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🗞️ Search Updates and News from Search Engines

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​Google March 2024 Core Update Finished April 19th (A Week Ago)
​Barry Schwartz / Google Search Updates
​The Google March 2024 core update finished officially on April 19, 2024, and took 45 days to roll out after starting on March 5, 2024. Google confirmed it a week later and said it helped to reduce low-quality and unoriginal content in SERPs by 45%.

• ​Submit ranking feedback about the March 2024 core update [by Google Search Liaison]
• ​Google has Updated To Ranking Drop Analysis Documentation [by Roger Montti] ​
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​Google Publisher Center to stop allowing adding publications
​Barry Schwartz / Google Product Updates
​Google will stop allowing publishers to add publications to the Google Publisher Center manually. Instead, Google will automatically add eligible publications pages later this year.

• ​Clarification: "Content is automatically considered for Google News and news surfaces” [by Google Search Liaison]​

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​Google Q1 earnings call: CEO’s remarks
​Sundar Pichai / Google Product Updates
​Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai shares remarks from the Q1 earnings call. “We’re starting to bring AI overviews to the main search results page… focusing on areas where gen AI can improve the Search experience, while also prioritizing traffic to websites and merchants.”

• ​Google Ad Revenue Up 13% & Bing Ads Revenue Up 12% [by Barry Schwartz]​

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​Report: How Prabhakar Raghavan Killed Google Search [by Edward Zitron]​
​Barry Schwartz / Google Search Updates​
​Ed Zitron published a story called "The Man Who Killed Google Search" that goes through how Prabhakar Raghavan, Google's former head of ads, led a coup so that he could run Google Search. Google sent statements in response.

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​Google Warns Of “New Reality” As Search Engine Stumbles (UPDATE)
​Matt G. Southern / Google Search Updates
​Google warns of "new reality" amid search struggles, accelerates timelines, while critics allege prioritizing revenue over quality.

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​Google Revised The Favicon Documentation​
​Roger Montti / Google Search Updates​
​Google revised its Search Central favicon documentation with additional wording that makes it more understandable.

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​Google Crawler Documentation Has A New IP List​
​Roger Montti / Google Search Updates​
​Google revised their crawler documentation with a second list of IP addresses that correspond to crawlers Google doesn't control.

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​Anatomy of a Search Result [Video]
​How Search Works / Google Search Podcast​
​Gary takes a closer look at the components that make up Google's search results and breaks down a search result's anatomy.

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🙋🏻‍♀️ This week's Aleyda's SEO Take

Welcome to the Google "Big Brand" Update!

The very long Google Core Update finished last week (although somehow Google only notified about it a couple of days ago) and the big overall UGC platforms, like Reddit and Quora continued with their winning search visibility trend (that started with updates from last year).
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But there are also other "big" UGC winners: Visual UGC platforms, like TikTok, Instagram, Pinterest; have also increased their organic search visibility.

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All this while continuing to negatively impact sites that had already been hit last year by the Helpful Content Update too, many of them independent publishers / review sites, supported by affiliates and / or ads, such as House of Fresh, Retro Dodo, or Mountain Weekly News.

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But what about big review sites and... retailers in the case of product related queries?

A few big generic review sites, like the Wirecutter or Business Insider have also dropped in their search visibility in the latest Google Update too.

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So which sites have benefited the most from the product/retail queries rankings shifts?

Unlike what you might think, is not really the overall retailers/marketplaces (Google doesn't seem to like the middlemen, whether review sites or generic retailers/marketplaces).

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Sites like Walmart, Best Buy, Macys, Target have only seen a relatively small positive shift if any. In fact, most of them also have a negative visibility trend too since last year's Qs updates.​

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The winners have been the bigger brands such as Nike, or Gymshark, (and also niche specialized brands).

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Google is ranking the big brands directly more, as well as smaller but authoritative niche brands for the relevant sector. Here are a few product queries SERPs shifts examples:

• “Snowboarding”: REI dropped in rankings, while Burton and SkiCanada increased.
• “Camping Equipment”: REI and Walmart dropped, while CampingWorld increased.
• “Waterproof running shoes”: REI decreased, while FleetFeet increased, and Nike started ranking.
• “Best Gaming Laptops”: Best Buy decreased, Games Radar started ranking.
• “Best Laptops for College”: Toms Guide dropped, Lenovo started ranking.
• “Best Running Shoes for Women”: Vogue decreased, Outdoor Gear Lab increased.
• “Home Security Systems”: The NY Times Wirecutter decreased, Ring and Cnet increased.

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So, Google wants to give users more "reliable, quality, helpful" content by giving visibility to final providers, whether big brands or niche authority ones while taking UGC also into account from the biggest platforms.
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​A Google spokesperson told Barry Schwartz that: "The updates led to larger quality improvements than we originally thought – you’ll now see 45% less low quality, unoriginal content in search results..."

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But, is it always better to increase big brands' and biggest platforms' UGC visibility?

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I wonder how decreasing the visibility of independently run, specialized publishers vs generic big publishers reviews covering the same topics or threads of Reddit or Quora that are known to be easily manipulated, outdated, with non-specialized advice can help to achieve that.

