Nov 13 2024
[Losing Traffic?] 4 Easy Steps To See How Google’s AIO Is Affecting Your SEO

SE Ranking sponsored this post. The opinions expressed in this article are the sponsor’s own.

Wondering how AI is affecting your traffic?

Want to learn how to get into the AI Overview at the top of SERPs?

Miss the days when you could appear as the top result on a SERP?

It’s possible to relive those SEO glory days by learning how tuned in your website is to AI.

What Is An AIO In SEO?

AI Overviews, or AIOs, are one of Google’s newest search features to grace the SERPs.

AI Overviews provide users with AI-generated answers and topic summaries, and they are gaining momentum. Google launched it as an experiment in May 2023, and since then changed the traditional search to kick off a new era of SEO.

Now the focus for SEO is on optimizing websites for AI Overviews.

According to SE Ranking’s studies, this feature is often observed for longer, mainly informational queries. These queries are common in niches like Relationships, Food and Beverage, Business, and more. While AI Overviews were initially only available in the US, they have recently expanded to six countries, where they can now hold top positions in search results.

No doubt, this is only the beginning of the rise of AI Overviews. To stay ahead in SEO, start tracking the impact of AIOs on your sites now. Let’s look at how to do this quickly and easily!

Step 1. Find Out Which Target Keywords Trigger AIOs

Begin by finding out which of your keywords trigger AIOs and which ones you can optimize your content for.

This will help you attract more traffic through the new search.

Doing this manually can take a long time, especially if you have a large project with thousands of keywords.

To automate this process, use SE Ranking’s Competitive Research tool. This tool contains 22 million AIO-triggering keywords in the US region and 2.2 million in the UK region.

  1. Go to the Organic Traffic Research section.
  2. Filter keywords by the AI Overviews feature, as shown in the screenshot below.
  3. The table will now only display keywords that trigger AIOs.
  4. Export the entire list.

Pro tip:

Explore the intent, search volume, position, and difficulty of all keywords triggering AIOs. This will help you prioritize content optimization for AIOs. For example, if a keyword is likely to bring in very little traffic, don’t focus too much on monitoring and optimizing content around it.

Step 2. Add Keywords To An AI Tracker To Monitor Them

The next step is to streamline how you monitor your presence in AIOs. Keeping track of every keyword manually is difficult and time-consuming, so having an automated tool is a must.

We suggest using the handy AI Tracker because it lets you add and monitor up to 1,500 keywords.

The AI Tracker is available to all users during the 14-day trial of SE Ranking. Access this tool and our complete SEO suite to outperform competitors and boost traffic.

To get started:

  1. Create a project in SE Ranking.
  2. Add all the keywords exported during the previous step.
  3. Head to the AI Tracker tool.
  4. Click Select keywords.
  5. Choose the ones to track for AI Overviews.

Once you’ve added the keywords, the tool will check their positions in AIOs daily. This makes it easy to monitor changes in AI results and your presence in them.

Step 3. Check Your Site’s Visibility On AIOs

Of course, many SEO specialists are concerned most about whether their site is included in the AI Overviews source list.

Consider using the AI Overview Presence graph in SE Ranking’s AI Tracker to understand the situation clearly and see how visible your site is in AIOs. This tool shows how many of your added keywords triggered AIOs and how many AIOs feature your site in Google’s list of resources.

Look at the table below to see which keywords triggered AIOs and which didn’t. If the icon has a gray strike-through, there are no AIOs for that keyword. If the icon is gray, there are AIOs present, but your site is not included. If the icon is purple, your site is featured in AIOs.

What do these numbers mean? If there are 100 AIOs but your site appears in only 10 of them, you’re likely losing traffic. When AIOs appear in search results, users often won’t scroll past them to find your site. This still holds even if it ranks first in regular results. Recent research from SE Ranking confirms this, stating that featured snippets show up alongside AI Overviews 45.39% of the time, while ads appear with AI Overviews a staggering 87% of the time.

This data helps you identify which keywords to focus on. You can then track how your new AIO strategy performs over time. If you take steps to get into AI snippets, each graph will show a rising curve.

But remember: AI Overviews are constantly shifting. AIOs might appear one day for a query and then disappear the next. You might even see your site in an AI snippet at the top one day only for it to disappear completely the next. Moreover, Google is constantly changing the appearance of its AI snippets.

