Daily Archives: February 21, 2021

Googles John Mueller says theres no inherent SEO benefit to adding an audio version of a text-based web page.

This topic is discussed during the Google Search Central SEO hangout recorded on February 12.

The following question is submitted to Mueller:

Would adding an audio version of a pages content help with search in any way? Other than the obvious accessibility improvement.

Adding an accompanying audio recording to a written post is something more publishers have been doing as of late.

Is it helping those publishers in search rankings?

Heres what Mueller has to say.

Unlike photo and video, Google doesnt do anything special with audio content.

Audio content is not processed separately by Google. At most it might be seen as a piece of video content which could result in a video snippet.

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Mueller says, as far as what he knows, adding an audio recording to a text post does not help or hurt rankings.

As far as I know we dont do anything with audio versions of content. We also wouldnt see that as duplicate content, so its not that you have to avoid that.

I mean, duplicate content itself isnt something you really have to avoid, but even if you wanted to avoid the situation that youre suddenly ranking for the same things with different pieces of content, the audio version is something that we, as far as I know, would not even process separately.

At most we might see that as a piece of video content and show that also with a video snippet. But, essentially, it wouldnt help or detract from a pages overall ranking.

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Mueller is about to move on to another question when an SEO named Robb Young jumps in to ask for clarification.

He asks: Doesnt adding an audio recording do anything for SEO?

Is a page not seen as higher quality when it has text and audio as compared to just text?

Mueller stays firm on the answer he originally provided. Google does not view a page as higher quality because it has multiple types of content.

However, there could be indirect benefits such as the page getting shared around more.

I dont think we would look at that and say: oh there are different kinds of content here, its a better page because of that.

It might be that there are indirect effects, like if users find this page more useful and they recommend it more, thats something that could have an effect.

But its not the case that we look at the types of content on a page and say: oh theres two types versus five types, the one with five types is better.

Lastly, Mueller adds there are benefits associated with adding images and/or video to a web page because those content types can each rank independently.

Theres no separate set of search rankings for audio content.

I think its a bit different with video and images in that images and video themselves can rank independently. Like in image search and video search you can have the same piece of content be visible in those other surfaces. But for audio we dont really have a separate audio search where that page could also rank.

The closest that could come there is the podcast search that we have, or the podcast one box thing, but thats really tied to the podcast content type where you have a feed of podcast information and we can index it like that. But just having audio on a page by itself, I dont think that would change anything automatically in our systems.

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Hear the full question and answer below:

Link:

Google: No SEO Benefit to Audio Versions of Text Posts - Search Engine Journal

ROCHESTER, Minn. (KTTC) -- Google has announced plans to open its first Minnesota office in Rochester to further its partnership with Mayo Clinic.

According to a news release from Google and Mayo Clinic on Destination Medical Center's website, the new location will give both companies "the ability to work side-by-side to transform patient care." Google and Mayo Clinic announced their partnership back in 2019.

According to the news release, Google said the office will open later this year when it is deemed safe to do so with state and local COVID-19 guidelines.

The COVID-19 pandemic has illustrated the importance of coming together to come up with innovative ways of tackling health challenges, said Chris Mueller, Rochester Site Lead and Software Engineer, Google Cloud. We are excited to officially join the Rochester community and deepen our collaboration with Mayo Clinic as we work together to transform health through technology.

According to a news release from Collider Foundation on Thursday, the office will be located at the Collider Coworking space in the Conley-Maass-Downs building in downtown Rochester.

Mayo Clinic is a source of pride for our city, and were excited to welcome Google to our growing, vibrant business community, Rochester Mayor Kim Norton said in the news release. Google has long supported Minnesota businesses and nonprofits, and the fact that theyve chosen Rochester for their first physical space in the state is testament to our reputation as a first class city.

The rest is here:

Google to open office in Rochester to further partnership with Mayo Clinic - KTTC

(NEXSTAR) Google Maps has released a new feature that enables you to pay for parking and transit from within the app.

To access the feature, all you have to do is connect your Google Pay account to Google Maps.

