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GOOGLE WEB CREATOR EVENT

Google invited 20 web creators out to their Mountain View, California offices this week. I found the write-ups of those at the time of curating, so I may have missed any really recent ones. Here they are and their general sentiments mixed reactions all-around from attendees:

• Joshua Tyler - Negative, it was a “funeral”

• Kylie - Mixed

• Laura and Lance - Mixed

• Mike Hardaker - Positive, he “drank the Kool-AId”

• Morgan - Mixed

• Nate Hake - Mixed

• Rutledge Daugette - Positive

• Steve Weber - Positive

• William Tang - Mixed

One thing they all agreed on was how great Danny Sullivan (Google Search Liaison) is and that he genuinely cared. So it sounds like we should stop bashing him on social for Google Search?

Do you need to go through each one? Not unless you just want to know what each person thought. There are no real actionable items that came out of it. As for a site-wide classifier, Google’s team still says there isn’t one…but there is a Google Update coming soon (when isn’t there).

SEO

‘Ready Steady Cut’ Destroyed by Google's Algorithm

Daniel Hart shares a detailed account of how Google's algorithm changes, particularly the September 2023 Helpful Content Update (HCU), devastated Ready Steady Cut, an established entertainment website. Despite investing over $20,000 in SEO audits, improvements and technical updates, the site has seen no recovery.

My Take: This is a good read and it hurts to see sites like these continue to decline. It’s lengthy, but a lot of good information in there on advice he received from SEOs and things he tried to recover. It’ll get you thinking about your site as well because it seems like he hired SEOs who were vocal on social to audit. He also gives a number of detailed examples. Check out another article below from HouseFresh in the Content section.

Google Updates Crawl Budget Best Practices

Matt G. Southern shares updates to Google's crawl budget guidelines that particularly impact large websites maintaining separate mobile and desktop versions. The key change focuses on maintaining the same links between mobile and desktop sites, because Google now exclusively indexes mobile versions. Website owners have two options: either include all desktop links on their mobile version (the preferred method) or ensure all links are properly listed in the sitemap file. This update is especially relevant for sites with over 10,000 pages or those experiencing indexing challenges.

SEO Ripples

• In Google’s Search Off the Record, Iva, a Quantitative UX Researcher at Google Shopping, shares about DIY user experience research (UXR) with host Lizzi. Iva explains that UXR focuses on understanding users' thoughts, feelings, and actions before, during, and after interacting with a product. She says that for small sites, studying successful competitors and industry standards can provide valuable UX insights.

• Barry Schwartz reports that Google is now displaying trust scores from APIVoid and ScamAdviser in knowledge panels for some website entities. While this feature isn't available for all sites yet, when present, it shows percentage-based trust ratings from both services right in the search results. For example, GoogleWatchBlog receives a 90% score from APIVoid and 75% from ScamAdviser.

• Google's latest ranking system evaluates content consistency across websites. If a section of your site drastically differs from your main content focus, it might see reduced rankings. This explains recent traffic drops for sections like Fortune Recommends and Forbes Advisor. While Google previously stated you don't need a niche site to rank well, this update suggests there's a fine line between expanding your expertise and straying too far from your core topics. The key takeaway? Think twice before creating content that's completely unrelated to your site's main focus.

AI

Introducing ChatGPT search

OpenAI has finally released their SearchGPT! The new search feature combines natural language interaction with up-to-date web information, making it easier to get current data on everything from sports scores to stock quotes. They’re sourcing content through the partnerships with Associated Press, Reuters, Vox Media, and others. The search functionality uses a fine-tuned version of GPT-4o and is currently available to Plus and Team users, with plans to expand to Enterprise, Edu, and Free users in the coming months. They also released a “ChatGPT search” Chrome extension that takes over the Chrome search bar. It changes the default search engine to ChatGPT search.

Here’s an example of a search for “Who is Yoyao Hsueh?”

Google's Gemini API and AI Studio Offer Grounding With Search

Not to be beaten by ChatGPT Search, Google added Grounding with Google Search to Gemini API. This feature allows developers to add Google Search data to get more accurate and timely responses from Gemini models. Available for all Gemini 1.5 models, developers can enable it through Google AI Studio's "Tools" section or via the API's 'google_search_retrieval' tool. The feature is free to test in AI Studio, while API access costs $35 per 1,000 grounded queries.

