January – February – March 2023 Updates 

The Storage Group tracks the latest updates in the ever-changing industry of search engines. To keep our clients informed, here are the top notable updates this past quarter among the search engines.

Continuous Scroll in SERP
If you haven’t noticed already, Google released ‘Continuous Scrolling’ on desktop devices for search results. This change allows users to continuously scroll to see up to six pages of search results before they see the “More” button. This update allows more visibility and clicks to facilities that were previously appearing beyond the first page.

PPC Cost-Per-Lead Increases Across the Board
Factors such as inflation, demand, and competition have caused an increase in the average cost-per-lead for 91% of industries and our industry has been no exception. This can bring down conversion rates and drive up average cost-per-lead and cost-per-click. Facilities in more expensive markets seem to be hit harder and keeping up with the competition’s ad spend is becoming more necessary.

Bard & ChatGPT
We’re paying close to ChatGPT and Microsoft’s Bing. Since its release and implementation of the AI tool with Bing, Bing has seen the largest relevancy increase in two decades. If Microsoft is able to keep up this momentum, Bing may be able to get a larger market share in the search engine space.
With Bard, Google seems to be taking a similar approach to ChatGPT. Google is currently testing Bard, which is an experimental conversational AI service. Our team will continue to closely monitor these AI tools and how they affect the SERP results.