This article argues that Google’s shift towards less transparency with SEOs and webmasters isn’t beneficial to anyone — even Google. Read more

From Search Engine Land

SEO ranking factors: What’s important, what’s not
If you’re responsible for optimizing web content, how do you determine what factors are vital to your success? Read more

Targeting featured snippet and ‘People also ask’ SERP features
Wondering how to obtain the elusive ‘position zero’ in Google search results? Here they discuss how to target answer boxes and related questions. Read more

Bing Ads adds URL tracking parameters for locations & extensions
The {TargetID} parameter also now captures more click source information. Read more

From Marketing Land

Forrester’s first Waves on journey analytics show the growing importance of customers’ steps toward purchase
In this new field, the surveyed tools offer different approaches to understanding customers’ incentives and problems. Read more

5 metrics to measure the success of Facebook videos
From view-through rate to video length, contributor Sweta Patel discusses the metrics that will help you understand how your videos are performing on Facebook. Read more

From Search Engine RoundTable

Google Call Only Ads Now Support Ad Extensions
While I was offline last week, Google AdWords announced that call-only ads now support new ad extensions. Read more

Google On Algorithm & Ranking Updates This Week: We’re Always Improving Our Search Results
Starting around Tuesday of this week, we noticed Google algorithm and ranking shifts throughout the SEO industry and search results. Read more