Episodi
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The August 2024 Core Update ended a week early and it might still be too soon to tell the winners from the losers but one thing is clear, Google can always be depended on to try to do what's best for Google. Some have seen drops in traffic while others have seen increases and still others have seen no changes at all. This update does appear to be setting a foundation for an increase in AI Overviews in results. Webcology hosts Jim Hedger and Kristine Schachinger talk about the effects of this core update, the new International Framework Convention on AI, the DOJ indictment of Russian backed American far-right media empire, advances at OpenAI, how Elon Musk has torched tens of billions of his friends' monies, more legal troubles in Google's present and future, SearchGPT, and a lot of SEO thoughts about Google. This was a fun and fast paced episode.
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As the August 2024 Core Update continues, Google introduces Custom Gems a chatbot framework that promotes the creation and constant training of AI "Experts", digital companions to help Google users go about the business of being hypercreative. This is possibly the greatest challenge to all other AI makers and arguably the most audacious outline for the future of virtual expertise. Back to the core update, some sense of recovery is being felt by many publishers who were hurt during the September and March Helpful Content Updates but there is still a few weeks to go so show hosts Jim Hedger and Kristine Schachinger warn webmasters to temper their expectations. OpenAI and Anthropic have agreed to allow government to access major new AI models during development to help ensure safety, Twixter is actively interfering in the upcoming November election while it threatens a Brazilian judge who threatens to shut it down in Brazil. This as presidential hopeful Donald Trump threatens to throw Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in jail if he interferes in the upcoming election. Yelp is filing its own antitrust based action against Google while a judge in one of the ongoing antitrust cases admonishes Google for not playing fair in court. It's been a busy week. The show does spend a lot of time on a lot of Google SEO matters but it says a lot about the state of the industry when working through SEO issues is less complicated than the legal and ethical challenges facing the biggest platforms in the industry. As we said, it's been a busy week but it's the last days of summer and a long weekend is coming up and September brings serious season back upon us next week.
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It's been a week since Google dropped the long anticipated August 2024 Core Update. Hosts Kristine Schachinger and Jim Hedger talk about tempering early expectations in what is almost certainly a multi-faceted update, and discuss what SEOs and site owners might expect as the next three weeks grind on. There are promising signs for some and even some reversals of misfortune for others but there's still a few weeks to go before Google placements even out. When the update does end, how the search results will be composed and look for users might change. Jim and Kristine also talk about findings from Mark Traphagen at SEOClarity suggesting that higher rankings lead to higher chances of seeing links in AI Overview results, major issues with AI image generators, the arrest of Telegram app founder Pavel Durov, California's attempts to govern AI at the state level, Perplexity's plans to introduce ads to its AI features, the rise of children's accounts on Twixter, and a lot of Googley SEO stuff. - Note: our apologies for the late show. Jim's Aunt Lynda passed and it was a rather brutal week.
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To say Google core updates can be pretty big things will seem like an understatement for listeners who got hammered by the Helpful Content Updates that ran in the two previous core updates of September 2023 and March 2024. The much anticipated August 2024 Core Update, the one that hold promise of fixing the mistakes of the past, started to roll out a few hours before this episode was recorded. Hosts Jim Hedger and Kristine Schachinger talk about what Google's goals with this update and what website owners can do in the early to mid days as the full rollout is expected to take about four weeks. It was a busy week beyond the core update. Kristine and Jim also discuss Google's two antitrust cases, updates to ChatGPT, a myriad of difficulties presented by Elon Musk, data delivery issues from Google Search Console, a creepy new feature found in knowledge panels, GSC Recommendations, the expansion of Google AI Overviews, how Google tracks crawl budgets, the absurd speed of Effingo, and a whole lot more. Stick around to the very end to hear Google's John Mueller read his latest robots.txt file.
