Google Core Update, AI Updates and More!??
Katherine Watier Ong
Enterprise SEO | Accomplished multi-industry digital marketer | CEO@ WO Strategies. Host of the Digital Marketing Victories podcast. Talks about #journals #.gov #associations, #SEO and #AI
You must check out Cindy Krum’s: "Phase II of Google's Mobile-First Indexing is Just Chrome" presentation. It has changed how I think about SEO.?Just watch it. The other technology release boggling my mind is?Google’s Illuminate, which transforms your content into engaging AI?generated audio discussions (podcast). You need to check out both.
Other updates are below:?
SEO Bootcamp Course
?? We are excited to announce updates to our self-paced SEO Bootcamp Course, including the newly updated technical SEO module and content modules that include tested AI chat prompts to speed up your workflow.?Now available on our website! ??
Google Announcements and Updates
Google’s Notebook LM can create podcast audio
It’s really good.?Check out the announcement here.
Google August 2024 Core Update
It started on August 15, 2024, and was completed 19 days later on September 3, 2024.?Learn more about the impact.
Google’s DataGemma to help Researcher’s LLMs fact-check
The first method?mentioned in this article?is Retrieval-Interleaved Generation (RIG), which acts as a fact-checker by checking the answer against Google's Data Commons. The second method is called Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) the model examines which data in the Data Commons could help it answer the question, such as information about access to safe drinking water, hepatitis B immunizations, and life expectancies. With those figures in hand, the model builds its answer on top of the data and cites its sources.?
Google Updates Web Search Spam Policies
Here are the?highlights of the changes?(you can see the side-by-side?here):
Google Adds Spam Warning To Indexing API Documentation
“All submissions through the Indexing API undergo rigorous spam detection. Any attempts to abuse the Indexing API, including using multiple accounts or other means to exceed usage quotas, may result in access being revoked.”?More here.
Google will begin flagging AI-generated images in Searches later this year
Google will begin to flag AI-generated?and AI-edited images in the “About this image” window on Search,?Google Lens, and the?Circle to Search?feature on Android.?
September 2023 Helpful Content Update
The?September 2023 Helpful Content Update?appears less strict on machine-generated content, but Google is now issuing stronger warnings about third-party content on websites and subdomains. Additionally, Google has updated its Helpful Content documentation to include?new guidance on recovering from traffic loss?after a Helpful Content Update. Lily Ray, in her?"Future Proof SEO" presentation, highlights what sites did successfully to recover from the update:
Bing Announcements
Copilot can now generate Python code to process data in Excel?
Check out the?screenshots on how it works here.
AI Updates
Study: 96% Of Google AI Overviews Links Go To Informational Intent Pages
How to implement generative engine optimization (GEO) strategies
This is a very?comprehensive article?with quite a few actionable tips.?
Introducing OpenAI o1-preview
They developed a?new series of AI models?designed to spend more time thinking before responding. These models can reason through complex tasks and solve harder problems than previous science, coding, and math models.?
OpenAI is about to roll out ChatGPT Advanced Voice for ChatGPT Plus users
Apple Intelligence is now live in public beta.?
It’s currently only in English.?Learn more about the features.
Cloudflare’s new marketplace will let websites charge AI bots for scraping
How is ChatGPT representing you?
HubSpot has launched an?AI search grader?that compares your brand's sentiment and share of voice to that of your competitors.
Technical SEO
You can now monitor your local and real-user Core Web Vitals performance in DevTools
The overview?video and documentation are here.
How to Relaunch a Website Without Losing Search Visibility
This post includes a?free checklist and template.
Multilingual SEO and keyword research explained
This is?great and has free downloadable resources?to help you tackle multilingual keyword research.
How to make your website faster: 3 quick tips
The?video tips?are:
Automate internal link building with Screaming Frog + a?Python script?
Check out the?instructions and code to use here.
Content
Ahrefs’ AI Content Helper
This is free for all paid plans – including legacy ones.
Google recognizes content creators
Check out this?screenshot from Jason Barnard’s article.
Forbes Marketplace - Analysis and Manual Penalty
Check out the?analysis of the tactic and the Google penalty.
I have been saying this for years. The Google leak in May 2024 confirmed that Google explicitly associates people with their profile pages (isReference) and articles they have written (isAuthor).
Social Media
Here are the tidbits I found interesting last month:
LinkedIn starts training GenAI on users' personal data - without notification.?Here’s how to opt-out.
Voice SEO
CMG Local Ad Solutions Pitch Deck on Voice-Data Advertising
Check it out. They are listening to your home conversations.
Image Optimization
Google now?supports AVIF in Google Search.
Video Optimization
Google Updates Video Documentation?
This is how you?fix lazy-loaded content.
Google Expands Video Structured Data Options With New Property
It lets you limit?which countries the video can be played.
Google updates video documentation (overall)
Previously,?they did not require separate sitemaps?and structured data for embedded video from YouTube, but now it looks like they do.?
AI video is coming to YouTube Shorts
Creators get dynamic video backgrounds and 6-second clips that can be used as B-rolls. More here.
SEO Measurement
GA4 launches industry benchmark feature
It needs to be enabled under your user settings.?More here.
Tracking traffic from AI chatbots
Here are the steps:
^https:\/\/(www\.meta\.ai|www\.perplexity\.ai|chat\.openai\.com|claude\.ai|chat\.mistral\.ai|gemini\.google\.com|bard\.google\.com|chatgpt\.com|copilot\.microsoft\.com)(\/.*)?$
Want to know more? Add "landing page + query string" or "session source/medium" as an additional dimension. Or "view" and "total users" as additional metrics.
Check out?Jes Scholz?for other great tips on LinkedIn.
AI & A/B Testing
Design statistically sound?A/B tests using AI.
GA4 SQL
A?free and user-friendly tool?that simplifies the querying process for Google Analytics 4 data in BigQuery.?
Keyword Insights adds AI Overviews
If the cluster head term triggers a Google AI overview, it will be included in your cluster visualization.
GA4 For SEO Professionals?
A?presentation by Brie Anderson?worth reviewing & bookmarking if you’re still trying to feel comfortable in GA4.
Soft Skills
How to Align SEO with the Product Trial to get Work done
This is a masterpiece of a?presentation worth reviewing and bookmarking.
How to Get SEO Buy-In: 7 Actionable Tips
This is a?great article on Ahrefs, for which I saved a few tips. It also mentions a few guests from our?Digital Marketing Victories podcast
New Tools & Resources
Here are the resources that I discovered over the past month that I thought were worth sharing:
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.
Is AI coming for our marketing skills? Check out this?marketing AI assistant offering. I still think the long-term play for marketers to stay employed is knowing how to use AI to speed up their deliverables and?double down on developing their soft skills?to get hired for more strategy work.
Until next month.
Katherine