Industry-Wide Shakeups Affecting BigCommerce Merchants
Is your BigCommerce site up with the latest web and industry standards? From Google Shopping retiring its BigCommerce integrations to new encryption standards across the web, a lot has changed over the past few months. Here’s a rundown of the most essential updates and shake-ups that all ecommerce merchants need to know.
BigCommerce Integration With Google Shopping Will End March 20
Since 2016, BigCommerce merchants have had the option to display Products on Google Shopping network by directly connecting their product catalogues to the Google Merchant Center. However, Google has announced that, on March 20, it will retire that integration and the Google Shopping app for BigCommerce that many merchants use will stop working.
But don’t worry – you can still continue to integrate your BigCommerce store with the Google Shopping Network. You’ll just need to use a third-party app. BigCommerce recommends the integration from Sales & Order and has a rundown on how to unlink your old feed and set up a new one.
Google Chrome Will Label All HTTP Sites Not Secure
Google has announced that, starting in July, their Chrome browser will mark all HTTP websites as “not secure.” This is part of a push to get webmasters to adopt HTTPS encryption.
HTTP stands for Hyper Text Transfer Protocol and refers to the method by which data it sent between a web browser and the site it’s connected to. HTTPS stands for Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Secure and is basically the same thing with an added level of security. Because HTTP doesn’t have that level of security, hackers can read the information being transferred and even inject malware. It’s much harder to do that when a site is encrypted with HTTPS.
If you run an ecommerce business, you should migrate your site to HTTPS – not just to avoid being flagged by Google, but also for the general health of your website. Check out this article from BigCommerce on how to do it and feel free to reach out to us about adding it on to a work order.
New Google Search Console Available To All Sites
Google’s new beta version of the Google Search Console is officially available to all sites on the web. The Google Search Console is a free tool that helps webmasters monitor their sites’ SEO performance. It’s a great way to ensure that Google can access your content and can give you insights in metrics relating to backlinks, organic search, and mobile performance.
The new version contains a Search Performance reporting feature which analyzes up to 16 months of data at a time, as well as a feature called Index Coverage that provides insight into how pages are crawled by Google’s bots. Google’s designers have also promised that the updated version is more user-friendly and are soliciting feedback about usability and performance.
Facebook Will Measure Post Reach By Actual Views
Do you promote high-performing Facebook posts as part of your digital marketing strategy? Your organic reach numbers are about to drop significantly. Facebook has announced they are changing the way they calculate the number of people who view a page to more accurately reflect how many people actually see it. Previously, Facebook calculated post reach based on how many times a post was loaded into the news feed – meaning they counted every load as a view, even if the user didn’t actually scroll down far enough to see it.
Starting on February 12, post reach will be calculated based on how many times the post enters a user’s screen. Obviously, this number will be lower but it will also give you a better sense of how many sets of eyes are actually on your content, which is good for your marketing strategy.
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