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π Your New Year's SEO News [SEOFOMO, Jan 5th, 2025]
Published 13 days agoΒ β’Β 9 min read
January 5th, 2025 βSubscribe and join +36K SEOs and Marketers
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π₯ βMost Popular SEOFOMO News Stories & Contributors 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: β
ποΈ Search Updates and News from Search Engines
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βGoogle CEOβs 2025 AI Strategy Deemphasizes Search Boxβ βRoger Montti / Google Search Trendsβ βGoogle's CEO says 2025 will be about making AI apps like Gemini the point of contact between users and search. What does it mean for SEO?
βGoogle Speculates If SEO βIs On A Dying Pathββ βRoger Montti / Google Search Trendsβ βGooglers discuss if SEO 'is on a dying path' because of AI in Search, offering a surprising opinion of what's going on.
βGoogle Search Console Screenshot Is What Google Search Seesβ βBarry Schwartz / Google Search Q&Aβ βJohn Mueller was asked if the Google Search Console screenshot feature in the URL Inspection Tool is what Google Search sees. He responded, "For the most part, yes" and then added some caveats.
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βGoogle: Adding Country Codes To URLs Won't Help For SEOβ βBarry Schwartz / Google Search Q&Aβ βJohn Mueller said simply adding country codes to your URLs won't result in "any change at all" for regional ranking reasons. Instead, you should think about using ccTLDs, he added.
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βGoogle Search Tests Get An AI Explanation Selectionβ βBarry Schwartz / Google Search Updatesβ βGoogle Search is testing a new method to trigger an AI Overview in Google Search. You can select text with your mouse cursor and then select "Get an AI explanation".
βWrapping up 2024 [Podcast]β ββGoogle Search Central / Search off the Recordβ ββIn this episode of Search Off the Record, Lizzi Sassman, John Mueller, Martin Splitt, and Gary Illyes talk about the importance of understanding how AI works, whether everything will be replaced with JavaScript and more.
βUnderstanding the December 2024 Core and Spam updatesβ βMarie Haynes / Search Trendsβ βMany site owners who think they were impacted by these updates were not. Marie helps you determine if you need to take action in this analysis.
βWhy I Wouldnβt Start Affiliate Marketing in 2025 (And What Iβd Do Instead)β βJoshua Hardwick / Affiliate SEO β βJoshua explains that now Google would rather rank Reddit than you, people are starting to lose trust in Google and search other places for reviews, Google is giving more and more traffic to big players, not independent publishers, and more reasons to not start a new affiliate site in 2025, as well as what you should do instead.
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βWhat is the Percentage of Bot Traffic on the Web?β βChris Green / General SEOβ βHow big a footprint do non-humans (bots) have on the web? It is lower than SEOs expected, but still not trivial. Chris goes through it.
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βHow Long Should An SEO Migration Take? [Study Updated] βDan Taylor / Technical SEOβ βA recent study reveals the average time it takes for third-party tools to reflect organic traffic for a new domain. βOn average, it took 523 days for Domain B to show the same level of organic traffic as Domain Aβ.
βSEO updates from the 2024 Search Central Live event in Zurichβ βMihai Aperghis / General SEOβ βMihai shares insights from 2024's Google Search Central Live event, including updates from Googlers on Search, Search Console, and best practices for SEO, content, and structured data.
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β5 Reasons Your Direct Traffic Can Suddenly Dropβ βTom Capper / SEO Measurementβ βGA4 issues or outages, website outages, and dark social media. Tom shares 5 key reasons for the traffic decline and how to diagnose the issue effectively to keep your analytics on track.
Which of the top traffic Websites grew in 2024? Was this growth driven by organic search? Let's take a look at the top 20 sites in the US and their yearly overall traffic change via SimilarWeb:
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β It's interesting to see how the top 4 sites: Google, YouTube, Facebook, and Amazon had a negative yearly traffic change. The first winner from the list is (surprise surprise) Reddit, with a very impressive +25% yearly growth, and although X also grew, this was due to its migration from the Twitter domain. Other important winners are the ChatGPT site, Netflix and TikTok. β Let's go through a few of these sites' traffic channels to see if these negative or positive trends were due to organic search changes:
I'll be sharing more insights from last year and recent months winners and losers across different industries and countries on LinkedIn and Bluesky, follow me there too in case you haven't yet!
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[Announcement]β βπ Stay up-to-date with SEO in real time with The SEOFOMO News Aggregator & Chrome Extension
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Stay up-to-date with SEO effortlessly in real-time with the SEOFOMO News aggregator, now with a free Chrome extension allowing you to keep up right from your browser:
Monitor and comment on the latest trending SEO stories and recent updates
Receive notifications about new stories and Q&As submitted to the site
Easily share your own SEO stories and Q&As in the SEOFOMO News community.
π Free SEO Tool: Updated Latest Google Ranking Shifts Dashboard
βAssess your Website's latest ranking shifts easily with this updated free Looker Studio dashboard that integrates with your Google Search Console data, featuring new segmentation and reports to facilitate analysis of the latest rankings updates.
Are you looking for more SEO Tools? Take a look at the SEOFOMO SEO Toolboxβ
ποΈ Upcoming SEO Events
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βββThe State of Local Search 2025 [Webinar]β βBrightLocal / Online / Free / January 7, 2025β βJoin Joy Hawkins, Ben Fisher, and Amanda Jordan to learn about their reflections on local search in 2024 and discuss their predictions for 2025.
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βLive webinar: SEO tips and trends for 2025β βWix / Online / Free / January 28, 2025β βJoin 10 SEO experts for a panel discussion on top trends to watch for in the coming year, with insights from in-house, consultants, PPC, and agency professionals.
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βWebinar: Mastering SEO Automation with Steve Tothβ βLocalU / Online / Free / January 30, 2025β βJoin Joy Hawkins and Steve Toth to dive into recent powerful SEO tools and strategies he has been using that will change how you approach link building and content optimization.
This week's SEOFOMOer to follow is Chris Green, a Senior SEO Consultant, Trainer, Conference Speaker & Mentor. β Chris is an experienced SEO consultant with +10 years in the industry, currently a Senior SEO Consultant at Torque Partnership, formerly technical director and head of marketing innovation at Footprint Digital, and head of search at StrategiQ.
β βGoogle Ads Introduces New Campaign Goal for WhatsApp Messages βSwipe Insightβ βGoogle Ads has launched a new campaign goal aimed at generating messages from ads and enhancing its integration with WhatsApp Business. This goal, called "Messages from your ads," is now available for campaign creation.
β βYouTube chief Neal Mohan bets on AI and βcreatorsβ to supercharge growthβ βStephen Morrisβ ββIβm really bullish on the future of YouTube. Weβre still in the first or second inning,β Neal said in an interview at its San Bruno headquarters. βWe havenβt even touched the tip of the iceberg in what weβll be able to do with technologies like generative AIβ.
Aleyda Solisβ SEO Consultant & Founder Orainti, SEOFOMO & MarketingFOMO βFollow me on βXβ / Bluesky / βYouTubeβ / βLinkedInβ / βWebsiteβ
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SEOFOMO: The Newsletter to Keep up with SEO
by Aleyda Solis, SEO Consultant
SEOFOMO is a weekly free newsletter sent to +35K subscribers with the latest SEO news, updates, guides, tips, free tools and jobs. Avoid missing any worthy SEO update and subscribe now!
