?? Feb Recap: Search AI Integration, Gemini Rollout, New Podcast Episode, and More!

Hi there,

Last month was a blast. I got to talk about integrating AI into your organization at the Digital Strategy Summit. Grab my slides here ?and check out my blog post about what employee policies are recommended with AI chat adoption . We also launched a new podcast episode featuring Adrijana Vujadin (see below) focused on imposter syndrome.

Last month Google renamed Bard to Gemini and rolled it out to all Android users (just in case we thought that they would scrap the project). More social media perspectives were added to search due to Google’s partnership with Reddit, and Ahrefs rolled out a way for us to measure some of it. The rest of the updates are below.

New Podcast Episode?

Join us for this episode as we welcome our next guest, Adrijana Vujadin , SEO head and coach for SEO professionals. Adrijana will guide you in recognizing and conquering imposter syndrome while sharing valuable tips on how mindset training is key to overcoming your struggles.

Google Announcements and Updates

What if people stopped using search engines tomorrow?

A great article by Wil Reynolds ?with some tactical suggestions for you to think about and execute with your clients - all of which have you leaning into the role of AI in our work, including building a custom GPT.

Gartner Predicts Search Engine Volume Will Drop 25% by 2026 Due to AI Chatbots and Other Virtual Agents

You can see their press release here .

SGE isn’t going away. Here are the updates from last month:

• Android users (outside of the EU) were prompted to try it .
• They are still experimenting with the format of ads with new formats that would be native to SGE.?
• Bard became Gemini (announcement video ) Here’s how to sign up for the various models . It has a 1 million+ token context window (about 10 books at once), so it will drift less.
• Google's AI image generator is live. You sign up for it here .
• They also added image generation to Gemini (previously Bard), and its images are amazing (see below).

• A few hours after the launch of Google Gemini, search engines like Bing have indexed public conversations from Gemini .

Google’s expanded partnership with Reddit

Google expanded its partnership with Reddit , which allows access to Reddit’s data API (for AI and Search), and Reddit will improve its search with Google’s AI.

Google will face a new U.S. antitrust jury trial in September

This trial is focused ?on its dominance of the digital advertising technology space.?

Zippy Research: Experience a key factor during Google algorithm updates

See the items from the Zippy research ?that correlated with improved sites during algorithm updates below.?

Notes in Search?

You should check to see if readers are providing your authors with feedback. To see results for your site use this in Google search: site:content.ucp.usercontent.goog "cnn.com " (and flip the cnn.com to your domain).?Spotted by Glenn Gabe .

Bing Announcements

Bing Deep Search is rolling out to more users

This feature allows you to answer questions that have complex answers. It is built on top of Bing’s web index and ranking system and uses GPT-4 to discern all the possible intents and variations behind the query and then computes descriptions for each of them to create an “ideal set of results.” It looks like the screenshot below and I haven’t yet seen it in my Bing browser. The announcement is here .

Microsoft Copilot has homepage updates

It now has inline editing of AI images. The new editing capabilities allow users to enhance colors, blur backgrounds, and add filter effects effortlessly. And It utilizes AI to offer video highlights, complete with timestamps for YouTube and Vimeo videos.

Other Search Engines

Yandex search engine sold in $5.2 billion deal

It’s now controlled by a Russian consortium .

OpenAI is developing a search engine.

The AI search engine could be a new feature for ChatGPT , or a potentially separate app altogether. Microsoft Bing would allegedly power the service.

AI Updates

Humans prefer AI-generated copy, SEMRush survey finds

Coverage of the survey is here .

Memory and new controls for ChatGPT

You can explicitly tell it to remember something, ask it what it remembers, and tell it to forget conversationally or through settings. You can also turn it off entirely. More here .

SORA AI’s video Animations

These are just amazing. From this prompt: "In an ornate, historical hall, a massive tidal wave peaks and begins to crash. Two surfers, seizing the moment, skillfully navigate the face of the wave." Open Ai’s Sora ?can create this .

Biden Administration Introduce First US AI Safety Institute Director

The Biden administration ?wants the? Elizabeth Kelly’s AI Safety Institute to play a key part in crafting and disseminating federal rules and regulations for how AI models and tools are created and monitored. One key mandate for the institute is to establish so-called red team testing protocols for major AI systems by July of this year. More here. Related, the G7 has published guiding principles and code of conduct for artificial intelligence .?It’s also worth reading this: EU Artificial Intelligence Act: 16 key takeaways .

