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Your exclusive look at the SMX Next agenda is here

Written on October 7, 2024 at 3:15 pm, by admin

Next month, thousands of seasoned search marketers will gather online to learn next-level SEO, PPC, and generative AI tactics, get in-depth answers to specific questions, and connect with like-minded community members and subject experts.

Are you ready to join them?

Your free SMX Next pass is just a few clicks away, and we can’t wait to host you online, November 13-14. The agenda is now live and ready for you to explore!

It’s all hand-crafted by the Search Engine Land programming committee, including Danny Goodwin, Barry Schwartz, Anu Adegbola, Brad Geddes, Eric Enge, and Greg Finn. Here’s a look at everything you get:

For nearly 20 years, more than 200,000 search marketers from around the world have attended SMX to learn game-changing tactics and make career-defining connections.

Don’t miss your final opportunity in 2024 to join them online for the only training event programmed by Search Engine Land, the industry publication you trust to stay competitive. Grab your free pass now!

Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing




Visual content and SEO: How to use images and videos in 2025

Written on October 7, 2024 at 3:15 pm, by admin

How to use images and videos in 2025

Many businesses are finding their digital marketing efforts falling flat despite producing content regularly. The culprit? 

An outdated approach that neglects the growing importance of visual content in SEO.

With tech giants like Google and Apple prioritizing AI-powered visual search, companies that don’t adapt risk losing visibility and relevance.

Many enterprises lack the centralized strategies and governance needed to effectively manage visual assets across departments.

This article outlines a seven-step process to futureproof your visual content and SEO for 2025.

By implementing these strategies, you can leverage the latest trends, optimize for AI-powered search and significantly boost your online presence and engagement.

How are major giants pivoting features to embrace visual search? 

Google is now integrating video and image content, primarily from YouTube, websites and third-party sites, into the Top Insights section of product and AI-generated search results pages. 

This change provides users a richer, more engaging experience by offering a diverse range of information beyond text-based results and reviews. 

It also allows brands to leverage image and video content to boost visibility and engagement. 

Similarly, Apple has released Visual Intelligence with Vision 3, offering new features such as image segmentation and object detection. 

These new capabilities allow developers to build more sophisticated and powerful applications that utilize visual information.

Why are visual content and SEO challenging for enterprises and SMEs?

The biggest challenges in visual content and SEO include a lack of centralization, inconsistent policies, governance and knowledge across departments.

Search is multimodal, meaning content creation should focus on customer intent, considering images, videos, PDFs and all other touchpoints and channels. 

It is evolving beyond text to include diverse visual content. This shift requires a customer-centric approach that prioritizes intent and experience. Many companies struggle with implementing consistent best practices for visual assets across departments.  

With the rise of AI-powered search, it becomes even more critical to centralize all visual assets, ensure they are optimized and consistently distribute them across all channels.

Dig deeper: Visual optimization must-haves for AI-powered search

Top trends in visual content and SEO

visual-search-seo-trends

Featured images and interactive short-form videos

Personalization

Mobile dominance

In-video interaction

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7-step process to futureproof your visual content and SEO in 2025

7-steps-to-futureproof-visual-content

Well-chosen featured images or videos significantly boost a website’s click-through rate (CTR) and encourage user engagement. 

It is important to follow best practices such as image relevance to content, high quality, appropriate file size and format and mobile optimization.

1. Curate

Compile a list of all channels, vendors, departments and touchpoints where visual content is created and consumed.

2. Centralize

Establish policies to organize your content. Ensure all images and videos reside in a digital asset management (DAM) system and are accessible via a content delivery network (CDN). 

All channels should access images directly from the DAM, avoiding multiple copies of the same image or video sitting in file folders.  

3. Optimize

Use high-quality, relevant images with appropriate file formats, image tags, sitemaps and structured data to enhance discovery and visibility. 

Leverage Google NLP to check for content marked as inappropriate and prioritize images relevant to the search query. 

Ensure visual content doesn’t affect site speed by using next-gen image formats and implementing lazy loading.

4. Distribute

Ensure content is consumed from one central location. Use cloud infrastructure and a CDN to host and distribute your assets efficiently. 

5. Application, experience and infrastructure

Leverage entity search to gain a competitive edge by implementing a clear visual hierarchy and enhancing content scannability. 

Well-structured, topical pages with relevant images and videos perform better. Develop snackable videos for your unique selling proposition (USP) and customer reviews. 

Create content suitable for visual snippets, such as how-to guides and recipes. The goal is to optimize for Google’s multisearch feature, which combines image, video and text searches. 

Infrastructure is one of the biggest gaps most businesses face. 

Most DAM systems are designed only to store images and lack the capability to optimize them easily. 

Having a DAM that provides real-time scoring of your asset quality and connects seamlessly with your websites and other channels is essential. 

Dig deeper: Future-proofing digital experience in AI-first semantic search

6. Governance and checklist

Establish robust governance and checklists around quality, consistency and usage across all departments. 

Continuously test which images are performing well in SERPs and conversions to refine your checklist.

7. Metrics and KPIs

Develop metrics to track SERP and rich snippet saturation, presence in AI overviews, overall click-through rates (CTR), clicks from visual search, engagement rates and page bounce rates.

As Google and other search engines incorporate conversational AI, short videos, images, and social media posts into search results – shifting away from traditional website listings – these strategies will help you effectively use visual content in 2025. 

Success stories

Using the seven-step process as mentioned above, our clients were able to drive phenomenal success for their images on search. 

A popular hotel in Georgetown saw a 104% increase in the number of times images appeared in search results versus the previous period. 

Search results appearances lift: 

Success-story-1-search-results-appearances-lift

A Massachusetts Resort and Spa saw a staggering lift in its visual search performance:

Search results appearances lift: 

Success-story-2-impressions-lift 

Impressions lift: 

Success-story-2-search-results-appearances-lift  ​

Dominate visual search with well-optimized images and videos

Video and images are powerful tools for enhancing SEO and boosting online visibility. As LLMs become increasingly skilled at understanding and generating both text and visuals, you must prepare for more integrated visual-textual content creation and optimization strategies. 

By prioritizing these areas, you can stay ahead of the curve in visual content and SEO for 2025. Embracing the latest technologies and features released by major tech companies will enable you to enhance your online presence and improve searchability.

Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing




Structured data and SEO: What you need to know in 2025

Written on October 7, 2024 at 3:15 pm, by admin

What you need to know in 2025

Many search engines rely on structured data to enhance user experiences – and this trend will likely intensify in 2025. 

For this reason, structured data is no longer a “nice-to-have” but an essential part of any SEO strategy. 

Here’s what you need to know about structured data, including why it matters, important trends, key schema types, advanced techniques and more. 

What is structured data?

Structured data is a standardized format for organizing and labeling page content that helps search engines understand it more effectively. 

Google uses structured data to create enhanced listings, rich results and various features in search engine results pages (SERPs).

Being included in these features can boost your website’s visibility and organic reach, especially in entity-based searches.

Vocabulary

The most commonly used vocabulary for structured data is Schema.org, an open-source framework that provides an extensive library of types and properties. 

Schema.org includes hundreds of predefined types, such as Product, Event or Person and properties like name, price and description

Format

The preferred format for implementing structured data is JSON-LD (JavaScript Object Notation for Linked Data), which is endorsed by Google and other search engines. 

JSON-LD encapsulates structured data within a <script> tag, keeping it separate from the core HTML. 

This approach makes it more flexible, easier to implement and less intrusive. JSON-LD is particularly useful for dynamic content on larger websites.

Validation

Correct implementation of structured data is essential to be eligible for rich results. 

To verify that structured data is properly implemented and can be processed by search engines, use tools like: 

These tools check for errors or omissions in the schema, ensuring the markup is valid and effective.

Dig deeper: What is technical SEO?

Why structured data matters more than ever

Structured data enables search engines to interpret website content more deeply, enhancing how pages are indexed and presented in search results. 

It allows brands to reach audiences in less competitive areas of search, such as voice and image search, allowing sites to drive traffic and engagement outside of traditional SEO. 

Zero-click search and brand authority

More and more SERP features, like knowledge panels and featured snippets, depend on structured data to provide answers directly in search results. This means users can get information without clicking through the publisher’s site.

This rise of so-called zero-click searches, has made structured data even more indispensable in SEO. 

While these features offer limited opportunity to drive visits, they can boost organic impressions, enhance brand recognition and maintain user interaction with the brand. 

Being regularly shown in the rich results reinforce top-of-mind awareness (TOMA) – and in the E-E-A-T world, a trusted and authoritative brand is crucial for success in SEO.

Key schema types to use in 2025

While new schema types emerge regularly and should be tested where relevant, several “evergreen” types have proven their effectiveness over time.

Ecommerce

Product schema (often used together with Offer and Review schema) is essential for ecommerce, providing details about products, such as price, availability and reviews. 

This schema powers rich snippets like product carousels and review stars in SERPs, significantly improving click-through rates. 

Merchant listings (a combination of Product and Offer schema) can be a great way for new ecommerce sites to gain early visibility and traffic through Google Shopping.

AggregateOffer schema is ideal for marketplace websites, as it enables multiple vendors’ offers to be represented for the same product, allowing users to compare prices and options.

Informational

FAQ schema allows websites to present common questions and answers directly in the search results. 

It is highly effective for improving user engagement by providing concise answers for conversational queries and can appear in rich results and voice search.

Q&A schema is designed for pages where users can submit questions and multiple answers are provided and is often found in forums or community-based platforms. 

It powers a Q&A carousel that features both questions and answers directly in the SERP, increasing visibility and CTR for long-tail queries and conversational searches.

Article and WebPage schema can boost visibility in Google News, Discover and top stories carousels and get exposure in voice search.

Events

Event schema is used to mark up details about virtual or physical events, such as concerts, conferences, webinars or local meetups. 

It provides specifics like the date, location, start and end times, ticket availability, and performers. This information can be included in Google’s event listings, enhancing visibility in local or event-related searches.

Newly supported properties for BroadcastEvent and ScreeningEvent enhance how live events and screenings are presented in search.

Dig deeper: How to deploy advanced schema at scale

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How to use structured data in 2025

While the applications below are not entirely new, their importance is set to increase through 2025 as user behaviors continue to shift.

Entity-based search

Entity-based search is where search engines prioritize entities – people, places, things and concepts – over individual keywords. 

Instead of focusing on isolated words and relationships between them, search engines now better understand connections between entities and how they fit into a broader context. 

Structured data like Person, Organization or Place schema can clearly define relevant entities, enhancing their visibility in Knowledge Graphs and entity-based results. 

Likewsie, SameAs schema can be used to help search engines understand that an entity mentioned on one page is the same as an entity mentioned elsewhere. 

By marking up an entity with SameAs and linking it to trusted external sources, such as Wikidata, Wikipedia or authoritative social media profiles, it’s possible to reinforce the association and improve its recognition and reach in Knowledge Graphs and rich search results. 

Dig deeper: How to use entities in schema to improve Google’s understanding of your content

Speakable

Speakable schema (in beta at Google) is an important tool for optimizing content for voice search results. 

It helps search engines identify which sections of a webpage are best suited for audio playback, including Google Assistant-enabled devices using TTS. 

The goal is to provide concise, clear answers to users’ questions in spoken format. This is especially useful for news websites and publishers, as they can mark up critical content to be featured in voice responses. 

Multimodal search

Multimodal search allows users to query search engines using various forms of input, such as text, images and voice, sometimes combined in a single query. 

This is largely driven by AI models designed to process multiple data types simultaneously. 

Structured data like VideoObject and ImageObject ensure that multimedia content is properly understood, indexed and ranked. 

Schema nesting

Schema nesting allows for the representation of more complex relationships within structured data.

By nesting one schema type within another – such as a Product schema within an Offer schema, further nested within a LocalBusiness schema – it’s possible to communicate layered information about product availability, pricing and location. 

This enables search engines to understand not just individual data points but how they are connected, leading to more contextually rich search results, like specific local availability and offers tied to individual businesses. 

Another example might be a Recipe schema nested within a HowTo schema, further nested within a Person schema. 

This communicates that a specific person (author or chef) created the recipe, which in turn contains step-by-step instructions on how to prepare the dish. 

This setup would enable search engines to display rich snippets that include the recipe’s creator, ingredients and cooking instructions in a clear and organized manner.

