SEO tips and updates from Mark Williams-CookSearch with Candour hosted by Jack Chambers-Ward SEO updates you need to know β οΈ Google has updated its spam policy with several notable changes, including talking about sites using "extensive automation to product content", likely meaning human-tweaked AI content. π Some recent recoveries after the August core update are being reversed. The volatility continues as some sites that were hit particularly hard by last year's HCU are now seeing their...
9 days agoΒ β’Β 5 min read
SEO tips and updates from Mark Williams-CookSearch with Candour hosted by Jack Chambers-Ward SEO updates you need to know π·οΈ Google will label images as taken by a camera, edited or AI-generated. This will include an update to the 'about this image' feature and will roll out to ads and YouTube as well. ποΈ Google is testing a 'Top Quality Store' badge on SERPs. This had previously been tested on mobile but has been seen in organic desktop results recently. This is similar to the other features...
16 days agoΒ β’Β 6 min read
SEO tips and updates from Mark Williams-CookSearch with Candour hosted by Jack Chambers-Ward SEO updates you need to know ποΈ Google Search results now link directly to The Internet Archive's Wayback Machine. This new relationship between with the non-profit archive site follows up on Google removing cached pages on SERPs earlier this year. π Google will now sanction GBP accounts with fake reviews, with three levels of severity. The potential restrictions include not receiving new reviews,...
23 days agoΒ β’Β 5 min read
SEO tips and updates from Mark Williams-CookSearch with Candour hosted by Jack Chambers-Ward SEO updates you need to know π Initial reactions to SearchGPT, OpenAI's prototype search engine, have been mixed so far. Users have reported the typical hallucinations and incorrect information but also some better performance for certain types of queries. β 26% of URLs ranking in SearchGPT don't receive traffic from Google. This could present new visibility opportunities. SearchGPT uses Bing's index...
about 1 month agoΒ β’Β 6 min read
SEO tips and updates from Mark Williams-CookSearch with Candour hosted by Jack Chambers-Ward SEO updates you need to know βοΈ Google may use the og title as a source for your title on the SERPs. OG data is seen when content is shared on social media. It is customisable on most CMS platforms so may be worth including in your future content audits. π§βοΈ Yelp has sued Google regarding their "monopoly of local search". This is another in a long list of lawsuits Google has been hit with regarding...
about 1 month agoΒ β’Β 8 min read
SEO tips and updates from Mark Williams-CookSearch with Candour hosted by Jack Chambers-Ward SEO updates you need to know π« The Federal Trade Commission has banned AI-generated reviews. The FTC chain announced that these reviews "waste people's time and money", this has the potential to impact local SEO, with some companies buying reviews. π€ Google has confirmed the AI Overview links and citations are impacted by Google Core Updates. When asked, Google's John Mueller said "These are part of...
about 1 month agoΒ β’Β 5 min read
SEO tips and updates from Mark Williams-CookSearch with Candour hosted by Jack Chambers-Ward SEO updates you need to know π Google has launched the August 2024 core update. This appears to be a response to the September 2023 Helpful Content Update with some affected sites beginning to see some recovery for the first time according to Lily Ray. β An ongoing issue is affecting rankings in Google Search. This incident was first reported on 15 August 2024 and Google has confirmed that it is...
about 2 months agoΒ β’Β 5 min read
SEO tips and updates from Mark Williams-CookSearch with Candour hosted by Jack Chambers-Ward SEO updates you need to know βοΈ A federal judge has ruled that Google is an illegal monopoly and violates anti-trust laws. This decision comes primarily from Google's practice of paying companies such as Apple to be the default search engine on their devices. π΅οΈ Google is introducing recommendations to Google Search Console. This is different to the Insights feature and will provide suggestions about...
about 2 months agoΒ β’Β 6 min read
SEO tips and updates from Mark Williams-CookSearch with Candour hosted by Jack Chambers-Ward SEO updates you need to know π There may have been a big Bing update launched at the end of May 2024. Glenn Gabe has reported significant volatility, the largest since Bing's previous update in January 2023. πΊοΈ Google may make hreflangs less important with a shift towards automatic language detection. Gary Illyes, on Search Off The Record, said that he thinks organic search "will rely less on...
2 months agoΒ β’Β 5 min read