SEO From The Front Lines

With Google's hidden gems update in the fall of 2023, both Reddit and Quora surged like crazy. Although many are focused on the surge of Reddit, with good reason, it's important to understand that many forums surged in the fall of 2023. I have covered this heavily on X over time. So I just rank the visibility numbers for 97 forums I'm tracking across verticals. The percentage change year-over-year was wild. 88% of the forums saw 100% growth or more. And a number saw 1000% growth or more. In this episode I also show several screenshots of forums that surged since the fall of 2023, while also explaining that several have seen drops recently with the volatility we have seen this summer (as we lead up to the next core update). Those sites are still up big-time YOY, but they have seen a downturn recently. Is that a foreshadowing of what's coming for those sites with the next core update? We'll find out soon.

Follow me on X: https://x.com/glenngabe

Connect with me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/glenngabe/

While checking Bing Webmaster Tools recently, I noticed a huge change across sites starting on May 29, 2024. The more I dug in, the more volatility I saw. It sure looks like Bing pushed some type of large algorithm change that impacted many sites across the web. The surges and drops I'm seeing are across sites and verticals, so it's not just one niche. I reached out to Bing's Fabrice Canel to see if Bing pushed an update and he explained nothing specific rolled out around that date, but he did say that Bing pushes changes almost daily (and some changes have a bigger impact across sites). In addition, when Bing rolled out a big algorithm update in January of 2023, it was based on applying a new AI model to the Bing search algorithm. And that was based on the partnership with OpenAI. When checking OpenAI releases, I noticed that GPT-4o rolled out just two weeks before the volatility started on May 29th. So, it's possible that had an impact on Bing rankings. I'm trying to find out more about that from Bing now. Regardless, check your Bing stats in Bing Webmaster Tools. You might be surprised what you find.

Here's my tweet about the Bing update: https://twitter.com/glenngabe/status/1819703777592492496

Here's Barry's post about the potential update: https://www.seroundtable.com/bing-search-ranking-algorithm-update-may-29th-37840.html

Confirmed Bing algorithm update in January 2023: https://www.seroundtable.com/bing-algorithm-update-january-18-2023-34784.html

Follow me on Twitter: https://x.com/glenngabe

Connect with me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/glenngabe/

Learn why an algorithmic approach to enforcing Google's site reputation abuse policy is the way forward. I first cover manual actions Google applied on May 7, 2024 and how sites handled the content violating the site reputation abuse spam policy. Then I explain why blocking via robots.txt isn't a valid approach to blocking that content, as well as how noindexing content can also go haywire. I end the podcast covering how some international sites were unaffected when manual actions were applied, and why that might be the case.

Google was testing a change to how it provides links in AI Overviews in the search results. I was in the test last week and captured some video of it in action. The new treatment provides an overlay of search results on top of the AI overview. You can tap a group of favicons to see all of the pages where the AI sourced the answer from. In addition, there were small link icons that would trigger a smaller overlay containing the page(s) where that part of the answer was sourced from. I saw this on mobile, but others saw the new link treatment on desktop as well. I also cover how Google could easily include ads in the SERP overlays.

With Google recently expanding support for translated results in the search results, I explain how to export those translated results by country from Google Search Console via the GSC API and Analytics Edge. I also cover how translated results work, what they look like in the search results, how to opt-out from having your content translated, and more.

View the blog post now.

Confused about aggressive and disruptive ads and how that impacts a site with major algorithm updates? Well, the Ad Experience Report in Google Search Console might add to that confusion. Glenn Gabe of GSQi explains how the Ad Experience Report in Google Search Console fails to provide an accurate view of the advertising situation for site owners, and how that provides a false sense of security. Glenn explains how aggressive ads can impact a site during broad core updates and how the Ad Experience Report could help if Google provided stronger data there. You can read the blog post on gsqi.com.

I cover scary and confusing surges and drops in indexing in Google Search Console (GSC) and why that might be totally fine for site owners and SEOs. If the surges are due to urls categorized as "Indexed, though blocked by robots.txt", then that can cause the spike and drop you are seeing. And since Google is on record that it can't impact the site quality-wise, it can be totally fine.

Now that AI overviews rolled out in the United States in Google Search, I dug into Google Search Console (GSC) to track those overviews (the queries and landing pages ranking there). In this episode, I walk you through several examples of sites ranking lower on page one in the 10-blue links, but also ranking in AI overviews at the top of the SERPs. Based on that, I was hoping I would clearly be able to track those overviews. Nope, it wasn't clear at all.