2014 WAN began extremely dynamic and lively. In January, social networks and search engines have worked a lot on the development of functional , surprising the industry unprecedented variety of announcements and statements.
Special activity distinguished search engine Google: he began to actively combat fraudulent attempts by article marketing promotion . The first punishment for the use of such schemes been popular music resource Rap Genius. Relegation positions lasted for 10 days and to recover extradition portal team had to spend some serious work on the deflection of all the unwanted incoming links . Even after being out of the traffic ban Rap Genius did not return to 100 % as compared to prior to the application of sanctions. A little later suffered a major company 's online booking tours Expedia: January 21 resource lost 25 % in the Google search engine visibility because of purchased options Stateyny websites and blogs . Month ended another pre-emptive strike by Google: search leader removed from the site of the largest issue in the UK law firm Irwin Mitchell.
Not without a high-profile deals in late January global search leader surprised the public resale of Motorola Chinese computer company Lenovo.
No less impressive was the January activity Facebook. Manual social network, wanting to preserve the prestige of the company, decided to formally close a lucrative advertising format «Sponsored stories» and remove from the site all such advertising before 9 April 2014 . Decision was not easy social network owners , but entry into explicit confrontation with users, concern that Facebook is illegally using their personal data may undermine the company's image and trigger a massive outflow audience site .
Month revelations and fateful decisions in January 2014 became the largest in Russia and the CIS social network VKontakte . Not without scandalous statements : earlier this month revealed that the system password recovery VKontakte by entering a cell phone number to get the name and picture of a person registered under this number in a social network . Comparison of telephone and the user account is nothing more than a diversion of personal data.
Toward the end of January, the Internet had spread sensational news that VKontakte founder Pavel Durov has sold its 12 % share stake in social network Ivan Tavrin . At the same time , Paul said he would not leave his child and is going to continue to monitor the quality of VKontakte .
An important moment in the life of Russian Internet was the conclusion by Yandex agreements with social network Facebook. According to the results of the transaction Russian search engine to access all public data Facebook. Now Yandex can broadcast to issue publications and comments of users of social network in Russia, Ukraine , Belarus, Kazakhstan and Turkey. Recent posts on blogs.yandex.ru fall almost immediately after publication. The partnership agreement with the leader of the search in Russia and CIS profitable and Facebook. Partnerstov allow social network significantly strengthened position in the region , seriously competing leader - VKontakte .
Worked on the issuance and Poisk@Mail.ru in January 2014 content mobile applications appeared in the desktop version of its SERP . To realize the opportunity , the company used technology developed by Russian startups Osmino. The same developer provided and factors underlying the ranking of applications.
Much attention is paid January market players ' privacy search »: Yahoo and Bing Google followed suit and began to support SSL- encryption for search queries. Such radical solutions search engines lead anyone that marketers , webmasters and optimizers, there are fewer and fewer opportunities to obtain data on transitions from a keyword search .
Recall the most important events of the beginning of the year:
Twitter: perfection of design, functionality and analytics
For microblogging service Twitter has begun with the launch of the updated web interface. The result should be a redesign of the large number of options for personalized settings : mainly , it involves styles. The main idea of launching - visually reconcile version of the service Twitter , developed for different platforms.
Also in January, Twitter launched the analytical system interface to work with the format of Twitter Cards, which allows you to display media content in tweets . Service will demonstrate ways in content sharing agreement Twitter'e . Users will see in the report clicks on URL, install applications and retweets .
In the last days of the month microblogging service launched a number of new search filter for content that is published on the site. New search filters allow you to search for tweets containing a photo or video , as well as limit the search to a specific geographic area .
As can be seen , the team aims to bring Twitter to the ideal design intrfeysov , functional service, and also provide the owners of accounts and committed broader opportunities analysts . Innovations designed to attract new service users and advertisers in order to prevent the fall of the share price of the company, which is still a record high .
Pinterest is currently working on
Important acquisition in the field of search technology makes Pinterest. Social service purchased image recognition technology and visual search VisualGraph. Developing good detects faces , cars , clothes and people in the photo . Pinterest acquisition will help to understand what content is placed on its pages, users , and better handling of queries .
