What we’ve learned about SEO in 2016

The rise of AI

Artificial intelligence (AI) is now prevalent in many of our lives. Google, IBM, Amazon and Apple are very active in developing and using Artificial Narrow Intelligence (ANI). ANI can be used to automate repetitive tasks, like looking up product details, shipping dates and order histories and performing countless other customer requests.

The consumer is becoming more and more comfortable with this technology and has even grown to trust its results. Sundar Pichai, Google CEO, announced during his Google I/O keynote that 20 percent of queries on its mobile app and on Android devices are voice searches.

RankBrain, Google’s machine-learning artificial intelligence system, is now among the top three ranking signals for Google’s search algorithm. Why? Google handles more than 3.5 billion searches per a day, and 16 to 20 percent of those are unique queries that have never been searched before. To handle this, the team at Google has harnessed the power of machine learning to help deliver better results.

While we can’t “control” RankBrain, what we can do is learn more about how Google is using it and then help the tool by creating good content that earns shares and links, building connections with others in our niche or related niches, and building trust in very targeted topics.

We are still in the beginning stages of this technology, but as more and more homes become equipped with smart tools like Amazon Echo and Google Home, we can be sure that these tech giants will use the knowledge they gain from voice search to power their AI technology.

The “Google Dance”

Every so often, Google likes to surprise us with a major algorithm update that has a significant impact on search results — some years we get one, and other years we get a little more.

While they do make nearly 500 tweaks to the algorithm each year, some are big enough to garner more attention. Let’s look back at four of 2016’s most memorable updates. Related:GroupBuy SEO Tools

Mobile-friendly algorithm boost

A little under a year after “Mobilegeddon,” an event marked by the launch of Google’s mobile-friendly ranking algorithm, the search giant announced that it would soon be increasing the effects of this algorithm to further benefit mobile-friendly sites on mobile search. That boost rolled out on May 12, 2016, though the impact was not nearly as significant as when the mobile-friendly ranking algorithm initially launched.Related:GroupBuy SEO Tools

Penguin 4.0

While this ended up being a two-phase rollout, Penguin 4.0 made its entrance on September 23, 2016. This has been considered the “gentler” Penguin algorithm, which devalues bad links instead of penalizing sites. The second phase of Penguin 4.0 was the recovery period, in which sites impacted by previous Penguin updates began to finally see a recovery — assuming steps were taken to help clean up their link profiles.

“Possum”

While this update was never confirmed by Google, the local SEO community noted a major shake-up in local pack and Google Maps results in early September 2016.

Fellow Search Engine Land columnist Joy Hawkins noted that this was quite possibly the largest update seen in in the local SEO world since Pigeon was released in 2014. Based on her findings, she believes the update’s goal was “to diversify the local results and also prevent spam from ranking as well.”

Divided index

As mobile search continues to account for more and more of the global share of search queries, Google is increasingly taking steps to become a mobile-first company. In November, Google announced that it was experimenting with using a mobile-first index, meaning that the mobile version of a website would be considered the “default” version for ranking purposes instead of the desktop version:

“To make our results more useful, we’ve begun experiments to make our index mobile-first. Although our search index will continue to be a single index of websites and apps, our algorithms will eventually primarily use the mobile version of a site’s content to rank pages from that site, to understand structured data, and to show snippets from those pages in our results.”

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Help a stranger return your lost Android device, place contact info on your lock screen

If you’ve ever lost something, something important like a wallet or, say, a smartphone, there is nothing better than that feeling when a stranger calls you up and returns your lost property. In terms of a lost Android device, seeing your gear returned safely is much more likely if you help that stranger out a little bit. One of the best ways to do that is to place your contact info on your lock screen.

Now, we’re not suggesting you place anything critical on your lock screen, the purpose of which, after all, is to keep your data secure. But perhaps your name and a home phone number would be acceptable.

The process is actually pretty simple, fire up your system Settings, head on into the Security section and tap on Owner Info.

Now, tap the checkbox to turn on ‘Show owner info on lock screen‘ and fill in what you would like it to say. Myself, I choose not to put my name, inserting only the text “If found, please call ###-###-####” – with my real home phone number, of course.

11 best Android news apps

The Internet has changed the way we digest news. A lot of people still get newspapers and magazines but the majority of us now rely on applications, web browsers, and social media to find out what’s going on around the world. You can even use applications if you want to. Here are the best Android news apps. It’s important to note that many people prefer specific news sources and have an inherent distrust for others. We’re not recommending any specific news providers but rather basing our judgement on the performance and features of the apps themselves. If you like to listen to the news or get your news via podcasts, check out the best Android podcast apps!
http://vondroid.com/threads/11-best-android-news-apps.29566/#.VHGtb_mUflo

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Report: EU Parliament draft could call for Google’s breakup

With the ever growing amount of lawsuits and antitrust investigations that Google faces on a regular basis, the company has likely become used to the notion that regulators and other corporations will do all they can to “even the playing field”. But this newest development is far more aggressive than any obstacle they have ever confronted, and is quite possibly the biggest threat the company has ever faced, as EU Parliament has drafted a resolution that entails a plan to break up Google.

