The Latest Search News Round Up April 2021

It’s been another busy month in search marketing, with lots of new developments across the board. To help you stay totally up to date in this fast moving space, we’ve rounded up the month’s key news events. 

Google delays Page Experience update

Google has announced that the planned Page Experience algorithm roll out will now take place later in the year. This update has been in the works since last November and was slated to take place in May. Despite this, the work to transition Core Web Vitals to ranking signals will now not go ahead until mid-June, with a slower pace of rollout to allow for the impact to be monitored. 

Confirming the delay in a blog post, Google said, “We’ll begin using page experience as part of our ranking systems beginning in mid-June 2021. However, page experience won’t play its full role as part of those systems until the end of August. You can think of it as if you’re adding a flavouring to a food you’re preparing. Rather than add the flavour all at once into the mix, we’ll be slowly adding it all over this time period.”

Facebook announces stories scheduling 

It’s been a long time coming but your business will finally be able to schedule stories for both Facebook and Instagram following updates to Facebook Business Suite. 

Using Business Suite, you’ll be able to create and publish posts and stories as usual but now, can pre-load stories to appear at a later time. Given the engagement that stories routinely receive, this is a very handy function that should open up stories posting to more business users. 

Other features announced as part of the update include the option to manage Facebook photo albums, save posts to draft and edit scheduled posts. 

Amazon advertising now accounts for 10% of digital spend

Amazon has been investing heavily in its ads business – and that investment has paid off with the news that it now accounts for 10% of all digital ad spend in the US. 

Data from e-Marketer shows Google’s share of ad revenue declined between 2019 and 2020, as both Facebook and Amazon ate into Google’s dominance. This trend is expected to continue, with Google set to lose out further through to 2023 as Amazon tempts more advertisers over to its platform.