SEO From The Front Lines

Wirecutter dropped heavily in search visibility during the spring and summer of 2025. That was surprising given the high-quality, insightful, and thorough reviews content they publish (and have published over the years). In addition, it's a site within a site, and resides on the New York Times domain (which is a powerful news publisher).

In this video, I cover the situation, my analysis of the rankings drop, and explore several theories about what happened. For example, were Google reviews updates to blame, was it Google's 'Starkly different' algorithm or system at play, or was vertical expertise rewarded? I definitely noticed many smaller, niche publishers with reviews content surging as Wirecutter dropped. One thing is for sure, Wirecutter tanked in Google losing 69% of its search visibility over several months according to Sistrix data.

So join me as I explore a massive drop in rankings for one of the most authoritative sites on the web.

Blog post:

https://www.gsqi.com/marketing-blog/wirecutter-drops-google-reviews-system/

Chapters:

00:00 Wirecutter drops in rankings heavily.

00:47 Finding the drop. And it was a big one.

01:14 Visibility trending tanks across all three tools.

02:26 3.6M queries dropped in the US alone.

03:29 AI Overviews and AI Mode drop.

04:44 Theories about what happened starting with Reviews updates.

05:44 Google's 'Starkly Different' algorithm/system.

07:13 Wirecutter wasn't alone. Many reviews sites have dropped.

08:18 Vertical expertise rewarded?

09:45 Closing thoughts.

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If your site is using JavaScript to render content via client-side rendering then it's important to understand that most AI search platforms cannot currently see your content. That includes ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and others. In this video, I cover a case study of a site that wasn't ranking well across AI Search, how they were leveraging client-side rendering, how that was causing problems, and what the AI platforms could actually see. It's great example of how JavaScript-based content can cause problems beyond Google and Bing in AI search platforms that are rapidly growing. I also end with a list of action items for site owners that might be affected by this issue.

Blog post covering my case study:

https://www.gsqi.com/marketing-blog/ai-search-javascript-rendering/

Chapters:

00:00 AI Search and JavaScript Rendering

00:50 An introduction to the case study.

01:25 Vercel's research about AI platforms and JavaScript rendering

02:52 First signs of trouble - Favicons and Citation Problems

04:30 Testing ChatGPT for JavaScript rendered content

05:40 Testing Perplexity for JavaScript rendered content

06:24 Testing Claude for JavaScript rendered content

07:52 What site owners can do now.

09:15 Don't use client-side rendering for ALL of your page content.

09:45 Yes, Google (Gemini) and Bing (Copilot) can render JavaScript just fine.

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Has AI Search taken over in July 2025? Is Google still important or should you just focus on ChatGPT, Perplexity, and other AI search platforms? In this video, I explain how to set up AI Search tracking in Google Analytics 4 to view the difference between AI Search traffic compared to Google Search and organic search overall. After setting this up across many accounts, AI search accounts for under 1% of traffic, and under .5% for most sites I checked.I’ll also explain how ignoring Google Search could lead to a drop in quality, which could cause problems with Google’s broad core updates (as core updates can impact all areas of Google including AI Overviews and AI Mode).Blog post covering the topic: https://www.gsqi.com/marketing-blog/ai-search-traffic-compared-to-google/

Chapters:

00:00 AI Search versus Google Search in 2025

00:46 A conversation with an IT executive about AI Search and the demise of Google.

02:20 How to set up AI search tracking in Google Analytics 4 (GA4).

03:45 What I found when analyzing AI Search traffic compared to Google.

05:15 AI Search example: B2C

06:16 AI Search example: Niche news publisher

06:42 AI Search example: Health and medical

07:18 AI Search example: Smaller publisher

07:41 Google organic drives the most traffic (by a mile).

08:33 AEO, GEO versus SEO - Be careful.

09:40 Google broad core updates and the danger of ignoring Google search.

10:12 A strong SEO strategy covers most of what you need for AI Search.