When it was first released, the snippet looked like this:

Now, it looks like this:

There are currently fewer links, with Google shifting them to the right to give them less importance. This ensures they don’t distract users from the main AI-generated information. It’s important to keep an eye on AIOs in case other changes occur. You’ll need to understand what to expect and whether you’ll still be visible in AIOs, even if you’re included in them.

In these cases, the tool stores cached copies of every SERP it crawls. This allows you to see how the appearance of AIOs has changed over time. You can easily check if your website links were prominently displayed in the AIOs or if they were hidden behind a button.

Step 4. Learn Which Sites Are Chosen Over Yours As AIO Sources

Another important step is to monitor the sites that appear in AIOs where your site is missing. Why is this useful? It helps you identify gaps in your content and allows you to optimize it. This increases its chance of being included in AIOs.

You can use the Organic-AI Overlap graph to check how many sites from the top 20 are currently featured in AIOs for your keywords.

Use the AI SERP Competitors section to fully analyze this data. It will show you:

  • Which sites are included in the AI snippet
  • How the top 20 results for that keyword look

If you notice that the AI snippet includes many sites outside the top 20, focus on what these sites are doing to be cited by Google. Conversely, if Google favors the top 20 sites for certain keywords, continue optimizing your site. It may eventually reach the top and greatly increase your chances of being featured in AIOs.

AIOs may also disappear, so aiming for top rankings is always a winning strategy.

Track Your AI Overview Efforts With SE Ranking

The entire digital world is entering a new era of AI-driven search. What we are seeing now is just the beginning. While the future is a mystery and holds more changes, one thing is certain: AI is here to stay, and we must adapt to work with it.

Monitoring AIOs is an essential part of this new strategy. Setting up this process correctly will undoubtedly give you results.

Try SE Ranking’s AI Tracker for free for 14 days with a trial subscription to give your SEO strategy the boost it needs!

This article has been sponsored by SE Ranking, and the views presented herein represent the sponsor’s perspective.

Ready to start optimizing your website? Sign up for SE Ranking and get the data you need to deliver great user experiences.

Image Credits

Featured Image: Image by SE Ranking. Used with permission.

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Nov 12 2024
Google November Core Update: 6 Insights From Millions of Queries via @sejournal, @martinibuster

Enterprise SEO platform BrightEdge is actively monitoring millions of keyword search results, detecting real-time trends in Google’s AI Overview and organic search tied to the ongoing November 2024 Core algorithm update. The data suggests six preliminary observations on the direction of Google’s algorithm and what publishers and SEOs need to know now.

AI Overviews is a search feature, so any changes to Google’s core ranking algorithm will be reflected in AIO, especially because there are several ways AIO and the organic search results overlap.

1. Overlap Between Organic And AIO Citations

One of the more interesting trends that continues this month is an overlap between the websites cited in AIO and the organic search results. This shift, first noticed in September, was highly noticeable, especially within the top ten organic search results. High ranking organic content has a high chance of becoming a citation in AIO. This trend suggests that Google is increasingly aligning AIO citations with the organic search algorithm.

How Google is aligning organic SERPs with AIO can only be speculated because Google has not commented on this trend. It may be that AIO is grounding itself in organic search results that themselves are increasingly more precisely aligned to search query topicality.

Google’s information gain patent describes a way to rank websites that closely links Google’s organic search ranking with an AI-based search interface. These trends that BrightEdge noticed align with that kind of symmetry between AI Search and organically ranked answers.

2. Shopping Queries Ranked Differently

The trend for overlap between organic and AIO SERPs doesn’t manifest in shopping related queries.

But this trend doesn’t hold for shopping queries. Organic shopping SERPs and AIO results are increasingly uncoupled and going in different different directions. BrightEdge interpreted the data to mean that additional supporting results in AIO are why organic and AIO for shopping queries increasingly don’t match.

Google’s algorithm update won’t be finished until about two weeks from now. However BrightEdge’s Generative Parser technology is showing how the search results are trending that hint at what’s going on under the surface of the search results.

3. Downward Trends In Overlap

BrightEdge shared that ranking overlap between organic and AIO initially experienced a slight increase in volatility (+2.3%) leading into November 8th but that it subsequently started trending downward (-3.7%) on the following two days and the downward trend continued as the update was announced.

4. Increased Volatility In Overlap

After the release of the update the volatility between organic search results and AIO began to seriously spike. BrightEdge interprets the changes as suggesting that there is a pattern of redistribution. In my opinion this may reflect changes to both AIO and organic rankings which at some point should stabilize. The scale of the changes at the lowest ranking levels (positions 21-30) indicate a high level of volatility.

