Month: August 2019

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SparkToro: Less than Half of Google Searches Now Result in a Click

A friend shared this interesting article with me – here’s the bottom line summary:

In June of 2019, for the first time, a majority of all browser-based searches on Google.com resulted in zero-clicks

https://sparktoro.com/blog/less-than-half-of-google-searches-now-result-in-a-click/

Essentially: in more than half of Google searches, the user is not clicking on a result link. This can be because the user has their question answered via Google’s featured snippet section (example below), or the web browser launched a separate app (for example, a mobile user clicking a link which opens up the Android/iOS Google Maps app), or simply because the user got frustrated and stopped searching.

An example of a featured snippet from a Google search: a box just underneath the search box with information. Note the About Featured Snippets link on the bottom.
An example of a featured snippet on a Google search. Note the About Featured Snippets link on the bottom of the image.

This article is just another reason why good Google marketers need to target high value keywords to get users to click through.

The article expands on this, it’s definitely worth a read: https://sparktoro.com/blog/less-than-half-of-google-searches-now-result-in-a-click/ .

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Tumblr Sale

News came out recently that Verizon’s Oath unit (which is partly made up of Yahoo’s web assets) sold Tumblr to Automattic (they develop WordPress and run WordPress.com) for $3 million.

Obviously, this is a big drop from Yahoo’s original $1+ billion purchase, but there’s still quite a lot of value to be salvaged from Tumblr. This HN discussion comments that Tumblr is still receiving 2.5+ billion page views per month, which doesn’t even include their mobile views. I see a lot of articles moaning about Tumblr’s problems, but it is still a powerful brand and I’m quite surprised another company didn’t buy it up – $3 million is a firesale price.

Of all the articles discussing Tumblr’s sale, I like this one the best: a post from one of VCs who originally invested in Tumblr. Regardless of what happens to Tumblr, I think it will be remembered as one of the first places to easily and quickly share thoughts, a place which made it easy to create communities and fandoms, and a surprisingly upbeat and positive place compared to other social media sites.