A Koala Goes Digital Surfing

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SEO

Record-Breaking Google Search Ranking Volatility Continues Into October

🎢 Website owners continue reporting wild swings in rankings and traffic. Barry Schwartz says Google Search ranking volatility has reached record-breaking levels. This unprecedented period of fluctuation has lasted longer than any previously recorded. He notes spikes in volatility throughout September and into early October, citing data from multiple SEO tracking tools.

Phase II of Google's Mobile-First Indexing is just Chrome

Cindy Krum dives into Google's use of Chrome data in her talk "Monopolies and Manipulation." She discusses how Google is leveraging Chrome to collect vast amounts of user data, far beyond what most people realize. This data is then used to power Google's search algorithms, ad targeting, and AI development:

• Google may be using Chrome to render and process web pages on users' devices, reducing their own computational costs.

• Core Web Vitals and other performance metrics likely rely heavily on real user data collected through Chrome.

• Chrome updates may correlate with algorithm changes as Google refines its data collection methods.

• Chrome extensions and APIs may be collecting detailed system usage data, even in "incognito" mode.

My Take: So let me get this straight - WE are 'human bots' that unknowingly use our own computers and phones to crawl websites for Google and provide them with information about how humans interact with websites? It’s been out there that Google uses Chrome and user interactivity to help with search engine rankings, but this feels like it’s another level of intrusion. I feel dirty. I’m going to take a long shower after finishing this issue.

Did Google Hit Forbes Advisor With A Search Penalty Over Site Reputation Abuse?

Forbes Advisor may have been hit with a Google manual action (finally), potentially due to site reputation abuse. The story began when Lars Lofgren exposed Forbes Marketplace's aggressive SEO tactics on September 18th. Shortly after, Glenn Gabe shared data showing a significant drop in Forbes Advisor's search visibility across multiple directories. This decline appears to be isolated to Forbes, suggesting a targeted penalty rather than a broader algorithmic change. The timing coincides with Google's recent update to its spam guidelines, which now include more details on site reputation abuse.

My Take: Google can only still take manual actions against site reputation abuse, so the key takeaway here - If you want to keep earning with that site, keep your mouth shut and hope the site doesn’t get discussed on X. Or if you can’t help yourself, make plans for how to generate income off the notoriety.

Google's Latest Search Updates: AI-Powered Lens, Video Queries, and AIO Ads

Google Search showcases how AI continues to evolve the way we interact with the world around us. Google Lens now allows users to ask questions about videos, not just images, and voice queries are also integrated into Lens for easier searches. They’re also expanding shopping capabilities by letting users search for products in real-time through photos.

Want more AI? Starting with recipes and meal inspiration on mobile, full-page AI-organized search results(!) 🥳 It just doesn’t get any better than this:

And stuck way at the bottom of the announcement: “Following positive feedback, we’re starting to bring ads in AI Overviews to the U.S. for relevant queries…” Apparently didn’t want to put too much focus on it.

The Next Step in Bing Generative Search

Bing shares the evolution of Bing's generative search capabilities from the early view in July, Bing is now expanding its AI-powered search to deliver more comprehensive answers for informational queries. The update aims to create a seamless experience that goes beyond surface-level results, helping users explore topics in greater depth. Martinez highlights how you can test drive this new functionality by searching for "Bing generative search" or using the "Deep search" button on results pages.

Google Updates Their Spam Policy Documentation

Roger Montti gives an update on Google's revised spam policy documentation. Google made several key changes to improve clarity and provide additional details on their spam-fighting efforts. There’s a new definition of site reputation abuse, more information on manual action consequences, and a shift from "thin affiliate pages" to "thin affiliation." Google has also refined their language throughout, emphasizing "spam practices" and introducing the concept of "abuse" more prominently. See Google’s spam policies here.

SEO Ripples

• Ben Walton and David Yule from the Google Search Site Reliability Team (SRE) talk with Gary Illyes on the Google podcast about keeping Google Search running smoothly. It’s more about keeping search up and running, so don’t expect anything about ranking algorithms. But if you’re an engineer, maybe you’ll enjoy it.

• Matt Southern covers an Aleyda Solis interview with Google Search Liaison Danny Sullivan. They discuss Google's increasing push towards user-generated content (UGC) in search results with Danny citing growing user demand for authentic, firsthand perspectives and poor quality marketing-driven content as key drivers behind this shift. While acknowledging challenges in assessing UGC quality at scale, he believes it provides valuable experiential information that complements traditional web pages. Here’s the video interview.

• Google Search Central announced sticky report filters on the three Performance reports (Search results, Discover or Google News). I tested it and only their stock filters like “country” are sticky. Regex filters aren’t sticky.

• Google has officially phased out support for the 'noarchive' meta tag, following the removal of its cached page feature. While there's no need to remove existing noarchive tags, webmasters should note that other search engines may still use them.

• Google has updated its developer docs with a warning about JavaScript-generated Product markup. While it can work, Google now recommends putting Product markup directly in the initial HTML for best results. If using JavaScript, ensure your server can handle increased traffic from Googlebot.

• Roger Montti shares a valuable SEO tip from Google's John Mueller for getting new sites indexed faster. Mueller advises against using generic server holding or parked pages when launching a new site. Instead, keep DNS disabled or use a custom holding page until your site is ready. This prevents Google from initially categorizing your site as parked or duplicate, which can delay it being recognized as a normal site. Here’s the Reddit page where it’s from.

