Googles latest updates

1. Google Product Reviews

Have you seen a drop in rankings? If you have, there is no need to panic! There are some helpful tactics and short-term wins to help boost them again. These are:

• Include more multimedia around your product reviews
• Include links to multiple sellers, not just one

Google outline some key points;

• Provide evidence such as visuals, audio, or other links of your own experience with the product, to support your expertise and reinforce the authenticity of your review.
• Include links to multiple sellers to give the reader the option to purchase from their merchant of choice.

Google added the following criteria for what matters with the March 2022 product reviews update:

• Include helpful in-depth details, like the benefits or drawbacks of a certain item, specifics on how a product performs or how the product differs from previous versions
• Showcase the reviews from people who have actually used the products, and show what the product is physically like or how it’s used
• Include unique information beyond what the manufacturer provides — like visuals, audio or links to other content detailing the reviewer’s experience
• Cover comparable products, or explain what sets a product apart from its competitors

Finally, google added three additional criteria for the new the third release of the products reviews update.

• Are product review updates relevant to ranked lists and comparison reviews? Yes. Product review updates apply to all forms of review content.

• Are there any recommendations for reviews recommending “best” products? We would recommend sharing this with the reader as well as what sets the product apart from others in the market.

• Should you create a review that covers multiple products, should I still create reviews for the products individually?  We would recommend a high quality ranked list of related products in combination with in-depth single-product reviews for each recommended product. This way, more content can be ranked.

2. Google page experience

What exactly does this mean. According to google page experience is “a set of signals that measure how users perceive the experience of interacting with a web page beyond its pure information value, both on mobile and desktop devices.”

One key aspect of the page experience update is the Core Web Vitals. The three metrics that quantify the user experience on a website:

1. Loading performance: Longer page load times have a severe effect on bounce rates
2. Interactivity: This measures how fast it takes for a page to become responsive
3. Visual stability: page stability. For example, if you’ve been in the middle of reading an article and the page shifts, you have to find your place in the article again. That annoying shift is called a page layout shift.

Tools to help you improve your Google page experience

• Mobile-friendliness: Check if your website is mobile friendly
• HTTPS: You can test whether your site’s connection is secure.
• Intrusive interstitials: Check if you’re using interstitials in a content-obscuring way, negatively impacting your page experience.
• Core Web Vitals: This is the most important aspect of this recent update. Google has many tools to help understand your website’s status and resolve any pertinent issues

3. Google maps

The latest developments to the google map experience can now be describes as immersive, visual experience. The latest update include:

• Google is using computer vision to detect buildings at scale from satellite images.
• Google has also doubled the number of buildings mapped in India and Indonesia
• Google is making this Google Maps data publically available
• Google is creating an ‘immersive view’ using: 3D mapping and machine learning – It allows you to pan around select locations, as well as see traffic and weather
• Google Maps is also getting a feature that allows you to see inside of restaurants