Weekly Digital Marketing News Roundup

In a recent update from Google, the search engine giant confirmed a significant change in its SEO ranking factors. While links were once considered one of the top three factors, Google's analyst Gary Illyes has revealed that they no longer hold that position.

Illyes emphasized that links still matter but aren't among the top three factors in today's SEO landscape. Google's evolving algorithm now places greater importance on advanced technology such as machine learning and natural language understanding.

This shift reflects Google's ongoing efforts to prioritize content quality and relevance in search rankings.

In a recent "Search Off the Record" podcast, Google's John Mueller and Gary Illyes emphasized the essential role of quality in search. Quality content takes center stage in Google's indexing and crawling decisions - from sitemaps to ranking, influencing nearly every aspect of search.

While quality doesn't guarantee high rankings, it significantly shapes how Google interacts with websites. Notably, Google uses quality signals to prioritize URLs for crawling. The discussion also dispelled common SEO myths, clarifying that affiliate sites can produce high-quality content.

Gary Illyes from Google's Search team recently mentioned that Google's September 2023 helpful content update, which involved changes to its documentation, hasn't impacted the ranking algorithm yet.

The updated documentation advises website owners to consider blocking third-party content from being indexed if it's unrelated to their site's main purpose.

Despite SEO community expectations of potential ranking drops for such content, Gary clarified that algorithm changes haven't been made yet.

Nevertheless, this is a cautionary signal that Google may address these practices in the future, prompting site owners to assess their third-party hosted content strategies.

Snapchat and Microsoft are working together to monetize the former’s "My AI" chatbot by introducing sponsored links into its relevant responses.

These sponsored links, powered by Microsoft Advertising's Ads for Chat API, will show ads related to the keywords used in the chatbot's responses.

For instance, a user's query about "haircare" could trigger a relevant product promotion. While this approach has the potential to be intrusive, it also offers valuable opportunities for brands to engage with users based on their specific queries.

With over 150 million users submitting over 10 billion messages to My AI, this move could provide valuable targeting data and enhance ad responses.

Meta unveils its AI chatbots at the "Connect" conference on September 27. These chatbots, available on Instagram, will offer distinct personalities users can customize for artificial engagement. The move aims to attract younger users to the platform.

Meta's chatbots will have up to 30 different personas to choose from, including a surfer dude, a sassy robot inspired by "Futurama's" Bender, and "Alvin the Alien," reminiscent of "Marvin the Martian" from Bugs Bunny.

Snapchat has introduced an engaging 16-bit interactive game called Agency Adventure aimed at agency staff to help them understand the process of creating a Snapchat brief and developing effective ad campaigns. 

The game features four mini-stages that cover various steps of the pitch process, including brainstorming, building a pitch deck, and final presentation. Players can choose characters and industry briefs, navigate an agency office, and participate in mini-games to build their pitch. 

While it provides a fun way to engage agency staff, it also offers insights for non-agency advertisers and marketers looking to create effective Snapchat ad campaigns. Snapchat is also hosting a high score competition for partner agencies with a $4,500 donation price to a selected charity.

OpenAI’s ChatGPT can now finally browse the internet and is no longer limited by its September 2021 knowledge cutoff. The update is currently only available to premium users, but OpenAI plans to expand it to all users soon. 

Moreover, OpenAI has also introduced voice and image capabilities to ChatGPT. These features enable more natural and intuitive interactions with the AI chatbot. You can now speak to ChatGPT, and it will respond audibly in five synthesized voices. 

You can also share images to provide visual context for discussions. These capabilities will be rolled out to Plus and Enterprise users, with voice available on mobile apps and image functionality accessible across all platforms.

NVIDIA has partnered with Getty Images to introduce Generative AI to create images suitable for commercial use. 

This AI-driven image generation service, powered by NVIDIA Picasso, offers text-prompt-to-image generation, enabling users to generate tailored visuals based on simple inputs. 

It emphasizes commercial safety by providing security from intellectual property claims, given its training on Getty Images' curated library. 

This technology allows users to describe their desired visuals, and the AI tool produces corresponding images in real-time, making it valuable for industries like advertising and design. 

Google has introduced a series of paid and free training courses focused on generative AI. The "Introduction to Generative AI" path is designed for non-technical roles, covering AI principles. The "Generative AI for Developers" path provides hands-on labs and courses for software developers. 

Both paths include video courses, labs, and opportunities to earn skill badges. Google plans to continuously update the training materials to stay updated with the latest developments in the field. 

YouTube has introduced a new feature in YouTube Studio that enables creators to track how many clips have been created from their uploads and the number of views generated by these clips. 

The 'Clips' section in YouTube Studio provides a list of clips cut from your content, including details about their creators, creation date, and total views. 

This feature offers creators more context to understand which parts of their videos are driving engagement and reach through user-generated clips. It enables better content strategy by recognizing what resonates with viewers and planning accordingly.

YouTube has introduced a collection of AI-powered tools for video creators at its yearly "Made On YouTube" event. These tools aim to offer Youtube creators more efficient resources for content development and audience expansion.

The three tools are:

• AI Insights: YouTube Studio will use generative AI to draft personalized video ideas and outlines for creators’ channels based on viewer preferences.
• Assistive Search in Creator Music: Video creators will be able to find suitable soundtracks for their videos using AI-assisted search. AI will suggest music based on content descriptions.

Aloud: It’s an AI-powered dubbing tool, which will enable creators to dub their content into multiple languages, expanding their global reach.