A little later Pinterest introduced a new tool to search and view the most interesting records - pins . Interests function displays pins on pages created by the interests of users .
Social service was seriously engaged in the development of custom functionality that should provide maximum flexibility for content.
Facebook openly competes with Twitter'om
Especially active in early 2014 noted command the world's largest social network Facebook. However, before presenting the public new development, Facebook's leadership surprised their advertisers indicating formal closing of the advertising format «Sponsored stories» (« Sponsored stories "). Reason for the decision were the proceedings : Facebook initiative group accused of illegally using personal data and wrongful publication preferences in advertising «Sponsored Stories». As a result , despite the importance of the format for a business social network from such advertising on the site was abandoned . Obviously, the assignment is made for fear of harm to the company's reputation .
Also in January launched a social network startup sequence function "Trends" . Feature allows users to track the hot topics that are most actively discussed on the pages of Facebook's at a particular time . Running preparing to June 2013 and became one of the most anticipated among users of social networks . Try out the new feature will be the first users of the web version of the social network in English-speaking countries: USA , UK, Canada , India and Australia . A little later, "Trends" will appear in mobile social networking applications . Function is to be launched for users worldwide .
Another innovation was to change the month ranking algorithm tape news News Feed. In the future work on the algorithm will continue.
Not done early 2014 without strategic acquisitions. In January of this year, Facebook Inc. bought Dissemination Service links Potluck and messaging platform for Branch. Technology Integration Services in a social network will help strengthen the company's position in the field of communications in real time.
In an effort to realize the cherished dream of becoming a universal news site , Facebook has started to launch a service for reading news on mobile devices - Paper. The traditional approach is based on the content selection algorithmic principles taking into account the signals of individual users and their environment. Selection of news content will deal specifically hired edition .
Over the past year Facebook has taken steps to improve the functionality associated with the communication and search in real time . In addition , representatives of the social network have repeatedly said in public, that strive to make Facebook the world's largest personalized newspaper.
VKontakte waiting for a change?
Starting in 2014 was for the largest in Russia and the CIS social network VKontakte month revelations and future changes . Earlier this year, the news spread through RUnet that the system password recovery VKontakte by entering a cell phone number to get the name and picture of a person registered under this number in a social network . Comparison of telephone and the user account is nothing more than a diversion of personal data. You can verify all the phone numbers from your phone book and not only. Sometimes, though, will have to enter a captcha . The news caused a lot of noise on the Internet and provoked heated discussion among bloggers and forum participants .
Almost immediately after reporting this team social network has officially stated that the problem is solved , and password recovery is now enough room number - Need name and last name .
Toward the end of January, the first reports that the founder of VKontakte Pavel Durov has sold its 12 % share stake in social network Ivan Tavrin . Paul , however, said he would not leave his child and is going to continue to monitor the quality of VKontakte . "I 'm not going anywhere and I'm going to continue to monitor the quality of VKontakte . In the end, VKontakte - the best that has been created in Russia in the sphere of communications . And my responsibility is to preserve and protect the network , "- said the founder of VKontakte . However, industry analysts consider the news from a different angle . Thus, the editor in chief of H & F and the author of " Code Durov " Nikolai Kononov of the opinion that this decision Durov saves his reputation and in the near future is likely to head the new project.
Rumors that Pavel Durov stepping down as CEO VKontakte , and together with his team switched to work on the project Telegram, launched in August 2013 , and appeared earlier. However, the spokesman George VKontakte Lobushkin thoroughly refuted all such information . However, on January 24 the sale of shares VKontakte was confirmed by the founder of the social network.
We can only speculate on the future development of the successes and VKontakte new projects Pavel Durov .
Google is fighting for the purity and quality of the issuance of blogging
The first month of 2014 the leader of the search conducted in the fight against fraudulent attempts to promote through paid placement embedded in the publication of the references in the side of the blog . Back in the late 2013 manual search moved to act decisively and punitive measures against offending sites . Severe punishment for traffic that by posting links to third party blogs undergone popular music resource Rap Genius. Exception site SERP occurred December 25, 2013 . Site was absent in Google SERP for 10 days, and to recover extradition portal team had done a great job . With respect to low-quality links that were not removed by the owners of blogs , the team applied Rap Genius tool deflection links Disavow Links.
