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🔥 ​The Top 3 SEOFOMO News Stories Of The Week

Check out the top trending stories this week on SEOFOMO News -these are the most upvoted entries, whether SEO news, guides, or resources-, that people upvoted the most:
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​No 1. Google CTR Stats – Changes Report for Q4 2024 [21 Votes]​
​Dan Popa / General SEO / Submitted by Gianluca Fiorelli​
​Dan shares how the Google's CTR values for your website’s industry changed in Q4 2024. “Websites ranked in the first four positions for informational queries recorded a combined 7.31 pp loss in CTR on desktop”.

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​No 2. 5 Reasons Why You Should Count Queries in Search Console [12 Votes]​
​Matthew Mellinger / General SEO / Submitted by Matthew Mellinger​
​Matthew explains how query counting measures your site's true topical authority, validates content pruning, and can transform performance analysis in this guide.

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​No 3. Whitespark Freshness Distance Calculator [7 Votes]​
​Whitespark / SEO Tools / Submitted by Preeti Gupta​
​Analyze the dates in search results to determine how often you should update your content to rank for your keyword.

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🗞️ Search Updates and News from Search Engines

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​Google now sees more than 5 trillion searches per year
​Danny Goodwin / Google Search Updates
​Google processes more than 5 trillion searches per year. This is the first time Google has publicly shared such a figure since 2016, when the company confirmed it was handling “more than 2 trillion” queries annually.

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​DOJ posted its final proposed remedies for US v Google [Thread]
​Jason Kint / Search Trends​
​"All as expected including Chrome divestiture and future proofing for AI. Here is what publishers came for."

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​Google Search’s new ‘AI Mode’ lets users ask complex, multi-part questions
​Aisha Malik / Google Product Updates
​Google is launching a new “AI Mode” experimental feature in Search that looks to take on Perplexity AI and OpenAI’s ChatGPT Search.

• Related: Google Updates Robots Meta Tag Document To Include AI Mode by Matt G. Southern​

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​Google Drops The Horrid Page Annotations Feature
​Barry Schwartz / Google Search Updates
​Google has shut down its page annotations feature, where Google placed links in your content and directed your content to Google Search.

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​Google Tests AI Overviews In Germany, Switzerland, Italy & More
​Barry Schwartz / Google Search Updates
​While Google has expanded them to 100+ countries, they are still not officially launched in many European countries like Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Spain and others, but Google is now testing AIO's in them.

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​Google On Low-Effort Content That Looks Good
​Roger Montti / Google Search Q&A
​John Mueller shares his thoughts on the viewpoint that low-effort content is acceptable because it "looks good".

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​Google’s Martin Splitt Warns Against Redirecting 404s To Homepage
​Matt G. Southern / Google Search Q&A​
​Google advises against redirecting all 404 pages to the homepage, recommending proper redirects or maintaining 404 status codes.

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​Robots Refresher: robots.txt — a flexible way to control how machines explore your website
​Martin Splitt, John Mueller / Google Search Updates
​Martin and John go through robots.txt as a flexible way to tell robots what you want them to do (or not do) on your website in this edition of Robots Refresher.

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​​Monitor the latest SEO News, Updates, and Conversations in Real Time in SEOFOMO News

👌 This week's SEO Awesomeness

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​New Research: How Often Do Americans Search Google? Which Search Verticals Do They Use?​
​Rand Fishkin / Search Trends​
​“Active American desktop web users in 2024 performed, on average, 126 unique Google searches each month. The median was 53 Google searches/month”.

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​SEO Is the Worst It’s Ever Been (And It’s Still Your Best Marketing Channel)​
​Ryan Law / General SEO​
​Ryan goes through two ideas that can be true at the same time: SEO offers worse returns than it used to. SEO is still one of the best marketing channels.

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​SEO For Brand Visibility & Recognition​
​Jessie Low, Aleyda Solis / General SEO​
​Aleyda goes through how to build brand authority, optimize for searches, and align your website with your brand experience to improve rankings.

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​The Rise of Embeddings in SEO​
​Chris Green / General SEO ​
​Chris goes through what are embeddings, why should you care, explains similarity scores and thresholds, along with real examples and a new free tool to use.

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​SEO Forecasting: A Complete Guide to Organic Growth​
​Botpresso / SEO Measurement ​
​Learn the power of SEO forecasting, how to predict search trends, estimate organic traffic, and more in this comprehensive guide.
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​Solving Keyword Cannibalisation Issues Using N-Grams in Screaming Frog’s SEO Spider
​Ellie Brett / Content Optimization​
​Ellie explains how to solve keyword cannibalization issues through N-Grams in Screaming Frog in this step-by-step guide.

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​How to optimize content after Google’s Helpful Content Update​
​Ashley Segura / Content Optimization​
​Google's HCU tanked traffic for many smaller brands. Ashley explains how to get your visibility back and keep it by creating intent-specific content and embracing unique takes in this actionable guide.
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​SEO-Driven Content Architecture — Whiteboard Friday [Video]
​Adriana Stein / General SEO​
​Adriana goes through how to grow organic traffic, clicks, keyword rankings, and drive conversions by creating SEO-driven content architecture.

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​Pinterest SEO: Your guide to brand discovery
​Ashley Liddell / Pinterest SEO​
​Pinterest isn’t just social – it’s a search powerhouse. Here's how to get discovered by high-intent users searching Pinterest for inspiration.

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​The SEOFOMO Ecommerce SEO in 2025 Survey [Win SEOFOMO Hoodie, Mug & 15 SEO Tools]​
​SEOFOMO / Ecommerce SEO​
​If you’re an SEO who works with Ecommerce sites, then this survey and giveaway are for you! It will only take 5 minutes to answer the questions, it’s anonymous, and you can participate to win an SEOFOMO Hoodie, Mug and 15 SEO tools.

