The latest Search and SEO updates you need to read this month!

1. February 2023
SEARCH MARKETING UPDATES

2. MICROSOFT LAUNCHED BING AI CHAT
Bing AI chat was successfully launched by
Microsoft and its revolutionising search
Bing AI chat is the ChatGPT 3.5 software enhanced for
Microsoft. It’s faster, more accurate and has been customised
for search results to provide users with the best possible
experience.
Microsoft advertises that the new Bing o
ff
ers users reliable,
up-to-date and complete answers to their questions, whilst
also citing the source. Something ChatGPT doesn’t do.
Compared to a list of search results that
we’re all used too, Bing AI delivers its
users with a single, summarised answer
to their search query.
The chat feature then allows users to
have a conversation with the AI to gain
more insights if needed.

3. BING AI STARTS TESTING THE TONE
OF ITS RESPONSES
To stay ahead with Bing Chat Microsoft
start testing the tone of their AI chat
Mike Davidson, Corporate Vice President, Design
& Research at Microsoft posted on Twitter with
the news.
This experiment will hopefully provide users with
the more human experience they want from AI.
Currently not all users have access to Bing AI
chat, but you can join the waiting list.
Other Bing AI updates include:
• Daily limit of 100 queries
• Tone of voice changes
• Inviting more users to test the Bing AI chat
• Now available on mobile with voice search

4. GOOGLE TO LAUNCH 4 NEW
PERFORMANCE MAX FEATURES
Long awaited Performance Max updates are coming…
Campaign Level Brand Exclusions
This gives advertisers the ability to have campaign-level control over
branded queries they may be avoiding. Brand exclusions apply to
Search and Shopping tra
ffi
c.
Landing Page Feeds
With this feature advertisers can send tra
ffi
c to a bespoke set of
landing page URLs on their website. According to
support.google.com, this feature is coming in the next few months.
Asset Group Reporting
Reporting will allow advertisers to see conversions, conversion value,
cost and a variety of other metrics at the asset group level.
Budget Pacing Insights
Coming in the next few weeks, budget pacing insights will help
advertisers automatically uncover opportunities to optimise budget
and performance.

5. CHATGPT PLUS LAUNCHES
Costing $20 a month
Open AI’s chatbot took the world by storm in January, but it kept getting
overloaded and users were having to wait to search.
However, In February, Open AI launched ChatGPT plus costing $20 a month.
ChatGPT plus allows users to use the service in peak times and has faster
response times. Plus users also get priority access to new features and
improvements.

6. GOOGLE LAUNCHES ITS OWN AI
TOOL: BARD
With ChatGPT receiving huge volumes of tra
ffi
c,
Google launches Bard.
Google has been working on a experimental conversational
AI service, powered by LaMDA (Language Model for
Dialogue Applications) and in February opened Bard up to
its trusted testers ahead of making it publicly available.
‘Bard seeks to combine the breadth of the world’s
knowledge with the power, intelligence and creativity of
our large language models. It draws on information from
the web to provide fresh, high-quality responses’. -
blog.google
‘It’s critical that we bring experiences rooted in these
models to the world in a bold and responsible way.’
Although Bard is still not available to the public, Google
has said that they will start onboarding individual
developers, creators and enterprises to test the software
soon.
Image from blog.google

7. GOOGLE MULTI SEARCH / LENS
UPDATES
Google Lens is now used over 10 billion times
per month
Google Multisearch allows users to use their phones camera
to search with an image (powered by Google Lens) then
add additional text query on top of the image search.
Multisearch updates:
In the coming months, Multisearch will be available on the
web, opening up more in-depth search queries to more
users.
Multisearch near me gives users the options to use their
camera to search for items/restaurants etc local to them.
Multisearch near me is also expanding to images on the
web globally on mobile in the coming months.

8. GOOGLE SHARES LINK BEST
PRACTICES
Google uses links as a signal to help
fi
nd new pages to crawl. If your links are
crawlable, Google can
fi
nd other pages on your site via the links on your page.
Make your links crawlable
Generally, Google can only crawl your link if it's an <a> HTML element (also known
as anchor element) with an href attribute. Most links in other formats won't be parsed
and extracted by Google's crawlers.
Anchor text placement
Anchor text (also known as link text) is the visible text of a link. This text tells people
and Google something about the page you're linking to. Place anchor text
between <a> elements that Google can crawl.
Write good anchor text
Good anchor text is descriptive, reasonably concise, and relevant to the page that it's
on and to the page it links to. It provides context for the link, and sets the
expectation for your readers.
Read the full best practices here.

9. GOOGLE LAUNCHES AI-POWERED
SEARCH ADS
As Google continues to invest in their Arti
fi
cial Intelligence tools and
features, Search Ads gets an upgrade
Introducing automatically created assets. This feature creates additional headlines and
descriptions for your Search Ads to help you create ads that are both relevant and
helpful.
Advertisers can opt-in to using this feature at campaign-level setting. It’ll allow Google’s
AI to generate new assets that are based in your ad’s unique context and landing page.
All advertisers have been given assess to
‘automatically created assets’ in English as an open
beta.
“Although AI tools come with the best intentions, we
recommend using them with caution and monitoring
them very closely to ensure they are adding value to
your account and not resulting in o
ff
-brand
messaging with poor performance”
- Cristi Macfarlane, Honcho

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