All articles tagged with #search engine optimization
A study analyzing 10,000 keywords found that Google's AI Mode produces highly inconsistent results, with only 9.2% URL overlap across repeated searches and minimal overlap with organic search results, highlighting the volatility and potential opportunities for content visibility in AI-driven search environments.
The article explains how AI Overviews and AI Mode, driven by patents and advanced reasoning mechanisms, are transforming search from deterministic to probabilistic, requiring a strategic shift in SEO practices. It emphasizes that traditional SEO tactics are insufficient in this new environment where content is evaluated through complex reasoning, contextual personalization, and citation-based verification, urging the industry to adopt 'Relevance Engineering' to stay relevant and influential.
Google's Search Generative Experience (SGE) is evolving to offer more comprehensive answers to search queries, potentially impacting organic traffic and digital marketing strategies. SEO experts believe SGE will change how Google search works by taking up space on SERPs and offering multiple sources for search results. To leverage SGE, businesses are advised to focus on transactional content, monitor changes in search intent, assess industry-specific impacts, create helpful content satisfying E-A-T criteria, optimize content for featured snippets, and diversify content formats. Adapting to SGE and monitoring SERP changes will be crucial for businesses to maintain search performance in the long term.
TikTok is introducing a new metric called "search value" to determine creator payouts, incentivizing creators to produce content aligned with user searches. This move is part of the platform's Creator Rewards program, which also focuses on originality, play duration, and audience engagement. TikTok's emphasis on search-related content reflects its growing role as a search engine, with a recent report indicating that a significant portion of users utilize the app for search purposes.
Google's March 2024 Core Update has resulted in the deindexing of over 800 websites, impacting their organic search traffic and advertising revenue. The update targets AI-generated spam and low-quality content, with affected sites experiencing significant traffic and revenue losses. The crackdown on AI-generated content underscores Google's commitment to prioritizing high-quality, human-generated content in search results. Website owners and marketers are advised to reassess their content strategies and prioritize original, valuable content to align with the new guidelines and maintain search engine rankings.
Google's Search Relations team is updating the SEO Starter Guide to streamline outdated advice and better serve beginners, with changes including prioritizing branding over keywords in domain names, downplaying the impact of HTML structure on search rankings, and excluding discussions on meta tags like meta keywords due to their minimal influence. The team also aims to address common SEO misconceptions and provide practical advice for both beginners and experienced professionals.
Google's SEO Starter Guide, a crucial resource for SEO professionals, is undergoing a major update to simplify content, remove outdated advice, and focus on general SEO concepts. The revised guide aims to cater to modern users, particularly those new to website building, and will prioritize user experience and practical needs. The upcoming iteration is expected to become an essential resource for both beginner and experienced SEO professionals seeking to enhance website visibility in search results.
Google's recent algorithm update aimed to prioritize user-generated content in search results, but it inadvertently led to an influx of spam and low-quality websites exploiting the system with affiliate links. This has resulted in a decline in the quality of search results, with scammers taking advantage of the new policy across various platforms. The issue is exacerbated by the presence of "SEO parasites" and the use of AI to generate junk content at an unprecedented scale. While Google has acknowledged the problem and is working on improvements, the situation highlights the ongoing challenges in maintaining the quality of web search results.
A study by researchers from Leipzig University, Bauhaus-University Weimar, and the Center for Scalable Data Analytics and Artificial Intelligence found that Google search results for product reviews are increasingly filled with low-quality, affiliate marketing-driven content. The study revealed that the highest-ranked pages feature more affiliate links and lower-quality text, indicating a decline in search result quality. While Google has made efforts to address these issues, experts and the SEO community believe that the overall quality of Google search results has deteriorated in recent years, with concerns about the impact on the internet economy and society as a whole.
Google has introduced a new structured data called Organization structured data, which combines the old logo and URL structured data while adding new fields for business details such as name, address, contact information, and various identifiers. This update allows businesses to communicate their information to Google Search more effectively and increases the chances of their details appearing in knowledge panels and other visual elements on Google Search. Google has also updated its Search Console reports and Rich Results testing tool to support validation of this new markup.
A Thai food restaurant in New York City named "Thai Food Near Me" has sparked curiosity about whether including the words "near me" in a restaurant's name can manipulate Google search results and attract more customers. While the effectiveness of this naming strategy is debatable, the restaurant gained online attention and viral popularity even before its opening, thanks to a photo of its storefront that went viral on social media. Despite the clickbait-y name, the restaurant has received positive reviews, averaging 4.9 out of 5 stars, suggesting that it offers more than just a clever name.
Google has finished rolling out the September 2023 Helpful Content Update, which includes improvements to the Helpful Content System. The update brings changes to guidelines and documentation, including adjusted guidance on machine-generated content and revised rules for hosting third-party content. Google advises blocking unrelated third-party content from being indexed and provides new guidance for those affected by the update. The update aims to ensure the quality and relevance of search results, requiring website owners and SEO experts to adapt to the changes.
Google has completed the rollout of its September 2023 helpful content update, which specifically targeted SEO-first content. The update impacted websites that focused on ranking well in search engines rather than providing helpful content to users. While the impact of the update was initially difficult to gauge, it has been felt more by the SEO industry than the average website owner. Google has stated that this update promotes helpful content and will soon demote unhelpful content. It is a sitewide algorithm update that affects all languages and global search. Websites that were negatively impacted will need to evaluate their content and user experience to recover.
Google's John Mueller stated on Twitter that removing content does not improve the ranking of the remaining content, contradicting Google's own documentation. He advised users to use the "noindex" tag for content they don't want indexed, but emphasized that removing content does not boost rankings. This contradicts previous instances where Google supported content removal for SEO purposes.
Google's John Mueller stated that internal links pointing to a page itself do not carry more weight or provide additional information compared to other links. While internal links are valuable for search engines and users, they do not hold a special significance in this context.