Show Notes
1. Open Enrollment For The Microsoft Advertising Partner Program Has Begun! - Open enrollment for the Select and Elite tiers of the Microsoft Advertising Partner Program will run from January through March. The opportunity to enroll at the Partner tier and begin unlocking benefits will remain available year-round. If you're ready to enroll but aren't sure what tier you qualify for, reach out to Microsoft Advertising support or your Microsoft Advertising representative.
Elite and Select partners are eligible to enroll only during the annual open enrollment cycle (January 1st to March 31st). Partner tier partners may enroll throughout the year. Eligibility and participation are based on meeting a set of criteria, including being an existing Microsoft Advertising customer for at least six months and maintaining a minimum combined total Microsoft Search Network spend for the geographies that you serve.
The Microsoft Advertising Partner Program tiers are determined by the level of investment in Microsoft Advertising, in addition to other requirements. Your Partner Program tier will remain for a calendar year and will be evaluated every December to take effect January 1.
2. Google Ads Allows Sports Gambling Ads In New York Now - As of Jan 8, 2022, Google Ads, is allowing certified and state-licensed entities in New York to run ads for sports betting. This was previously disallowed but now that the state Gaming Commission in New York changed the rule, it is now allowed in New York State.
3. 4 New Messaging Features From Snapchat - Snapchat introduced four new messaging (Chat Replies, Bitmoji Reactions, Polls, and a revamped audio and video calling interface) features, which will roll out to Snapchatters “in the coming days” on Android and iOS.
First off, Snap’s added Poll Stickers, which enable you to create emoji-focused polls that you can share in Snaps and Stories. Per Snapchat, “Our visual Polls work across iOS and Android, so all your friends can weigh in and show their thoughts. Plus, our Polls were designed with transparency in mind - you can see how your friends voted to help ensure responses stay thoughtful and kind.”
Snapchat also adds a new option to reply to individual messages within an ongoing group chat, enabling you to specifically address any comment with a separate chat thread. The functionality will be familiar to those who engage in group chats on Messenger, given Meta added the same functionality back in 2019. The option will make it easier to ensure your messages are understood, while additionally providing more context to all group chat members.
Snap’s also rolling out Bitmoji Reactions, which are similar to the reaction options in other social apps but utilize your Bitmoji character for a more personal touch. As you can see here, within a chat thread, you’ll now be able to choose one of seven Bitmoji reactions, providing a quick way to respond to messages, while also incorporating Bitmoji use.
And finally, Snapchat’s updated its video and audio calling interface in order to “make live conversations more fun”. The new process makes it easier to add Lenses in video calls, a key engagement element for Snap’s video calling option, while you’ll also now be able to preview who’s on a group call before you join.
4. Google: Nofollow Is Not A Substitute For Noindex - Google’s Search Advocate John Mueller advises that the nofollow link attribute isn’t a substitute for the noindex directive. Googlebot is capable of can finding and indexing nofollowed links. So it should not be used in hopes of keeping a page out of Google’s search index.
Mueller addresses a submitted question asking if rel=”nofollow” can be used as noindex. The person who submitted the question notes they’ve been nofollowing internal links to pages that they don’t want to be indexed in search results.
When asked if rel=”nofollow” can be used to keep a page out of Google’s search index, Mueller says:
“No. Essentially, nofollow tells us not to pass any PageRank to those pages, but it doesn’t mean that we will never index that page. So if you really want a page to be blocked from indexing, make sure it has a noindex on it.
Don’t rely on us not accidentally running across a random link to that page. So I would not assume that those two are the same.”
Mueller goes on to reference an article from Google Webmaster Trends Analyst Gary Illyes, which explains the difference between nofollow and other types of link attributes.
That means it can’t always be relied upon to do what it’s designed for.
Nofollow tells Google that a site doesn’t want to pass PageRank from one URL to another, but Google may decide to do so anyway.
With that being the case, it’s sometimes used by Google as a signal for link discovery.
5. Google Has Two Types Of Crawling – Discovery & Refresh - Google utilizes two types of crawling methods when it goes through web pages — one to discover new content and one to refresh existing content.
You can find out how often Googlebot crawls your site via a report in Search Console, and there may be periods when your site is crawled more than others. When questioned about the report, Mueller confirms the fluctuations are normal and discusses the two types of crawling:
“That can happen. It’s not so much that we crawl a website, but we crawl individual pages of a website. And when it comes to crawling, we have two types of crawling roughly.
One is a discovery crawl where we try to discover new pages on your website. And the other is a refresh crawl where we update existing pages that we know about.”
Not only can crawl frequency vary for the whole site, but it can also vary by individual web pages. If your homepage is updated more regularly than other pages, for example, then you’ll see more Googlebot activity on that page.
6. YouTube Launches Understanding Performance Trends by Highlighting Similar Videos - Inside the advanced analytics element in YouTube Studio – you can now view a scatter plot of all your videos and their comparative performance on variable timelines. This new element enables you to select ‘Show videos with similar topics’ from the plot display, which will then switch the graph to a specific listing of uploads on the same subject.
That means that you’re getting a better comparison of video performance, as you’re comparing more like-for-like clips, as opposed to measuring each video against every other.
It could be a good way to better contextualize video engagement, while also helping to highlight the specific topics that are resonating over time.
Fun fact: You can display up to 100 videos at once in the chart and sort the listing by ‘First 24 hours’, ‘First 7 days’ or ‘First 28 days’. You can also compare various metrics, including views, impressions, and average view duration.
It is an amazing addition for your YouTube analytics and planning – to access your video performance chart, go to:
Channel analytics > Advanced mode > Compare to’ > ‘First 24 hours video performance’
7. IndexNow Enables Data Sharing Between Bing And Yandex - The Microsoft Bing team said that the IndexNow protocol is now at a place where those participating are co-sharing URLs submitted, meaning if you use IndexNow to submit URLs to Microsoft Bing, Microsoft will immediately share those URLs with Yandex, the company announced.
The promise of IndexNow was to submit a URL to one search engine via this protocol and not only will that search engine immediately discover that URL, but it will also be discovered on all the other participating search engines. Right now, that is just Microsoft Bing and Yandex, but Google is exploring using this protocol. Microsoft said...
“The IndexNow protocol ensures that all URLs submitted by webmasters to any IndexNow-enabled search engine immediately get submitted to all other similar search engines. As a result of co-sharing URLs submitted to IndexNow-enabled search engines, webmasters just need to notify one API endpoint. Not only does this save effort and time for webmasters, but it also helps search engines in discovery, thus making the internet more efficient.”
Also, you no longer need to submit the URLs to https://www.bing.com/IndexNow?url=url-changed&key=your-key or https://yandex.com/indexnow?url=url-changed&key=your-key. IndexNow.org is also directly accepting these submissions at https://api.indexnow.org/indexnow?url=url-changed&key=your-key