (Search Engine Land)
Google to no longer read emails to tailor content
Google has announced it will no longer scan the content of personal emails, in a move designed to restore confidence among users. Google has analysed the content of emails since Gmail launched in 2004, using the data to tailor adverts. However, it has been speculated that Google has simply found other ways to gain the info and simply doesn’t need to scan emails anymore.
Read the full story (Wired)
Facebook plans on making TV shows
Facebook is stepping up plans to start making its own slate of TV shows, and is prepared to spend up to $3million an episode, putting it on par with the likes of Netflix and traditional media networks. However, unlike Netflix and Amazon Prime, Facebook has no current plans to market these shows on a subscription service, instead relying on advertising income.
Read the full story (Business Insider)
Amazon Echo now works as an intercom
Amazon has now released an update that will allow room-to-room chat, essentially turning the Echo into an intercom. If you have multiple Echos, Echo Dots or Echo Shows, you can initiate walkie-talkie style chats between them all, making it easier to check in with fellow housemates or the kids. It will be interesting to see how Amazon takes this further with plans to add this for external calls supposedly in the works.
Read the full story (The Next Web)
Google to revamp Google News
Google News has historically been an under-invested part of the Google landscape, and the search engine giant is investing in a long overdue redevelop and redesign. The new design has a more clean and minimal UI made for better readability, while story cards include different viewpoints to help readers get a more rounded viewpoint.
Read the full story (Google Blog)
WSJ traffic drops 44% after backing out of First Click Free
In February, The Wall Street Journal stopped participating in the ‘First Click Free’ Google program, that allowed Google Visitors to bypass its paywall. Since dropping out, it has seen a 44% decrease in traffic levels, partly because Google can no longer properly index articles. However, during the same time WSJ has seen a fourfold increase in subscription conversions.
Read the full story (Search Engine Land)
When to use Domain Authority and Page Authority
They might be some of the most common metrics for measuring SEO effectiveness, but page authority (PA) and domain authority (DA) can still be easily misapplied and misunderstood. In a very helpful Whiteboard Friday, Moz’s Rand Fishkin walks through how and when to use these metrics to better understand your hard work moving the SEO needle.
Read the full story (Moz)
Distilled news
As we touched on in the very first story, Distilled CEO has given his take on the EU Commission Google ruling. Elsewhere on the Distilled blog, Lydia Gilbertson has explored the world of Medium, giving her insight on when and how to put your brand’s content on the long-form social platform. Finally, Content Marketing Manager Andrew Tweddle has laid out the benefits of building an evergreen content strategy, and how to start creating this kind of content for yourself.
SearchLove London is now on sale and the early bird discount is still available. Tickets are selling fast, and we will soon be announcing the majority of speakers for the October event. Make sure to snap yours up while discounts are available.
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