📈

​Google launches the Google Trends API. This API is available for early testers and allows users to compare & merge different trends with consistently scaled 'search interest' data, rather than individual scales on the Trends website.

📊

​Google launches an MCP for Google Analytics 4. A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server enables users to "chat with their data" by directly connecting an LLM to their analytics data.

📑

​Google launches Web Guide, an AI feature that groups search results. Web Guide uses Gemini and AI Mode's query fan-out to reorganise and group results based on specific aspects of the query.

📰

​Google seeks to recruit news companies for new AI licensing deal. Similar to Perplexity and OpenAI, Google is aiming to partner with publishers to provide content for AI Overviews and AI Mode.

👗

​Google launches 'Try on' feature in the US. The previously announced 'try on' feature is now available by tapping on any clothing listing in Google Search, choosing 'try it on' and uploading a full-length photo of yourself.

🔍

​ChatGPT uses Google SERP snippets for answers. It seems that ChatGPT Search is able to pull results directly from Google SERPs, even when the page itself isn't indexed by Bing.

📉

​Google disputes a study that claims only 1% of users click on AI Overviews. Google maintains that users are clicking on AI Overviews and that the study's methodology does not represent overall search traffic.

🧭

​Core Web Vitals introduces soft navigation metrics and measurements. Soft navigations can be enabled in Chrome, allowing users to track users' navigational interactions more accurately.

🧬

​Google ranking systems are "trained on content by humans for humans". Stated by Gary Ilyes at Search Central Live, Google confirms that well-researched, human-centred content is the key to achieving rankings.

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Test, test, this is a test

Sometimes trying to get SEO budget for basic things can feel you like are on trial — and like being on trial, evidence can help! 🧑‍⚖️
​
This is where SEO testing comes in. 🧪
​
With a solid approach, it is possible to use testing to aid your decision making, get buy-in on larger changes where you are being blocked, and settle disagreements.
​
If you're not sure where to start, one of the leading lights on the subject of SEO testing is the eminently qualified Giulia Panozzo. Luckily for you, Jo Furnival from Sitebulb have published a whole one-hour long workshop on SEO testing for you.

​Here's the workshop on YouTube.​

In case you forgot or your average position fell off

Apply a country filter in GSC, does your average position rapidly fall since the start of July? Don't panic!
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We've seen this exact same pattern over multiple client accounts, and I've had 4 people on LinkedIn reach out with similar graphs.
​
I asked John Mueller from Google, and he said:
"It's not an issue with your site, nor how it shows in search. It's also not really a bug."
​
So in short, don't worry about it too much. Apparently we will hopefully have some more information next week 🤷

It's my time to shine, I'm going to take what's mine

In my opinion, something has changed. Negative SEO has come back with a bang. It seems quite possible to trash another website's rankings in Google 🗑️
​
​Martin McGarry has been consistently posting examples of tactics including specific types of spam that seem to be killing organic visibility (data via Ahrefs), and for the first time in YEARS, Candour has started receiving enquiries asking for help dealing with negative SEO that I would consider credible.
​
My advice from what I have observed so far:
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👀 While the general advice of "ignore spammy links" still stands in general, I would keep a closer eye on what is happening with backlink profiles as all of these sites see a massive increase in spammy links.
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🌶️ HOWEVER! Link spam appears to be one of a few components of these attacks. It is useful, as a confirmation and early warning, but it appears other techniques are being used in conjunction for the desired effect.
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💬 Join communities like Noah Learner's The SEO community, there are hundreds of great SEOs there, Googlers are there - and talk about these examples. Ultimately, it is something Google needs to help us solve, but you may be able to get escalation in some cases.
​
🤷 Definitely nothing to lose trying disavow in these instances, although I have seen mixed results here and it is hard to correlation that specific actions to recoveries.

On this day, I crawl clearly

404s don't consume crawl budget, in fact, most 4xx codes, do not. In more detail:
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❌ 1xx status codes DO NOT affect crawl budget
✅ 2xx status codes consume crawl budget
✅ 3xx status codes consume crawl budget per hop
❌ 4xx status codes DO NOT affect crawl budget (except 429)
✅ 5xx status codes consume crawl budget
​
Great share from Kenichi Suzuki from Search Central Live.

Look in the index, what do you see?

Are you wasting your time trying to get pages indexed Pranav Kariya posted this photo from Google's Gary Illyes and Cherry Sireetorn Prommawin at Search Central Live which confirms indexing signals.
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Indexing signals:
✅ Country
✅ Language
✅ HTTPs / Secure site
✅ Core Web Vitals
✅ Links (not nofollow)
✅ Content recency and freshness
✅ Spam policy violations
✅ Hreflang
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These things are NOT indexing signals:
❌ Domain age and history
❌ Structured data
❌ XML sitemap
❌ Crawlability
❌ Link velocity
❌ Logical internal linking
❌ Readability
❌ Topical authority
❌ Content depth & comprehensiveness
❌ Matching search intent
❌ Keyword in H1 tag
❌ EEAT (Experience, Expertise, Authority, Trust)
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Keep in mind:
🕷️ Crawling does not mean indexing
📃 Indexing does not mean ranking
​
Hopefully, there should not be too many surprises in there, but nice to have these things confirmed by

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