Google published a research paper describing how it extracts “services offered” information from local business sites to add it to business profiles in Google Maps and Search. The algorithm describes specific relevance factors and confirms that the system has been successfully in use for a year. What makes this research paper especially notable is that … Read more
Google updated the Recipe Schema.org structured data documentation to reflect more precise guidance on what the image structured data property affects and where to find additional information about ranking recipe images in the regular organic search results. Schema.org Structured Data And Rich Results The SEO and publisher community refers to the text results as the … Read more
One of the SEO industry’s SEO Rockstars recently shared his opinion about SEO for generative AI, calling attention to facts about Google and how the new AI search really works. Greg Boser is a search marketing pioneer with a deep level of experience that few in the industry can match or even begin to imagine. … Read more
A Google engineer has warned that AI agents and automated bots will soon flood the internet with traffic. Gary Illyes, who works on Google’s Search Relations team, said “everyone and my grandmother is launching a crawler” during a recent podcast. The warning comes from Google’s latest Search Off the Record podcast episode. AI Agents Will … Read more
A patent that Google filed in December 2024 presents a close match to the Query Fan-Out technique that Google’s AI Mode uses. The patent, called Thematic Search, offers an idea of how AI Mode answers are generated and suggests new ways to think about content strategy. The patent describes a system that organizes related search … Read more
Google’s Sundar Pichai said in an interview that AI Overviews sends more traffic to a wider set of websites, insisting that Google cares about the web ecosystem and that he expects AI Mode to continue to send more traffic to websites, a claim that the interviewer challenged. AI Agents Remove Customer Relationship Opportunities There is … Read more
Google co-founder Sergey Brin says AI is transforming search from a process of retrieving links to one of synthesizing answers by analyzing thousands of results and conducting follow-up research. He explains that this shift enables AI to perform research tasks that would take a human days or weeks, changing how people interact with information online. … Read more
Google’s latest AI tools promise to manage campaigns automatically. But advertisers are asking whether these new features give up too much human control. At Google Marketing Live, the company showcased three new AI agents. These tools can handle everything from creating campaigns to managing tasks across multiple platforms. However, the announcement raised questions from attendees … Read more
Google has released new guidelines for website owners who want to excel in AI-powered search. In a blog post, Search Advocate John Mueller shared tips for ranking in AI Overviews and AI Mode. This guidance comes as Google moves beyond traditional “blue links” to offer more AI-driven search features. Curious about AI in Search and … Read more
Search marketer Michael Bonfils recently discussed how AI is disrupting search marketing and shared insights into what he feels is an appropriate response to one of the most difficult search environments he’s seen in his thirty years of experience. Michael Bonfils (LinkedIn profile) has worked in digital marketing since virtually the dawn of it all, … Read more
Search marketers assert that Google’s new long-form AI Overviews answers have become the very thing Google’s documentation advises publishers against: scraped content lacking originality or added value, at the expense of content creators who are seeing declining traffic. Why put the effort into writing great content if it’s going to be rewritten into a complete … Read more
A Google engineer’s redacted testimony published online by the U.S. Justice Department offers a look inside Google’s ranking systems, offering an idea about Google’s quality scores and introduces a mysterious popularity signal that uses Chrome data. The document offers a high level and very general view of ranking signals, providing a sense of what the … Read more
One thing I need you to understand about the groundbreaking data I’m about to show you is that no one has ever done this kind of analysis before. Ever. To our knowledge, no other independent usability study has explored a major web platform at this scale. AI changes everything, and search is at the forefront. … Read more
Last week, in Part 1 (find it here), we examined whether Google’s AI Overviews are actually changing how people use Search. The data revealed that while users visit Google more frequently with AI Overviews, they: Spend less time per visit. Aren’t crafting significantly longer or more complex queries. Now we turn to an even more … Read more
New data shows Google keeps users on its site longer. Visitors now make 10 clicks on Google’s site before leaving for another website. This finding comes from a 13-month study comparing Google and ChatGPT traffic patterns. Google Keeps Users In, ChatGPT Sends Them Out Tyler Einberger of Momentic analyzed Similarweb data showing that Google’s “pages … Read more
A major update to Google’s Search Quality Raters Guidelines (QRG) clarifies and expands on multiple forms of deception that Google wants its quality raters to identify. This change continues the trend of refining the guidelines so that quality raters become better at spotting increasingly granular forms of quality issues. TL/DR Authenticity should be the core … Read more
Google’s Search Quality Rater Guidelines were updated a few months ago, and several of the changes closely track the talking points shared by Googlers at the 2025 Search Central Live events. Among the most consequential updates are those to the sections defining the lowest quality pages, which more clearly reflect the kinds of sites Google … Read more
Google claims AI Overviews are revolutionizing search behavior. But the data tells a different story. Since launching AI Overviews in 2024, Google CEO Sundar Pichai has repeatedly claimed they’re transforming search behavior: People are using it to Search in entirely new ways, and asking new types of questions, longer and more complex queries… and getting … Read more
