Our weekly digest of what’s happening/trending in the digital world provided by Search Engine Land, Marketing Land and Search Engine Roundtable.

From Search Engine Land

Stop losing clicks to your competitors. Protect your brand in search.
98% of your competition is brand bidding. Read more

How to make your content more accessible to the visually impaired
Updating alt tags and creating friendly URLs and file names are just a few ways to maximize the accessibility of your organic search presence. Read more

Google offers improved GMB sign-up flow for service-area businesses
Improved process will make it easier to set up service areas on GMB. Read more

Don’t give up on Google Posts
Since a GMB listing is a major local ranking factor for a business, keeping listings fresh with content improves findability in search. Read more

Introducing SEO for developers. It’s time
Let’s bring developers into the search engine optimization conversation and community so sites are built for efficient indexing from the get-go. Read more

Data: Google organic search CTRs decline on desktop, see big drop on phones
Mobile organic clicks on declined roughly 10 points between 2016 and 2018. Read more

Google tells some advertisers it will handle their campaign management
In seven days, the email says, Google Ads reps will start making changes to advertiser accounts if advertisers don’t opt out. Read more

From Marketing Land

Consumers receptive to mobile ads while watching TV, before bed
Aki Technologies’ survey also found a generational shift in how consumers pay attention to ads. Read more

4 building blocks to help your brand’s SEO strategy succeed
Crawlability, optimization, brand engagement and knowledge-content creation are all important pieces to create a more competitive SEO program. Read more

Google Chrome API changes may disable most ad blockers
The company says the changes are about page speed, security and user privacy; critics are more cynical about Google’s motives. Read more

LinkedIn’s ‘Interest Targeting’ lets advertisers target ads based on users’ professional interests
The Interest Targeting feature will allow advertisers to reach audience members who’ve interacted with content on topics like AI, customer experience and more. Read more

From Search Engine Roundtable

Google Sends Many AMP Issue Detected Notices
A couple of days ago, Google sent out via Google Search Console a nice number of AMP notifications related to new issues detected. Read more

Google: How Soon Can You Remove 301 Redirects?
We’ve covered the topic of how long Google wants you to keep 301 redirects in place here numerous times. Read more

Google: Image Schema Or Noscript Tags Are Good For Images
Last October we learned a lot about how Google supports the noscript tag for lazy loaded content, in order to help Google understand the images. Read more

Google: There Is No Time Frame For Algorithmic Changes To Take Effect
Google’s John Mueller said on Twitter yesterday “There is no fixed timeframe for algorithmic changes to take effect, past the need to recrawl & reprocess pages from the site.” Read more

Google Posts Allows Anchor Text Links For Verified Authors
Google appears to be allowing some with access to use Google Posts to add hyperlinks, either URLs or anchor text links. Read more

Google: We Know When Domain Names Change Ownership
Aaseesh from the Google Webmaster Trends Analysts team said in a Google Webmaster Help thread that Google understands when a domain name changes ownership. Read more

Searchers Seeing Mixed Up Languages In Google Search
There are some reports in the Google Web Search Help forums of searchers seeing mixed languages in the search results. Read more

Google’s John Mueller: You Focus Too Much On Links
Google’s John Mueller has been telling some SEOs over the past day or so that they are focusing too much on links. Read more

Google My Business Helps Businesses Without Offices With New Sign Up Process
We saw this coming and now Google officially released a new sign up process for service area businesses, businesses that don’t operate out of a specific location(s). Read more

Google URL Inspection Tool Security Issue
Oliver H.G. Mason posted a simple method to use the Google Search Console URL inspection tool on any URL even when you do not have verified access to that URL in Google Search Console. Read more

Google On Potential Issues With Canonicals & JavaScript
Google’s John Mueller posted a very detailed response on Reddit about how Google treats canonicals and how JavaScript based sites that use them might run into issues. Read more

Google Local Pack Defaults To Showing 4 Stars For Some Queries
If you do a search for [top soil] where I am and in some other locations, Google will show you a local pack but the local pack will be filtered to only show results with 4.0+ ratings or higher. Read more

Is Google Penguin Dead Or Alive
Joe Hall, an SEO, posted a Twitter poll asking SEOs if they believe if Penguin is dead or alive. Read more