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After a lengthy and highly revealing trial a federal court has ruled that Google is using its enormous resources to monopolise the search market in violation of Section 2 of the Sherman Act. “After having carefully considered and weighed the witness testimony and evidence, the court reaches the following conclusion: Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly,” US District Judge Amit Mehta wrote in his decision which has the potential to reshape the business of Internet dominance. We asked lawyer, journalist, and former WMR.FM host Bennet Kelley to explain the scope of the charges and how the ruling might affect Google's future. Bennet is the founder of the Internet Law Center and is considered on of America's top Internet lawyers. Hosts Jim Hedger and Kristine Schachinger also discuss the new British government's reaction to Elon Musk's push for racial disharmony in the UK and Europe, an exodus of leadership at OpenAI, the new Search Console feature Google Recommends, and the coincidental timing of Google's announcements it would allow pubic hair grooming ads while it is also testing the new "Snippets you may like" label. From what we hear about anti-trust rulings, the first cuts are the deepest.
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It'll be coming around Mountain View when it comes. It brings the promise of a new and improved, something. Google spokespersons have given Publishers reason to seize hope while Google PR talks about another shot at integrating AI Overviews into SERPs again. Hosts Kristine Schachinger and Jim Hedger talk about the pending update while the web world waits for something to come in a Core Update, which apparently is coming soon. They also discuss the new EU AI Act which went into effect on August 1st and tries to govern AI's impacts by grading AI dangers in five easy grades ranging from unacceptable to minimal, election interference at TwiXter, Bing's side by side SERP layout showing a generative AI answer beside ten blue links, the new competition between Microsoft and Open AI as Open AI introduces SearchGPT, Reddit$pectations of pay to crawl, Wix's new AI, how Google actually crawls JavaScript, Google's attempt to outfake deepfakes, How Google's new Hidden Gems and the old Hidden Gems have nothing to do with each other, and much much more.
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Vladimir: Well, shall we go? - Estragon: Yes, let's go. - Stage Direction: They do not move. -- Many publishers are waiting for an imminent Google Core Update hoping this time the wisdom of compassion and perhaps a rewrite of one or more Helpful Content Update cycles will bring them back to the prominence and profitability of page one placements. Google representatives have suggested this update could bring hope or redemption or maybe a bigger bit of traffic. Meanwhile, Google is musing about adding more new and improved AI Overview responses in search results. Hosts Jim Hedger and Kristine Schachinger talk about Google's intentions and a number of other topics including Bing's new SERPs that put a Generative Response alongside traditional ten blue links in a split-screen layout, Google's $60MM exclusive access to Reddit data, the advent of ChatGPTSearch, the CloudStrike outage, and a lot more! Meanwhile, a bunch of web based businesses are still stuck at a crossroads, waiting for something to come, something that's almost here, something that'll move them forward. Estragon: Let's Go - Vladimir: We can't. - Estragon: Why not? - Vladimir: We're waiting for Googdot.
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This is a rare middle of summer heavy news edition but, after a year of constant updates, reactions, retractions, retrenchments, and growing user resentment, it's been a rather busy week for Google. It was also a busy week in A.I., with TwiXter, Facebook, Microsoft, and others. Webcology hosts Kristine Schachinger and Jim Hedger weave their way through stories ranging from rumours of an imminent Google Core Update, the harmful empathy-gap in A.I., Microsoft Word's new surcharge for custom image generation, more speculation from the great Google May 2024 API Leak, A.I. in local search results, research into Google AIO keyword trends, idle crawler rendering, the goodness of CWVs, and a whole lot more. Tune in, fill up, and enjoy.