In the end, the team managed to convince Rap Genius Google representatives that the site pays serious attention to search engine optimization in the "correct understanding." The result was almost complete recovery of the site positions in SERP. However, even after being out of the traffic ban Rap Genius did not return to 100 % as compared to prior to the application of sanctions.
Following the punishment Rap Genius Google applied measures against the site of the world's largest on -line booking tours Expedia, which is January 21 lost 25 % visibility in Google search because the purchased options Stateyny websites and blogs . Other industry representatives have long noticed that the owners Expedia.com use reference circuits for manipulating PageRank, and feel good in the top issue Google. SEO- site activity has repeatedly been criticized by experts. However, even more resentment caused Google attitude to this situation : a search engine mercilessly punish the slightest infraction small resources , turning a blind eye to the actions of the major sites, placing paid links not only on the pages of private blogs, but also in the popular press articles .
Google representatives did not disregard reproaches professionals , and January 20, 2014 Chief Engineer Matt Cutts Search (Matt Cutts) said that guest blogging today has extremely low quality and Google will do everything to placement of paid links to third party blogs forever ceased to be search engine promotion tool . Google's policy is not to be affect quality blogs that have traditionally been performed by several authors. Punishment will affect only those who buy links from third-party blogs and news publications.
Later this month, Google removed from the site of the largest issue in the UK law firm Irwin Mitchell for placing paid Stateyny Anchor links to websites and blogs . First issue was excluded from the international version of the site www.IrwinMitchell.com, and , one day , gone and regional version of the website for the UK - www.irwinmitchell.co.uk.
Let us , however , and the other a January news Google. AdSense network introduced a beta version of a special plug-in for WordPress. Novelty was named Publisher Plugin allows you to manage and advertisements AdSense, as well as to verify the site in the " Tools for Webmasters " in one click. Representatives of Google, however, warn that the plugin is in beta testing and will be further developed in the future .
Also in January 2014 Google AdWords team announced scale renewal interface design accounts. Tab "Payment", " Account Settings " (formerly "My Account" ), and "Help" now decorated in a drop-down menu that is located under the gear icon . Graphs and summary statistics table got a new design and have become somewhat differently positioned on the page. Larger space between the elements and soft colors facilitate visual perception interface AdWords. Rumors of an impending update UI AdWords accounts go among industry professionals for a long time . The first attempts to migrate users to the new interface have been made to Google in the transition to the extended campaign. Now we are talking about large-scale transfer of all users to a new significantly redesigned version of AdWords.
Ended January loud Deal : Google Motorola resold Chinese computer company Lenovo Corporation for 2.91 billion dollars . As part of Lenovo Motorola will retain its brand , Google - the rights of the vast majority of patents Motorola. This will legally protect development within an ecosystem Android.
YouTube corrects errors
Hosting YouTube decided to start the year with work on the bugs and reissue tool for managing comments. Now the owners of the video will be able to view all the comments on their videos in a single section. Back in November 2013 YouTube comment system switched to Google+, he also added a number of tools to manage comments. These changes abolished the ability to manage comments via YouTube Inbox and instead appeared notice Google+. Video service users were unhappy with such changes. The main argument of dissatisfied users upgrade was that as a result of innovations YouTube commenting system has changed beyond recognition . After analyzing the reviews , the company reacted to the " rapid development of new management page commentary , which gives the ability to answer and moderate comments on a single page ." Now all the negative aspects smoothed.
Also in January, YouTube launched a new metric for service providers , which will measure the speed of your Internet connection and the quality of the show videos on YouTube. Indicator Video Quality Report will highlight among all providers category 'YouTube HD Verified', whose members are able to provide their subscribers with 90% viewing YouTube videos as 720p without interruptions.
As can be seen , for the team hosting the new year started with actions directed at meeting the needs of customers and business partners.
