Search news roundup – December

Google is continually testing new initiatives to refine its search offering but the one that has caught the eye of the industry this month is especially exciting for search professionals’ interactive search results. First appearing in early December, this test saw interactive elements appearing on the search results page. A small photo icon appeared next to the search result which, when clicked, triggered images to be revealed from the site in question. While Google hasn’t officially commented, it’s thought this type of interactive element is at the early testing stages. 

 E-commerce continues to thrive with Amazon revealing that the recent Black Friday weekend was its “best ever” with record orders and sales recorded. Shoppers flocked to the marketplace to stock up on the traditional shopping weekend’s offers, with Amazon’s official blog reporting third-party sellers saw a 60% year-on-year growth. Even more impressive, it says record sales mean US SMEs sold an average of 9,500 products per minute since October. 

It’s a similar story across the web too, with UK sales online up 23% on Black Friday, and traffic to web pages up 35%. 

If you advertise your services on Google Ads, you should now find it easier to generate and manage leads from your PPC activity thanks to changes to how lead form extensions work. Rolled out in early December, the Google Ads team have made it possible to share forms across campaigns, ask more questions on the form itself and integrate data with your existing CMS system more easily. 

Google rolled out a major core update at the start of the month. Although not all of the impact has yet been felt (the update was rolled out 16th December) it seems that much of the focus has been on returning results that better meet the user’s search intent. This is something Google has focused on heavily in recent years. This new update also seems to be giving more weight to content headings and structure, meaning those pages which use lots of headings to help readers ‘scan’ he content appear to be performing well.