Here’s the same “Who is Yoyao Hsueh?” search that’s not that great, using Gemini 1.5 Pro. It assumes that I’m three different individuals because “they have distinct careers and accomplishments in separate fields.” If they scraped with a multimodal system, they’d see the same person in the images, and the same image on two of the sources. I gave Gemini+Grounding a couple more chances in new searches, but they came up with only my Film Acting/Producing and a startup Mashup Sports.

Meta Working on AI-powered Search Engine

Emma Roth reports that Meta is developing its own AI-powered search engine to reduce its reliance on Google and Microsoft's Bing. The search engine would be integrated into Meta AI chatbot on Instagram and Facebook, providing AI-generated summaries of current events. Meta's web crawlers have been actively building a database of information for about eight months already. The company recently strengthened its position by securing a multi-year deal with Reuters, allowing its chatbot to incorporate news articles into responses.

AI Ripples

• Google released a new AI model, Gemini 1.5 Flash-8B. It’s half the cost of its predecessor. The model excels at chat, transcription, and long-context translation tasks, with doubled rate limits allowing up to 4,000 requests per minute. It’s the lowest cost Gemini model starting at $0.0375 per 1 million input tokens.

• Perplexity addresses their recent lawsuit from Dow Jones, which owns the Wall Street Journal and New York Post. They explain their stance that AI-enhanced search tools provide an innovative way for people to access and learn from publicly reported facts - something they believe shouldn't require paying media companies. The team emphasizes their commitment to transparency, noting that Perplexity has always included source attribution and citations in their answers. They've even launched a revenue-sharing program with major publishers like TIME and Fortune. The team disputes the lawsuit's claims, stating that cited examples mischaracterize their service and denying allegations of unresponsiveness to News Corp's outreach.

MARKETING

Inbound or Outbound? What 1,000 Consumers Reveal About Search, Social and AI

Kelsey Libert shares insights from a fresh 1,000-person consumer survey that explores how people interact with search, social media, and AI in their buying journeys. Some of the key insights:

• 80% use search engines multiple times a day

• 86% say search engines play a significant role in their purchase decision-making

• 86% read reviews before making a purchase (44% always, 43% often)

• 47% rarely click on paid ads, while 27% never do (only 5% click always/often)

• 41% say social media is very important to their decision-making process

• 48% reported using ChatGPT or similar AI tools in the past week

• 74% say regularly encountering industry research and educational content from a brand positively influences their awareness

• 32% were influenced by Instagram to make a purchase, followed by 26% from Facebook and TikTok

Google Ad Rep Made Unauthorized Changes To Ad Account

In a concerning development for Google Ads users, Barry Schwartz reports that a Google ad representative made unauthorized changes to a client's account without permission. The changes, which included new ad copy and bidding strategy adjustments, weren't even visible in the account change history. Google's Ads Liaison Ginny Marvin confirmed this was a mistake and they failed to follow proper approval processes. This is wake-up call for advertisers to carefully monitor their accounts for unexpected changes, even from Google's own representatives.

CONTENT

How to Find Helpful Content in a Sea of Made-for-Google BS

Gisele Navarro and Danny Ashton dive deep into how content farms and AI-generated articles are gaming the system. Through collaboration with many independent web publishers, they expose the tactics used to create low-quality, "made-for-Google" content that often outranks genuine, expert-written articles. They provide practical advice for identifying trustworthy content while highlighting how Google's algorithm struggles to differentiate between quality information and AI-generated fluff.

My Take: There’s a lot of great information and examples here that you can use for your own site and when you’re analyzing competitors.

Want to Learn How the Pros Write CTAs? Click Here Now!

Rob Glover dives deep into the art of crafting compelling calls-to-action (CTAs) by analyzing examples from marketing professionals. He explores eight CTA strategies, from using pre-CTAs to build anticipation to leveraging FOMO (fear of missing out) to drive action. Through real examples from brands like MeUndies and Thompson Tees, Glover demonstrates how emotional connection and audience understanding play crucial roles in CTA effectiveness.