How SERPs Are Currently Trending Since Update Announcement:

  • Top 10 positions: +10.6% increase in volatility
  • Positions 11-20: -5.9% decline in volatility
  • Positions 21-30: +23.3% increase in volatility

5. Industry Specific Changes

It must be stressed that what BrightEdge’s Generative Parser is reporting represents real-time changes across millions of search results which are indicative of the scale of changes within the search results. BrightEdge next looks at specific industries and at this time is seeing significant shifts in e-commerce queries and notable changes in Education related queries.

Here are changes by industry:

  • E-commerce showing -22.1% shift in top citations
  • Education observing moderate -7.3% adjustment
  • Healthcare maintaining stability at -1.5% shift
  • B2B Tech recording -0.4% change

6. Patterns In How AIO Cites Content

The volatility patterns give an early tentative indication of what kinds of queries Google is giving priority in this update. Again, these are real-time results that are subject to change as new parts of the update are rolled out.

BrightEdge’s Insights From Volatility Rates:

  • “Educational content maintaining stronger stability
  • Product-focused content showing higher volatility
  • Research-oriented sites demonstrating resilience
  • Industry expertise appearing to gain prominence”

Takeaway From Real-Time Volatility

BrightEdge gave Search Engine Journal their interpretation of what the real-time data might suggest for future AIO citations:

  • “Prioritize genuine user value in content creation over keyword optimization
  • Don’t ignore the importance of your content that may not be on page 1 for your target keywords
  • Carefully monitor your AIO citations as the data suggests there could be some fluctuations”

Reason For Optimism?

There’s a lot of negative sentiment to this update that is easily understandable because 2024 has been a bad year for many publishers. For example, a common complaint on X (formerly Twitter) is that Google shows too much Reddit content.

Google’s AI Overviews has not been welcomed by publishers at any level or in any industry because it’s brutal to see your content reworded by Google’s AI then added into a summary that includes reworded content from competitors, with just a tiny hard to see link for the citation.

Frank Pine, executive editor of Media News Group and Tribune Publishing (a network of 68 newspapers) was quoted earlier this year by the New York Times as remarking that Google’s AI Overviews is “cannibalizing” content and harming publishers.

The Times quoted him:

“It potentially chokes off the original creators of the content,” Mr. Pine said. The feature, AI Overviews, felt like another step toward generative A.I. replacing ‘the publications that they have cannibalized…’”

At this point in time it doesn’t do anyone good to sit around and grumble. Keep an eye on the search results to monitor changes as this update rolls out and follow the data.

Read more about the November 2024 Google Core Algorithm Update and learn more about AI Overviews here.

Featured Image by Shutterstock/Inkley Studio

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Nov 12 2024
Google SERPs Without Favicons Is A Glitch via @sejournal, @martinibuster

Last week, reports claimed Google was testing mobile search results without favicons or colors, eliminating any advantage conferred by a well optimized favicon. However, a Google representative confirmed this was not a test.

Favicons In Search Results

The word favicon is short for “favorite icons,” an image meant to be shown in browser tabs, in bookmarks and in Google search results. Google recently recommended that publishers use favicons that are at least 32×32 pixels in size.

Google shows favicons in search results, which makes it a subtle way for ranked websites to attract attention and traffic. For that reason it would be a blow for many websites should Google remove the favicons because it would further erode search visibility.

Favicons Missing?

Lily Ray tweeted a screenshot showing that the favicons were missing in search results.

The screenshot clearly shows that the favicons are missing from the search results. However the reason for that happening turned out to be something else entirely.

Googler Rajan Patel, VP of Engineering at Google, tweeted a response that explained that this was not the way the search results should be displaying. He explained that this kind of search result is meant for low end devices that can’t support rich results.

He tweeted:

This isn’t intended. @lilyraynyc Did you have JavaScript disabled on the device? What kind of device was it? The experience you’re showing is what we show for lower end devices that can’t support the richness of the search result page.”

Lily Ray responded:

“JS is not disabled. iPhone iOS 18.1 on an iPhone 15 pro. I was either using the Chrome app or Google app to search, can’t remember which.”

Rajan Patel speculated that it may have been a misconfigured experiment.

Glitches At Google

It turns out to be an example of Google glitching. Something that wasn’t explored is the whether the Internet connection or latency may have played a role in causing Google to react to the SERP request as if it was being made from a low quality device.  In any case, it’s an example of how complex serving search results can be.

