2 New Google Mobile Search Tests: Larger Titles & Info Cards

Google has made some changes to how they are displaying mobile search results, and if you're currently ranking number one for your queries and have sitelinks, your click-through rate (CTR) from mobile devices on those searches might get significantly higher.

Larger Titles for Websites with Sitelinks

The first mobile search test reported by Google Operating System is one that will make those webmasters with many sitelinks quite happy.

When the top search result features a site that has multiple sitelinks, Google is increasing the size of the font for that title. This means that on many mobile phones, users will only see that first result on their screen, pushing all other results further down (e.g., Google News) so they are barely visible on the screen:

The title does get truncated significantly more than it would with the regular search results without the title being enlarged. However, the larger title is definitely eye-catching and should significantly increase CTR, so long as the truncation isn't causing the result to seem like a poor match to the searcher.

This new change seems to affect multiple search queries and both Android and iOS devices, including both Google Chrome and Safari.

Website Info Cards

Google is also testing site info cards within mobile search results. While the site info cards are fairly common in desktop searches, they are new to mobile.

These new mobile info cards also give the first search results significant real estate space on a mobile device, including the entire screen on mobile phones. If the listing has sitelinks, they are shown beneath the info card.

The test with these site info cards is currently only being shown to those who are not signed into a Google account, so make sure you're logged out before testing it with your own search queries.

Twitter Now Supports Animated GIFs: Why This Is Good For Marketers

Twitter made an announcement today that many of us have all been waiting for: You can now share and view animated GIFs on Twitter.com and on Twitter’s iOS and Android apps.The announcement came in the form of a tweet from Twitter’s Support team, and appropriately enough it included an animated GIF as well.

Previously, if you wanted to share a GIF on Twitter, you had to upload it to a third-party (like Imgur) and then share the link. Starting today you can upload and view them directly on Twitter.

GIFs won’t animate automatically in your feed like they do on Tumblr, for example. When a GIF is shown there will be an overlay of a white play button, simply click on the GIF to play it right in your feed.

Why this is good for marketers?

The ability to tweet animated GIFs presents new opportunities for content marketers on Twitter. Take a look at how businesses are using Vine to market themselves, those 7 second videos can easily translate into animated GIFs.

GIFs stand out in the Twitter feed just like images do. They can capture the attention of your audience and communicate your message in a way that’s quick and easy to digest.

Perhaps one of the best things about GIFs is that they can communicate emotions. Anyone who spends even a small amount of time on Reddit knows how GIFs can be used to convey the emotion behind a situation. It’s difficult to capture emotion in 140 characters, adding a GIF to your tweet now makes it easier than ever.

Facebook gives users the tools to remove ads based on topic

Facebook is about to launch a new ad preferences tool that will allow users to block ads by excluding specific topics. They say this will makes ads “better” because the viewer will have control over what they see and what they don’t. They say they’re making this option available because “soon” they won’t just be monitoring what you do on Facebook, they’ll also be including data from “some of the websites and apps you use.”



When you see an ad you don’t like, click on it to get an option menu:

From here, you can choose “Why am I seeing this?”  This leads you to another screen with a long explanation about how you did things related to (INSERT TOPIC) on Facebook and so now we assume you like things related to (INSERT SAME TOPIC). If you don’t really like (INSERT SAME TOPIC) and you hit those pages by accident or have decided that you’re no longer into (INSERT SAME TOPIC) you can remove this topic from your ad preference list and we won’t show you these ads again. . . probably. . . maybe.

Google Preparing Large Update? Shifts On May 2nd & 7th

There was some chatter about a Google update on May 2nd but now we are seeing even more chatter and signs of flux in the Google search results on May 7th.

These signs of shifts in rankings, spikes in crawl rates, often, but not always, are early warning signs of a major Google update happening in the near future.

Here are flux/volatility charts from MozCast, SERPS.com, SearchMetrics and Algoroo:

1.MozCast chart:

2.SERPMetrics chart:

3.SearchMetrics  chart:

4.Algoroo:

All show similar patterns for the most part, including the ongoing webmaster world thread follow these patterns also.