The Top Three

🏆 THE INDUSTRY’S MOST IMPORTANT STORIES TODAY

🥇 DO BUSINESS HOURS BOOST GOOGLE RANKINGS?

⏰ SEO’clock: Google’s ranking algorithms seem to prioritize business hours, especially in local searches. Joy Hawkins of Sterling Sky found that a dentist without listed hours outranked businesses marked as “Open Now.” So, does omitting your hours have the same effect as listing “Open 24/7” in Google’s eyes?

Sterling Sky tested removing business hours from several profiles and found it negatively impacted rankings during the hours the business was open.

• Profiles with hours listed: Google prioritizes businesses that confirm they’re open when users search.

• Profiles without hours listed: These seem to rank higher after hours when other businesses are closed.

• Hawkins notes that without listed hours, Google assumes your business might still be open, pushing your ranking above competitors marked “Closed.”

🥈 GOOGLE MERCHANT CENTER SHIPPING RATES BUG

💩 Ship happens: Retailers have been reporting a bug in Google Merchant Center for the past several days, which stops them from adding shipping rates and costs. The issue happens in step four of the process, preventing some merchants from finishing their setup and running ads on Google Ads or listing products on Google Shopping. more

• A Google Shopping specialist suggested a temporary workaround: manually adding shipping rates via the data feed instead.

• Google has yet to respond to the issue.

🥉 X-RATED AD PROBS

🔥 Sex sells… even when it’s against ad policies: A new study looks at adult advertising on X, focusing on compliance with its adult (sexual) content ad policy. Unlike other social platforms, X allows adult content in posts but bans it in ads. more

• The study found that nearly 40% of ads violate this policy, and only 63% of these non-compliant ads were eventually removed.

• It also found inconsistencies in the moderation of such ads across languages.

Today’s Other News

📰 EVERYTHING ELSE THAT MATTERS

Advertising 📣

• 🚨 Several Google Ads accounts experienced issues over the weekend, with ads not being served and users reporting error messages and high latency. The company confirmed the problem earlier this morning and said that it has now been resolved. more

• Google is updating its Display Ads (GDA) network with more inventory and creative tools:

  • More Ad Inventory: New third-party CTV inventory across various platforms and categories, including TelevisaUnivision, MLB, and FOX News.

  • Demand Gen Expansion: Google Display inventory is now available for Demand Gen campaigns, expanding beyond video ads.

  • New Creative Tools: Collaborative ad galleries and new ad templates.

  • Improved Ad Quality: Enhancements to ad placements and overall ad display quality.

• 👀 Triple threat: Google is now testing triple-serving ads on the same search results page, with the same advertiser appearing in three different placements. In December, the company confirmed testing double-serving ads, something previously against its policy. Now it's pushing ads at the top, in the local pack, and at the bottom. more

• 🕵️ Here’s a new curveball for Google Ads store ratings: the Mystery Shopping Rating. According to a Google rep, your store rating isn’t just about customer reviews, it also includes this secret score. A site owner recently asked why their rating didn’t improve with 4- and 5-star reviews. Google explained that the overall rating factors in both customer reviews and the Mystery Shopping Rating. more

  • The company has yet to clarify how this rating works or when it is applied.

• 💰️ Will advertisers continue to trust them with their spend?: Long-time ad verification rivals, DoubleVerify and Integral Ad Science, are expanding their reach beyond the open web, using AI to target mid-market advertisers across new channels like social media, CTV, and retail media. Both companies have faced pressure to improve brand safety, particularly after a recent Adalytics report and concerns raised by Congress over URL reporting and transparency in their AI systems. more

Search 🔍

• 🗨️ Are AOIs killing your featured snippets?: SEO expert Glenn Gabe reports a drop in featured snippets as AI overviews take over. He has a great piece up on his blog which covers how to track featured snippet prevalence for your site and niche over time and gauge the impact this shift has on your traffic.

Social Media 📱

• 🤖 “AI slop, AI slop everywhere”: Pinterest is responding to concerns about AI-generated content flooding its platform by rolling out clearer labels for AI-created or modified posts. After initially dismissing the issue, Pinterest plans to introduce these labels in the coming months. more

Commerce 🛒 

• Amazon’s drone deliveries hit turbulence in College Station, Texas, as residents fought back against the “fleet of flying chainsaws.” After relentless local pushback, the e-commerce giant is grounding its fleet and shutting down operations by September. more

  • The FAA received about 150 complaints against Amazon's plans to double its daily drone flights.

  • At peak capacity, drones could have flown by homes every 58 seconds for 15 hours a day.

Today’s Trivia Question

🎁 TAP YOUR GUESS AND YOU COULD WIN

Spotted on Social

🤣 THE SOCIAL WEB’S BEST POSTS IN THE LAST 24 HOURS

Steal Our Stack

🛠️ TOOLS WE USE TO PUT THE NEWSLETTER OUT

Google Ads courses: Inside Google Ads: Advanced
Meta ad courses: Foxwell Digital Courses
Media Buyers Slack: Foxwell Founders Community
Lifetime marketing tool deals: Appsumo 
Podcast recording: Riverside
Online forms: Tally (get 50% off first 3 months)
Email newsletter: Beehiiv