Big news in the SEO world. Google is releasing a new, site-wide ranking signal that targets “unhelpful content”. I was able to speak with Google’s Danny Sullivan about the ranking signal and will provide that information, including my thoughts about the update, below. Note, Google also announced that a new Product Reviews Update will be rolling out in the coming weeks. I’ll cover more about that separately (soon).

Last Friday, Meta announced the launch of ‘digital collectibles’ on Instagram in Hong Kong.

Globally, some 140 billion messages on Meta’s apps were being sent daily with a growth adoption in Asia Pacific, according to the report conducted with 6,500 respondents across APAC including Australia, Korea, Indonesia, Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam.

Google is again delaying plans to phase out Chrome’s use of third-party cookies — the files websites use to remember preferences and track online activity. In a blog post, Anthony Chavez, Google’s VP of Privacy Sandbox, said that the company is now targeting the “second half of 2024” as the timeframe for adopting an alternative technology.

The Meta CEO told employees earlier this month that they were competing with Apple to determine “what direction the internet should go in,” according to a recording of his comments during an internal all-hands meeting obtained by The Verge. He said that Meta would position itself as the more open, cheaper alternative to Apple, which is expected to announce its first AR headset as soon as later this year.

What would Google local search results look like if Google couldn’t put the Local 3-Pack at the top of search results? A recently discovered test may give us a clue.

Hospitality brands now have even greater control over their Tripadvisor listings with added support for review monitoring and hotel-specific attributes.

Yelp announced this morning Request a Call, a feature that will allow customers to easily submit a request for a call to local service providers. The feature represents Yelp’s acknowledgement that there is still too much friction in the local services customer experience and that listings and review sites can help.

Tech Planet reported on Wednesday that in order to prepare for the upcoming 618 Shopping Festival, Chinese e-commerce giant Taobao has set up a special metaverse project team to create an optimized virtual shopping venue.

Updates to LinkedIn include improvements to content discovery, captions for real-time events, and the ability to share reviews.