Featured Image by Shutterstock/tomertu

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Nov 12 2024
SEO Trends For 2025 via @sejournal, @BennyJamminS

If there’s one thing that became clear throughout 2024, it’s that SEO volatility isn’t temporary.

Working with less traffic is the new normal as Google and Microsoft forge ahead with AI integrated into their search engines.

Sustained Changes In Search

The meaning of the word “search engine” seems to be changing, too.

Some audiences use social media platforms, such as TikTok, like search engines, and complete the same kinds of informational and transactional journeys.

Google’s business practices have been under heightened scrutiny this year. Trials and leaks have revealed information about its algorithms and business models.

At the same time, many users and publishers have drawn attention to declining search results quality.

Doing SEO is tough right now.

Google’s rules and guidelines don’t seem to be applied evenly, with spammy tactics working out just fine if you’re big enough and legitimate smaller websites getting pushed out.

We’re all wrestling with the fact that lower traffic is just a thing now.

And yet, the vibe from many of the contributors to this year’s SEO Trends ebook is hopeful.

What are the reasons for excitement and hope in such a difficult time?

The thing about user dissatisfaction is that they look for new avenues and platforms. Changing audience behavior means new opportunities.

And Google’s troubles in the courts could open up room for new, competitive platforms to gain market share. Google is still the dominant force in search, but in the coming years, there may be shifts in platforms as well as audiences.

This year’s contributors are:

  • Katie Morton, Editor-in-Chief, Search Engine Journal.
  • Mordy Oberstein, Head of SEO Brand, Wix.
  • Helen Pollitt, Head of SEO, Getty Images.
  • Matt G. Southern, Senior News Writer, Search Engine Journal.
  • Dan Taylor, Partner, SALT.agency.
  • Andrea Volpini, CEO, WordLift.

Strategy-Focused Insights

This year’s questions focus on the big picture: how to approach SEO, given all the developments and disruptions.

Instead of focusing on an individual technology or event, we asked the contributors to discuss how they think about the definition and effectiveness of SEO and its many strategies and tactics.

Here are the questions we asked:

Creating New SEO Strategies

The desire for information isn’t going away, but users are changing how they seek information.

In the past, SEO pros answered questions in order to lure in users. That might still be the case, but people are finding answers outside of the SERP (or staying in the SERP) for answers rather than going to websites.

Is that model broken completely, or is there still something to gain from it?

Alternatively, is there a more direct way for SEO professionals to find users that doesn’t involve pumping information onto the internet?

Is there a completely new way of doing things in SEO, or do we need to work within the wreckage that we have?

Are there other channels that you recommend for user acquisition strategy? How can SEO pros effectively integrate these new channels into their overall approach?

Keeping On Top Of Developing Trends & Technologies

What are the trends and technologies that SEO professionals should be aware of and/or using?

What skills and knowledge do SEO professionals need to develop to thrive in the current search and marketing environment?

Are there any predictions you would like to make?

Preparing For 2025

We feel there should always be an open question so that the contributors can talk about whatever is most pressing on their minds without specific prompting.

So, question three was a “free space” – an opportunity to talk about whatever they wanted.

As usual, the contributors don’t disappoint with their insightful thoughts, both to the prompted questions and to the open invitation.

Going into 2025, a lot is still up in the air, and the state of Google Search doesn’t seem likely to improve quickly.

The expert contributors to SEJ’s SEO Trends ebook have plenty to say about the direction of search and how to build agile, resilient SEO strategies in a tumultuous business climate.

Featured Image: Paulo Bobita/Search Engine Journal

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Nov 12 2024
Filter Bubble: What Playbooks No Longer Serve You? via @sejournal, @Kevin_Indig

Last week, I relived an experience I first had in 2016: I went to bed thinking I’d wake up to our first female president but woke up to Trump.

One personal takeaway from the election result that’s very transferrable to organic growth is the mismatch between perception and reality. You think you’re connected to reality, but you’re actually not. A filter bubble.

Confirmation bias is the juice that gives filter bubbles life.

The most dangerous bias is being married to tactics or beliefs that have worked for a long time but have lost their efficacy.

A question I’ve been thinking about a lot in the last two years as AI disrupts our industry head to toe: Where am I too romantic about my work? What tactics have become empty bullets?