My Take: The title got me. I also hadn’t heard of MeUndies before, but love their pre-CTA “We post butts. Lots of butts.” for their “Follow Us” CTA. 😂 

LINK BUILDING

How Ahrefs’ Best Bootstrapped Backlink Builders Got Their Links

Vince Nero from BuzzStream examined how the top 50 bootstrapped companies built their backlink profiles. His research revealed that data-driven content and original research were consistently the most effective strategies for earning quality backlinks while avoiding Google penalties. Companies like SpyCloud, BambooHR, and Ahrefs stood out by leveraging proprietary data and statistics to generate authoritative content that naturally attracted links. Some of the interesting stats:

• 28 sites were hit by the Link Spam Update

• 13 sites were hit by Helpful Content Updates

• Only 8 sites avoided both types of penalties in the last year

• Marketing/SEO was the most affected industry with 10 out of 14 sites hit by the Link Spam penalty

CASE STUDY

I Analyzed 300K Keywords. Here’s What I Learned About AI Overviews

Louise Linehan analyzed 300,000 keywords to understand what triggers AI Overviews (AIOs) in search results. Here are the more interesting takeaways:

• AIO keywords have 193x smaller search volumes than non-AIO keywords (average 150 vs 29,000 monthly searches)

• 99.2% of all AI Overview keywords are informational in nature

• 81% of AIO traffic comes from mobile devices (vs 19% desktop)

• 99.9% of AIO SERPs display at least one other SERP feature

• AIO keywords require just 13 referring domains on average to rank (vs 41 for non-AIO)

• AIO keywords average 4 words in length (vs 2 words for non-AIO)

• People Also Ask features appear in 80.92% of all AI Overview queries

• Commercial and transactional keywords make up less than 10% of all AIO SERPs (5.8% and 4.0% respectively)

• Each AIO SERP returns an average of 3 additional SERP features

• Featured Snippets appear 849% more often in AIO queries vs non-AIO

• Discussions appear 258% more often in AIO queries vs non-AIO

• Traffic potential for AIO keywords is 8x smaller than non-AIO SERPs

How Does Removing SEO Text Impact SEO Performance?

Daniel Haugen shares an SEO experiment where removing SEO content blocks from e-commerce category pages improved organic traffic on mobile devices. The test, conducted by SearchPilot, showed a statistically significant increase in mobile traffic while desktop traffic remained unchanged. The theory? Those lengthy SEO text blocks at the bottom of category pages were hurting the mobile user experience by increasing scroll depth. They even replicated these positive results in another section of the site, challenging the common SEO practice of adding keyword-rich content blocks to category pages.

NEWS

Q3 Earnings Takeaways

These are some interesting takeaways from a few Q3 earnings. A couple are from Glen Allsopp too, who always does great write-ups.

NerdWallet Q3 (Glen):

• $191.3M Q3 revenue, up 25% year over year (YOY)

• 22M monthly unique users, down 7% YOY

• CEO said “education-oriented traffic that is less commercial…got progressively worse throughout the quarter and recently stabilized at a lower level.” Nice insight into informational vs commercial content.

• He continues, “So, what’s happening there is a renewed push by search engines to incorporate their own answers directly into the search results…[AIO] as an example.”

• Here’s another write-up by Danny Goodwin at Search Engine Land.

LendingTree Q3 (Glen):

• $260.8M revenue for Q3, up 68% YOY

• Insurance revenue up 210% YOY with record profit of $41.1M

• CEO said they "work very, very closely with Google on both the SEM and the SEO front.” Glen said there “might be a much bigger story there” and I agree that there is. Remember the whole monopoly lawsuit and the issue with their Ads and Search teams? 🤔 

• CEO said they’re “happy to benefit from Google free traffic” because they got more traffic from Google than ever.

Google Q3:

• Search and Other advertising revenue grew 12% YOY to $49.4B (led by Insurance strength, see LendingTree above). Search is still the largest contributor to revenue growth.

• AI Overviews (AIO) rolled out to 100+ new countries and territories:

  • Reduced machine costs for AI queries by over 90% in 18 months

  • Shows strong user engagement and satisfaction

  • Users are asking longer and more complex questions

  • People are exploring a wider range of websites

  • Usage growth increases over time as users adapt

  • Monetization rates approximately the same as traditional search

• Circle to Search see high engagement from users aged 18-24 and one-third who try it become weekly users

• Google Lens is one of the fastest-growing query types. One in four have commercial intent.

• Over 25% of new code at Google is now generated by AI

How true Google CEO’s statements about AIO usage and engagement is another story, I’d take it with a grain of salt since there are no real numbers behind it.

Microsoft Q3:

They report in their business highlights summary: Search and news advertising revenue increased 7% YOY to $3.2B. Excluding traffic acquisition costs does increase revenue by 18% YOY.