Google’s dominance “dilemma”


Despite the many successes that Google is experiencing in the mobile market, the Mountain View company has certainly had it’s fair share of problems when it comes to their core product: search. Those problems have not, however, confronted Google due to being unsuccessful or losing dominance in search. On the contrary, Google’s massive success in search is in many ways the problem itself. A quick rundown of the December 2012 Comscore search engine market share (which came to light via GigaOm) highlights the dominance that Google has enjoyed globally:

• Google: 114.7 billion searches, 65.2% share
• Baidu: 14.5 billion searches, 8.2% share
• Yahoo: 8.6 billion searches, 4.9% share
• Yandex: 4.8 billion searches, 2.8% share
• Microsoft: 4.5 billion searches, 2.5% share
• Others: 28.7 billion searches, 16.3% share

A 2013 update of search engine data by Return on Now showed that the company wasn’t slowing down, with Google commanding 74% of the market share in the top 31 countries, with only a handful of countries with search engines being used more than Google:

• China: Baidu (62% share) and newcomer 360 Search (21%), who jumped into 2nd place over the past two years
• Russia: Yandex (62% share)
• South Korea: Naver (72% share) and Daum (18%)
• Japan: Yahoo! Japan (53% share, but served up using Google’s back end)

Those numbers are certainly impressive, but have come with a price. Some companies argue that Google favors its own search results over others, and there are accusations that Google faces on how they handle user data.

All of these concerns have become increasingly voiced in Europe, with many corporations and users demanding that the government do something about the company (which, in the eyes of many, holds a monopoly on search). The recent development of an EU Parliament draft to break up the company, however, is one of the most aggressive assaults on the American company to date.

The draft


According to the Financial Times, a draft motion was seen that stated “the unbundling of search engines from other commercial services” should not be ruled out as a solution to Google’s dominance in search. The draft (which does not flat out say that Google is the company being referred to, but surely has implications for the worlds biggest search engine) currently has the backing of the European People’s Party and the Socialists, with German politicians leading the way on this very rare action within Parliament.

German telecom companies, media groups, politicians, and normal citizens have been very critical of Google. German politician Günther Oettinger has proposed levying Google for showing material that’s copyright protected, and has been very vocal in how he feels about Google software being present in cars. Google was also recently forced by the European Court of Justice to accept the “right to be forgotten”, which has also created problems for the company in the now five-year-old EU investigation into their practices.

Unbundling cannot be excluded
German MEP Andreas Schwab
Financial Times
​

European acceptance of the draft


German MEP Andreas Schwab was quoted saying that “unbundling cannot be excluded”, and is a strong supporter of the draft. Spanish MEP Ramon Tremosa, who also supports the draft, stated that the proposed unbundling was necessary to consider as a possible long term solution due to the fact that they could not outright ask for the secret to how Google’s search algorithm functions.

European competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager went on to say that she would hear Google out (along with other complainants) before making a final decision.

Can Parliament legally break up Google?


The short answer to that question is no. European Parliament does not actually have the authority to disband or break up any company, especially when you consider that the company in question is an American corporation. That being said, the possible passing of the draft could have a very powerful effect on the European Commission, who does hold the power to enforce such a draft. This is clearly shown in the 2007 case that the EU Commission made, and won, against Microsoft for integrating Internet Explorer into the Windows operating system.

Google has not released an official statement, but reports have indicated that executives are “furious” after just finding out a few days ago about the draft.

Final thoughts


As an American that has lived in Germany for the past 12 years, I found this story especially interesting. Due to European history, especially when it comes to Germany, many are very skeptical of anything that resembles a monopoly or any entity that controls huge amounts of data. The political situation of the world also doesn’t help, especially when you consider the allegations of US agencies monitoring the phone calls of the German chancellor. Put it all together (Google’s search dominance, their handling of data, their firm grip on the mobile market), and what you have is plenty of firepower and resentment for many companies, and governments, to use against them.

That being said, is breaking the company up the solution? Google became dominant because they are a great search engine that many people enjoy using. Their products like Maps, Gmail, Search, and Android, became popular because they are good, free products. Google was by no means the first search engine, and they have fought, failed (on my products) and invested billions in becoming what they are today. Should the result of their success be their falling? Wouldn’t solid evidence need to be provided that they are manipulating search results before such a plan could even be realistically considered? Has Google simply become too big for its own good?

A text for the final text of the draft will be decided early next week, with an expected vote on Thursday, meaning we may not have to wait too long to find out what exactly this will mean for Google.

I’m very curious to hear the thoughts of our readers on this, so let us know how you feel about it in the comments below.