Heres how it works: Once youre parked in metered parking, simply tap on the Pay for Parking button that appears and enter your meter number and the amount of time without ever touching the meter. You can extend your parking time from within the app, as well.

The feature also enables you to pay for transit through more than 80 transit agencies around the world, according to a press release.

When you get transit directions, youll see the option to pay with your phone with the credit or debit cards already linked to your Google Pay account, the release reads.

The pay-for-parking feature is available Wednesday for Android in 400-plus global cities. An iOS rollout is coming soon. The transit feature will be available in coming weeks.

See the article here:

Google Maps adds new feature that allows you to pay for parking and transit in app - wreg.com

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) Google will be opening its first office in Minnesota in downtown Rochester in a partnership with Mayo Clinic.

On Thursday, Google announced that its new office will be located in the Collider Coworking space, located in the Conley-Maass-Downs building. It will serve Googles long-term partnership with Mayo Clinic.

The world renowned medical center is located just blocks from the planned office space for Google.

The COVID-19 pandemic has illustrated the importance of coming together to come up with innovative ways of tackling health challenges, Chris Mueller, Rochester Site Lead and Software Engineer, Google Cloud, said. We are excited to officially join the Rochester community and deepen our collaboration with Mayo Clinic as we work together to transform health through technology.

Gov. Tim Walz is also quoted in Googles release.

Google putting down roots in Minnesota will provide sustained economic opportunity not only for the Rochester area, but for our entire state, Walz said. This partnership with the Mayo Clinic reinforces Minnesotas reputation as a welcoming state for innovation and economic opportunity. We welcome Google to our community.

Last year, Mayo Clinic announced a 10-year partnership with Google, focused on accelerating health care innovation through digital technologies. Google says it has already helped the health organization move its data to the cloud, as well as kicking off projects exploring use AI to help physicians develop radiotherapy plans.

Were excited to have this physical space designed to deepen our bond and facilitate innovation, where Google engineers will work side by side with Mayo Clinic researchers, physicians, information technology staff and data scientists, to apply advanced computing techniques to health care problems, Cris Ross, chief information officer of Mayo Clinic, said.

Google plans to officially open the office later this year once it is deemed safe to do so and in line with local and state COVID-19 guidelines.

Continued here:

Googles First Office In Minn. Will Be In Downtown Rochester Due To Mayo Clinic Partnership - CBS Minnesota

A North Dakota bill that an Apple executive had warned threatens to destroy iPhone as you know it died in a vote on Tuesday.

Three-quarters of North Dakotas 48 state senators voted against the bill, which sought to prohibit Apple and Google from forcing North Dakota companies to hand over a share of their app sales.

The bill targeted Apples and Googles practices of charging a commission of up to 30 percent on many app sales. The companies brought in a combined $33 billion from those commissions last year, according to estimates from Sensor Tower, an app data firm.

Companies like Epic Games, Spotify and Match Group, along with some smaller app developers, have protested the commissions as artificially high, arguing that Apple and Google can only charge them because they are a duopoly and that app makers have little choice but to deal with them to reach customers. The two tech giants make the software that underpin nearly all of the worlds smartphones.

The bill attracted intense lobbying on both sides. Apple in particular feared it would set a dangerous precedent for its business, enabling app developers to avoid fees that have been crucial to its recent growth. Apple and its lobbyists warned that the bill could put North Dakota at risk of expensive lawsuits.

We dont want to put the state in a position where we need to spend our taxpayer dollars in litigation, because these are some very big companies, Jerry Klein, a Republican state senator, said on Tuesday on the floor of the North Dakota Senate. Lets stay out of the courts.

After the vote, Kyle Davison, the Republican state senator who introduced the bill, blamed its failure on the issues complexity and the opposition from Apple. When banging heads with Apple you need to be able to match their intensity with resources, including lobbyists, he said.

Critics and rivals of Apple and Google now turn their attention to other states. Arizona, Georgia and Massachusetts are considering similar legislation, and lobbyists are pushing for nearly identical bills in Minnesota and Wisconsin. The Coalition for App Fairness, a group of companies that oppose the app-store commissions, including Epic and Spotify, is leading the push for the bills.