Yandex : more social search
For the Russian search engine in January 2014 marked the conclusion of a strategically important partnership agreement , under which Yandex gained access to all public data Facebook. Yandex previously indexed pages users and communities , and now Russian search engine will be able to broadcast the issuing posts and comments Facebook users from Russia, Ukraine , Belarus, Kazakhstan and Turkey. Recent posts on blogs.yandex.ru fall almost immediately after publication. Similar data access world's largest social network has only search engine Bing.
Entries from Facebook are available in searching for blogs and basically Yandex search .
A little later, the team Yandex launched a consistent implementation in the search algorithm, which will give preference to pages that do not contain shocking advertising. The first phase of implementation of the new mechanism will begin in February 2014 .
In January 2014 mini- anniversary noted Yandeks.Ostrova - the project was 8 months. Now in beta now contains 200 islands, more than 500 sites are located and ready for moderation. According to preliminary estimates , Yandex requirements of these corresponds to only 30% .
Big news was the announcement that the advertising campaigns on medical subjects , which contain references to services now rejected at the stage of moderation. At the same time promote the medical activity in general and some of its parts are still possible. Prohibition related to changes in the federal law "On Advertising" , according to which from 1 January in the Internet can not be promoted medical services . Including methods of prevention, diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation . All advertisers whose activities are connected with medical themes, Yandex recommended to pay attention to these changes and edit your ads so that they conform to the requirements of the law.
Ended January signing of a partnership agreement between the aggregator by Yandex and logistics services for online stores MultiShip. Technological cooperation will enable us to solve a number of issues related to the delivery of goods to shops connected to Yandex.Market .
Yandex . Maps are preparing for the Olympics in Sochi
Useful features introduced in January and the team Yandex.Maps . Service developers reported significant upgrade service Panorama , as well as the occurrence of an opportunity to embed cityscapes to other sites - to show , for example, place, or building in which the organization is located . Embed on site can be found behind the button "Link" in the upper right corner of the page Maps . At the new place pan will work just as On Yandex.Maps : users can virtually navigate through the city streets and see it .
Also , on the eve of the Winter Games , Sochi Yandex updated and added panorama panoramic shots of Olympic facilities . Users of the service can , without leaving the house , walk the streets of the resort and find out in detail what it looks like Olympic ski resort area , or " Rose Farm ". Many sports facilities are removed , not only outside but also inside.
Total was over 80 thousand pictures . This panorama of nine Olympic venues and 1,500 kilometers of streets and roads Sochi .
Later, Russian search engine has launched a special project " Winter Games - 2014 " by which users can monitor the events at the Winter Olympics in Sochi.
Mail.ru is looking at mobile applications on the desktop
Search Mail.ru started the year that has learned to look for mobile applications . In mid-January content mobile applications appeared in SERP Poiska@Mail.ru desktop . In issuing podmes mobile search applications and content began to work at the end of last year.
To implement functional Mail.ru uses technology developed by Russian startups Osmino. Provided by the same company and the factors underlying the ranking of applications. No rating no applications - all the information appears in the standard issue Search Mail.Ru.
The main difference of the new features of search applications that use other search engines is that search Mail.Ru looking for content within the application . Competitors are able to carry out the search Mail.Ru only search descriptions applications. Obviously, the search seeks to add Mail.Ru issuing unique user functionality that still do not have its competitors. This will strengthen the position of search service on a highly competitive market .
Yahoo: active beginning of the year
Active and saturated the first month of 2014 was for the corporation Yahoo. In January, it became known that Yahoo sites once again surpassed attendance resources Google. First Yahoo became the leader comScore rankings in July 2013 . Audience Yahoo does not include Tumblr, which is evaluated independently . This trend shows that the growth in popularity of portals Yahoo, registered in the summer, was not an accident, but regularity. Yet , this did not prevent Yahoo from " financial crisis". In January, it became known that in the fourth quarter 2013 earnings Yahoo declined 6 % to $ 1 , 266 billion U.S. dollars. The reason - the systematic decline in search and display advertising . Also affected the situation slowdown income group Alibaba, 23 % of which is owned by Yahoo. Overall, in 2013 the market share of Yahoo declined to 5.8% , while in 2012 it was 6.8 %.
