This day in search marketing history: March 18

In 2016, Bing Ads tested social extensions that allowed search ads to be linked to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Tumblr. The same year, Bing partnered with the US National Park Service for a photo contest. In 2014, EU antitrust chief Joaquín Almunia said that Google’s antitrust settlement proposal was a done deal, prompting criticism from politicians and Google’s critics. The same year, Bing Ads began allowing keyword variations once flagged as duplicate. The GetListed tool was relaunched as Moz Local, offering agencies and business owners the ability to research where their listings appeared online, manage claiming and verification, and submit listings. In 2011, Yahoo’s AllTheWeb was diverted to Yahoo Search, one of the search engines it had acquired to build Yahoo Search.

In 2010, Google updated maps for mobile devices on Android, improved its usability, and added sponsored map icons as a new way to promote businesses within Google Maps. Google also allowed web users to avoid being tracked by Google Analytics but accused Viacom of secretly uploading videos. In 2009, Newssift was launched by the Financial Times as a business news search engine that aimed to bring context and meaning to traditional, keyword-based business news search engines. Cutts answered questions on whether the position of keywords in the URL could affect website ranking, while Twitter Search warned users to be careful what they say in public and to use social media tools to help them, not hurt them. In 2008, Yahoo expected to double its operating cash flow in three years, while China’s Alibaba.com saw a 340% gain in net profit, making Yahoo a significant minority shareholder.

Google Business Profiles introduced new emergency help attributes in 2022 to support Ukraine, and also added hotel attributes to define if hotels offered support to those displaced from Ukraine. In 2020, brands and restaurants needed to provide FAQs and ‘coronapages’ as precautions being taken were becoming increasingly discoverable in search results. The same year, Martha van Berkel discussed structured data and whether adding schema could improve search rankings, which Google said no, but… Google Ads made reporting column recommendations, no longer requiring Bid Strategy Type. In 2019, Waze coordinated in-car and out-of-home ads for McDonald’s, while Bing Ads tested social extensions and partnered with the US National Park Service for a photo contest. Early data on Google’s core update showed an interesting pattern, but Google said it was not the biggest update it had released. In 2013, Google penalized an article on BBC’s website due to the presence of unnatural links, while Bing Webmaster Tools added a site move tool.