While the primary benefits of schema nesting include improved contextual understanding and enhanced rich results, nesting also adds flexibility for meeting different search intents, allowing search engines to prioritize information based on the query. 

Maximize your search visibility with structured data

Structured data is already a critical driver of SEO success for many websites, both large and small. 

With hundreds of schema types, dozens of Google SERP features and increasing applications in AI and voice search, its importance will only continue to grow in 2025. 

As Google and other search platforms continue to change, carefully and creatively leveraged structured data can provide a significant competitive edge, allowing to gain visibility in existing features and prepare for future opportunities. 

Dig deeper: How schema markup establishes trust and boosts information gain

Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing




The art of AI-enhanced content: 8 ways to keep human creativity front and center

Written on October 7, 2024 at 3:15 pm, by admin

As artificial intelligence (AI) becomes increasingly integrated into content creation, it’s easy to feel like the human element of writing might be overshadowed. 

While AI offers powerful tools that enhance productivity, streamline workflows and even generate content, it’s essential to retain your personal touch to create engaging and authentic material. 

This article explores how you can balance AI with your creativity, ensuring your unique voice shines through.

1. Understand AI’s role in content creation

AI tools can help generate ideas, draft content, edit and optimize for search, making content creation faster and more efficient. 

However, AI lacks the nuanced understanding of human emotions, context and cultural insights that come naturally to humans. 

Recognizing AI’s limitations is the first step in using it as a supportive tool rather than a replacement for human creativity.

Use AI for repetitive tasks, not original thought

AI excels at handling repetitive tasks, but it falls short when it comes to the subtleties of original thought, humor and storytelling. 

By delegating routine tasks to AI, you can free up valuable time to focus on the creative elements that rely on human intuition and personal experience.

Dig deeper: AI content creation: A beginner’s guide

2. Use AI as a creative partner, not your replacement

Think of AI as a co-creator. It’s there to assist, suggest and optimize – not to replace your unique voice.

AI can provide a structural backbone or help refine your content, but your ideas, insights and personal experiences are what will set your work apart.

Refine AI outputs with human insight

AI-generated content often needs a human touch to make it relatable and engaging.

Review and edit AI suggestions to align them with your voice, adding personal anecdotes, humor and insights that reflect your expertise and personality.

Dig deeper: How to make your AI-generated content sound more human

3. Customize AI to match your voice

Many AI tools offer customization features that allow you to adjust settings to match your preferred tone, style and language. This ensures that AI outputs align more closely with your established brand voice.

Define your voice

To ensure consistency, take time to define your writing style. Are you formal, conversational, witty or authoritative? 

Establish guidelines that reflect your voice and regularly tweak AI settings to match these preferences.

Dig deeper: 3 ways to add a human touch to AI-generated content

4. Provide clear prompts and feedback to AI

AI relies heavily on the quality of the instructions it receives. 

Vague prompts can lead to generic content, while detailed, contextual prompts can produce outputs that better reflect your intentions.

Give context-rich prompts

Instead of generic commands, offer AI tools with specific guidelines. 

Don’t just ask AI to “Write an article introduction.” 

Try “Write an engaging introduction for a blog post about sustainable fashion, targeted at eco-conscious millennials, in a friendly and approachable tone.”

Dig deeper: Advanced AI prompt engineering strategies for SEO

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5. Enhance emotional resonance with AI content

AI-generated content can often feel sterile or detached. 

While AI is good at generating logical and coherent text, it struggles to evoke emotions. Enhancing content with emotional resonance is where human creativity comes into play.

Add emotion, empathy and authenticity

After the AI generates content, go through it with a fine-tooth comb to add emotional elements that AI might miss. Infuse the text with empathy, humor, passion or urgency to make it more engaging.

6. Personalize content for your audience

AI can analyze data to personalize content suggestions based on user preferences, but it’s your understanding of your audience that will make your content truly resonate. Use AI’s insights as a guide, but rely on your knowledge of your readers to fine-tune the final product.

Blend data-driven insights with human understanding

AI can highlight what topics are trending or what keywords to focus on, but only you can interpret this data in a way that speaks directly to your audience’s needs and values.

Dig deeper: How to build and retain brand trust in the age of AI

7. Keep your creative process transparent

Transparency about your content creation process can actually enhance trust with your audience. 

Letting readers know that AI aids in content creation while emphasizing the human touch reinforces the value of your insights and creativity.

Share behind-the-scenes insights

Consider sharing how you blend AI and human creativity in your workflow. This transparency can build a connection with your audience, showing them that while you use advanced tools, your unique voice remains at the core.

Dig deeper: AI-generated content: To label or not to label?

8. Embrace AI without losing yourself

The ultimate goal of integrating AI into content creation is to enhance your capabilities, not replace your essence. Remember that AI is a tool – an incredibly advanced and helpful one – but your creativity, judgment and personal touch are irreplaceable.

Stay true to your voice

Regularly revisit your content to ensure it aligns with your personal or brand voice. AI should amplify what makes your writing special, not dilute it.

By staying true to your style, you ensure that your audience connects with the real you, even in an AI-enhanced world.

Crafting authentic content in the AI era

Balancing AI with human creativity requires a thoughtful approach that leverages technology’s strengths while preserving your authentic voice.

You can achieve the best of both worlds by treating AI as a creative partner, offering clear guidance and incorporating personal insights.

AI can enhance efficiency, improve accuracy, and spark new ideas, but it’s your creativity, empathy and unique touch that will truly resonate with your audience.

Use AI strategically, ensuring your authentic voice remains the highlight of your content. After all, while AI is here to stay, it’s human intelligence that drives meaningful connections.

Dig deeper: Future of AI in content marketing: Key trends and 7 predictions

Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing




SEO grew up, a lot of SEOs didn’t

Written on October 5, 2024 at 9:14 am, by admin

SEO grew up, a lot of SEOs didn’t

When we were young, we all wanted to sit at the adult’s table. But we couldn’t, often, because of our behavior.

Growing up, we often thought we were cool, but we weren’t. Look back at your past. There are probably photos or things you did that you find questionable today.

This is exactly how we SEOs should be looking at our work. SEO has grown up a lot; we SEOs didn’t. 

Our mindset is a problem when tackling challenges like needing a strong brand or satisfying users the most.

❌ What we do:

This is the wrong approach. 

