Google Drops Local Carousel For Hotels, Restaurants & Other Local Listings

Google is dropping its horizontal Carousel display of local search results in several categories: restaurants, nightlife, entertainment and hotels. It’s being replaced by a 3-pack of organic listings and some new secondary pages.

The Local Carousel rolled out in June, 2013 for the PC in the US and gradually expanded to a number of categories beyond local results (e.g., US Presidents). It’s not clear whether it will remain for these non-local search results.

Since day one the Carousel has been controversial among local SEOs and even among those involved in the European antitrust negotiations with Google (it has not launched in Europe). Here’s what the Carousel looked like yesterday for the query “New York hotels”:

Beyond the SEO questions and concerns raised by others, I have always found the Carousel to be limiting and awkwardly disconnected from the rest of the page. Below is a screen showing the new 3-Pack results for the same search for “New York hotels”:

 

The new 3-Pack will appear below the top AdWords results. The 3-Pack results are not ads; they’re the top algorithmically ranked listings. Users will then be able to click any of those three and land on a new business profile page similar to what users might see or have seen in a Knowledge Graph panel for the hotel or other local business.

In the case of hotels you’ll be able to see pricing and room availability, as you can today in the Knowledge Graph panel. In the hotels category, but not in other local categories (today), the business details page may include an ad unit (tied to booking).

Clicking on the “more” link at the bottom of the 3-Pack takes users into a full page of local results that can be sorted. There’s a large map on the right. This is not unlike a page that would have been seen in earlier versions of Google Maps results.

Clicking on any of these local links will take users to the details page for that entity.

This new presentation and flow removes the awkwardness of the Carousel and enables the display of more information. Clicking on any of the old Carousel results simply changed the Knowledge Graph panel but didn’t provide any additional information depth.

Let us know if you’re seeing these new 3-Pack pages and for what categories. The new pages and flow only appear on the PC and not in mobile.

 Original Posted Visit: http://goo.gl/ehwR6d

Check out what’s new with bulk workflow features

This month, we began rolling out several new bulk features that help advertisers more easily make changes at scale across their accounts.  Today, we’re introducing improvements to bulk upload features that help advertisers upload multiple changes with simple spreadsheet editing.

With the improvements to bulk uploads, you can quickly:
+download spreadsheets and make changes offline
+upload the updated spreadsheet back into your account exactly where you want to make your changes, and
+make sure your changes are ready by using the new integrated previews and error-checking features

For example, if you have a set of keywords ready to upload to a particular ad group, you’ll be able to easily upload your lists of keywords into that ad group directly through the Edit menu. Your changes will be automatically applied to that ad group - helping you easily upload several changes, where and when you need them. You can access these upload features directly through the Edit menu on the Campaigns, Ad groups, and Ads and Keywords tabs (see image below).

Visit:  http://goo.gl/6izfif

Google Rolling Out Consolidated Billing For AdWords MCC Users

New AdWords billing system for agencies and large advertisers combines several account invoices into one.


Over the weekend, Google announced the roll out of Consolidated Billing for AdWords users managing multiple accounts through an MCC (My Client Center).

The new billing system combines invoices for several accounts into one. Consolidated Billing will replace MDOs (Manager Defined Orders), which were only available upon request from a Google rep among other requirements.

Consolidated Billing is designed to be more flexible, allowing agencies and large advertisers, for example, options to set up accounting requirements by client, brand, product, division or product category. With just one Master Service Agreement, Consolidated Billing users can create budget orders in any account without a Google rep.

Invoices show spend for multiple accounts and are available for download at the end of the month or can now be set for email delivery.

Accounts will be automatically transitioned to the new billing system between now and the end of the year. MCC account holders will receive a notification when Consolidated Billing becomes available to them.

Original Post Click Here!!!