22 April 2015 – Global Marketing News
Google’s “Mobilegeddon” update is finally launched globally
Google has updated it search algorithm to punish websites that are not optimised for mobiles.
The so-called “Mobilegeddon” update will push down websites in the search engine results pages if they are difficult to view on a mobile phone or tablet. The change will only affect searches made on a mobile or tablet device.
Google has explained the reason for the update, saying: “As people increasingly search on their mobile devices, we want to make sure they can find content that’s not only relevant and timely, but also easy to read and interact with on smaller mobile screens.”
The update reflects the growing importance of mobile in the world of search, with research by E-Marketer predicting that 2015 will be the year that mobile devices will finally overtake PCs as the most popular way to access the internet in the UK.
Baidu shuts down its Japanese search engine
Baidu has shut down its Japanese search engine, 8 years after it launched in the country.
Despite being the most popular search engine in China, where it handles around 70% of all search queries, it never gained any traction in Japan.
Baidu was so unsuccessful in Japan, in fact, that it took people over a month to realise the Baidu.jp site had actually shut down.
A Baidu spokesperson confirmed the shutdown, saying: “It’s no secret that Baidu’s Japanese search engine never got much traction. As we stopped updating the index in 2013, search user numbers in the last year or so have been insignificant.”
Baidu does not rule out returning to the Japanese market at a later date, however, and is keeping its Japanese office open.
Yahoo Japan is the most popular search engine in Japan, closely followed by Google.
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Internet.org enters Indonesia, loses support in India
Internet.org has entered Indonesia, as companies in India start to withdraw from the initiative.
The Internet.org project is run by Facebook and aims to provide key basic internet services to mobile users for free. It has so far been launched in several African countries, Colombia, India and the Philippines.
With internet penetration at just 17% in Indonesia, Facebook hopes that the launch of the internet.org app in the country will help to increase the number of Indonesians online.
The Indonesian internet.org app includes a variety of websites such as Facebook, education, jobs and health sites.
The news comes as several companies in India have announced that they are exiting the internet.org initiative in their country.
The Indian news companies Times Group, Newshunt and NDTV, as well as the travel site Cleartrip, have all announced that they are withdrawing from the internet.org app, pointing to concerns about internet neutrality.
YouTube available in 15 new languages
YouTube users can now navigate the site in 15 new languages, taking the number of languages on the site to 76.
Around 95% of people worldwide can now use YouTube in their native language, according to the site.
The new languages are: Albanian, Azerbaijani, Armenian, Burmese, Georgian, Kazakh, Khmer, Kirghiz, Lao, Macedonian, Mongolian, Nepali, Punjabi, Sinhala, and Uzbek.
Seznam updates its Maps service
And finally, the Czech search engine Seznam has updated its Maps service.
The updated service, which is currently in beta, uses new high quality images from OpenStreetMap.
Seznam has also completely changed its maps search algorithm and hopes that the new algorithm will produce more relevant results.
Also in the pipeline are plans to let users download maps to their smartphones, with iOS, Android and Windows phones to be supported, as well as introducing 3D maps for the most popular locations and aerial maps covering the whole of the Czech Republic.
Webcertain’s global marketing news bulletins are daily 5-minute videos, providing marketers with the latest international digital marketing news in an easy-to-digest format.
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