Industry News

I’ve been spending lots of time recently thinking about and working with my team on what I can only refer to as “how we should spend our life force.” If that sounds weird, hold on to your hats because I’m going to make it even weirder by (and I apologize in advance) throwing a 2×2 matrix into the mix. So. Come with me in this post as we discuss how our biggest strength as product managers can easily become our biggest weakness, and how we can protect our health and sanity in the midst of all...

Google showcased some additional Google Ads sponsored search ads in the new Google Search Generative Experience yesterday at Google Marketing Live. Google made a point to say these ad positions and features will likely change as Google continues to experiment with this new search experience.

Google announced a bunch of new AI features for Google Ads at Google Marketing Live yesterday, including a new conversation Google Ads tool and also improvements to Automatically Created Assets (ACA), amongst some other things, which we covered today on the Search Engine Roundtable.

I think this is the best definition I’ve seen so far of that elusive term “product sense”:

I define great product sense as the ability to do two things without having extensive data (i.e. without running lengthy research upfront): Generate many solid, highly profitable ideas for ways to make money Intuit whether a product is likely to be successful with a high degree of confidence

The detail of having this sense without extensive data is important. Anyone can get to a great product...

Ben Balter has a solid post on remote and async work, in which he makes the point that meetings are a point of escalation, not the starting point of a conversation:

A few minutes of reading or a few comments on an issue or Google Doc can often replace waiting days for mutual availability and a dedicated 30-minute block of time. In this sense, you can think of meetings as a point of escalation based on complexity, not as the default starting point for a workstream, initiative, or...

I am hearing reports from SEOs that Google did another batch switchover from desktop-first indexing to mobile-first indexing for many sites. As you know, Google started the mobile-first indexing over six years ago but told us earlier this month that the process might be done in the coming months.

For the past couple of days or so, maybe starting as early as May 16, 2023 through today, May 18, 2023, I am seeing significant signs of another unconfirmed Google search ranking algorithm update.

I am seeing signs of another Google search algorithm ranking update touching down over the past couple of days, which is why I am naming it the Google I/O Search Algorithm Ranking Update. This is not confirmed by Google but both SEO chatter and the automated tracking tools all show signs of an update.