April 8, 2022
Google completely dominated our marketing news and updates this month. Next year, the company is ending support for Universal Analytics, has introduced automatically generated summaries in Google Docs for Google Workspace business customers, and will expand its Trusted Store badge to free shopping listings in the US.
As of July 1, 2023, Google Analytics will stop processing new data on properties using Universal Analytics, also known as UA or GA3. Properties using Universal Analytics 360 will have an extra three months of data processing, ending on October 1, 2023. After these dates, Universal Analytics (UA) will be replaced by Google Analytics 4 (GA4), which launched in December 2020.
Google ensured that after July 1, 2023, you will still be able to access your data in your Universal Analytics property for at least six months. The company also announced that they’ll provide a future date for when existing Universal Analytics properties will no longer be available in the following months. After this future date, you’ll no longer be able to see your Universal Analytics reports in the Analytics interface or access your Universal Analytics data via the API so we strongly suggest exporting your historical data during that time.
But why is Google moving on from Universal Analytics? Mainly because of its inability to deliver cross-platform insights. Universal Analytics was built for a generation of online measurement focused on desktop search and independent sessions and depended on easily observable data from cookies. This measurement methodology has almost become obsolete. Google Analytics 4 offers a complete view of the customer lifecycle with an event-based measurement model that isn’t fragmented by platform or organised into independent sessions and does not rely exclusively on cookies. Also, Google Analytics 4 won’t store IP addresses, something fundamental in today’s strict data privacy landscape.
I use Google Docs all the time to create content, but I have never thought of it as an SEO tool. Not until recently anyway. Google has introduced automatically generated summaries in Google Docs for Google Workspace business customers. These automated summaries provide a brief overview of the main points in a document, which you can also edit manually to be more to your liking.
So if you want a meta description for your website content in just one click, simply hit the + button next to Summary in Google Docs. Google’s auto-generated summaries aren’t perfect, but it is generally a great starting point that can help you write a compelling meta description.
Google gives its Trusted Store badge to businesses that provide an excellent customer experience based on their Shopping Experience Scorecard. For a seller to earn this badge, they must commit to meeting Google’s highest standards in several areas.
The Shopping Experience Scorecard program monitors the experience you provide to customers in terms of shipping speed, shipping cost, return cost, and return window and gives you a rating of “Excellent”, “Comparable”, or “Opportunity” on each metric. So if your company consistently provides an excellent customer experience, you may have a Trusted Stores badge appear alongside your free product listings on Google’s Shopping tab. Google said the Shopping Experience Scorecard program and Trusted Store badge will roll out across the US in the coming months.