Well, there you have another April 1 go by, and everyone treads carefully over news releases and news stories. Is there real news in amongst all that fun and merriment? There is, but you have to be real cautious.
We had to play along with a few stories; just for fun, of course. For example, we had an new Google algorithm roll out, and I spotted some link juice from Bing. Life would be so dull if we didn’t try and have some fun along the way.
Anyhow, normal service was quickly resumed, and here’s this week’s WebmasterWorld Weekly.
Welcome to this WebmasterWorld Weekly Round-up.
The previous WebmasterWorld Weekly is
here.Here's WebmasterWorld's monthly look at Google's SERPs changes. "
Google Updates and SERP Changes - April 2014"
It seems now you have to run an ad, unless you get likes from real friends. Join our thread on the topic, "
Facebook News Feed Rule Changes Are A Step Too Far For One Business"
How are the new gTLDs looking? I think you might be surprised by some. Here are the latest stats; "
New gTLD Stats 31 March 2014"
Google Webmaster Tools now show more detail over site variations, and it's not pleasing every webmaster.
WebmasterWorld members have reported that an
apparently valid Googlebot is failing DNS verification. Major impact for sites relying on Googlebot validation.
News from Bing that it's launching
Knowledge Widget and App Linking for webmasters and publishers.
Microsoft has announced a Siri-like service,
"Cortana" which is a personal digital assistant on Windows Phone.
Yahoo reports on its latest
steps to lock down more data through encryption.
In a surprise announcement,
Microsoft said it would bring back the Start Menu to the Windows desktop.
Google Universal Analytics is now out of beta and is available for all to use. Indications are strong that all Analytics users will eventually have to switch to UA.
I spotted news this week of the first images of the
new reversible USB 3.1. Google this week was fined $1.4 million in Italy over its Street View car deployment.
Facebook said it had released a version of PlanOut A/B testing tools into Open Source.
Staying on the topic of
Facebook, page reach declines are starting to be questioned more and more. What's your experience?
There's a nice new tool from Microsoft this week when it announced
Windows App Studio (Beta). This enables developers to build apps for Windows Phone and Windows in one. That should save time and money!
Google has said it rolled out
apps search (for English content) Worldwide. Do you remember getting calls over
Microsoft support or Windows support services? This had nothing to do with Microsoft and was a scam. In the U.K. this week, one of the scam leaders was handed a suspended jail sentence, and ordered to pay fines and costs. This is only one of many such scams, so it's unlikely to stop all the calls, sadly.
Time for a video: "When will Google stop changing things?" ;)
Sorry, I couldn't resist an April 1 leftover. LOL
Enjoy your week, until next time...
Cheers
Neil
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WebmasterWorld Weekly Round-Up 4 April