✅ What we should be doing: 

To finally grow up, we have to look into the mirror. We have to change.

If you are pressed on time, here’s a quick rundown of what I suggest you should start doing today:

Disclaimer: This is not a purely tactical guide. My goal is to make you think. Motivate you to ask yourself tough questions and provide you with the necessary mindset to fill out the shoes of adolescence. If you get one good thought from this I’m more than happy.

Let’s get into the trenches: This is how we grow up!

Embrace change as an opportunity to grow

When we were children, we didn’t want to accept that change was inevitable. As we grow up, we realize it’s much easier to accept the world for what it is than to strive for what it should be. 

“You don’t get to dictate the course of events. And the paradoxical reward for accepting reality’s constraints is that they no longer feel so constraining.”

– Oliver Burkeman, “Four Thousand Weeks

The same should apply to our SEO mindset.

Change can be old tactics no longer working (like putting white text on a white background; I only mention this because some website owners still do this today) or new things appearing on the horizon, like generative AI.

Many of our SEO playbooks are outdated, and forces are pulling on us to change. Here are two examples:

We often don’t have a crawl budget problem, but an indexing problem

Indexing is becoming harder. 

From what we know, the size of Google’s index seems to be more or less static (about 400 billion documents). Due to AI, we are:

More content of a higher quality baseline vs. same index size = it’s harder to get indexed. 

A graph of Google's index size (which stays stable), and an increasing quality threshold after 2022, when ChatGPT launched. The spot, where the growth for the quality threshold increased, is marked with a box.

Google is allergic to technical issues and low-quality content.

Google’s fierce changes in ecommerce searches

Google is under pressure to become a shopping engine.

As a result, Google renovated the SERPs for commercial queries. 

In 2023, Google started to push a new feature: product grids.

An example SERP for the keyword ebikes. Beneath the sponsored ads and refinement options, there is an integration called "Popular products". Under the headline there is a grid of 5 products in each row. No regular organic listing is in sight.

Categorized as “Merchant Listings,” these grids appear in commercial searches at Position 1 more and more often. 

Based on my research for German SERPs, depending on the industry, product grids appear in position 1 between 15-45% of the time.

Thanks to some research done by Kevin Indig for the U.S., we know Google changed the rate of them appearing in Position 1 more often than in Position 3 around March 2024.

If your domain doesn’t play a role in product grids but your competitors do, you are in for a tough time.

The solution: Reframing problems as opportunities

Problems are what make life worth living. A problem can be reframed as a challenge or an opportunity. The cards are shuffled again, doors are opening up, and we are all new to these things. 

Here’s a practical reframing example from a talk by Carrie Rose I heard this year: 

Main takeaways: 

Double down on things that never change

On the one hand, we don’t want to change our behavior. On the other hand, our brain craves novelty, constantly looking for a dopamine hit. 

I know it’s very easy to be sucked in. New trends like AI chatbots, AI phones, AI toothbrushes. All good. But you have to avoid the shiny toy syndrome and embrace what will always matter.

If you focus on the things that never change, you can predict the future.

There lies great power in what you can’t measure

It will always pay off to do what is logical and rational. 

Google of 2004 is not Google of 2024. Just because Google cannot measure something right now doesn’t mean it cannot in the future. One example is having author bios and pages.

Due to the leak, we have our answers now, but having author bios and pages just because Google “wants” them didn’t make sense.

Things that cannot be measured are often underestimated and easily ignored. Fun fact: A metric is often more useful if it is harder to measure.

Prefer the repeatability in the present over the luck of the past

Luck is something positive that is not predictable. Repeatable means puzzle pieces falling into place like they used to. They are not the same.

In SEO, we love to look at what others did and you should. But focus on what is repeatable, not what was lucky.

You cannot follow in the footsteps of Amazon or HubSpot, as their operating conditions fundamentally changed. However, there are things worth learning from them.

Do what is repeatable; don’t try to emulate what was lucky.

Some more things that will never change

To draw on the Amazon example, Google will always need users to be satisfied with their search product. At least as long as this is their biggest revenue source.

One of your goals, in this case, should always be to have “best in the world content,” not good content.

In the SQRG, Google tells us exactly what they want. They have been doing so for years:

Make no mistake: The next update is coming. The next disruption of the SERPs you operate in is coming as well.

It’s much better to invest in preparation over prediction. What we can’t see coming hits us the hardest.

Main takeaways:

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Stop manipulating, start taking responsibility

Do you remember that when you were a kid, you often tried to manipulate and cheat in games?

In Germany, there is a game called “Mensch ärger dich nicht,” which roughly translates to “man, don’t be angry.”

I took chances to roll the dice again because someone “distracted me,” for example. This also happens often in golf and is known as a “mulligan,” so you get a pass and can take another shot.

At times, SEOs are like children who don’t want to accept the rules, cheat when no one is looking and love to blame others for our failures.

Examples of SEO manipulation practices

SEO is a breeding ground for manipulative tactics, and everyone knows the good old tales. Here are a few classics and recent ones:

A graph showing organic traffic and referring domains across the span of 2022 to 2024. In February 2024 the curve for referring domains exploded. There is another text in the image that says "Someone wanted to earn a quick buck"

If you want to be taken seriously in SEO, don’t take shortcuts. Like Sonia Simone said, they take too long.

Why Google can’t tell us the truth

It’s easy to point fingers at Google. To call them liars and whatnot. Anyone with a clear mind has to understand that they cannot tell us exactly what is going on behind the curtain. If they did, at least a small group of SEO goblins would do everything in their power to ruin the game for everyone else.

SEO is the perfect example of the tragedy of commons. 

“Each man is locked into a system that compels him to increase his herd without limit – in a world that is limited. Ruin is the destination toward which all men rush, each pursuing his own best interest in a society that believes in the freedom of the commons.”

– Garrett Hardin, “The Tragedy of the Commons

A graphic visualizing the tragedy of commons. There are 3 different stages. Everyone behaves well, a few cheaters, and a lot of cheaters. The environment, equipped to handle only no cheating behaviour, deteriorates over time.

Some of us just can’t behave properly and break the system for everyone else.

Yet here we are, proud of engaging in our questionable get-rich-quick schemes, which no one would publicly endorse as employees of a real brand or big company.