Lost Efficacy

Image Credit: Kevin Indig

Stackoverflow and Chegg have suffered from a structural decline in the last three years. Their business model worked until it didn’t, proudly presented by AI.

In the same vein, many content marketers and SEO pros still operate like it’s 2014: Pump out evergreen content prioritized by search volume and supported by masses of mediocre backlinks.

You might feel a cocktail of “still works” and “not new” reading this line, but in my work as an advisor, I still see a lot of money flowing into this stuff. Too much.

The most common response after months of work and tens of thousands of dollars invested is “SEO takes time.” Just wait and spend more money. But the returns never come. The consequence: wasted effort and eroding trust in leadership.

I see five filter bubbles in organic growth:

  1. Evergreen-focused content marketing.
  2. Direct-response mindset.
  3. Low-brand organic traffic.
  4. Volume link building.
  5. Forgoing customer research.

Content marketing is still well and alive but not in its original form.

Content Marketing Institute’s 2025 B2B report shows that over half of content marketers struggle to measure the results of their efforts and create content that leads to the desired action.

User behavior is complex and not linear. But when so many smart people struggle to measure impact, it raises the question of whether the problem is technology and resources or efficacy.

It doesn’t help that Google updates create instability. The way I phrased it in (Hard)Core Algorithm Updates:

“Google updates have become unpredictable instead of enforcing a straight line, which makes SEO less predictable as a channel.”

SEO can still be very ROI-positive, but it cannot succeed in a silo anymore.

Attention shifted from the open web to (social) content platforms like YouTube and LinkedIn. The soundbite that 40% of Gen Z use TikTok for Search instead of Google is not a feature issue but a generational shift.

Content platforms are all about engagement (see more), not a direct response (click out). Many leaders make the mistake of expecting transactional referral traffic and get disappointed, eventually leaving the playing field for others.

When you look closely, all popular platforms are about engagement.

Google is the last holdout, but AI turns Search into an engagement channel that is not incentivized to send users away because the answer is right there. Users click out to validate and verify but not to get information in the first place.

Engagement leads to awareness, and Google rewards brands that get a lot of searches with more non-branded searches.

If Google’s algorithms taught us one thing over the last two years, it’s that massive amounts of non-branded organic traffic need to be carried by brand (traffic).

In Favoritism, I showed how Google gives brands more visibility in most verticals. “Brand” has replaced links as a factor. They still matter, but not in volume. The ones that are hard to get have the biggest impact. How do you get them? Brand building activities:

  1. Funding rounds lead to TechCrunch backlinks.
  2. YouTube advertising leads to homepage links (if the product is good).
  3. Good reputation leads to publisher coverage.

None of this works without deeply understanding who you want to engage with.

The sad reality is that most marketing teams have no idea where to find customer research or have built ties to customers because performance marketing (metrics) worked too well for too long.

But now that brand is actually important again because it drives engagement (and vice versa), content needs to be inspired by the source: customers.

New Formula

Image Credit: Kevin Indig

The formula for preventing a November 6 surprise in organic growth: connection + authenticity + surround sound.

Connection

The fact that NotebookLM’s traffic surpassed Perplexity in the U.S. when it launched its podcast feature shows the power connection.

Whether you sell to consumers or companies, you sell to people, and the number one thing we crave is connection.

The reason podcasts and Reddit are so successful is because they’re connecting. The opposite of connection is scripted corporate content.

Nobody is interested in generic, faceless content – especially when Gen AI can give an equally good or better answer. But first-person, high-expertise content resonates.

Hearing someone in your ear is much more intimate than reading (as I’m writing this, I painfully remind myself to pivot to video).

An estimated 100 million U.S. Americans listen to a podcast at least once a week.

The projected advertising market value of $2 billion in the U.S. and $4 billion globally in 2024 seems too low when comparing the 48 million views to date Trump’s three-hour podcast with Joe Rogan amassed with the average 3.5 million daily views Fox gets.

The growth of people appending “Reddit” to their queries had grown for years before Google lined the domain up with visibility that matches demand.

Many don’t like the visibility Reddit gets in Search, but it’s a direct result of the desire to connect instead of browse websites.

Marching orders: There’s no doubt companies should invest in Reddit and podcasts.

Whether it’s advertising or organic campaigns, starting your own company podcast is not as important as the question of how you can connect with your audience on these platforms. A few ideas:

  1. An unpolished video of the founder telling the story of the company.
  2. AMAs or behind the scenes on Reddit.
  3. Host-read podcast ads.