11:10 All Google surfaces that can be impacted by broad core udpates.

12:18 AIOs and AI Mode can be impacted by Google's broad core updates.

12:50 Wrapping up - AI Search is important, but don't ignore Google.

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Have you read AI Overview studies and wondered how *your own site* is being impacted? I got you covered. This video covers my blog post that walks you step-by-step through combining third-party AIO data with Google Search Console performance data (via the Search Console API) and using vlookup magic to see the change in clicks and CTR when AIOs are ranking for your queries.

Note, this definitely works best for sites with a lot of search visibility and traffic from Google. So if your site doesn't have a ton of visibility, this process might not yield great results. BTW, having to write a 14-step process using multiple third-party tools, the GSC API, etc., to TRY to analyze AIO impact is RIDICULOUS, but that's exactly what Google wants unfortunately. And no, I don't think we will get AIO or AI Mode data broken out, so this may be the best approach for site owners trying to gauge the impact of AIOs on clicks and CTR.

Note, AIOs officially rolled out in May of 2024, so you can definitely compare to pre-AIO SERPs if you want (or any timeframe you want to compare to). I've been running this for several clients and it works pretty well (especially for larger-scale sites with a lot of search visibility and traffic from Google). So watch this video and read my blog post, walk through the steps, run the numbers, and analyze the impact of AIOs for your own site. You might be surprised with what you find -- or not. :) Have fun.

Blog post:

https://www.gsqi.com/marketing-blog/how-to-measure-the-impact-of-google-ai-overviews/

Chapters:

00:00 Tracking the impact of AI Overviews on CTR and clicks.

01:01 Combining third-party AIO data and GSC performance data.

03:00 Exporting all AIO data via third-party visibility tools.

04:08 Export GSC data via the Search Console API (for two timeframes).

05:40 Apply vlookup magic in Excel.

07:31 An example of CTR and clicks impact based on AIOs ranking.

08:41 Recommendations and tips for site owners.

11:08 My thoughts about why Google isn't breaking out AIO data in GSC.

13:07 Summary: Tell me how this goes for you!

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If you earn a powerful link, you should receive that link. Unfortunately, many news and media publishers are nofollowing those links, which tells Google to not pass signals, including PageRank, downstream to the pages that earned those links.

I cover the situation, including examples of that happening, why it’s happening, how Google’s view of nofollow has changed over the years, and even include an example of it happening to me! In addition, I cover important FAQs for news and media publishers that might be nofollowing links now (in order to clear up any confusion about when to link normally versus using nofollow).

A link is a terrible thing to waste, so please link out normally. Site owners will appreciate it, Google will appreciate, and the entire web ecosystem will appreciate it.

Blog post covering the topic:

https://www.gsqi.com/marketing-blog/news-media-publishers-link-out-ditch-nofollow/

Chapters:

00:00 When links go wrong. Why some news and media publishers are nofollowing links.

02:08 Examples of news and media publishers nofollowing earned links.

03:30 Link Madness Inception: When it happened to me recently!

04:47 But wait, nofollow is just a hint to Google now.

06:00 Help me, help you. FAQs for news and media publishers.

08:57 Just link out normally. It’s the way the web works.

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Google recently rolled out two additional waves of manual actions for site reputation abuse targeting the EU (including Germany in the second wave). As I’ve been analyzing those drops, I noticed that sites are handling content violating the spam policy in several ways (and some are not the correct ways). For example, disallowing via robots.txt and canonicalizing are NOT valid approaches. Instead, noindexing or removing the content completely are the correct methods for dealing with a manual action for site reputation abuse.

In this video, I cover four methods that are being employed now by site owners and why only two are valid. I provide specific examples of sites using each approach and how that worked, or didn’t work, for the site at hand.