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Independent, specialized, balanced insights are also needed to fulfill users' search needs and support their customer search journey. I really expect to see more updates trying to fix this soon.

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To help with this, I recommend filling out this form to send feedback to Google about it.​
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👌 This week's SEO Awesomeness

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​AI Is Poisoning Reddit to Promote Products and Game Google With 'Parasite SEO'
​Jason Koebler / Search Trends​
​A market for manipulating Reddit using AI has emerged.

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​Google’s SGE: Insights from SEOFOMO x Wix
​George Nguyen / Search Trends
​Discover how Google’s SGE is shaping the future of SEO. Learn from the insights shared by experienced SEOs during the roundtable at the SEOFOMO Meetup x Wix in NYC.

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​State Of SGE: 11 Google SGE Disruptions Found After Analyzing 500k Queries
​Tomek Rudzki / Search Trends
​Tomek has analyzed 500K queries to assess the potential SGE disruptions across different sectors, and how you can leverage it for success.

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​TikTok SEO: The ultimate guide
​Cali Saturn / Search Trends
​Cali shares how to optimize for TikTok, the fastest-growing social search platform for Gen Z.

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​An Easy Explanation of Entities and SEO
​Adam Riemer / Technical SEO
​Have you ever wondered why a page that doesn’t list a keyword phrase on the page, in their title tag, or in the URL ranks for a big phrase? Adam explains it in this guide.

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​How to Optimize URLs for SEO to Increase Organic Traffic
​Ryan Jones / Technical SEO
​Discover the fundamentals of URL optimization to set the base of your pages' scalable SEO growth. Learn best practices and practical steps for effective URL structuring.

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​Discovering And Diagnosing A Google AdSense Rendering Bug
​Giacomo Zecchini / General SEO
​Giacomo discovered a Google AdSense rendering bug, with the programmatic matching between ads and website content being impacted, creating an incomplete understanding of the page content. Read about what happened and how it was tackled.

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​7 Ways SEO and Product Teams Can Collaborate to Ensure Success
​Gus Pelogia / SEO Management
​Learn about the strategies for SEO and product teams to collaborate effectively, from joint UX optimization to unified performance metrics.

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​Using Python To Explain Homepage Redirection To C-Suite (Or Any SEO Best Practise)
​Andreas Voniatis / Technical SEO
​Andreas shows how to use Python to communicate to the C-suite in a way that makes sense to them technically and commercially by providing data-driven examples.

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​How to Become an SEO Lead (10 Tips That Advanced My Career)
​Chris Haines / SEO Careers
​Mentor junior team members. Find big brands to work with. Identify your skill gaps. Chris shares ten proven tips to help you climb the SEO career ladder.

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​How to Do Successful (Non-Spammy) Programmatic SEO [Video]
​​Crawling Mondays / General SEO
​Learn what programmatic SEO is and when and how to develop valuable (non-spammy) programmatic SEO successfully in this insightful Crawling Mondays conversation with Lazarina Stoy and Roxana Stingu with Aleyda Solis.
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​Visibility Leaders in Women’s Fashion
​Steve Paine / Search Trends
​SISTRIX’s fourth Visibility Leaders report has found over 80 content projects that Google loves across the women’s fashion sector. Steve goes through the findings in this guide.

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​​See more SEO Conversations in the SEOFOMO Forum​

💸 Latest SEO Jobs

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🛠 Free(mium) SEO Tools

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​HERO - Help Every Reporter Out
​Help Every Reporter Out​
​An alternative to HARO! Help Every Reporter Out enables journalists and sources to connect to get the publicity they might be seeking.

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​Sitemap Clusterizer - Simplify XML Sitemap Analysis
​Ziggy Shtrosberg
​Transform your sitemap into actionable insights by grouping your website's pages by path segments based on the URL structure.

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Looking for more SEO Tools? Take a look at the SEOFOMO SEO Toolbox​

🎙️ Upcoming SEO Events

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​Webinar: How to become a pro in technical SEO
​Tech SEO Pro / Online / 3 sessions per day
​This free training is for SEOs who want to trade imposter syndrome for technical SEO superpower.

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​LaikaPARTY: More than just an SEO event​
​Laika / Madrid, Spain / May 15, 2024​
​The second edition of LAIKAParty is here! Dedicated to SEO news at Google I/O, SGE, and more. Register for free.
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​See more upcoming SEO events in the new SEOFOMO Hub Events Section!​

🙌 SEOs and Digital Marketers to Follow

Let's follow these amazing SEOs covering and/or assessing the latest Google Updates:

• Lily Ray (X/Twitter, LinkedIn), VP SEO Strategy and Research at Amsive
• Marie Haynes (X/Twitter, LinkedIn), Founder at Marie Haynes Consulting
• Glenn Gabe (X/Twitter, LinkedIn), President at G-Squared Interactive
• Barry Schwartz (X/Twitter, LinkedIn), Editor at Search Engine Roundtable and SEL, President of RustyBrick
• MJ Cachón (X/Twitter, LinkedIn), Founder and SEO consultant at Laika

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Expect more awesome SEOs & digital marketers to follow every week. Do you have any suggestions? Just let me know over here!​