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SEO

Google Hints Lowering SEO Value Of Country Code Top-Level Domains

Matt G. Southern shares an interesting update about the decreasing value of country-code top-level domains (ccTLDs) in SEO. Gary Illyes says that the ccTLD benefit could disappear “like in years’ time". Some of the takeaways:

• Creative use of ccTLDs for branding can make them unreliable for geographic targeting.

• Focus on quality content and hreflang tags for international SEO.

• ccTLDs might still hold some branding value despite reduced SEO benefits.

How Google Handles JavaScript Throughout the Indexing Process

MERJ and Vercel team up to clarify common misunderstandings about how Google handles JavaScript in the indexing process. They explore various myths, from concerns about Google’s ability to render client-side JavaScript to the belief that JavaScript-heavy sites face slower page discovery. By analyzing over 100,000 Googlebot fetches, they reveal that Google is capable of rendering and indexing modern JavaScript frameworks and dynamically loaded content.

How People Search: Understanding User Intent

Dan Taylor dives into the nuances of user intent in SEO and how understanding it can elevate your content strategy. He breaks down the different types of search intent, including informational, navigational, and transactional, and explains why catering to these intents will help boost your site's rankings and meet user needs.

SEO Ripples

• The next Google Core Update isn’t “extremely far away” as John Mueller addresses the ongoing issue of missing image thumbnails in search results. He advises publishers to hold tight and keep optimizing their sites for quality, as the update is incoming. And the Core Update after the next one isn’t “extremely far away” either 😂 

• Google’s Daniel Waisberg's YouTube video offers a handy guide to Google Trends, explaining how it samples and normalizes data to provide insights into search behavior. He walks through the tool's features, like exploring trending topics and comparing search interest across different categories. It's a great primer for anyone looking to understand search data better and use it to inform their content strategy.

• Barry Schwartz covers changes to Google autocomplete predictions following criticism involving Donald Trump. The update aims to ensure more accurate and relevant suggestions, especially around sensitive topics like political violence. Barry details how these improvements affect searches for various political figures.

AI

Google Photos AI Editing Suite is Now Available to All Google Photos Users

Google Photos’ AI editing tools are now available to everyone, offering features like Magic Editor, Magic Eraser, Photo Unblur and Portrait Light.

Flux by Black Forest Labs: The Next Leap in Text-to-Image Models

Flux by Black Forest Labs is the new text-to-image open-source model offering incredible image quality and prompt adherence. You can play around with the playground demo and its 3 variations after logging in with your Github account.

My Take: The Wave 200 image in the intro was created by Flux (it did take about 15 iterations to get to that). My usual go-to Midjourney wasn’t able to get this done as well.

Google Pulls Gemini AI Ad from Olympics After Backlash

Google removed its recent "Dear Sydney" ad for the Olympics. The ad featured a father using Google's Gemini AI to write a letter to Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, a US track star, on behalf of his daughter. Many felt the ad missed the mark, as it seemed to replace a heartfelt, personal gesture with AI-generated content. Critics argue that fan letters should be a genuine expression of admiration, not a polished, automated message. Victoria Song explores the backlash and Google's response.

My Take: When I was a kid, I used to write to my favorite baseball players for autographs. My kids love to write letters now too and I can’t imagine letting my kids use AI to write letters to Santa and the Tooth Fairy.

Meanwhile…Google’s own Gary Illyes says this too…

Google Advises Caution With AI Generated Answers

Google's Gary Illyes advises caution, suggesting that while AI tools like LLMs can produce relevant responses, they may not always be factually accurate. Illyes emphasizes the importance of verifying information using authoritative sources, reminding us that personal knowledge and critical thinking are irreplaceable.

My Take: Does he lump Google’s own AI Overviews under that? Unless glue for pizza and eating rocks is healthy are “factually correct?” Unless AIO doesn’t use a LLM? In which case, it might be better to use a LLM since ChatGPT doesn’t recommend eating glue for pizza or eating rocks.

But then again, he does say that he “might be an LLM,” so it’s a Google LLM writing that post.

AI Ripples

• OpenAI’s Advanced Voice Mode alpha is out to some ChatGPT Plus users. Advanced Voice Mode offers more natural, real-time conversations, allows you to interrupt anytime, and senses and responds to your emotions.

