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

Google confirms rolling out a broad core search algorithm update earlier this week
Google has confirmed rumors that a search algorithm update took place on Monday. Some sites may have seen their rankings improve, while others may have seen negative or zero change. Read more

Hreflang tags: How to serve correctly regionalized content
An overview of international and multilingual SEO and lists ways hreflang tags can be used to help search engines understand language and regional content variations. Read more

Study: Majority reject ads on smart speakers
Just under 40 percent said they were open to ads if they were “relevant.” Read more

Why do we overcomplicate link building?
Do we overcomplicate link building to make the job look glamorous? Read more

Reports: Fake reviews are a growing problem on Amazon, Google
Facebook is reportedly the source of some of the fake review solicitations. Read more

So many paid search campaigns, so little time. Here’s how to stay ahead of it all.
Saving time and money are top priorities for most search marketers, five tips plus a bonus to help save time and money when optimizing search campaigns. Read more

Best practices for optimizing media-rich web page speed
Consumer media consumption is rapidly shifting from text to visual images. Website content that includes compelling images averages nearly twice as many views as text, and four times more customers would rather watch a video about a product than read about it. Read more

How to use good ol’ PPC to support fun and creative branded content
Creative synergies and the power of collaboration to increase the efficiency of branded content using PPC campaigns. Read more

How to regain trust lost by bad business listings
Whether it’s spring or fall, cleaning up your local business listings is a good idea. If you don’t, be prepared to lose customer trust and search rankings. Read more

From Marketing Land

How to increase B2B form submissions through conversion testing
Four tests that illustrate how improving the online experience can lead to dramatic increases in conversion rate and lead results. Read more

Facebook gives creators new ways to monetize videos, while pushing more users to Watch
The moves signal the site’s growing ambition to compete more directly with video platforms like YouTube, Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Video. Read more

Creating Landing Pages That Convert
If you’re looking to gather leads for your business, you need to have a landing-page strategy. Like every other marketing tactic, this can be done well or it can be done poorly. Read more

7 ways protections for online content are being eroded
Recent changes to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act raise questions about how safe from liability publishers will continue to be for user-generated or third-party content. Read more

3 lessons learned from 365,000 Amazon furniture & home goods product pages
What helps product pages stand out and spur conversions in this competitive category? Read more

Facebook continues to refine its app data & ad-targeting safety measures
The site announced a number of changes to its app APIs and introduced a new ad-targeting prompt that reminds advertisers about anti-discrimination policies. Read more

Snapchat to test 6-second unskippable video ‘Commercials’ to run during Shows
The new ads will be exclusive to Snapchat’s Shows content — the platform’s premium TV-like videos produced by entertainment studios and TV networks. Read more

From Search Engine Roundtable

Search Buzz Video Recap: Google Algorithm & Ranking Update, Job Listings Penalty & Mobile-First Indexing
This week we saw a long going Google algorithm update that has been ongoing for a few days or so now. Google said job listings that are no longer open that have schema can be penalized. Read more

Google Update & Ranking Algorithm Fluctuations Continue
We reported that we saw signs of a Google algorithm update kicking off – the interesting part is that while there is a lot of chatter and signals showing there was an update, the level of that chatter isn’t what I would say is close to a Panda. Read more

Google To Replace Assistant Featured Snippet Answers With How To Ads?
CNBC reports that Google is looking to get advertisers to create how to content and videos to be used as voice responses for Google Assistant and Google Home queries. CNC wrote “Google has been pitching companies to create videos for a new “How To” feature for its smart assistant. Read more

Google Confirmed Last Week Algorithm Update As “Broad Core Update”
Earlier last week we reported on a Google algorithm update that seem to have been kicked off and then on Friday we talked more about how the shuffling has continued throughout the week. Read more

Google: Negative SEO Via Canonicals Redirects Don’t Really Work
Bill Hartzer posted about a “new undetectable negative SEO tactic” last week, which was a pretty significant blog post title to use because it is a very strong accusation. Read more

Google Showing Titles On Some Featured Snippets
It looks like Google is showing titles on some of the featured snippets results on mobile. Mordy Oberstein from RankRanger posted on Twitter that he spotted it and shared some screen shots. Read more

Google Doesn’t Use rel=next On a-Elements For Search
Google’s rel=next and rel=prev is to indicate pagination as the help docs explain, it launched in September 2011 to solve the issues with paginated content and what content to rank in search. But those attributes go in the head of your web page. Read more

Google: Linking To Noindexed URLs Is Not A Problem
You have this large site and you noindex a lot of the parameter, filter, sort, etc. Read more

Google HTTPS Ranking Boost Is Very Subtle, Per URL & Not Industry Specific
It has been a while since we mentioned the Google HTTPS ranking boost that launched in August 2014. Read more

Google Test One Line Brief AdWords Ads
Google seems to be testing a new format for Google AdWords ads on mobile, which I personally cannot replicate. Read more

Google Ranking Algorithm Update Continues On For Over A Week
As you know, Google confirmed a “broad core algorithm” update that started a week ago Monday. Read more

Should SEOs Care About The Updated Google PageRank Patent?
Bill Slawski posted on his blog about the update PageRank patent that was granted today. Read more

Study: Google Often Doesn’t Use Your Meta Descriptions For Snippets
The folks over at Yoast posted that they researched the before and after affects after Google extended their snippets maximum length a few months ago. Read more

Google Shows Date Of Content In Search Results From The Future
Many people think Google is able to predict the future now, based on how much data they have and their AI work. Read more

Google: Having Duplicate Meta Descriptions Doesn’t Mean Your Site Is Broken
Google has a report in Google Search Console that shows you your duplicate meta descriptions. Read more