Saying Goodbye to Google Plus
With the news of another data leak, the borrowed time that beleaguered platform Google+ faced has been reduced even further and will now close for consumers in April, rather than 4 months later in August as originally planned.
The New Vulnerability
According to Google, the new vulnerability impacted 52.5 million users, who could have had profile information like their name, email address, occupation, and age exposed to developers, even if their account was set to private. Apps could also access profile data that had been shared with a specific user but was not shared publicly.
“We’ve recently determined that some users were impacted by a software update introduced in November that contained a bug affecting a Google+ API. We discovered this bug as part of our standard and ongoing testing procedures and fixed it within a week of it being introduced. No third party compromised our systems, and we have no evidence that the app developers that inadvertently had this access for six days were aware of it or misused it in any way.
With the discovery of this new bug, we have decided to expedite the shut-down of all Google+ APIs; this will occur within the next 90 days. In addition, we have also decided to accelerate the sunsetting of consumer Google+ from August 2019 to April 2019. While we recognize there are implications for developers, we want to ensure the protection of our users.”
Next Steps for Consumer Google+
All Google+ APIs will be wound down over the coming days as Google decided to give users ample opportunity to transition off of consumer Google+. Over the next few months, they will issue regular statements with additional information, including ways that data can be safely and securely downloaded to be migrated to other platforms.
A Note for Enterprise Customers
“G Suite administrators are always in control of their users’ apps. This ensures that G Suite users can give access only to apps that have been vetted and are trusted by their organization. In addition, we want to reiterate that we will continue to invest in Google+ for enterprise. More details were announced in October.”
What Comes Next?
With the recent updates to the GMB (Google My Business) dashboard, the ability to make posts, share images and provide general information has already ensured that many of the options which were available with G+ are now available elsewhere.
To see how GMB can be used to benefit businesses, especially those with a focus on local custom, please click here.
Further Information
If you’d like to speak to us regarding any of our services, including our online marketing services, please give us a call on 01883 372488 or contact us via Facebook and we’ll be happy to talk you through your options.
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2019 – The Year of Schema?
Whilst Schema coding has been around for some time, its importance is growing all of the time. Offering the ability to provide snippets of important information to Google in a format that is easy to read and understand, when used correctly, Schema can be a very powerful tool indeed.
What Actually Is Schema?
Schema was created as a result of a collaboration between the major search engines Google, Bing, Yahoo! and Yandex, with the goal of helping to provide webmasters with a method of supplying key pieces of information to their search engines.
With an increasing number of websites believed to use Schema.org to markup their web pages with many applications from Google, Microsoft, Pinterest, Yandex and others already using these vocabularies to power rich, extensible experiences.
Improving Click-Through Rates
Whilst there is no guarantee that using schema to produce rich snippets will automatically result in higher rankings or top 3 search results, it can certainly help and can also be effective at improving the click-through rates for your website.
Even with some major companies starting to utilise this code, the vast majority of smaller business and smaller websites are not using them. By taking the time to implement the right coding onto your website, your pages may be able to stand out against your competitors in search results.
A Key Part of Future SEO Campaigns?
We strongly believe that there is nothing to lose by adding them to the coding of your website and it’s certainly possible that they may soon become an important part of any SEO campaign.
Further Information
If you’d like to speak to us regarding any of our services, including our online marketing services, please give us a call on 01883 372488 or contact us via Facebook and we’ll be happy to talk you through your options.
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Are You A Start-Up Business?
We understand that budgets can be very tight for any new business. However, this should be no barrier when it comes to the creation of a top quality website. We take great pride in our ability to help new businesses grow and put the same effort into smaller projects as we do with the larger ones.
We’ve designed and developed many websites for start-up businesses and ranging from personal trainers to local plumbers, we believe that our services can help to play a pivotal role in getting your business off the ground.
What do we offer you…
Support & Updates
We’re web designers – not magicians! Once we have built your website, we will not do a disappearing act leaving you to fend for yourself!
Once the project has been completed, we will never be more than a phone call or e-mail away from regarding any technical questions you may have.
Responsive Designs
The browsing habits of potential customers is a constantly changing landscape and we can help you to stay a step ahead of your competition by adapting the user experience depending on which device they are using.
We will design and develop your website to ensure that it fits on almost any device. Fonts will be increased, clickable phone numbers will be included (allowing instant calls) and a whole host of other features included to ensure that your visitor gets the best possible experience.
Whether viewing through a mobile, tablet or desktop, you can be sure that your visitor will get the optimum experience.
Everything is Possible!
If you have an idea that you believe may not even be possible, don’t be too quick to dismiss the idea.
We love a challenge and apply our proven techniques to help bring almost any idea to life.
Content Management
Having a website that is rarely updated is unlikely to bring visitors flocking to your door. However, the ability to update your website with new content should be relatively easy task and not one that you should have to keep paying someone else to do for you.
Adding a Content Management System (CMS), such as WordPress, to your site will allow you regular full control to update your website, without asking us to add content for you.
Further Information
If you’d like to speak to us regarding any of our services, including our web design services, please give us a call on 01883 372488 or contact us via Facebook and we’ll be happy to talk you through your options.