The foundation is a deep understanding of what your customers value, their problems, and how they perceive you.

Authenticity

Creating content on engaging channels is not enough. It needs to be “authentic.” But what does that even mean?

I like Seth Godin’s definition: It’s about consistently proofing that who you are is who you say you are. It’s very hard to sell a fake version of yourself in a three-hour podcast. That’s why the format works.

We call a brand or a person authentic when they’re consistent, when they act the same way whether or not someone is looking. Someone is authentic when their actions are in alignment with what they promise.

As sad as it is, Trump’s personality was more important than his policy to voters. Both candidates got very active on the content platform, knowing that 4/10 young adults get their news from TikTok and brands with a strong approach to social media are 8x more likely to exceed revenue goals by +25% than competitors with low social maturity.

But Trump gained double as many followers and hashtag posts than Harris by recording videos with Gen Z influences like Adin Ross or Logan Paul.

Elections, like company Growth, don’t fail or succeed because of one thing, but social media is a gateway to consistently show up with the same story.

Marching orders: Extend brand guidelines beyond just the written word or usage of the company logo.

There needs to be a script for story points, messaging, and audience personas.

Identify employees who have what it takes to be the face(s) of the company on channels like YouTube or Reddit and put them front and center.

Surround Sound

When I speak at conferences, I usually stare into a sea of laptops or smartphones. I do the same when I watch a presentation. We’re constantly distracted and semi-listening.

As a result, connecting and being authentic is not enough to win; you need to be everywhere.

Trump saying crazy things gets him free exposure, and it has worked for him.

HubSpot has one of the most visible blogs in SaaS, but it bought newsletters and built a podcast network for a good reason: to create surround sound.

As the traditional media industry crumbles, companies build small media empires to market themselves.

Marching orders: Figure out where your audience is and double down. YouTube and podcasts are no-brainers. Be smart about content repurposing. Stay on story > stay on brand.

On Target

Today’s Growth landscape is fragmented and disrupted. Strategies that once guaranteed growth may now lead us astray.

Just as the 2024 election revealed a gulf between perception and reality, many in marketing and SEO are trapped in outdated tactics that feel comfortable but yield diminishing returns.

As AI reshapes content, the winning formula is clear: genuine connection, unwavering authenticity, and relentless surround sound forged on deep audience knowledge.

The question is no longer whether organic growth evolves but how rapidly you’ll adapt.

B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends: Outlook for 2025 [Research]

Podcast Listening Hits Record Highs

U.S. Podcast Advertising Revenue Study

Defining Authenticity

Trump’s savvy memes and flashy edits trounce Harris in war for precious views from young voters

Featured Image: Paulo Bobita/Search Engine Journal

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Nov 12 2024
Digital Marketers See Schema Structured Data Shifting Beyond SEO via @sejournal, @martinibuster

An interesting discussion emerged on Twitter inspired by an article written by Jono Alderson. The article proposes thinking about Schema.org structured data markup as a way for emerging AI technologies to better understand and surface published Internet content.

Schema.org Structured Data Markup

The content on a website is called unstructured data because there is no formal organized structure to it that labels each part of the content in a machine readable way. Structured data on the other hand is the exact same content but organized with labels that identify images, authors, and content so that a machine can immediately understand it.

Schema.org structured data markup is generally seen by publishers and the SEO community as something to use in order to make a web page eligible for rich results features in Google. That way of thinking is manifested in the many SEO and Schema.org WordPress plugins that are limited to outputting structured data that Google may use for surfacing rich results.

New AI technologies that can use structured data are here, requiring search marketers to consider a new approach to how structured data is deployed. What Jono encouraged in the article is to think of structured data as a way to create a “data-first foundation” that is ready for the near future.

The article proposes thinking of Schema.org markup as a way to communicate what a web page is about and how it relates to everything else on the website. Jono writes:

“But don’t shy away from building a connected graph of broader, “descriptive”” schema just because Google’s not showing an immediate return. These “descriptive” types and relationships might end up being the lifeline between your content and the AI models of the future.”

Jono tweeted about his article on X (formerly Twitter) and Martha van Berkel, founder of SchemaApp, agreed with Jono’s article that the role of Schema structured data markup is shifting.

She tweeted:

“I agree with you that the role of schema markup is changing. Building a knowledge graph to manage how your website/content is understood with schema, and then asking it questions will be more important than optimizing for Rich Results or for Google.”

