This week’s digital marketing news roundup has an important lesson every brand should learn, and it comes by way of a Super Bowl commercial and huge SEO blunder. Host Erin Sparks and Creative Studio Producer Jacob Mann along with special guest Kim Scott, Co-Founder of Radical Candor covered some great stories. Here’s the news roundup from Episode 341 of the award-winning EDGE of the Web podcast:
WordPress 5.4 Will Add Lazy-Loading to All Images
From Roger Montti on Search Engine Journal we learn that WordPress 5.4 Will Add Lazy-Loading to All Images. 
WordPress announced that WordPress 5.4 may feature image lazy-loading by default. This feature will enable the “loading” HTML attribute on all IMG elements. WordPress publishers will no longer need to use JavaScript or third party plugins for lazy-loading their images.
- Erin Sparks: Lazy loading is a way to help ensure users stay on your site instead of bouncing away if some of your images take too long to load. Rather than trying to load everything onto the page at once, images further down on the page can take longer to load than anything “above the fold,” which should obviously be the priority.
- Kim Scott: The more tools I have that help me be lazier, then the happier I am!
A New version of the Removals report in Google Search Console
According to Tali Pruss (a Search Console Software Engineer) on Google Webmaster Central, there is A New version of the Removals report in Google Search Console. Request temporary removals: There are two types of requests, the first is a “temporary remove URL” that will hide it for approximately 6 months and clear it from the cache. The second is to clear the URL cache until the page is recrawled. Two other new features include information on outdated content removal requests done via the “Remove Outdated Content tool” and SafeSearch filtering requests to see a history of your pages reported by users to Google as adult content using the SafeSearch Suggestion tool.
- Erin Sparks: So these are various tools that help content publishers and SEOs have more control over their content in search.
- Kim Scott: Yes, this is a great thing. One of the pleasures of working at Google once upon a time was how they were very focused on efficiency and not wasting people’s time, and these tools are just a reflection of that focus.
- Erin Sparks: It’s great to know things such as when your content has been tagged by users as “adult” content, whether their judgment is accurate or not, so you at least are aware of it and can address it appropriately.
2020 Super Bowl Commercials: Funeral for Mr. Peanut, Tears for Google
On The New York Times, Tiffany Hsu reports on 2020 Super Bowl Commercials including a Funeral for Mr. Peanut and Tears for Google. Uplifting spots from major brands stayed away from divisive issues on TV’s biggest ad day. But Trump and Bloomberg crashed the party.
- Erin Sparks: These commercials are expensive! Companies dropped $5.6 million just for a 30-second spot. There was a lot of nostalgia in many of the spots. And though Planters had a commercial that looked like they were killing off Mr. Peanut only to introduce Baby Nut. But then Planters made several huge SEO blunders such that people searching for the Baby Nut shopping site couldn’t find it! The site had two canonical tags, as well as many duplicate title tags, so from Google’s perspective, the whole hot mess came off as duplicate content and was buried. More than one million people searched for the Baby Nut website during or after the game, and they all came up empty-handed. The lesson here is clear: Get your SEO ducks in a row before your multi-million Super Bowl ad airs!
- Kim Scott: Painful! I did not watch the Super Bowl, nor did I see the commercials. I chose to read a book in my room while my husband and kids watched it.
Connect with Kim Scott and Radical Candor
Twitter: @kimmalonescott (https://twitter.com/kimmalonescott)
Twitter: @candor (https://twitter.com/candor)
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/candor-inc
Facebook: @radicalcandor (https://www.facebook.com/radicalcandor)
Instagram: @randicalcandorofficial (https://www.instagram.com/radicalcandorofficial)
Website: https://www.radicalcandor.com
The book: https://www.radicalcandor.com/the-book
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