In just two years, ChatGPT has managed to do something no company has done in the last 20 years: present a viable challenge to Google. There’s evidence that people are using it instead of traditional search in an increasing number of cases. For example, ChatGPT’s traffic recently surpassed Bing, and its referral traffic has been … Read more
Google’s Developer Advocate, Martin Splitt, warns website owners to be cautious of traffic that appears to come from Googlebot. Many requests pretending to be Googlebot are actually from third-party scrapers. He shared this in the latest episode of Google’s SEO Made Easy series, emphasizing that “not everyone who claims to be Googlebot actually is Googlebot.” … Read more
Google announced it’s rolling out the December core algorithm update, which the company expects to complete over the next two weeks. The news comes just a week after Google finished rolling out the November core update. Google’s Announcement In a post on X, Google stated: “The Dec. 2024 core update is rolling out, and we … Read more
Google launches 24-hour data view in Search Console, offering near real-time insights for website performance monitoring. Google Search Console now shows performance data from the last 24 hours with minimal delay. The new feature includes hourly data breakdowns and works across Search, Discover, and News reports. Google has cut data delay times by nearly half, … Read more
This year brought a steady stream of updates in Google Ads that spanned across campaign types and creative, media activation, and measurement solutions – many informed directly by advertiser feedback. I won’t cover every big update here, but building on a talk I gave at Hero Conf in San Diego recently, I’ll highlight some of … Read more
A new study shows that Google’s AI Overviews appear in nearly half of all search results and take up to 48% of mobile screen space. Conducted by Botify and DemandSphere, the research analyzed over 120,000 keywords across 22 websites. The study, conducted between August and September, finds that traditional SEO metrics like click-through rates may … Read more
Google has released FAQ guidance on its site reputation abuse policy. The update covers important points about managing third-party content and recovery processes. Breaking Down Third-Party Content Rules Google wants to clarify what counts as a violation. Using third-party content is not a problem in itself. A violation happens when that content is used to … Read more
Google streamlines Search Console Insights by removing Google Analytics data, focusing solely on Search Console metrics for simplicity. Google updates Search Console Insights, removing Google Analytics data. Search Console Insights now focuses solely on Search Console metrics. Google Analytics data still accessible through its dedicated platform. Source link
Google confirms widespread search indexing delays affecting a “small number” of websites. Google Search is experiencing indexing delays. The company says only a small number of sites are affected and is investigating the root cause. Google will provide an update on the situation soon. Source link
Google just expanded Google Product Studio, its AI-powered tool for creating better product images, to more countries. Originally launched in May 2023, this handy feature is built right into Merchant Center Next, the revamped hub for managing product listings. It’s a game-changer for small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and retailers looking to level up their … Read more
Sundar Pichai, Google’s CEO, was interviewed by Andrew Ross Sorkin at the New York Times DealBook Summit, where he discussed what to expect from Google Search in 2025 but also struggled to articulate Google’s concern for content creators. When asked to compare where Google is today relative to the rest of the industry and whether … Read more
Google simplifies analytics tracking with new one-click key event features in GA4, powered by machine learning. Google released one-click event tracking in GA4 with two features: “Mark as key event” and “Create key event.” Machine learning identifies important site events automatically, eliminating manual setup time. These features are now available for all GA4 properties and … Read more
Google stresses the importance of using actual user data to assess Core Web Vitals instead of relying only on lab data from tools like PageSpeed Insights (PSI) and Lighthouse. This reminder comes as the company prepares to update the throttling settings in PSI. These updates are expected to increase the performance scores of websites in … Read more
In a recent episode of Google’s Search Off the Record podcast, Allan Scott from the “Dups” team explained how Google decides which URL to consider as the main one when there are duplicate pages. He revealed that Google looks at about 40 different signals to pick the main URL from a group of similar pages. … Read more
Google’s “Search Off the Record” podcast recently highlighted an SEO issue that can make web pages disappear from search results. In the latest episode, Google Search team member Allan Scott discussed “marauding black holes” formed by grouping similar-looking error pages. Google’s system can accidentally cluster error pages that look alike, causing regular pages to get … Read more
Google announced it will launch a new Dating and Companionship Ads policy and certification program on March 4. This update aims to improve oversight of dating ads on Google’s advertising platforms. New Policy Highlights Advertisers must get certification from Google to run dating or companionship ads under the new policy. The policy bans certain ads, … Read more
In a recent YouTube video, Google’s Martin Splitt explained the differences between the “noindex” tag in robots meta tags and the “disallow” command in robots.txt files. Splitt, a Developer Advocate at Google, pointed out that both methods help manage how search engine crawlers work with a website. However, they have different purposes and shouldn’t be … Read more
Google Search Central has launched a new series called “Crawling December” to provide insights into how Googlebot crawls and indexes webpages. Google will publish a new article each week this month exploring various aspects of the crawling process that are not often discussed but can significantly impact website crawling. The first post in the series … Read more