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Back from a the July 4th long weekend's rest, hosts Jim Hedger and Kristine Schachinger talk through events of the last couple weeks, that look like Google and other players in the search world are pulling back from the promise of A.I. generated answers to the real world queries of their users. One example is how Google is showing far fewer A.I. Overviews in result sets today than it was in early May when it announced a disaster ridden shift to the A.I. everything universe. Given the enormous expenses in money and resources used in training, maintaining, and running A.I., economists are speculating on if the hype around A.I. is producing real value or inflating the world's biggest bubble based on rampant speculation. But that's not the confusing part. We also look at some simplified answers to some complicated questions from Google spokespeople who are usually clearer when muddying stuff up. Happily, our reports about the Helpful Content Update and decimation were apparently quite helpful. Some people still think it's Redditiculous how a Reddit expert's opinion can rank above that of a medical, legal, engineering, or other certifiable expert's opinion in search engine rankings. That might be because of the complex dimensions of credible information beyond the flat first one, credibility. Confused? We still are and you might be too but we still gotta sell soap.
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It was a particularly newsy and seriously silly week. It was also the end of June which is also the end of the second quarter so, for most SEOs, it's reporting season. This year, reports are made more poignant knowing the end of June is also the end of the line for Universal Analytics data, which gets universally deleted on Monday at midnight. It's also the end of the June 2024 Google Spam Update, which concluded a few hours before this episode was recorded. Show hosts Jim Hedger and Kristine Schachinger talk about UA3 data, how to assess the Spam Update, the implications of OpenAI's purchase of the data analysis and indexing firm Rockset, Microsoft AI's craptastic views on the social contract of content, how Google Search measures its own quality, if AI can perform an effective and actionable technical SEO audit, and a whole lot more.
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Covering a busy week in search this episode closes with a 20 minute interview with CEO of A.I. driven search engine You.com, Richard Socher. Hosts Jim Hedger and Kristine Schachinger talk about Google's freshly launched June2024 Spam Update, some Reddit heavy SERPS, unstoppable AI Overviews, the beneficial myth of traffic diversity, the ups and downs of crawl spikes, Microsoft's recall of Microsoft Recall, and a whole lot more. In the days before the show was recorded, Jim visited Web Summit's massive Collision Conference 2024 where big money, big ideas, and big organizations meet in a three day intellectual frenzy. Jim speaks with one of the earliest pioneers of A.I., Richard Socher in a one-on-one interview recorded near the end of Collision 2024 in Toronto. CEO of You.com, Richard leads what is arguably the most innovative newer search engine. Combining generative AI from several sources with algorithmic search, You.com is working to build and perfect a set of highly proficient A.I. assistants designed around the idea that information should be easily accessible and easy to make use of. It was a fun conversation and a great chance to ask questions of one of the driving forces behind A.I. in search.
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Amidst months of controversial punishing updates, a disastrous A.I. rollout, and at least a year of questionable search results, SEOs and general search users are starting to ask if Google is actually broken. If it is working as it's supposed to, why are they trying so hard to fix it? Google says it's a matter of perspective so hosts Jim Hedger and Kristine Schachinger try to walk through both sets of perspectives. The show also covers take aways from Barry Schwartz's SMX Advanced interview with Google's Elizabeth Tucker, Google's most recent responses to The Leak, a lot of turbulence at TwiXter (including Elon Musk's annoyance at the Apple - OpenAI deal), and, of course, the Apple - Open AI deal itself. An interesting week of as many news items as we can fit in an hour long show.
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Maybe it's the eye of a hurricane, maybe it's the calm before a brand new storm. It's really hard to tell these days but after a disasterous rock-eating rollout, Google is pulling back on AI Overviews. The SEO world has mixed reactions to The Leak, which is turning out as predicted, much ado about something but we're not sure exactly what. Some sort of garbled sense of stability appears to be returning to the SERPs as the effects of the March 2024 Core Update and the slew of previous and attendent updates start to play together, more or less as Google planned, or so we think. As the dust settles in Googlandia, the effects of flaky search results are showing in user comments with 54% of people complaining they have to look through more results than they did five years ago to find information, often having to rephrase their queries altogether. Meanwhile, OpenAI workers are asking for the "right to warn" of potential dangers, TwiXter has made distributing porn great again while running paid ads against racist and antisemitic hashtags, Microsoft's Recall AI can be tricked into revealing ever-saved personal data, MozCon20 perceives a crisis, and Google says Mobile First is... actually, we're not exactly sure what they were getting at. Confused? You won't be after listening to this.