Incentives beat intentions, unfortunately

Recently a guide on how to manipulate Reddit got a lot of traction. I understand what the intentions of the author were: Make things better. But I don’t agree with the approach and methods used to do it.

This is not an ad hominem case as this is not an individual problem.

Firstly, Google is blamed for creating incentives to spam Reddit. However, the article itself promoted incentives to do the same with the actual manual on a silver platter.

Publicly sharing the techniques to spam Reddit is promoting to spam Reddit even more, no matter how you put it. And it was never wise to fight fire with fire.

Also, people generally like Reddit and find the answers helpful. It’s no coincidence that they have these numbers: 

I’m not saying there is no spam. But we don’t know the denominator here. If you seek a needle in a hay stack you will find one.

Secondly, Google is blamed 100% for the consequences of the Reddit spam. I don’t agree.

If you would look at the chain of responsibility through the eyes of several great philosophers, like Kant, Aristotle or Sartre, you would come to the conclusion that users taking advantage of the spam techniques are to blame first, then the platform (= Reddit) and then Google (= the middleman).

The chain of responsibility. It emphasizes that it starts with the user, even if Reddit and Google are enabling and incentivizing cheating behaviour.

FYI: Others cheating doesn’t give you permission to do the same. Enabling and incentivizing these tactics is not a free ticket to cheat, either.

Look into the mirror: If spammers wouldn’t spam there would be no problem, so the root cause is our sometimes unbearable human nature.

The blame is (also) on us, not (just) the others

It’s more comfortable to blame others than to check on ourselves. 

“Google got worse” is one on the trendiest topics of 2023 and 2024. 

“Before Content Marketing was a thing, idiots did not publish content. You wouldn’t write encyclopedia articles without knowing anything. Now, we created a perverse incentive for any idiot to write about anything. We sit in a mountain of garbage.”

Peep Laja, CEO, Wynter

What if Google didn’t get worse, but the ratio of good to bad content shifted?

If you fill a glass with more water (bad content) than wine (good content), the relative amount of wine in the glass decreases, even if the quality of the wine itself is good. It becomes harder to serve good content.

Google is responsible for their search results, but we are responsible for the mountains of garbage we produce.

German study presumably claimed Google got worse. Their argument, only focusing on a small query subset in a specific niche, is insufficient to make such claims. It’s not even what they said but what people want to believe.

According to Statista, users are once again slightly more satisfied with Google search. And yes, according to the 286-pager on Google being a monopoly, Google tried to devaluate search quality to test the impact on revenue. But that test only lasted three months. 

No one can predict if there wouldn’t be a negative impact on revenue in the long term, which is all that matters.

Let’s assume for a moment that this was true: Google got worse and our domains were demoted in favor of some big digital publishers. How would the confirmation of this bias actually help me?

It doesn’t.

Yes, I can and should be vocal about it. But a lot of time and energy goes into being negative. Negativity is like a candy rush. It distracts us, so you need to avoid it.

Author Ryan Holiday hit the nail on the head with this quote: 

“In our own lives, we aren’t content to deal with things as they happen. We have to dive endlessly into what everything “means,” whether something is “fair” or not, what’s “behind” this or that and what everyone else is doing. Then we wonder why we don’t have the energy to actually deal with our problems.”

We need this energy wasted being negative in working on achieving positive outcomes, like crafting the best content out there or being the most helpful resource for our target audience.

Loopholes are risky short-term arbitrage opportunities, not long-term safe bets

A loophole is not a real competitive advantage, but a short-term arbitrage technique that brings a lot of risk with it. If revealed to the outside, there can be grave consequences. 

I loved this from Alex Birkett recently LinkedIn:

“Shortcuts in SEO often bring a sugar high, but they also come with a crash. […] If you treat it like a get-rich-quick scheme, you’ll need to ‘fix the plumbing’ later.”

Some things, like reputation, are not worth risiking, no matter how much there is to gain. Think of Sports Illustrated for example

Building a good reputation takes years. Setting it on fire can happen in seconds. 

Main takeaways: 

Communicate und understand SEO as a growth engine, not as routine maintenance/polishing the edges

The grand finale: SEO has gotten a lot bigger.

Keeping SEO small and limited might be a way to avoid change. Could this be why many SEOs were reluctant to admit that Google uses user signals in their ranking algorithms?

Less change = SEO is smaller = more comfortable + less risky.

As outlined at the beginning, change is an opportunity. We walk into the fire of discomfort only to step out of it stronger, wiser and better.

SEO in 2024 is nothing like it was in 2004 or 2014. The fundamenta principles are the same, but we are driving a much different vehicle now with much more horsepower under the hood.

SEO is the wrong word for what we are actually doing

Digital publishers often get two-thirds or more of their traffic through SEO. A lot of companies rely heavily on organic traffic.

Some examples like Hardbacon had to file for bankruptcy as a result of the HCU and other updates. Some are or were on the cusp of it, like HouseFresh, Retro Dodo and Healthy Framework.

SEO stands for search engine optimization. But 70% or more of traffic share vs. other channels doesn’t sound like optimizing to me.

Optimization sounds like squeezing the last 5-10% out of what you already have. Limited and marginal.

The problem is that we all have different understandings of SEO, so we are not talking with each other but past each other.

To some, SEO means fixing mistakes/bugs. To others, myself included, SEO means (almost) limitless growth.

Fixing and optimizing is not enough:

A graphic highlighting that fixing and optimizing are not enough in form of a pyramid. The bottom is fixing, the middle is optimization, and the top is building. Building increases the overall potential, so it's a symbol for growth.

To visualize the idea further, see the following graphic:

An explanatory graphic that shows the relationship between fixing, optimizing, and building. Fixing increases the existing potential, optimizing reaches the existing potential, and building increases the overall potential.

Here are some things you need to communicate, understand and execute SEO as a growth engine:

Finding your (real) competitive advantage

The last bullet point is especially important. It’s something that is missing quite often, from my experience.

Why should I buy from you? Why is your content the best in the world? The answer has to be the opposite of the “jumping the line” techniques criticized earlier.

The obvious question is how you get or find your real competitive advantage. It’s part of a good strategy. A strategy is always unique to a company. 

