Bonnie Herman’s Post

Remember Penguin, Panda, Caffeine and May Day? Google’s updates typically begin as a narrow attempt to solve an individual problem, then broaden and gain names before being absorbed into the core ranking algorithms. But, what have we learned from these updates? Click below to find out. #Google #Algorithms #seo https://zurl.co/bQnV

Google is at it again with yet another algorithm update hot off the heels of August's broad core shakeup. https://lnkd.in/dysvwtKF It’s classified as the 'helpful content update,' and the hints dropped in their documentation give us clues about what's in store. 🤖 AI Content Evolution: Previously, Google emphasised 'original, helpful content written by people, for people, in search results.' Now they've ditched the 'written by people' part. The era of AI-generated content has well and truly arrived. 📝👁️ Written / Reviewed By: Building on this, the language in their content guidance has transformed. It used to be all about 'expert or enthusiast-written content.' Now, it's about content 'written or reviewed by an expert or enthusiast.' Reading between the lines, it looks like Google's giving a nod to AI-powered content as long as it gets the authoritative thumbs-up. 🏗️ Subdomain Strategy Alert: The ongoing debate around subdomains and Parasite SEO is finally getting some clarity. This tackles sites with very strong domain authority that allow almost anyone to post an article (sponsored / guest posts) or even set up a subfolder/subdomain section and piggyback on top of the total strength of the site. Google's signalling that if things are too far apart in topic, there could be repercussions. No more piggybacking on unrelated mega-sites. 🕰️ No Fooling Google: Google's got its eye on those covert date-changes. If you're thinking of switching a 2019 article to 2023 without freshening up the content, think again. Freshness matters, and Google's saying, "Don't even try to pull a fast one." Likewise, adding or removing content for rankings won't cut it. Google's got its game face on, and it's not taking any shortcuts. How do you plan to adapt? #GoogleAlgorithmUpdate #SEOInsights

If you're concerned about how SGE and OpenAI are going to affect search, I would start by translating as much of your content as possible into machine-readable formats. Along with quality and authoritativeness, fast information retrieval and semantic richness are priorities for any of these systems. This is also critical for displaying your content in rich results, and you can think about SGE results as a massive rich result. #SEO #SearchEngineOptimization #OrganicSearch #Google

TL:DR; - Yeah, we know publishers/creators are impacted. Sorry. (empathy emoji) - We think it's more valuable this way. - We can do whatever we want - what's best for Google. - The T&C claims against OpenAI crawling YouTube while Google crawls everyone else's content is hilarious. https://lnkd.in/g-MrhRAR #google #seo #openai

📣 This week's Local Memo is here! 📣 Google's Search Generative Experience has been a hot topic over the past few months, but there are still questions about what the launch will look like. We dive into this and other localized marketing updates you don't want to miss! #SGE 🔗: https://lnkd.in/gjxRv3D9

Big #ai changes at Google - moving from search, to search and answer, crushing many small-medium sized companies along the way - and from my PoV making a Madame Tussaud version of the internet. #seo #aioverview #algorithms

Spotted this nice SGE experiment from Google where AI snapshot is being pushed below ads above the organic results for a BRANDED query... 😱 I guess the Ads department is still bugging the organic search team for more revenue 🤑 #sge #organicsearch #google

The patent cited in the viral post below (Mike also shared it on Mastodon) was filed for in 2008 by the Google Blogsearch team. The patent describes a process for training a machine learning algorithm to produce a recommender model for "high quality blogs". Among the many signals that could have been used (remember - these patents cover as many options as possible without explaining what live systems are really doing) were data provided by Google's Quality Raters. What the patent does NOT show is how Google ranked Websites in live search results. That's not the purpose of the process. You can read the patent here: https://lnkd.in/eDhG5H3t You can also see a story published on Search Engine Land about a year later (written by Danny Sullivan) that describes a major update to Google Blogsearch. I suspect that update was based on the process described by this patent. I was NOT HAPPY with the 2009 update, and I suspect the death of Google Blogsearch probably owed something to the way they followed this philosophy of "let's focus on 'high quality blogs'". They choked the life out of what made Blogsearch really useful and interesting - surfacing less-well-known, poorly linked blogs. You can read Danny's article here: https://lnkd.in/eBGnuGZX #seo #blogs #blogging #google #searchengineoptimization #patents #ai #machinelearning #webmarketing #digitalmarketing

This is a lovely little geeky piece: 25 biggest moments in Google Search, from helpful images to AI: https://lnkd.in/eJx49S5W #Google #SEO #Internet #DigitialMarketing #Search

Is Google changing? Of course it is, but Google (and Bing) will always (for now) need 'fresh' quality content created by humans to be analysed and organised by robots, as it always has done since it started in 98 - us old school SEOs were there at the time ;) #SEO ...and don't forget to build your brand as well as mark up your content. People will always have a choice of which shop to go into or link to click on. https://lnkd.in/dkD9Z9-j Here are some interesting quotes from the article if you don't have the time: "AI Overviews get more clicks than if the page had appeared as a traditional web listing for that query," Reid, Google's head of search, wrote. "As we expand this experience, we’ll focus on sending valuable traffic to publishers and creators." but "What's often lost is what you're probably looking for when you open up Google: information from people who are knowledgeable and passionate about their topic." Interestingly - "A number of website owners and search experts who spoke to the BBC said there's been a general shift in Google results towards websites with big established brands, and away from small and independent sites, that seems totally disconnected from the quality of the content."