Companion blog post covering the topic: https://www.gsqi.com/marketing-blog/how-to-block-content-site-reputation-abuse/

Chapters:

00:00 New manual actions for site reputation abuse and how sites are trying to block content

00:49 Disallowing via robots.txt (NOT VALID)

03:39 Canonicalizing site reputation abuse content (NOT VALID)

04:35 Noindexing content (VALID)

05:44 User-agent blocking

06:15 Removing content completely (VALID)

06:50 Summary: Two valid choices for blocking content for site reputation abuse

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GSC data for AI overviews, including clicks and click-through rate, has been nearly impossible to view... UNTIL NOW. But there's a catch. You need a manual action! My latest episode covers my blog post titled The Twiddler That Didn’t Twiddle – How To Track Clicks and Click Through Rate For Google’s AI Overviews (but only if you have a manual action.)

In this video I explain the loophole in Google right now where sites with manual actions can still rank well in AIOs even when they are heavily demoted (or removed) from ranking in the core search results (10-blue links). But I also explain that you better move fast. I don't know how long it take before Google closes that loophole.

This may be one of the few times (or only time) a manual action will benefit a site owner.

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction - When the Twiddler Doesn't Twiddle

00:50 Murky and Confusing AIO Performance Data

01:29 Google's loophole where sites with a manual action can rank in AI overviews

02:42 Lily Ray's tweet and my retweet about sites ranking in AIOs with manual actions

03:07 Twiddler Down! When Twiddlers don't Twiddle

03:54 How deindexing with manual actions works

04:40 The maddening adventure of tracking AIOs

05:39 You couldn't see pure AIO performance data... until now!

06:20 Steps for tracking pure AIO data in Google Search Console

08:10 Examples of AIO clicks and CTR in Google Search Console

09:20 Click-through rate with #1 AIO rankings.

10:20 A note about using regex in GSC to combine queries.

11:17 Summary - The only time a manual action can benefit a site owner.

Blog post: https://www.gsqi.com/marketing-blog/how-to-track-aio-performance-gsc-manual-action/

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Interested in the amount of collateral damage that can occur when major Google algorithm updates roll out? Well, a recent appearance by Mark Zuckerberg on the Joe Rogan podcast provides a great explanation of how classifiers, confidence levels, and precision work with machine learning algorithms. He also covered how adjusting confidence can impact the amount of collateral damage occurring when updates roll out. And if you swap “Social” for “Search”, Zuckerberg could be talking about any major Google algorithm update.

In this video, I cover Mark's comments about classifiers and collateral damage, I cover how classifiers are used by Google with major algorithm updates (and part of its core rankings systems), I cover yo-yo trending and why that can happen with certain sites, and I end by covering the future of broad core updates (from my perspective).

Blog post: https://www.gsqi.com/marketing-blog/classifiers-confidence-and-google-algorithm-updates/

00:00 Introduction

00:39 Mark Zuckerberg about classifiers, confidence levels, and collateral damage.

01:58 The connection to SEO and Google algorithm updates.

03:18 The September 2023 Helpful Content Update (HCUX)

04:23 Classifiers and Google's guide to search ranking systems

05:18 Yo-yo trending with Google updates

06:25 The 'Kitchen Sink' approach to remediation is the path forward.

07:17 The future of Google's broad core updates.

09:02 Wrapping up.

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I cover the December 2024 Spam Update including key information about the rollout, what the update targeted, recovery from spam updates, and the difference between spam updates and link spam updates. Then I cover five case studies spanning doorway pages, scaled content abuse, AI-generated content, and more.

Blog post: https://www.gsqi.com/marketing-blog/google-december-2024-spam-update-case-studies/

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OpenAI revealed some important new features for ChatGPT Search as part of its 12 days of ship-mas in December. Day 8 yielded local search with maps integration, new treatment for navigational queries (which opens up ad opportunities), and then live mode now having the ability to tap into Search for up-to-date information. I cover each of these features and then end with a live demo of ChatGPT live mode with Search.

Chapters: