Welcome to ‘What Happened in Search’.
Packed full of the week’s digital search marketing news each Friday, this week we discuss Adobe’s Flash, Google’s Penguin refresh and the Apple Pay launch.
FLASH CAN
With further security issues brought into the spotlight, there has been much discussion around Adobe’s Flash of late, and Firefox has dealt the latest blow by blocking it entirely.
With calls for an expiry date on the much-despised software, take a look at our update here.
PENGUIN REFRESH
Google Webmaster Trends Analyst Gary Illyes announced on Twitter that the Google Penguin update will not take place for several months.
Google’s plan is to make the algorithm run in real time, and give it continuos fresh link data, but there is speculation that it could be another year before we see the update.
Take a look at Search Engine Land’s timeline of Penguin updates at the link below.
IN REVIEW
The past year in Google algorithm updates has seen everything from Panda to mobile sending the industry into panic mode.
With a renewed focus on user experience and quality content, Google is ensuring sites are tailored to the user, rather than its crawlers.
Econsultancy takes a look at the impact of these changes over a 12-month period, reviewing sets of data from the flight and electrical retail industries.
LEADING THE WAY
The UK is the biggest spender in the European online advertising market, with €8.9bn spent in 2014. The UK’s spend per capita was also more than three times Europe’s average, at €138.20.
The fastest growing market was Slovenia, according to the AdEx Benchmark 2014 report, which also described the UK as the ‘trendsetter’ for the sector.
Unsurprisingly, video was overtaken by mobile as the driving force for online advertising – mobile accounted for 17.8% of total spend.
RULE BRITANNIA
It was hard to avoid this week’s news that Apple Pay has expanded beyond the US and launched in the UK.
It launched with support from seven banks including American Express, Santander, RBS and Natwest. Both Barclays and HSBC were missing from the list of launch partners.
Doubt has been cast over Apple Pay’s US success and it will be interesting to see if Tim Cook’s promise that ‘2015 will be the year of Apple Pay’ proves to be an empty one as the service rolls out globally.
