Looks like Google might be testing a new layout on desktop SERPS for the People Also Search For SERP feature. In this new test, it appears on the right-hand side similar to how a Knowledge Panel would appear.

Sample Query: Try searching for Sample Query on Desktop. I was NOT able to trigger the result from Australia or USA.

With Facebook and Instagram Shops on the way, Facebook has this week added some handy new Custom Audience creation options to align with increasing eCommerce activity. The new audience options are being rolled out to all advertisers.

In your Custom Audience options through Facebook Ads Manager, there’s a new option to create a listing based on ‘Shopping’. Click through on that and you’ll have three new options to build custom lists for ad retargeting:

• People who viewed products
• People who added any products to their basket
• People who purchased any products

Looks like some of the SERP position tackers are noticing a relatively big change, in SEMRush I can see a 5.5/10 volatility score in the US, it was relatively stable in AU with a 1.5/10 in Australia. Check out how some of the SERP Fluctuations tools reacted to it: Mozcast, Algoroo, Advanced Web Rankings. Keep an eye on your ranking folks, we will have a better idea about the impact in the next few days.

Facebook is no longer betting on Lasso, an app it launched a year and a half ago, to take on TikTok. The social juggernaut’s TikTok clone is shutting down on July 10, Lasso alerted users on Wednesday.

Lasso’s demise comes ahead of the launch of Instagram Reels — the new horse Facebook is counting on to steal TikTok’s lunch, said Josh Constine, who first spotted Lasso’s announcement.

This looks like a new format for Google News where you have multiple topics each with their own carousels.

Sample Query: Try searching for Axis Bank on Mobile or Desktop. I was NOT able to trigger the result from Australia or USA.

A lot of tests on Google today, this is a test on Goole Maps where you have a scrollable carousel for the various businesses that matches your query. I think this gives users an easy way to switch between the different results, iF this gets rolled out make sure you have a really good image to improve your CTR.

Here is a free Data Studio template to analyze Screaming Frog crawl data. It takes the crawl data that you export from screaming frog and gives you various pretty reports that can use in your audits. I haven’t played around with it yet but from the screenshots, it looks like a great free tool to add to you audit kit.

Bill Slawski breaks down a newly granted Google patent Ranking Image Search Results Using Machine Learning Models that sheds some light on how Google might rank images based on a combination of the query used, features of the images and features of the landing page using various Machine Learning models.

As always I highly recommend you go check out Bill’s breakdown for the full details, this is just a short summary:

Features Extracted from the Image Search Query

• Language of the search query
• Some or all of the terms in the search query
• Time that the search query was submitted
• Location from which the search query was submitted
• Data characterizing the user device from which the query was received
• So on

Features Extracted From the Image:

• These features can include vectors that represent the content of the image.

Features Extracted From the Landing Page: 

• The date the page was first crawled or updated
• Data characterizing the author of the landing page
• The language of the landing page
• Features of the domain that the landing page belong to
• Keywords representing the content of the landing page
• Features of the links to the image and landing page such as the anchor text or source page for the links
• Features that describe the context of the image in the landing page
• So on

Features Extracted From The Landing Page That Describes The Context of the Image in the Landing Page

• Data characterizing the location of the image within the landing page
• Prominence of the image on the landing page
• Textual descriptions of the image on the landing page
• Etc.

Check out Bill’s post on more info on how it all comes together and how the initial ranking scores are adjusted.