In “Good Strategy, Bad Strategy,” Richard Rumelt says the kernel of a strategy involves three pieces:

To find a competitive advantage, you need to ask the right questions, like:

A SWOT analysis can be a helpful tool here. An alternative to getting started is to list all the abilities and assets that make your brand you and then answer the last two questions.

Examples of abilities or assets could be that you:

Main takeaways:

We have work to do

I hope a lot of what I said is something you heard at least once already. But like Christian Morgenstern said (translation by me): 

“Sometimes you see something 100 or 1,000 times until you really see it for the first time.”

We have work to do.

Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing




The SEO impact of interstitials, before and after

Written on October 5, 2024 at 9:14 am, by admin

The impact of interstitials before and after

Recently, an SEO client of mine lost 82% of desktop organic traffic to their homepage in one month.

Then, there was another 97% decline in desktop organic traffic in the second month. 

Why? 

The client launched a mobile and desktop pop-up for all United States visitors. Against my advice, the client hoped the conversions would outweigh the decline in organic traffic.

impact-popup-interstitial-mobile-desktop

Here is a breakdown of the intrusive interstitial and its impact on organic traffic. 

The impact of before and after an interstitial on mobile and desktop

The homepage pop-up was related to a promotion and not triggered based on a time delay or scroll. 

Here is an example of a mobile pop-up: 

impact-popup-interstitial-bad-example.PNG

In the example above, the pop-up also negatively impacts the responsive design. 

Here is the example on desktop: 

impact-popup-interstitial-bad-example-desktop.png

In addition to the drop in organic traffic, the homepage lost 97% of its keyword rankings on desktop. 

organic-keyword-trends-impact-popup.png

And saw a 96% decline in mobile rankings for the homepage.

Organic keyword trends - mobile.png

Most of the impact was on branded terms, indirectly impacting the reduction in PPC branded spend. 

It also negatively impacted our page experience and page speed. 

The website also saw a 10-second decline in page speed. 

Before the launch of the pop-up, the website averaged a 3-second load time.

page-speed-impact-pop-up

And a 13-second load time after the launch of the pop-up. 

page-speed-pop-up-impact-after.png

You can see the negative impact across page experience with the pop-up with a large number of layout shifts. 

The homepage saw a 97% decline in organic traffic cost value overall. 

There is no interstitial penalty or manual action

The intrusive interstitial effects rankings, not indexing. 

However, other areas of impact may occur, such as soft 404 errors, server speed and the site’s overall page experience. 

Remember, Google crawls from the U.S., so if those overlays are only present in European countries, Google will not detect them. 

The negative impact of interstitials is a demotion in search

When Google rolled out the Google mobile interstitial penalty on Jan. 10, 2017, it had a shockingly quiet impact. A few days later, SEO professionals started seeing pages lose 10 or more positions in rankings.  

When the Google page experience hit desktop sites in February 2022, intrusive interstitials were included as a signal. 

It’s important to remember that interstitials do not require manual action (at least not yet), but they still negatively impact your page experience. 

Google’s John Mueller stated in an SEO Office Hours on Jan. 22, 2021:

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4 examples of bad interstitials

1. Checking to see if you’re a spammy bot is bad

Gary Illyes from Google posted on LinkedIn, mentioning:

Example: 

In short, there are other ways to avoid spammy bots from hitting your site.

If you detect a bot, Mueller recommended serving a 5xx status code to manage the robot detection interstitial

If you run a hosting service and have a “you might be a bot” interstitial, make sure it uses a non-200 HTTP result code (perhaps 503) and that it doesn’t have a noindex on it. Serving a noindex+200 will result in pages being dropped from search, if search engines see it. pic.twitter.com/LFGQcq2dzf

— John ???????? (@JohnMu) January 17, 2022

2. Redirect to interstitial page 

If you show a user page A in the SERPs but redirect it to page B after the click and page B includes a pop-up or interstitial page, search engines will not detect content outside the redirected page. 

3. Only displays interstitial 

Here is an example of a pop-up display that covers the body copy: 

popup-example-bad-interstitial

4. Store locator pop-ups

Store locators are really hit or miss on pop-ups. 

Here is an example of a good location locator pop-up: 

Instead of a pop-up, Xero opts for a banner ad. 

Once you click the “Change region” button, you’re brought to this option to select a region. 

interstitial-example-pop-up-store-locator-region

4 examples of good interstitials

1. Displaying a cookies policy interstitial 

Legal interstitials are OK, just as long as search engines can index the content without doing anything special, like asking search engines to click on something to load the background content. 

This means GDPR and cookie policies are fine.

Here is an example of a cookies policy built with a pop-up window:

interstitial-example-cookies-policy-popup.png

Here is another example of a cookies policy built with a banner at the bottom (my preferred method):

interstitial-example-cookies-policy-banner.png

Mueller mentioned in Google Webmaster Office Hours that Google is trying to recognize these legal banners as separate from advertising banners.

2. Requesting age verification

Age verification classifies as a legal pop-up, so there are no issues with these.

Here is an example of an age pop-up done well:

interstitial-example-age-verfication-popup.png

3. Leveraging banners at the top and bottom

Here is an example of Samsung’s promotional ad banner:

popup-example-samsung.png

4. Exit intent pop-ups that are time or scroll-based

If you’re going to launch a pop-up, I recommend using an exit intent pop-up based on time on the page (20 seconds or more) or scroll depth.

Stay tuned for more updates on the recovery of the interstitial pop-up

I’ll be updating this article as I get more data on the impact of removing the interstitial and recovery.

Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing




Decoding Googlebot crawl stats data in Google Search Console

Written on October 4, 2024 at 6:14 am, by admin

Tucked away in the Settings section of Google Search Console is a report few SEO professionals discuss, but I like to monitor.

These reports are known as Crawl Stats.

Here, you’ll find an interesting set of metrics on Googlebot crawl activity. These metrics are especially useful for websites with thousands or millions of pages.

Googlebot ‘Crawl stats’ 

Long ago, Google Search Console had easy-to-find metrics on Googlebot crawl activity. Then, it seemingly disappeared.

In reality, it was tucked away in the Settings section.

How to access the crawl stats reports:

Googlebot Crawl stats in GSCView the report in Google Search Console

About the crawl stats data

As Googlebot crawls your site, Google tracks and reports on various aspects of Googlebot’s activity and reports on it in Google crawl stats.

This is where you’ll find high-level statistics about Google’s crawling history on your website. 

