Digital Week In Review: Updates to Google and Facebook Sara Molnick Published: October 11, 2013 2 min read Categories: News In this week’s Digital Week in Review, Google announces that they will begin rolling out ‘Shared Endorsements’. Similarly, Google has also modified their algorithm which will penalize websites that feature the mugshots of people who have been arrested, and lastly, Facebook has made minor updates to their Insight Data. Google Rolls Out of Shared Endorsements Similar to Facebook’s Sponsored Stories, Google will begin rolling out the inclusion of user’s endorsements of a company across the web. How it will work is the comments users make about a company on Google Plus and other Google services like YouTube, will be sold by Google to the companies. Labeled as ‘Shared Endorsements’, this policy is scheduled to go live by November 11th. In their Terms of Service Update, Google announced that users will have the opportunity to opt out of having their +1’s or comments publicly shared in an advertisement. Facebook Makes Updates and Adds New Features to their Page Insights Facebook has begun to roll out the updated Page Insights to all Page owners as well as the introduction of new features just after their release of the new Facebook Insights on June 19th. So how has Facebook Insights changed since then? First off, when you go into Facebook Insights you should now see that the People Talking About This (PTAT) metric is broken up by 6 tabs: Page Likes, People Engaged, Page tags and mentions, Page checkins and other interactions on a Page. The Virality metric was also renamed Engagement Rate. Additionally, Page Insights will now allow you to see not only who you’ve reached, but also who you’ve engaged with. This will help Page admins identify how content resonates with different audiences and make more informed decisions about their Page content and Strategy. Google Amends their Algorithm to Combat Mugshots In other Google news, Google has decided to take action against websites that post the mugshots of people who have been arrested. Such sites charge a fee for their removal, which can range from $30 to $400. Therefore, Google has amended its algorithm deeming these sites non-complaint with their guidelines. How could this modification to their guideline affect SEO people? If you’re managing a reputation management campaign for a person who has gotten arrested, your efforts just got a little easier.