Speaking of launches , in early 2014, Yahoo introduced a new unified advertising platform, bringing together in a single interface display advertising premium segment of targeted , contextual and search advertising . Yahoo Advertising advertising system will offer advertisers various types of advertising on all kinds of devices , as well as a set of analytical tools . Platform allows you to cover the 800 millionth audience portals Yahoo and partner sites. Service is equipped with a simplified interface Yahoo Ad Manager and more detailed Yahoo Ad Manager Plus, which allows you to plan , optimize and control the complex multi-format campaigns .
In parallel with the launch of an advertising platform Yahoo announced a number of new products of mobile services , such as news digest , themed " magazines " and the Application Manager Android.
Toward the end of the month Yahoo search start encrypting user requests by default. The search engine will also start to hide from site owners Statistics direct transitions from the search. SafeSearch is already running for the portal Yahoo.com. Regional versions of search such as : Yahoo UK, Yahoo Germany, Yahoo France , and Yahoo Japan are still working as usual , providing webmasters data on user queries and transitions from the search. However, until March 31, 2014 , they will also keep the default SSL- encryption for search queries.
Bing paves the way to China
Almost simultaneously with the concept of a secure Yahoo search system implemented and Bing, which also started to support SSL- encryption for search queries using the protocol HTTPS. Innovations designed to significantly improve the security and confidentiality of the user search can greatly complicate life for webmasters, optimizers and internet marketers . After Google introduced in search of a job change , designed to encrypt absolutely all search queries and transitions users, industry experts have left open the possibility to gather the missing data , using statistics Bing. Now the keyword information will simply get nowhere.
Although representatives and promised Bing and SEO- SEM- community to provide data on referrals from search , statistics will be provided in such a way that it does not violate the privacy of user data.
Slightly revealed that Bing invests in algorithms operating on the Chinese market . Bing currently owns about 0.6 % of the market in China , Google - about 3% , while market leader Baidu - over 66 %.
Also in early 2014 , it became known that the share of search queries to Bing in 2013 grew by 12 %, and the search engine has managed to strengthen its position in the market. Sustained growth in the share of searches to Bing throughout 2013 led to significant results : in the past year the share of search queries to Bing increased by 12%.
Baidu conquering new spaces
Important achievements of the outgoing month said Chinese search engine Baidu, for which in 2014 began to expand its presence in the international market . In January, the test versions of regional search pages have been launched in Brazil , Egypt and Thailand. While this is only an internal test , but it is possible that in the near future and earn a full version of the regional search.
Regional services are presented search of the Web , pictures, video, and virtual interpreter. In addition to the search bar pages offer quick links to popular services : Facebook, YouTube, as well as its own directory Baidu - Hao123.
Concluding the story about the events of the month , note : in January 2014 representatives continued to experiment on the search ranking algorithms . Yandex team has focused on the increase of social content to issue , and representatives of Google, seeking to significantly improve the purity of the search continued to struggle against the " unfair " methods of promotion . Poisk@Mail.ru not disregarded by the issuance of mobile applications . Mail.ru Group engineers have tried to make the web version of the search of mobile applications more functional than its nearest competitor . This measure is intended to promote the expansion of the user base of the service.
By the way, work on search algorithms this winter were not only the search engines . The decision on the need to improve the functional internal search took several popular social services : so , Facebook again worked on ranking algorithm updates, and Pinterest think seriously about developing visual search on the resource .
Start the New Year left webmasters and optimizers even less chance of obtaining data on the user navigates to sites from search by keyword . " Safe Search " literally enveloped internet veil of secrecy - this situation is largely due to the authorities' policies of individual countries , requiring the largest Internet sites provide secrecy of user data.
Finally, in January as search engines and social services have been forced to take drastic steps to remove a portion of advertising resources : Russian Yandex had to stop showing the ads part on medical subjects , and American Facebook - abandon strategically important and profitable advertising format .
And yet, despite all the difficulties that sometimes forced to face major platforms , the demand for online advertising , including mobile and advertising applications in the coming year will only grow , and the largest platform will be able to increase their income .