• The Google team have just released Gemma 2 2B model and some additions. They've introduced ShieldGemma, a suite of safety content classifiers to help keep AI interactions safe, and Gemma Scope, a tool for understanding AI decision-making. They’re comparing it to GPT-3.5, even though GPT-4o mini has already replaced 3.5. Maybe Gemma 2 2B isn’t as good as 4o mini 😏 

• Microsoft officially names OpenAI a competitor, even though they have invested $13 billion into OpenAI. Microsoft listed OpenAI as a competitor in AI offerings and in search and news advertising in its latest annual report.

• Kayleigh Barber dives into Perplexity's new revenue-share publisher program, aiming to mend relationships with (big) publishers. This initiative offers a share of ad revenue to publishers whose content helps answer users' queries. Initial participants include Time and Fortune. The specific revenue share percentage is not disclosed. For the majority of us, it doesn’t make a difference because we’re not big enough 😅 

• New York Times blocks ChatGPT from scraping its site, but it’s not a problem because they just scrape DNuyz, a large news pirate. Maggie Harrison Dupré discusses ChatGPT citing plagiarized versions of NYT articles from a notorious content mill.

MARKETING

AI In Marketing Copy: A Surprising Sales Killer, Study Finds

Matt G. Southern explores the negative impact of mentioning AI in marketing copy, revealing that it can actually reduce consumer trust and purchase intent. The study, published in the Journal of Hospitality Marketing & Management, suggests marketers need to rethink their approach when discussing AI with products and services, especially high-risk products with financial or safety stakes.

My Take: I’m definitely the same way. In fact, on TopicalMap.com in the descriptions, we specifically say “Not AI-generated” because so many of the topical map competitors use AI (whether they say it or not). If we ever decided to offer an AI product, we would say it’s AI too. It’s all about being upfront about it because people are spending their money with you.

UK Publishers Implement 'Consent or Pay' Pop-ups to Address Privacy Concerns

Bron Maher discusses how major UK publishers like Mail Online, The Independent, Daily Express, and Daily Mirror are implementing "consent or pay" pop-ups. These pop-ups ask readers to either accept third-party cookies or pay for a cookie-free experience, with fees ranging from £1.99 to £4 per month. This approach aims to address the growing number of users opting out of cookies, impacting ad revenue. While paying users will still see ads, their data won't be shared with advertisers.

LINK BUILDING

8 Proven Personalized Email Outreach Techniques

Vince Nero shares personalization in email outreach. He offers practical strategies to make your emails stand out. Personalized touches, like using the correct name and referencing recent work, can significantly boost response rates.

My Take: Many of these tips are ones that I would respond to. I get so many messages from people with a generic “Hi, Hello, How are you” and I never respond to them because I know they’re pitching something. Just get to the point or at least personalize it so that I know you put some effort in and actually interested in “me.”

TOOLS AND RESOURCES

• Content Raptor - Rank tracker PeakSERP was injected with Jurassic World DNA and is now a full-fledged content optimization tool, renamed the Raptor. It’s highly intelligent and reads your GSC to give you the high opportunity pages to prioritize, which you can rewrite with its AI, and then connect to your WordPress site. All for only $10 per month too. There’s a 7-day free trial, so no risk.

CASE STUDY

Analysis of AI Overview Visibility in Google Search for Trending News

John Shehata dives how AI Overviews are shaping the experience for trending news. The analysis reveals a notable decrease in the presence of AI Overviews, particularly in sensitive news categories, while health news sees a higher occurrence. Some of the highlights:

• AI Overviews currently appear in only 3.9% of trending news searches, down from 15%.

• Health news leads with a 29.6% visibility rate for AI Overviews, the highest among all categories.

• Business news saw 1.7% of queries generating AI Overviews, while sports and national news had almost none.

• Authority still matters. Sites like mayoclinic.org and ncbi.nlm.nih.gov frequently appear as sources in AI Overviews.

Top 5 After Riding 200 Waves

After 200 newsletter issues from Niche Surfer to Digital Surfer, let’s revisit the Top 5 list of links by unique clicks.

1. TopicalMap.com - Topical Depth Analyzer App

2. James Brockbank and Digitaloft - 11 ‘About Us’ Page Examples that Brilliantly Demonstrate E-E-A-T

3. Samuel Schmitt - Learn from this Real-Life Topic Cluster Example to Build your Website Structure

4. Daniel Trick and FATJOE - What is Parasite SEO? 

5. Tan Siew Ann and Semrush - 9 Pillar Page Examples

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