Apple declined to comment and Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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North Dakota lawmakers vote down a bill that threatened Apples and Googles revenues. - The New York Times

FILE PHOTO: Letters spell the word "Alphabet" as they are seen on a computer screen with a Google search page in this photo illustration taken in Paris, France, August 11, 2015. REUTERS/Pascal Rossignol

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Google is teaming up with the European Investment Fund (EIF) and two other organisations in Latin America and Asia to provide $75 million in funding to small- and medium-sized companies suffering from the impact of COVID-19.

The funds are part of an $800 million initiative announced in March last year in response to the pandemic.

Google, a unit of Alphabet, said on Wednesday that it would invest in two EIF funds, giving $15 million in loan capital to 1,000 European small businesses and $10 million in EIFs venture capital fund backing 200 life sciences companies.

The EIF is part of the European Investment Bank group, the lending arm of the European Union.

In Latin America, Google will work with the Inter-American Development Bank to allocate $8 million to small companies.

It has also set up a $26 million loan fund with Kiva, an organisation that crowdfunds loans, to help businesses in Africa, the Middle East and Indonesia. Indian companies will get $15 million.

Reporting by Foo Yun Chee; editing by Barbara Lewis

Read this article:

Google to invest $75 million in coronavirus-hit small businesses - Reuters

Any doodlers out there?

Even if youre just a casual artist, Doodle For Google is a pretty cool contest that you should most certainly consider entering.

Yes, the annual art contest is back again, and its running now through Feb. 26. So you still have just more than a week to get those entries in!

So if youre a student, or you know a student, in grades K-12, youre invited to create a doodle.

One winners artwork will be displayed on Google.com for a day. He or she will also receive:

A $30,000 college scholarship

A $50,000 technology package for their school/nonprofit organization

Google hardware

Fun Googley swag

Four finalists will be featured in a Doodle for Google gallery and receive a $5,000 college scholarship, among some other prizes.

Doodles will be grouped and judged by the following five grade groups:

Grades K-3

Grades 4-5

Grades 6-7

Grades 8-9

Grades 10-12

This years theme is: I am strong because...

Heres the prompt: Strength isnt only about how fast you can run or how many pushups you can do its also about the strength inside of you.

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How do you rise above troubles and keep moving forward in tough times? When you make mistakes or get scared, what helps you clear the clouds above your head? When people around you are feeling down, how do you use your inner strength to lift them up?

Our theme this year invites you to tell us what makes you uniquely strong.

So, ready to enter?

Well hit you with some links:

A few final notes: The details above pertain to the U.S. contest only. Doodle for Google does take place in other countries throughout the year, but this is for the United States, specifically.

Want to see the top design from 2020? Check it out, along with a gallery of past winners. This marks the 13th year of the contest, Google said online.

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Teachers (along with nonprofit leaders and after-school programs!), by the way, are welcome to enter Doodles on behalf of their K-12 students, as long as the entry form is signed by each students parent or guardian.

Good luck out there!

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Calling all aspiring artists: This is your chance to be featured on Google - KSAT San Antonio

The House committee's Democratic leaders singled out bogus claims of election fraud in their statement announcing next months hearing, but also pointed to broader concerns about misinformation.

Whether it be falsehoods about the COVID-19 vaccine or debunked claims of election fraud, these online platforms have allowed misinformation to spread, intensifying national crises with real-life, grim consequences for public health and safety, Energy and Commerce Chair Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) said in a joint statement with Reps. Mike Doyle (D-Pa.) and Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), who lead the tech and consumer protection subcommittees jointly holding the hearing.

For far too long, big tech has failed to acknowledge the role theyve played in fomenting and elevating blatantly false information to its online audiences, they added. Industry self-regulation has failed. We must begin the work of changing incentives driving social media companies to allow and even promote misinformation and disinformation.

POLITICO reported last week that negotiations to obtain this testimony were underway.

