SEO tips and updates from Mark Williams-CookSearch with Candour hosted by Jack Chambers-Ward SEO updates you need to know โถ๏ธ Google is testing AI Overviews on YouTube. Video carousels featuring AI highlight clips may appear for product searches and even some local searches. This continues Google's expansion of AIOs into every corner of Search. ๐คณ Users can now review their video verification recordings for Google Business Profile. Video verification can be difficult to get right the first time...
11 days agoย โขย 6 min read
SEO tips and updates from Mark Williams-CookSearch with Candour hosted by Jack Chambers-Ward SEO updates you need to know ๐งช AI Overviews reduce clicks by 34.5% according to a new study of 300,000 keywords by Ahrefs. The test backs up reports of site owners suggesting a 20-40% reduction in clicks as AIOs rolled out. ๐ Site Stats Database has released a free version with data on 10,000 domains, allowing you to find low DA/high traffic sites, filter for HCU/Core Update recoveries, sort by...
18 days agoย โขย 5 min read
SEO tips and updates from Mark Williams-CookSearch with Candour hosted by Jack Chambers-Ward SEO updates you need to know ๐ผ๏ธ AI Mode is now multimodal, allowing users to search using images as well as text and speech. AI Mode can identify multiple objects in an image to build a multi-layered response using Google's 'query fan-out technique'. ๐ Google has filed a new patent for search based on a user's browsing and email history. This uses NLP to help users retrieve previous search results,...
25 days agoย โขย 6 min read
SEO tips and updates from Mark Williams-CookSearch with Candour hosted by Jack Chambers-Ward SEO updates you need to know ๐ GeeksForGeeks, a 70M per month traffic "computer science portal for geeks" website has been deindexed from Google with little surprise from SEOs, although the site is calling it a "temporary issue with Google Search". ๐
Danny Sullivan says Google don't measure brand, but lists some things Google do care about, which are for all intents and purposes the definition of...
about 1 month agoย โขย 6 min read
SEO tips and updates from Mark Williams-CookSearch with Candour hosted by Jack Chambers-Ward SEO updates you need to know ๐ The March 2025 core update completed on 27 March 2025. This roll out took 14 days and is likely the first of many Google updates this year. This update seemed relatively calm, if the discussion online is to go by. ๐
Google has removed the 'AI while browsing' feature. This very controversial feature was announced in 2023 and worked as a type of overlay that could...
about 1 month agoย โขย 6 min read
SEO tips and updates from Mark Williams-CookSearch with Candour hosted by Jack Chambers-Ward SEO updates you need to know ๐ AI Overviews have been found linking to Google SERPs rather than directly to website. This is, understandably, very controversial in the eyes of publishers and feels similar to the recently-discontinued Page Annotations feature. ๐
If users don't use your pages in search, they may fall out of the index. This answer to a user's questions seems to reaffirm Google's Navboost...
about 2 months agoย โขย 5 min read
SEO tips and updates from Mark Williams-CookSearch with Candour hosted by Jack Chambers-Ward SEO updates you need to know ๐ Google's March 2025 core update has begun rolling out. The rollout started on 13 March 2025 and is the first core update of 2025. As always, Google says it may take up to 2 weeks to complete. ๐
LLMs provide "confidently wrong" answers to more than 60% of queries. These inaccuracies range from Perplexity's 37% to Grok 3's staggering 94%. Also, ChatGPT Search was found to...
about 2 months agoย โขย 5 min read
SEO tips and updates from Mark Williams-CookSearch with Candour hosted by Jack Chambers-Ward SEO updates you need to know ๐ค Google tests AI Mode, an upgraded version of AI Overviews. AI Mode uses Gemini 2.0 to conduct multimodal searches for complex queries. It is currently available if you are a Google One Premium subscriber. โซ AI Overviews expand with no sign-in requirements, availability to teenagers and the use of Gemini 2.0. AIOs are used by more than a billion people worldwide and...
about 2 months agoย โขย 6 min read
SEO tips and updates from Mark Williams-CookSearch with Candour hosted by Jack Chambers-Ward SEO updates you need to know โถ๏ธ Video engagement, closed captions and channel authority are some of YouTube's key ranking factors. This study also found that 8-9 minutes is the optimal length and cannibalisation is not a factor on YouTube. ๐งโ๏ธ Chegg, an online study platform, sues Google for stealing their content in AI Overviews. Chegg reports that organic traffic is key to its business and that...
2 months agoย โขย 7 min read