This day in search marketing history: February 2

• Updated on: 2023-03-18
• Read original article here

In 2022, the changes to Partners program requirements, originally announced in 2020, finally took effect.

Those changes were supposed to happen in June 2020 but were first postponed until 2021 and then delayed a second time due to the upheaval caused by the coronavirus pandemic and shelter-in-place orders.

Agencies were not happy with the first iteration of Google’s new Partners program requirements, particularly Google’s doubling of the 90-day spend threshold (from $10,000 to $20,000) and adding an optimization score requirement.

Read all about it in Google finally launches revamped Partners program.

2022: A card could appear only if you were an owner or full user of the site in Google Search Console, and you are signed in with that Google account while searching for your site or queries it might rank for.

2022: Google’s overview detailed why it might update its policies, how it enforced them and the role of machines and humans in content moderation.

2022: Alphabet announced revenue of $75 billion in Q4 of 2021. Of that, $61.2 billion came from Google advertising.

2021: Google would now show not just the data from Google Search app or on Google.com’s home page but also from Chrome.

2021: The proposed legislation could have created an untenable position for search engines in Australia

2018: People turning to Google and Bing for information about the official Super Bowl Lii commercials found very different treatments of the results. 

2018: The latest images showing what people eat at the search engine companies, how they play, who they meet, where they speak, what toys they have and more.

2017: It allowed Google My Business owners to post deals and promotions below their core listing.

2016: Pages that were not mobile-friendly might not rank as well.

2015: StatCounter said, conclusively, that the Firefox deal was responsible for Yahoo’s recent movement.

2011: Bing’s Yusuf Mehdi: “We have some of the best minds in the world at work on search quality and relevance, and for a competitor to accuse any one of these people of such activity is just insulting.”

2011: Google had switched the algorithm they used for YouTube’s recommendation engine from their own to a variation of Amazon’s algorithm that was designed in the late 1990s. 

2011: The changes allowed advertisers to target, analyze and optimize ad campaigns based upon more granular geographic data.

2011: Google was starting to leverage its massive local infrastructure across products.

2011: Click-through rates on Facebook ads only averaged 0.05% in 2010, down from 0.06% in 2009 and well short of what was considered to be the industry average of 0.1%

2011: Shopper allowed users to search for products by voice, with the camera, via barcode scan or by text entry.

2011: He wasn’t working on product and hardly ever showed up at Twitter’s office. 

2011: The store reportedly would “sell business software designed by outside developers to integrate and add capabilities to Google Apps, such as enhanced security features or the ability to import contacts.”

2011: Starring let Google know you were interested in that subject.

2011: Instead of loading the data off Google’s servers each time you clicked on a section in the AdWords console, Google would load the data off your local computer.

2011: This was Citysearch’s new local ad exchange/marketplace.

2011: That’s how the singer discovered that Russell Brand was going to propose to her.

2009: Open redirects could lead to spammers abusing your site and ultimately hurting your rankings in Google or other search engines.

2009: Google seemed to be testing a new AdWords feature that allowed you to batch your keyword analysis into a larger overview report.

2009: Yahoo ended the beta program to focus on more popular ad products.

2009: What could have been if Yahoo had accepted Microsoft’s offer.

2007: SEO grew from 33% in 2005 to 45% in 2006 in the category of best performing online advertising tactic, whereas search ads declined from 52% in 2005 to 49% in 2006.

2007: Publishers could earn up to $255 for referring a new publisher to AdSense, up from $100.

2007: Search on Google Earth brought up the same sponsored listings as Google Maps.

2007: The Google Windows Mobile client provided an experience that was significantly better than the mobile browser and almost as good as the desktop – and in some ways better.

2007: It was to help lower the perceived manipulation of the Digg system by those top diggers.

2007: “We have a responsibility to the industry to challenge all viable infringements.”

These columns are a snapshot in time and have not been updated since publishing, unless noted. Opinions expressed in these articles are those of the author and not necessarily Search Engine Land.