Top tech executives including Zuckerberg have testified before Capitol Hill on several occasions over the past year as part of lawmakers' wide-ranging scrutiny, from antitrust concerns to conservatives' claims about biased platform moderation.

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Facebook, Google and Twitter CEOs testifying again before Congress next month - POLITICO

LOS ANGELES The coronavirus pandemic has changed virtually everything in the U.S., including online behavior, according to a new study.

Researchers from UCLA and Harvard University analyzed how two types of Internet activity changed in the country for the 10 weeks before and the 10 weeks after March 13, 2020 the date that then-President Donald Trump declared COVID-19 a national emergency.

According to the study, one change was Google searches.

The other was the phrasing of more than a half-billion words and phrases posted on Twitter, blogs and Internet forums, suggesting a resurgence of community-oriented values and support of one another.

The study is the lead research article in a special issue of the journal Human Behavior and Emerging Technologies, dedicated to the pandemic.

According to the study, use of the word help on Twitter increased by 37% in the period after March 13, while use of the word share increased by 24%.

In addition, sacrifice more than doubled on Twitter from before the pandemic to the period after March 13.

Sacrifice was a complete nonstarter in U.S. culture before COVID, according to Patricia Greenfield, a UCLA distinguished professor of psychology and senior author of the research.

The studys authors said that Internet evidence also suggests Americans were placing more value on the welfare of others while coping with frightening COVID-19 statistics.

Noah Evers, a Harvard undergraduate psychology major and the studys lead author, said the idea of placing value on others welfare applied even if it meant people putting their own lives at risk.

One example Evers cited was peoples willingness to participate in the large Black Lives Matter demonstrations, even in the midst of a pandemic.

The study further found the use of words referring to basic needs for food, clothing and shelter increased significantly across Google searches, Twitter and other online platforms.

The researches reported that Google searches increased by 344% for grow vegetables and by 207% for sewing machine. On Twitter, mentions of Home Depot jumped by 266%, the study found.

While drawing conclusions about shifting psychology from such evidence might seem a stretch, Greenfield said that language provides a window into peoples concerns, values and behavior.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the report also found an increase in peoples concerns about mortality.

The report said that, after March 13 when the death toll began increasing dramatically search activity for survive increased by 47%, while searches for cemeteries rose by 41%, bury by 23% and death by 21%.

During the 10 weeks after Trumps emergency declaration, there was a 115% jump in Twitter mentions of the phrase fear of death compared to the 10 weeks before.

Death went from something taboo to something real and inevitable, Evers said.

Excerpt from:

How COVID-19 changed the way we use Google and Twitter, according to UCLA-Harvard study - Inland Valley Daily Bulletin

This investment is a part of Google's $75 million commitment to help small businesses outside of the US

Google on Wednesday said it would invest $15 million (around Rs 109 crore) to support small and micro enterprises in India in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. This investment is a part of Google's $75 million commitment to help small businesses outside of the US.

"In India, we will invest $15 million to support small and micro enterprises across the country and are in discussions with local partners," the company said in a statement.

When the coronavirus pandemic hit last year, the American tech company had announced a $200 million investment fund as part of its more than $800 million commitment to support small businesses.

"Google has had a special relationship with small businesses around the world, helping them scale, innovate and reach new customers. With today's announcement, we're proud to help them meet a new challenge, accessing capital needed to recover and build resiliency for the future," the company said.

Google is working with non-government partners who have a record of providing resources to businesses that are generally overlooked by traditional lenders.

Last year, Google's CEO Sundar Pichai had announced a Google for India digitisation fund through which the company would invest Rs 75,000 crore over the next five to seven years to help India go digital.

"We will do this through a mix of equity investment, partnerships and an operational infrastructure ecosystem in India. This is a reflection of our confidence in the future of India and its digital economy," Pichai was quoted as saying.

Also read: CAIT calls for ban on Amazon in India after news report

Also read: Promoters inject Rs 2,021 crore in IndusInd Bank via conversion of warrants

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Google to invest Rs 109 crore to support small and micro enterprises in India - Business Today