Ammon Johns tweeted:

“The biggest issue with Schema is that it is largely just self-declaration, no different in essence to META content, and we know how reliable Google decided that stuff was. So Google will use it, but they are unlikely to fully trust it.”

Ammon is right of course that structured data can’t be blindly trusted. One way to solve that problem is to use a smaller index of high quality websites the wa Perplexity AI does.

Gagan Ghotra tweeted how they sometimes would like to expand their use of structured data but are limited by what the SEO and structured data tools offer.

Read Jono Alderson’s X discussion here.

Read Jono’s article:

What if Schema.org is just… Labels?

Featured Image by Shutterstock/PureSolution

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Nov 12 2024
4 New Techniques To Speed Up Your Website & Fix Core Web Vitals via @sejournal, @DebugBear

This post was sponsored by DebugBear. The opinions expressed in this article are the sponsor’s own.

Want to make your website fast?

Luckily, many techniques and guides exist to help you speed up your website.

In fact, just in the last year, several new browser features have been released that offer:

  • New ways to optimize your website.
  • New ways to identify causes of slow performance.

All within your browser.

So, this article looks at these new browser SEO features and how you can use them to pass Google’s Core Web Vitals assessment.

Why Website Performance Is Key For User Experience & SEO

Having a fast website will make your users happier and increase conversion rates.

But performance is also a Google ranking factor.

Google has defined three user experience metrics, called the Core Web Vitals:

  • Largest Contentful Paint: how quickly does page content appear?
  • Cumulative Layout Shift: does content move around after loading?
  • Interaction to Next Paint: how responsive is the page to user input?

For each of these metrics there’s a maximum threshold that shouldn’t be exceeded to pass the web vitals assessment.

Metric thresholds for Google Core Web Vitals, October 2024

1. Add Instant Navigation With “Speculation Rules”

New Key Definitions:

When websites are slow to load that’s usually because various resources have to be loaded from the website server. But what if there was a way to achieve instant navigations, where visitors don’t have to wait?

This year Chrome launched a new feature called speculation rules, which can achieve just that. After loading the initial page on a website, other pages can be preloaded in the background. Then, when the visitor clicks on a link, the new page appears instantly.

Best of all, this feature is easy to implement just by adding a

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Nov 11 2024
Google Rolls Out November 2024 Core Algorithm Update via @sejournal, @MattGSouthern

Google has released its latest broad core algorithm update for November 2024. This update continues Google’s refinement of search systems to enhance the quality of results.

On X, Google states:

“Today we released the November 2024 core update. We’ll add it to our ranking release history page in the near future and update when the rollout is complete.”

Core Updates Explained

These algorithmic changes, which Google implements several times annually, are designed to improve the overall search experience by reassessing how content is evaluated and ranked.

Unlike targeted updates, core updates affect search results globally across all regions and languages.

What You Should Know

According to Google’s documentation, most websites may not notice significant changes from core updates.

However, some sites might experience notable shifts in search rankings and traffic.

Google recommends that site owners who observe ranking changes should:

  • Wait until the update is completed before analyzing the impact
  • Compare traffic data from before and after the update in Search Console
  • Pay special attention to pages experiencing major position drops (particularly those falling more than 20+ positions)
  • Evaluate content quality using Google’s self-assessment guidelines
  • Focus on sustainable improvements rather than quick fixes

Recovery & Response

For sites affected by the update, Google emphasizes that recovery may take time—potentially several months—as its systems learn and validate improvements.

Specific changes aren’t guaranteed to result in ranking recoveries. Google emphasizes that search results are dynamic due to evolving user expectations and continuous web content updates.

Site owners can monitor the rollout’s completion status through Google’s Search Status Dashboard.

As with previous core updates, Google is expected to announce when the rollout, which typically takes about two weeks, has finished.

Looking Ahead

This marks Google’s final confirmed core update for 2024, following previous algorithmic changes throughout the year.

We will closely assess the impact as the update rolls out across Google’s search results.

Featured Image: Salarko/Shutterstock

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Nov 11 2024
New Internet Rules Will Block AI Training Bots via @sejournal, @martinibuster

New standards are being developed to extend the Robots Exclusion Protocol and Meta Robots tags, allowing them to block all AI crawlers from using publicly available web content for training purposes. The proposal, drafted by Krishna Madhavan, Principal Product Manager at Microsoft AI, and Fabrice Canel, Principal Product Manager at Microsoft Bing, will make it easy to block all mainstream AI Training crawlers with one simple rule.