Automating your custom GPTs with Zapier?

It’s like pinging them on Slack. You can also integrate Zapier and Clickup to create a whole process with CustomGPTs. An explanation is here ?and the video is here .

Adobe Acrobat now lets you use AI to chat with your PDFs.

Check out Adobe's AI Assistant .

OpenAI is building a custom GPT app store.

Check out the features here .

Technical SEO

Google Clarifies the “Google-Extended” Crawler Documentation

“Google-Extended ?does not impact a site’s inclusion or ranking in Google Search.” It only impacts Gemini apps.

Google will no longer back up the Internet

Cached webpages are dead ?as Google Search will no longer make site backups while crawling the web.

The SEO Starter Guide got a makeover

The PDF expanded to 40 languages, and then got modernized into HTML .

Google May Consolidate Ranking Signals To Canonical Partner URL?

Even if it's not the source. More here ?related, Google Updates Rel=Canonical Documentation .

Hackers exploit 14-year-old CMS editor on gov?edu sites for SEO hacking

I have seen this behavior in the wild. More here .

SEO Product Requirements

Learn how to write SEO Product Requirements Documentation ?that serves stakeholders and streamlines projects with Heather Kaeowichien.

Product Variants structured data

Documentation is here .

Game-changing: How to automate redirect mapping

How to speed up site migrations with AI-powered redirect mapping ?with AI.

Content

Using generative AI to improve existing content

This post by Julia McCoy ?has tips and sample prompts.

Voice SEO

ChatGPT allows for voice prompting

I somehow missed this announcement from last fall .?Interesting to speculate how this will impact overall voice search usage.?

Video Optimization

New YouTube Analytics Data

It now shows top-earning Shorts, Videos on Demand, and Lives.Here ’s the announcement .

SEO Measurement

How to Visualize Ahrefs Data with ChatGPT

This is a must read, bookmark and play with/save the prompts ?kind of post.

Google Analytics 4 new support features

They released new support features in the UI interface, and also a series of YouTube videos ?helping you find what you’re looking for.?

Tutorial for how to get started With GSC Queries In BigQuery

This is a must-read if you’re logging into your Big Query instance for the first time to examine your GSC data.?

Workarounds for the 1000 GSC limit?

A helpful post ?if you are not using Big Query.

EU Digital Services Act now applies to almost everyone

EU Digital Services Act now applies to all but the smallest businesses.

Only businesses with fewer than 50 employees and less than 10 million euros in annual revenue will continue to be exempt. Read more .

Better Regex in Search Console

Get the Chrome extension .

Ahrefs now has a Discussion and Forum ranking feature

New Google Analytics Feature

It detects subtle prolonged, gradual trend changes. This is for tech SEO issues or algorithm impacts. Read more .

Web Core Vitals Update

Interaction to Next Paint became a Core Web Vital

Soft Skills

How To Be Successful

What I find fascinating about this advice ?from Sam Altman, CEO of Open AI, is how many of the points he makes are really about building out your mastery of a variety of soft skills.

Communicating to the C-Suite

• This post about algorithm changes includes an interesting set of graphics ?you could use in your presentation.
• Scientists pinpoint the exact moment people lose interest ?in a presentation.

New Tools & Resources

Here are the new tools and resources I discovered last month:

• Google started a new web series about how search works .
• This is a collection of custom GPTs ?built to empower your thinking, enhance your logic, and make better decisions. I particularly look forward to playing around with Clarity Enhancer , Bias Detector ,?and Strategy Simplifier .
• How many news websites block AI crawlers ?
• Marie Haynes customGPT chatbot for her newsletter .
• Remove your address and contact information from data brokers with?Mozilla service .
• How To Do A Content Audit Using Free Tools [With Template]
• Free?AI certifications
• More AI software added to our resource .

Feedback & Suggestions

Would you like to share a great resource? If you want to be featured, have a great resource, want to sponsor, or provide feedback for this newsletter, just reply to this email and let me know.

That's it for this month. I hope your sites?haven't been impacted too badly by the March core update.

Best,

Katherine