Google says this data is for advanced users

The Googlebot Crawl Stats data is not for the technical SEO rookies.

Google specifically says this data is aimed at “advanced users” with thousands of pages on their site, which may be why it’s located in such an unusual location, unseen by many in the SEO community.

One reason Google may perceive this as an advanced report is that so many things can influence these metrics, including network issues and cloud delivery services such as Akamai.

Who will find crawl stats most useful?

I find the Crawl Stats reports less of an “advanced” set of reports but something that’s more useful to enterprise SEOs without crawler monitoring tools such as Lumar and Botify. 

When doing SEO on an enterprise website with thousands or millions of pages, crawler optimization is a vital task, and crawler activity metrics provide important insight for defining action items.

Smaller sites likely do not need to worry too much about crawler activity because there is probably enough crawl budget allocated to your site to crawl at an appropriate pace. 

On the other hand, enterprise sites tend to have far more pages that need to be crawled, discovered, and/or refreshed than Google crawls their site each day.

For this reason, they must optimize for crawler activity, which is a tool to help guide next steps.

What to look for in this data

After years of reviewing this data across many sites, I have one primary rule:

Often these reports are interesting but not actionable.

Example fluctuations that I tend to investigate: 

When to look at this crawl stats

Crawl stats are good to peruse (and log) at least once a month.

They are especially good to monitor after major releases, such as a platform migration or major redesign. This will help you quickly understand how Google is responding to your newly launched changes.

Remember: If you have a bot monitoring tool such as Lumar or Botify, then this data isn’t as useful as you’ll find in the bot monitoring data provided by these tools.

Caveats about the crawl stats data

Many things can influence Google’s crawl stats metrics beyond a normal dev release.

This means the SEO team, product manager(s) and developer(s) must think outside the box when evaluating the fluctuations.

You must consider what could have caused an increase or decrease in Googlebot crawl activity, not only in your release but also within the network and tech stack.

Changes to something such as Akamai could potentially impact this data. 

Log the crawl stats data in a spreadsheet

This is data I like to archive because Google reports such a small window of time.

A great example of this is a challenge I’m facing now with a client. What is reported in GSC right now looks like things are improving:

Things are ImprovingSeemingly, things are improving

However, because I have metrics from six months ago, I can say that these metrics are 40% higher than they were six months ago.

While they’re trending down, they’re still worse than they were in the past. The client’s challenge is that development has no idea why this is happening (unfortunately, solving that problem is beyond the scope of this article).

You may think to just grab a screenshot. However, it makes it very hard to compare over time.

Notice there is no left axis in the chart. You really cannot tell what the lines reflect. (Note: Numbers do appear on the left/right axis when you are only viewing two metrics in the chart)

Instead, drop this data into a spreadsheet. Then, you have actual data that can be charted over time, calculated and used to compare with other metrics, such as visits. 

Having the historical data in one place is often useful when discussing major changes with development to show how much better the metrics were 4-6+ months ago. 

Remember, development likes hard, specific data, so charts with actual numbers on the left/right axis (or worse, no numbers on the x-axis at all) will be more useful to you than charts with varying numbers on the x-axis.

Remember, the reports boxes are paginated

Though the most important metrics you’ll need are likely visible in the default view, many of the report sections are paginated – and they’re easy to miss! 

Paginated reports boxes

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Which metrics to monitor and why

Let’s get into the primary metrics to look (very quickly) each month, along with a few tips to take away action items from the data:

Total crawl requests

Total crawl requests

Total download size (byte)

Total download size (byte)

Average response time (ms)

Average response time (ms)

Crawl requests breakdown by response 

Crawl requests breakdown by response 

Crawl requests breakdown by file type

Crawl requests breakdown by file type

Crawl requests breakdown by crawl purpose

Crawl requests breakdown by crawl purpose

Crawl requests breakdown by Googlebot type

Crawl requests breakdown by Googlebot type

You can click into each metric for more data

Often when you present any SEO concern to product managers and developers, they often want to see example URLs. You can click on any of the metrics listed in this report and get example URLs.

An interesting metric to look at is “other file types” because it’s not clear what’s in the “other file types” category (often it’s font files).

The screenshot below shows the examples report for “other file type.” Every file listed is a font file (blurred out for confidentiality reasons).

Crawl requests - other file types

In this report of examples, each row reflects one crawl request. This means if a page is crawled multiple times it could be listed more than once in the “examples.” 

As with all Google Search Console reports, this is a data sample and not every request from Googlebot.

Do you share these metrics with developers and product managers?

These metrics will typically generate one of two thoughts: 

In my experience, the answers to “what caused that” tend to require the input of product managers and/or developers.

When presenting the data and your questions about potential causes for issues, remember to clearly explain that these metrics are not user activity and solely represent Googlebot’s activity and experience on the website.

I find product managers and developers often get a bit confused when discussing this data, especially if it doesn’t match up with other metrics they have seen or facts they know about the site. 

By the way, this often happens for most Google Search Console data conversations.

If there are no Crawl Stats fluctuations or correlations to be concerned about, don’t bring it up to development, nor product management. It just becomes noise and prevents them from focusing on more critical metrics.

What’s next? 

Check out your crawl stats to make sure there are no spikes or correlations that are concerning. 

Then, determine how often you want to look at these and set up systems that prompt you to check these and other Google Search Console metrics in a systematic, analytical method each month.

While you check out your Googlebot Crawl Stats, I’ll write Part 4 in this series that will talk about how to know which URLs you should focus on for technical SEO improvements and in particular, Core Web Vitals metrics.

Dig deeper

This is the third article in a series recapping my SMX Advanced presentation on how to turn SEO metrics into action items. Below are links to the first two articles:

Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing




How AI is advancing advertising and changing consumer engagement

Written on October 4, 2024 at 6:14 am, by admin

Artificial intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing consumer engagement and transforming the landscape of search, according to James Murray of Microsoft Advertising, who spoke at SMX Advanced.

Here are the key points he raised in his presentation, exploring the paradigm shift in search technology and its implications for advertisers and marketers.

The expanded search box: A gateway to nuanced queries

Murray highlighted a seemingly small but significant change in search: the expansion of the search box: 

From:

To:

This physical enlargement represents a fundamental shift in how users can interact with search engines.

