The SEOFOMO Newsletter​

November 2nd, 2025
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Your weekly SEO & AI Search News to Stop the FOMO, read by +39.8K SEOs.
Today's sponsor is SEOTesting.com Want to advertise? Ask here.​

Expansionary for Google, but what about the Web traffic they refer?

​Google Q3 earnings call: AI is driving an expansionary moment for Search​
Sundar Pichai ​
​Sundar Pichai highlighted during Alphabet's 2025 Q3 earnings call how AI is driving real business results across the company:

• They delivered their first-ever $100 billion quarter.
• In the U.S., they've seen strong and consistent week-over-week growth in usage since AI Mode launch and queries doubled over the quarter.
• They rolled out AI Mode globally across 40 languages and it now has over 75 million daily active users.

They say AI Mode is already driving incremental total query growth for Search... but what about the traffic they refer to non-Google Web properties?

Hoping the AI Search reports come soon too.

​Google is introducing Query groups in Search Console Insights​
​Moshe Samet / Google ​
​Google announces query groups, a new feature that groups similar search queries using AI; available as a new card in the Search Console Insights report: "You will now see lists of queries representing the main groups that interest your audience."

This feature will be rolling out over the coming weeks only to properties that have a large volume of queries.

It would be nice if query groups are also enabled in the Performance report along with other metrics besides clicks.

PS: I hope these releases don't delay the one we actually want: AI Search related reports and filters.

Are you team SerpAPI or team Reddit?

​SerpAPI calls Reddit lawsuit a threat to the ‘free and open web’​
​Danny Goodwin / Search Engine Land​
​SerpAPI said it will “vigorously defend” itself after being sued by Reddit for allegedly scraping and reselling data from the platform via Google Search results.

• Related: Perplexity Responds To Reddit Lawsuit Over Data Access by Matt G. Southern​

OpenAI gets more flexibility to work with other partners.

​Microsoft Locks In OpenAI Partnership Through 2032​​
​Matt G. Southern
​Microsoft and OpenAI signed a deal extending Microsoft's rights to OpenAI models through 2032, confirming a 27% stake worth $135B. The companies also changed how exclusivity works. Microsoft keeps exclusive IP rights and Azure API exclusivity, but OpenAI can now collaborate with other partners.

Single-view interface that helps you manage all accounts.

​Google Launching Merchant Center For Agencies​​
​Barry Schwartz
​Google is launching a special agency version of Google Merchant Center named Merchant Center for Agencies. The product allows for the management of multiple Merchant Center accounts at scale.

In case you needed a confirmation

​Google’s Advice On Canonicals: They’re Case Sensitive​
​Roger Montti / Search Engine Journal
​John Mueller answered a question about canonicals: "URL path, filename, and query parameters are case-sensitive, the hostname / domain name aren’t. Case-sensitivity matters for canonicalization, so it’s a good idea to be consistent there."

It extends their citation-first approach to patent search.

​Perplexity Introduces Perplexity Patents: AI-Powered Patent Search for Everyone​​
​Perplexity
​Perplexity is launching Perplexity Patents, a new AI agent for patent research that makes IP intelligence accessible to everyone. The beta is available worldwide for free, while Pro and Max users receive additional usage quotas and model configuration options.

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Track and Test Your LLM Traffic

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LLMs are now real discovery channels.
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With SEOTesting, you can finally quantify them. The LLM Traffic Pages Report shows you which pages on your site attract visits from ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, and Copilot, and how that changes over time.

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Then use our new LLM Test Type to run proper time-based tests on content or technical tweaks and measure uplift in LLM visits per day.
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This is all valuable evidence that your stakeholders will trust.

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An article is ultimately judged by the quality of user engagement.

​How Google Discover Really Works
​Harry Clarkson-Bennett / Leadership in SEO​
​Harry breaks down the Google Leak to explain how Google Discover works: “Your site needs to be seen as a ‘trusted source’ with low Spam, evaluated by proxies like publisher trust score in order to be eligible”.

It's time to move away from generic listicles easily summarized by AI.

​Survival Strategies for Publishers in Google’s Current Search Environment​
​Erin Rooney Doland / Women in Tech SEO
​Erin goes through how Google’s changes are impacting publishers and shares ways to adapt, create deeper content, and build resilience beyond Google: from encouraging readers to sign up for "Preferred Sources" to stop creating entity-based listicles.

Use templates as landing pages.

​Leverage onboarding flows for SEO​
​Eli Schwartz / The Future of SEO
​Eli explains how to reframe your site as a dynamic content engine, driving organic traffic through the strategic optimization of internal surfaces.​
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Learn common methods to solve JavaScript rendering issues

​Making JavaScript websites AI and LLM crawler-friendly​
​Dan Taylor
​Dan describes how search engines like Google render JavaScript, what happens when crawlers cannot render content, how AI systems handle JavaScript-based pages, and more.

It's time to use SEO Tools MCPs

​AI Can’t Replace SEO Tools. But It Can Use Them​​
​Si Quan Ong / Ahrefs
​Recently, a LinkedIn post claimed that you could replace paid SEO tools with just a handful of ChatGPT prompts and save $8,400 annually. Si explains why this is wrong, and how to ground ChatGPT and other LLMs in SEO reality.

Become the original source

​How to Earn LLM Citations to Build Traffic & Authority​​
​Mateusz Makosiewicz / Ahrefs
​The real question isn’t whether you can outdo Wikipedia on broad topics. It’s whether you can become the trusted expert in your specific niche, the source that language models rely on when people ask about your field.

• Related: 67% of ChatGPT’s Top 1,000 Citations Are Off-Limits to Marketers (+ More Findings) by Louise Linehan​

Are you bored of the GEO, AEO, LLMO... polemic? Read this.

​Beyond the 'Engine': Applying the Complete SEO Ontology to Master Search Experience and AI Search​​
​Gianluca Fiorelli / Advanced Web Ranking
​Learn how SEO Ontology unites traditional SEO with AI Search, and why GEO, AIVO, and RAG aren't revolutions, but a new layer of Search Experience Optimization.

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• ​SEO Specialist at Blue Array​
• ​SEO Manager at Superhuman ​
• ​Expert SEO Strategist at Typeform​
• ​Local SEO Specialist at Rankings.io​
• ​Vice President, SEO at CoStar Group​
• ​Marketing Manager, SEO at MoneyGram​
• ​SEO Outreach Manager at LiveScore Group​
• ​SEO Manager – LiveScore Media at LiveScore Group​