📊 Core Updates: GSC adds social media search tracking and generative AI controls expand outside of UK [13 July]


SEO tips and updates from Mark Williams-Cook
Search with Candour hosted by Jack Chambers-Ward

SEO updates you need to know


📊

Google Search Console adds search tracking for social media with new properties. These properties help creators understand which search terms lead users to their content across Instagram, TikTok, X and YouTube.

⚙️

The generative AI controls in Google Search Console appear to be expanding outside of the UK. The controls were first launched earlier this month in the UK, but users are reporting that the options are appearing for non-UK accounts.

📅

Google explains that re-evaluation for canonicals can take up to two weeks. The updated documentation says that the process of differentiating pages can be sped up if the difference is more significant and clear.

🤖

Google adds AI disclosures to ads in Search, YouTube and Discover. The new 'How this ad was made' panel explains if an ad has been created or edited using generative AI.

🛑

Google says that Cloudflare's robots.txt directive to control AI actions is ignored by crawlers and LLMs. Google's John Mueller says that the Content Signals directive only adds bloat and future maintenance to your robots.txt file.

🛒

Google adds new structured data properties for merchant listings. The new Category and Sale Duration schema types allow merchants to be more specific about the type of product category and how long a sale will run for.

📈

Google Search reaches an all-time usage record during Argentina vs Egypt on 7 July. Events like the World Cup often drive a huge number of searches and this seems to rebut the 'Google is dead' idea that many have stated recently.

📍

'No reviews yet' error affects multiple Google Business Profiles. This error appears for owners trying to reply to reviews, despite the public listing still showing the correct number of reviews.

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Search with Candour podcast

Tactics for ranking in AI search

Season 4: Episode 79

Léo Poitevin, founder and CEO of Astrak Agency, joins Search with Candour to discuss why your competitors may be recommended in ChatGPT and other AI search tools while you are not.

Topics discussed:

  • Why AI search engines are easier to manipulate than Google
  • How to identify competitors in AI search
  • How to build trust signals for AI search
  • How to use listicles and guest posts to rank in AI search
  • The risks of self-promotional listicles

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Core Updates SEO Newsletter

The Core Updates newsletter is written by Mark Williams-Cook, a veteran SEO who is Digital Marketing Director at Candour, Founder of AlsoAsked and organiser of SearchNorwich. Over 40,000 SEOs follow Mark's 'Unsolicited #SEO tips' on LinkedIn, which has now been wrapped up into the Core Updates newsletter, along with an overview of weekly news and the current episode of the Search with Candour episode, hosted by Jack Chambers-Ward.

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