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​​Monitor the latest SEO News, Updates, and Conversations in Real Time in SEOFOMO News

🤖 AI in Search and Marketing

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​5 Early Observations about The New Google AI Mode in Test
​Aleyda Solis​
Google launched its new AI Mode test and described it to expand what AI Overviews can do with more advanced reasoning, thinking and multimodal capabilities. But is it really like this? Here are 5 early observations after testing it.

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​Does Being Mentioned on Top News Sites Impact AI Answer Mentions?​
​Nick Haigler​
​Nick tested whether frequent mentions on top news sites influence ChatGPT brand visibility. “Being featured in Forbes or CNBC doesn’t guarantee your brand appears in ChatGPT’s answers”.

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​DeepSeek vs. ChatGPT vs. AI Overviews: Which AI model handles YMYL topics best?​
​Yulia Deda / AI Search​
​Yulia shares the outcomes of an analysis on how each AI model responded to YMYL queries to evaluate their accuracy, reliability, and potential influence on public opinion on sensitive topics.

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​How to use OpenAI’s Deep Research for smarter SEO strategies​
​Carolyn Shelby​
ChatGPT is great, but Deep Research is next-level for SEO. Discover how it delivers real-time insights, citations, and competitive advantages.

• Related: How To Use LLMs for Competitive Research and Gap Analysis by Caitlin Hathaway​

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​What GenAI is doing to the Content Quality Bell Curve
​Barry Adams / Content Optimization​
​Generative AI makes it easy to create mediocre content at scale. That means, most of the web will become mediocre content, and you need to work harder to stand out. Barry goes through it.

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​How to Use AI for SEO?​
​Sara Taher​
​“AI generated content is faster and cheaper, but it's not great content, it can be just called "ok". Then there's people using AI to write, and then there is just 100% human written content”.

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​See More AI in Marketing News from The Latest Week in The New AI Marketers Newsletter​

💸 Latest SEO Jobs

• ​Senior Analyst, Search Engine Optimization at Choice Hotels​
• ​SEO Specialist at Legacy Communications Ltd​
• ​Sr. SEO Manager at Fandom​
• ​Sr. SEO Account Manager at Growth Plays​
• ​SEO Manager at GE HealthCare​
• ​SEO & SEM Manager at HealthMark​
• ​SEO & Content Marketing Manager at Aplos​
• ​SEO Associate at PeopleFinders.com​

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​See more SEO Jobs on the SEOFOMO Job board and subscribe to the email alerts​

🛠 Free(mium) SEO Tools

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​DataDecode - your marketing analytics copilot​
​Mateusz Makosiewicz​
​Upload your digital marketing KPIs and get a full analysis with recommendations in seconds.

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​Writesonic SEO AI Agent​
​Writesonic​
Turn weeks of SEO work into minutes with the most advanced SEO AI Agent. Get real-time data, actionable insights, and automated optimization - all through one intelligent AI agent.

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​See More SEO Tools in the SEOFOMO SEO Toolbox​

🎙️ Upcoming SEO Events

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​Search Central Live South Africa
​​Google Search Central / Johannesburg, South Africa / Free / April 2, 2025​
​​Google Search Central Live is going to South Africa for the first time on April 2. Confirmations will be sent on March 12.

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​Search Central Live Madrid​
​​Google Search Central / Madrid, Spain / Free / April 9, 2025​
​​Google Search Central Live is going to Madrid for the first time on April 9. Registration will be open until March 13, and confirmations will be sent on March 20.

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​SEO Week 2025​​
​​iPullRank / NYC, USA / +1199 USD / April 28 - May 2, 2025​​
​Join SEO Week 2025 in New York City for a week of expert insights, actionable strategies, and networking with industry leaders. Be part of SEO’s next chapter!

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​See All SEO Events in the SEOFOMO Events Section​

🥁 Other Digital Marketing News

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​Google Ads on AI, personalization and the future of shopping​
​Vidhya Srinivasan​
Google is working on more interactive ads that help viewers learn about products right in the ad without leaving their viewing experience. They’re also helping brands discover and connect with creators to authentically reach audiences through partnership ads.

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​Google Vehicle Ads Now Allow RVs & Campers​
​Barry Schwartz​
Google now accepts RVs and campers in Google Vehicle Ads. Google posted, "Vehicle ads will be expanding to include recreational vehicles (RVs) and campers".

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​Google Merchant Center renames Conversion Settings as Key Event Setup​
​Anu Adegbola​
Google Merchant Center replacing Conversion settings with Key event setup puts it in alignment with Google Analytics 4's framework.

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​See More PPC, Social, Influencer & Content Marketing News in MarketingFOMO​

🏆 SEOFOMOer Of The Week

This week's SEOFOMOer to follow is Orit Mutznik, an experienced SEO specialist with +15 years in the industry based in London, Senior Director, SEO & Growth at Forbes, former SEO Director at DataCamp, Head of SEO at SilkFred, eToro, SEO Team Lead at 888holdings, and SEO Project Manager at William Hill.

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With a proven track record of success in the eCommerce (fashion), Publishing, Financial Services, Investing (Forbes), FinTech (crypto) & Gaming industries, Orit is a tri-lingual SEO (English, Spanish, Hebrew), an SEO awards Judge (EU Search Awards, Global Marketing Awards), expert contributor in a variety of SEO publications and speaker at some of the best known SEO conferences, like BrightonSEO.

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Follow Orit on Linkedin or through her site now.