🛍️

​ChatGPT Search adds new shopping features. Product suggestions can now appear in carousels and will pull details from structured data. OpenAI also confirmed that these are organic results, not ads or sponsored products.

🖥️

​Google's AI Mode expands to include local results and products cards. AI Mode is also being tested for users who haven't opted in and, if you do want to opt in, the waitlist has been removed so any adult in the US can try AI Mode.

🔍

​Google adds a new search function to Merchant Centre. The 'Search for Products' function allows users to find products using pre-made filters including no. of clicks, region and if they've been manually edited.

⚡

​Google updates its merchant listing documentation about energy efficiency. Google has replaced the EnergyConsumptionDetails properties with certificationIdentification to ensure clearer, certified information for users.

⌚

​Google confirms how before: and after: search operators work. These operators are still in beta and not every article includes published and/or updated dates so the results aren't always accurate.

🕷️

​Google adds new IP addresses for their crawlers, including Googlebot. This means it's worth checking your list of allowed & blocked IP address, just in case you're blocking these new Google crawlers.

📊

​33% of Google users continued to use Bing after a two-week trial. This study challenges the notion of users choosing their preferred search engine based on simple factors such as quality and accuracy.

🖼️

​An Adobe study finds that 36% of users start their searches with Pinterest. This supports the theory that users will use multiple search engines in their search journey, especially for visual searches. Also, people still use Pinterest in 2025?!

🧑‍⚖️

​A federal judge confirms Yelp's antitrust case against Google. Yelp sued Google in August 2024 (we covered this previously) with claims that Google's monopolistic actions reduced the success of Yelp and other search engines.

🤝

​Google announces Deep Dive, a new multi-day conference that will be launching in Asia. On the Search Off the Record podcast, Gary & Cherry confirmed the plan for a series of in-depth events around the world.

📱

​Meta launches standalone app to rival ChatGPT and Gemini. Meta AI can already be accessed across most Meta apps (WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram etc) but this is the first step towards a standalone AI chatbot.

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Don't trust all "LLM optimisation" advice

Make no mistake, people offering “LLM optimisation” by using bots/Turk to spam user feedback is no different to blackhat SEO and will not be risk free.

You have been warned ☝🏻

Maybe...you don't need to use JavaScript after all?

The best optimisation tip for JavaScript is, if you don’t need to use JS, then don’t 🙂

via Martin Splitt at Tech SEO Summit​

Automation can be simple, if you want it to be

​Roxana Stingu just did a brilliant talk at Tech SEO Summit on automation workflows for SEO and suggests if you have automations to help your SEO, you can usually use something simple like GitHub Actions to schedule them.
​
This is unlike 'the old days' when you would need your own machine to run these jobs, it's super easy now!

Not all bytes are created equal

"Not all bytes are created equal". 100Kb of Javascript may have more of a performance impact on your website than a "heavier" 1Mb image file.
​
While browsers are quite efficient at handling images, the process of downloading, parsing, compiling and executing JS is far more nuanced.
​
Another useful tip from Martin Splitt at Tech SEO Summit ✨

Consensus is not a ranking factor

While Google may measure "consensus", this does not mean that your page must conform with the consensus to rank. ⤵️
​
There are many search terms which don't have an objectively "correct" answer, and Google therefore may seek to get a mix of views. 🚦
​
This can however answer why you are not ranking. if you've produced "agree with consensus" content and your client is saying "why don't we rank, our content is better by every measure of what is in #2 and #4" - that may be true, but Google specifically wants neutral or disagreeing documents for that place. ☝️
​
It's not that your content is bad, it just doesn't fit the recipe of what they're trying to cook! 👨‍🍳
​
​Steve Toth made a neat tool using ChatGPT (which is a great use for an LLM) to consensus check which you can find here.​

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