Google Clarifies Passage-Based Ranking, 2020 Clockscars & This Week’s Digital Marketing News [PODCAST]

On this episode of Marketing O’Clock, hosts Greg Finn, Mark Saltarelli, and Jess Budde break down the biggest digital marketing news of the week.

If you are unable to listen on Spotify, check out the video version of this episode on the Search Engine Journal YouTube channel.

Google Clarifies Passage Based Ranking’s New Look After Image Blunder

Google’s Search On 2020 presentation, showed a very bold example of a SERP impacted by “Passages” with images of both before and after the change.

However, after analyzing the images within the presentation, it turns out that this was simply a “bad illustration” and contrary to the image provided, Google Passage-based rankings won’t impact the display.

After a conversation with Google’s public search liaison, Danny Sullivan cleared it up on Twitter, and the Marketing O’Clock gang takes a deep dive into what went wrong with this image.

Google’s Short Videos Carousel Expands to Include Tiktok & Instagram Reels

Google’s short video carousels are no longer just for YouTube shorts! Instagram Reels and TikToks can now be seen alongside, if not dominating YouTube shorts in the carousel.

Take a look at this recent example of these short video carousels, compared to how they looked back in November.

Noticed Google pulling in Instagram and TikTok videos into this “short videos” carousel this morning. pic.twitter.com/iDr3C8OEAE

— Brian Freiesleben (@type_SEO) December 27, 2020

This week’s take of the week comes from Pamela Lund, host of the Not Bad Advice podcast, whom Twitter thinks is the biggest fan of all things sports. When will Twitter figure out that no means no?

Twitter: Interested in football?
Me: No.

How about NFL?
No.

What about this team in a city you visited 10 years ago?
No.

How about this player?
No!

How about this one?
No!

Fantasy football?
No.

This players girlfriend?
FFS

— Pamela Lund (@Pamela_Lund) December 29, 2020

Next, in our ICYMI segment, Morning Brew co-founder, Austen Rief gives us insight into how Morning Brew into how paid acquisition has influenced their growth exponentially.

1/ When @morningbrew began spending money on paid acquisition in 2018, 2 small insights exploded our growth ~10x in a year.

Small insights can have a huge impact.

Here is what we learned.

— Austin Rief ☕️ (@austin_rief) December 28, 2020

Then we answer your burning digital marketing questions during our lightning round segment:

• Who decided that practice problems on Google’s search results page were a good idea?
• What did Facebook do to influence a large number of its employees to quit?
• Where can I find great information on how to repurpose existing content on Instagram?
• When will P&G figure out that Facebook owns Instagram?
• Why does Google consider every query in a DSA campaign an exact match?
• How are Reels influencing the Instagram algorithm?

Lastly, we proudly head on over to the highly anticipated annual yearly awards show, the Clockscars, that recaps the best of the digital marketing & Marketing O’Clock community in what was a tumultuous 2020.

Check out the Marketing O’Clock site to subscribe to the show and read all the articles featured on the first show of 2021!

Featured Image Credit: Cypress North