Virtually all legitimate crawlers obey the Robots.txt and Meta Robots tags which makes this proposal a dream come true for publishers who don’t want their content used for AI training purposes.

Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)

The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is an international Internet standards making group founded in 1986 that coordinates the development and codification of standards that everyone can voluntarily agree one. For example, the Robots Exclusion Protocol was independently created in 1994 and in 2019 Google proposed that the IETF adopt it as an official standards with agreed upon definitions. In 2022 the IETF published an official Robots Exclusion Protocol that defines what it is and extends the original protocol.

Robots.Txt For Blocking AI Robots

The draft proposal seeks to create additional rules that will extend the Robots Exclusion Protocol (Robots.txt) to extend to AI Training Robots. This will bring about some order and give publishers choice in what robots are allowed to crawl their websites.

Adherance to the Robots.txt protocol is voluntary but all legitimate crawlers tend to obey it.

The draft explains the purpose of the new Robots.txt rules:

“While the Robots Exclusion Protocol enables service owners to control how, if at all, automated clients known as crawlers may access the URIs on their services as defined by [RFC8288], the protocol doesn’t provide controls on how the data returned by their service may be used in training generative AI foundation models.

Application developers are requested to honor these tags. The tags are not a form of access authorization however.”

An important quality of the new robots.txt rules and the meta robots HTML elements is that they don’t require naming specific crawlers. One rule covers all bots that are crawling for AI training data and that voluntarily agree to follow these protocols, which is something that all legitimate bots do. This will simplify bot blocking for publishers.

The following are the proposed Robots.txt rules:

  • DisallowAITraining – instructs the parser to not use the data for AI training language model.
  • AllowAITraining -instructs the parser that the data can be used for AI training language model.

The following are the proposed meta robots directives:

Provides Greater Control

AI companies have been unsuccessfully sued in court for using publicly available data. AI companies have asserted that it’s fair use to crawl publicly available websites, just as search engines have done for decades.

These new protocols give web publishers control over crawlers whose purpose is for consuming training data, bringing those crawlers into alignment with search crawlers.

Read the proposal at the IETF:

Robots Exclusion Protocol Extension to manage AI content use

Featured Image by Shutterstock/ViDI Studio

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Nov 11 2024
Drive Over 150K A Month In Brand Search Volume: A Case Study [Webinar] via @sejournal, @lorenbaker

Having a hard time increasing brand search volume and building a strong presence on SERPs, especially in a way that’s not consuming all of your precious time?

Let’s face it: many search marketers find it taking years to build their brand search volume when faced against major, established brand. 

So what if there was a way to speed up this process and see results within months, instead of years?

Join us in our upcoming session, How To Drive Over 150K A Month In Brand Search Volume: A Case Study, where we’ll show you how to fast-track brand awareness and engagement through data-driven techniques and advanced audience analysis.

Why Attend This Webinar?

Making your brand stand out requires a strategic touch and a targeted, data-driven approach. By learning to understand and drive audience search behavior, you can improve your rankings, increase conversions, and even earn high-quality links—without waiting years to see results.

We’ll show you first-hand examples of how one brand created a new market category to solve a problem with conversion rates, along with another brand that grew their volume to over 150,000 organic clicks a month.

What You’ll Learn

Hosted by Kevin Rowe from PureLinq, this webinar will cover real-world strategies to increase brand search volume, backed by proven case studies from top brands. You’ll walk away with:

  • PureLinq’s simple yet effective process for understanding your audience’s search habits and how to use these insights to boost brand awareness.
  • Practical methods for leveraging podcasts, PR, and content marketing to drive more brand search.
  • Steps for breaking into new market categories and creating search demand from scratch.

Who Should Attend?

This webinar is perfect for:

  • SEO professionals eager to drive brand visibility in SERPs.
  • Content marketers focused on increasing brand engagement.
  • Business owners aiming to build brand trust and earn organic clicks.

Live Q&A with Kevin Rowe

Following the presentation, Kevin will be taking your burning questions on building your brand’s visibility. This is your chance to get tailored advice, supported by Kevin’s 15 years of experience in digital marketing and audience engagement.

If you’re serious about increasing your rankings and improving brand search volume, then you won’t want to miss this. Save your seat for this LIVE event and get ready to take your brand’s visibility to the next level.

Can’t make it on the day? Register anyway, and we’ll send you a recording to watch on-demand.

Sign up now to transform your approach to brand search and achieve results faster than ever before!

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