• John Mueller clarifies on using noindex and canonical tags together. While he previously suggested it might work, he now recommends choosing one or the other for clarity. Focus on creating a good site structure rather than obsessing over individual SEO elements like links.

AI

Meta Movie Gen

Meta's researchers have unveiled Movie Gen, a groundbreaking suite of AI models for media creation. It enables users to generate custom videos and audio from simple text prompts, edit existing videos, and transform personal images into unique videos. Movie Gen combines image, video, and audio capabilities for content creators. So if you want to create a video of yourself hiking Everest, you can. It’s not released to the public yet, but the videos they’re showing are very nice. Meta made a video for the Digital Surfer family:

Disclaimer: not really made for us, but still cool to see a koala surfing.

Introducing OpenAI Canvas

OpenAI has unveiled Canvas, an interface for collaborating with ChatGPT on writing and coding projects. Canvas opens in a separate window, allowing users to work side-by-side with ChatGPT beyond simple chat interactions. This new tool offers inline feedback, targeted edits, and a range of shortcuts for tasks like adjusting writing length or debugging code. Currently in beta, Canvas is rolling out to ChatGPT Plus and Team users globally, with plans to expand access in the near future.

My Take: The inline editing is really cool. But careful with the “Add emojis” option because it’ll rewrite using emojis every 3-4 words. You’ve been warned 😂 

AI Ripples

• OpenAI released vision fine-tuning with GPT-4o. They’re offering 1M training tokens per day for free through Oct. 31st. They’re also extending their previous free fine-tuning through Oct. 31st too! 4o: 1M free training tokens a day. 4o mini: 2M free training tokens a day.

MARKETING

How to Build a Powerful Multichannel Marketing Strategy

Margarita Loktionova shares how to build a multichannel marketing strategy. She breaks down how to reach more customers across multiple channels like social media, email, and even old-school billboards. The key is aligning your business goals, deeply understanding your audience, and crafting a unified message that you can tweak for each platform. Margarita walks through a 7-step process to put it all together, from setting SMART objectives to measuring performance across channels.

How to Use Google Trends to Analyze Your Competitors' Brand Engagement

Kevin Rowe shares a how to analyze your competitors' brand engagement using Google Trends. The method involves selecting competitor phrasing, uncovering search patterns in Google Trends, and finding the sources influencing those patterns using tools like Glimpse, Ahrefs, and Grok on X. This analysis can reveal insights into effective messaging, product positioning, and strategic media placements.

YouTube Extends Shorts To 3 Minutes, Adds New Features

Matt G. Southern covers YouTube's latest updates to Shorts. The platform is extending the maximum video length to 3 minutes and rolling out a suite of new features. These include templates for remixing popular content, improved remixing capabilities across the platform, and AI-generated video backgrounds using Google DeepMind's Veo model. There’s a new trends page and comment previews in the Shorts feed. YouTube is also adding an option to customize the Home feed by showing fewer Shorts.

My Take: Somehow, my daughter has nearly ~400 followers from less than 50 shorts. She just makes a bunch of Roblox-related shorts, nothing with her face or anything. One short is actually over 84k views now in a couple weeks. That one just went viral with 350+ comments and 2500 likes. That’s the only one that’s gone viral like that - that’s the power of Roblox!

I ask her how does she decide what to make and she just says “I don’t know. Sometimes I just follow a trend.” Time for me take lessons from her on how to create viral YouTube Shorts 😂 

CONTENT

Navigating Content Marketing Amidst the Rise of AI — Whiteboard Friday

Ross Simmonds dives into how content marketing is evolving with the rise of AI and large language models (LLMs). He emphasizes that search is no longer just happening on Google, but across various platforms like TikTok, Reddit, and Quora. To succeed in this new landscape, marketers need to create "content worth stealing" and seed it across multiple platforms where LLMs scrape information. Simmonds advises diversifying content beyond just blog posts and focusing on sites like Reddit and Quora that have partnerships with AI companies. He reassures that while things are changing, the fundamentals of creating high-quality, authoritative content still apply.

EDUCATION

How to Rank for ‘Near Me’ Keywords on Google

James Brockbank breaks down the complexities of ranking for 'near me' searches in Google. He explains that while these queries are common, the SERPs often favor listing sites over individual local businesses. Brockbank provides strategies tailored to different business types, emphasizing the importance of understanding user intent and SERP composition.

My Take: Even though the title is for “near me” searches, it covers a lot of things that you want to do with local SEO anyways. And as more people try their hands on rank and rent sites, it’ll be more important to get a solid foundation down.

NAP SEO: What It Is & Why It Matters for Local SEO

Gabriela Jhean dives into the world of NAP SEO in this informative article, explaining why it's crucial for local businesses. NAP (Name, Address, Phone number) consistency across online platforms is key to boosting local search rankings and building trust with potential customers. Jhean breaks down the concept of NAP citations, distinguishing between owned and external mentions, and provides practical tips for managing your business's online presence. She also explores various tools that can help streamline the process of maintaining NAP consistency and improving local SEO efforts.

NEWS

8% Of Automattic Employees Choose To Resign

Matt Mullenweg, co-founder of WordPress and CEO of Automattic, recently offered employees a chance to resign with a generous severance package. Roger Montti reports that 8.4% of Automattic's workforce (159 people) accepted the offer of $30,000 or six months' salary, whichever was higher. The WordPress Executive Director was among those who resigned. Despite recent controversies surrounding Mullenweg, many departing employees praised the company, while others expressed excitement about staying.

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