No longer confined to short keyword phrases, users can now express complex, nuanced queries that more accurately reflect their true intentions.

For example, instead of searching for “cheap holiday Rome,” users can now input detailed requests like:

“Could you provide a Rome weekend itinerary for a family of 2 adults and 2 children aged 6 and 4. We want a mix of historical culture and fun activities, and the kids want to eat as much pizza as possible.”

This level of detail allows AI-powered search engines like Microsoft’s Copilot to understand context and provide more relevant, comprehensive responses.

Murray said:

AI’s Impact on search capabilities

Murray then explored the key advancement of integration of AI into search:

Murray explained:

Understanding true intent

AI-powered search engines aim to understand the underlying question behind a query, going beyond literal interpretation to grasp context and user intent.

Current search engines often provide broad, surface-level answers, but struggle to understand the deeper intent behind user queries.

For example, when someone searches for “Cancun weather in March,” the real underlying question might be about what to pack for a trip.

Murray said that search engines should evolve to better grasp and address the true, more nuanced intent behind users’ searches, rather than just offering basic information and related suggestions:

Evolution of AI search usage

Murray outlined three stages in the adoption of AI search tools:

  1. Initial curiosity (2023): Users explored the capabilities of AI tools, testing their limits and discovering new opportunities.
  2. Knowledge and action: As users became more familiar with AI tools, they began to find new use cases and develop greater proficiency.
  3. AI in action (2024 and beyond): Users are becoming increasingly comfortable with AI tools and are extracting tangible value from them in their daily lives and work.

New possibilities for users and marketers

He then took us on the journey of how the advent of AI-powered search has opened up new avenues for users and marketers:

Expanded capabilities

Users can now perform tasks that were previously impossible or time-consuming, such as generating content, analyzing data and writing code.

Increased efficiency

Studies show that users can complete tasks and reach decisions up to 50% faster using AI-powered search compared to traditional search methods.

These are driving forward new ways of thinking and more efficient ways of being able to, you know, use engines for what we need them to do, which is ultimately get to the answers that I need, get that relevant information.

Enhanced advertising opportunities

Marketers can leverage these new search capabilities to create more targeted, relevant ad experiences for users in several ways.

Ads were built into the Copilot experience from day 1. Murray said if you’re optimizing for your core search experience, you’re also optimizing at the same time for the Copilot experience.

What Microsoft are doing is taking the same ad creatives and content that advertisers create for search, and are replicating them within the conversational experience as well.

Murray highlighted the searcher has been transformed to deeper, more rich, engaging, conversations.

The more that advertisers can make ads visual, whether that’s using image extensions or some of the product feeds, or, new sort of formats like multimedia ads.

The more visual you can make them, the more they will likely stand out and then, the better they’re likely to get in terms of your click through rate.

Examples of marketers leveraging AI

Implications for marketers

Murray highlighted three key implications for marketers in this new AI-driven search landscape:

1. Quality and visibility

Ensuring high-quality, crawlable content is crucial for visibility in AI-powered search results. Tools like IndexNow can help keep content fresh and discoverable.

    Murray suggests “revisiting and thinking about your SEO strategy, making sure that all of your content is crawlable.”

    2. Hyper-personalization

    The detailed nature of AI search queries allows for unprecedented levels of personalization in ad targeting and content delivery.

      Murray clarifies here that this isn’t a result of data collection, saying that being able to be detailed with answering questions is “not because we are being invasive in terms of how much data we can stack and track on what people are, doing and and the demographics of who they are.”

      3. Creativity and efficiency

      AI tools can assist marketers in various tasks, from writing headlines to conducting SWOT analysis, fostering creativity and improving efficiency. It can even “showcase some blind spots that you might have in your creative campaign,” Murray said.

        The future: Multimodal AI

        Looking ahead, Murray touched on the concept of multimodal AI, which can process and generate content across various formats (text, image, video, audio).

        This advancement promises even more exciting possibilities for search and content creation.

        He shared an example – a picture of a rocket launch. By feeding just the image and asking AI about it, AI was able to tell us the specific event depicted in the image.

        Unlock new levels of creativity, efficiency and productivity

        The evolution of search in the age of AI represents a significant shift in how users interact with information and how marketers can reach their audience.

        Murray encourage us to notice the small things and, quoting Liz Vassey (an American actress):

        Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing




        Change Who Pays: New Google Ads process for client account transfers

        Written on October 4, 2024 at 6:14 am, by admin

        Google is introducing a new process – Change Who Pays – for transferring your client accounts to a new agency’s manager account.

        Details. Google Ads sent an email sent to users about the change:

        What to do. You will need two details to complete a transfer:

        Google Ads support page. Transfer your client account to another agency

        Why we care. As Georgi Zayakov put it on LinkedIn: “Finally, advertisers may now initiate this change directly within the Google Ads manager account themselves, without needing to reach out to the support team.”

        The email. Here’s a screenshot of the email, shared by Zayakov:

        Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing




        Google rolls out new AI-organized search results, AI Overview links

        Written on October 4, 2024 at 6:14 am, by admin

        Google is starting to roll out AI-organized search results today, as well as the new links and citations format in the Google AI Overviews.

        AI-organized search results. The new AI-organized search results, as we covered in May, are now rolling out in the U.S. Google wrote:

        This includes search results organized by web, including articles, videos, forums and more.

        Google said in its testing, searchers “have found AI-organized search results pages more helpful. And with AI-organized search results pages, we’re bringing people more diverse content formats and sites, creating even more opportunities for content to be discovered.”

        Here is what it looks like:

        New links and citations in AI Overviews. In August, Google began testing new links and citations in the AI Overviews – and now that new format is going live.

        Google told us they are now rolling out this new design globally to all countries where AI Overviews are available.

        Google said in its tests they’ve “seen that this improved experience has driven an increase in traffic to supporting websites compared to the previous design, and people are finding it easier to visit sites that interest them.”

        Here is what they may look like:

        More AI news. Google also announced other news about AI and Search. Here are the highlights:

        Why we care. As Google and other search engines continue to innovate around AI and search, it is important to continue to watch the ongoing tests and launches of these features. AI Overviews have continued to evolve since it was announced as Search Generative Experience in May 2023. Plus, AI has been added to countless areas of Google Search and other products.

        Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing