Here is fresh SEO (& AI) news from the first week of August. Again, even though it’s summer time, a lot of interesting stuff is happening and I have a lot of interesting resources to share.
☝️ One of the resources I’m creating is the list of 100+ SEOs to follow. I initially wanted to publish my own version, but that wouldn’t be objective enough, so I want to ask you to suggest SEOs to put on my list.
All you need to do is fill in this Google form, and I will add you to the list together with a link to your site and your social media profiles. Thank you!
Okay, so now onto the newsletter and the *** SEO news.
The SEO Newsletter by #SEOSLY is sponsored by JetOctopus
JetOctopus is a cloud-based website crawler and SEO log analyzer. The tool allows you to analyze your website structure, check for broken links, detect technical SEO issues, and monitor your website’s ranking in search engines.
JetOctopus is the fastest and most affordable SaaS crawler and logs analyzer without limits.
I would not be able to do my work the way I do it without JetOctopus (seriously).
I’ve audited my own SEOSLY site. Here’s what I found.
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If you haven’t already, I invite you to follow me across all these channels (to never miss any important SEO news, tip, or article and stay up-to-**** with the world of SEO).
Top SEO news
Here is the most important SEO & AI news from last week.
OpenAI’s ChatGPT New Web Crawler – GPTBot
OpenAI, the folks behind ChatGPT, have published information on its web crawler named GPTBot. You can now see if OpenAI is crawling your site, how much so, and you can disallow access to all or part of your site with the robots.txt protocol.
Google testing links directly in Search Generative Experience snapshot answers
Google is testing showing links directly in the snapshot answers generated by Google’s new Search Generative Experience. The links appear within the text answer. Until now, Google has only been showing links in the cards at the top right section of the AI-generated answer.
3 new things you can do with generative AI in Search
Updates to AI-powered overviews give you easier and more visual ways to find and digest information. Here are three recent updates that make SGE even more helpful.
Google Ranking Algorithm Research Introduces TW-BERT
Google research paper describes a remarkable framework called TW-BERT that improves search ranking without requiring major changes.
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Cora SEO Software is capable of measuring thousands of factors and tells you exactly which ones appear to influence rankings and how much you need of each to compete with higher ranking competitors. More and more we are finding that having a broad diversity of ranking signals is the most important ranking factor and no SEO tool on the market handles factor diversity better than Cora.
You don’t need to believe what I’m saying. Just try for yourself! I have a special lifetime deal 25% OFF (and free training) for my newsletter subscribers.
Check my interview with Ted Kubaitis, the creator of Cora.
Watch my interview with Ted Kubaitis, the creator of Cora, to learn more about how game-changing this tool is.
More AI & SEO news
Here is other SEO news, less breaking but equally important.
More links again displaying in Google Search Console’s Links Report
Barry Schwartz reports that as of August 4, 2023, more links are now displaying in Google Search Console’s Links Report. This development comes after a previous bug was reported with the link report, which was later confirmed by Google’s John Mueller. He assured that a fix would be released shortly. Over the past couple of weeks, Barry Schwartz has been closely monitoring the situation, checking several times per day, and noticed a small increase in the number of links being reported in the Link Report within Google Search Console.
Bing Chat Works On Chrome, Firefox and Other Browsers
Barry Schwartz reports that Bing Chat has started working on non-Edge browsers, including Chrome and Firefox. Users who are logged into Bing can now access and use Bing Chat on these browsers, and it appears to have rolled out on Friday morning around 5 am ET.
New privacy tools to help you stay safe and in control online
Today, we’re announcing some important new features in Google Search to help you stay in control of your personal information, privacy and online safety.
Google Search Generative Experience AI-Generated Answers Gain Videos
Google is also adding videos to its Search Generative Experience AI-generated answer section. So now when Google thinks a video is helpful to answer the question, Google may embed a playable video directly in the answer.
Recent SEO talks
Don’t miss those interviews with outstanding SEO experts! New amazing interviews are coming soon!
Top SEO Tips
And here are the Google SEO tips for you.
#1: Don’t disavow backlinks as a prevention mechanism!
#2: When to worry about keyword stuffing
Ever wonder at what point you need to worry that there are too many of the same keywords on the page? Well, John Mueller from Google said it is not having it ten or twenty times but rather three hundred to five hundred or more.
#3: Google: We Don’t Archive Our Own Search Result Pages
Google’s John Mueller was asked if Google stores a permanent or semi-permanent copy of its own search result pages for future reference. John replied basically saying no, because it is not an efficient use of Google’s resources.
Videos to watch this week
Here are the latest videos from other SEOs I find especially interesting and worth watching.
Other articles & resources to read
And you need to allocate some time to read these articles from other SEOs. They are brilliant.
Don’t Disavow Backlinks (Unless You Read This)
Learn what disavowing links is, when to disavow links, and why you most likely don’t need to do this. I was inspired to write this guide by Glenn Gabe’s case study (see the link below).
By Olga Zarr
A tale of two snippets: What link attribution in SGE tells us about search
More on the latest UI changes in SGE and how this new feature fits into the evolution of search engine results.
By Mariya Delano
Can search engines detect AI content?
Explore the intricacies of AI-generated content in search and how Google’s long-term goals might be shaping its response to the technology.
By Mark Williams-Cook
Twitter’s Brand Equity: 17 Years & 12 Million Keywords
Twitter has announced its rebranding to ‘X’ with X.com now redirecting to Twitter.com, sparking concerns around the potential SEO impacts and loss of brand equity accumulated over 17 years, including approximately 10,149 branded search queries that drive over 18 million searches per month. The confusing history of X.com, which currently ranks for no keywords and has seen multiple ownership changes and site redirects, is anticipated to further complicate the transition and could result in significant loss of search traffic for at least 3-6 months, if not longer.
By Dr. Peter J. Meyers
Why Noindexing Syndicated Content Is The Way – Tracking 3K syndicated news articles to determine the impact on indexing, ranking, and traffic across Google surfaces [Case Study]
OK, so we know Google recommends noindexing content on the syndication partner website and to avoid using rel canonical as a solution. But what does all of this actually look like in the SERPs? How bad is the situation when the content isn’t noindexed? And does it impact all Google surfaces like Search, Top Stories, the News tab in Search, Google News, and Discover?
By Glenn Gabe
Indexwatch: SEO Visibility Losers Jan-July 2023 🇺🇸
The AI revolution and surge of new updates to search, new SEO tools and AI-related product announcements by Google, Bing, OpenAI, and other search engines have created an intense, fast-changing atmosphere for digital marketers. Below are the domains seeing the greatest losses in SEO visibility on Google.com in the U.S., both in absolute and percentage terms.
By Lily Ray
What is structured data validation?
Whether it’s for new or existing content, validating your structured data should be an important part of your SEO workflow. In this article, Crystal explains it all.
By Crystal Carter
Google’s Vision for Search in 2023 and Beyond – Analysis of the Q2 2023 Earnings Call
Google’s most recent earnings call contained a number of interesting statements about where Search is headed. Sundar Pichai spoke repeatedly about the evolution of Search that is happening because of Google’s use of AI.
By Marie Haynes
SEO to MVP – Thriving in your role in just 90 days
A 90-day career roadmap can help you to identify what you can do in a short time-period to set yourself up for future success.
By Helen Pollitt
Thank you for reading my newsletter! I hope you found the information useful. If you enjoyed this issue, be sure to check out the next one next week.