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To cap off a disastrous PR month for Google, Mike King and Rand Fishkin published essays outlining the leak of a trove of Google APIs found in an open GitHub owned by Google. The SEO community's faith in Google had already been badly shaken since the series of updates which started back to early autumn 2023 and culminated in the HCU and March 2024 Core Updates. Now, after seeing what was in the documents, many feel as if Google misled or even lied to them. Debate in the SEO community is now fully engaged and already people are marketing new techniques and strategies based on findings they found in the documents that will go down in SEO history as, “The Leak”. Basically, Mike and Rand dropped what appears to be an 800lb gorilla into our midst and that gorilla needs a thorough examination before we let it run wild. To help us do that, we have in the studio one of the few SEOs we absolutely know to be qualified to dig into these documents. Ryan Jones is the Senior Vice President, SEO at Razorfish. He was instrumental in the dissection of Yandex last year and has spent the last few days digging into the documents and sharing his findings.
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Roger Montti, staff writer at Search Engine Journal, joins hosts Kristine Schachinger and Jim Hedger to share his thoughts on Google's vision of its own future. Roger wrote about this week's Google Marketing Live in NYC in a piece published May 22, "Google To Prioritize AI Overviews Ads Over Organic Search". In it, Roger offers an overview of search results berift of visible blue links. This vision of Google's future will be driven by paid placement rather than the meritocratic set of algorithms Google organic search, which will get relegated so far below the fold it might as well be buried. Any experience with Roger is a well informed though sometimes scary one. This one is both, but, as always, there's hope. You'll want to hear the future Roger sees.
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This is a seriously fun and highly interesting interview episode. Rather than obsess on what seems like a bad thing we decided to geek out on that Bing thing instead. One of the most open and interesting voices in search, the Head of Search at Microsoft Bing, Fabrice Canel, joins us to talk about algorithmic search and Copilot. As we all know, Google I/O was stacked with announcements suggesting Google is about to change search results to feature AI Overviews and push organic results into the netherregions of page-2 or worse. Bing is taking a different approach and Fabrice outlines how Bing and Copilot work together to present a different, and what he hopes is far better search experience. Geek-warning: This episode will sometimes venture into the weeds but the conversation is light, witty, and hugely informative.
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There appears to be a shift in Google's philosophies heading into next week's Google I/O conference. Google seems to be trying to change expectations with CEO Sundar Pichai talking about an all AI future and former chairperson Eric Schmidt talking about a future without blue links. Google's reputation for quality has taken a battering recently and many in the SEO community are feeling more than a little misinformed. That's easily understood when you realize Google has used the same terms to describe different things throughout the series of algorithm and core updates that stretch back to last September. In this episode, Jim Hedger and Kristine Schachinger try to peel back the onion like layers of Googleosopy while trying to offer sensible advice about how to deal with different aspects of the series of updates. Conversation naturally turns to several stories around AI and its efficacy as an engine for information. This was a fun, fast paced episode that tries really hard to keep its patience in the midst of creative destruction.
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Happy Cinco de Screwya to everyone about to be impacted... The March 2024 Core Update has ended, sometime last week. It took Google a few days to get around to telling anyone. Perhaps that was because they were too busy experiencing a very difficult week fulfilling their fiduciary responsibilities. This was a week of layoffs, job transfers, and lost market share as Google moved to shed expensive people and replace them with less expensive options. It was also a week in which we saw our very first Google dividend (at $0.20/share) and a $70Billion share buyback, both of which set Alphabet shares soaring 15% ahead of news Google was losing market share to Bing and Yahoo. Happy 20th workaversary, Google CEO Sundar Pichai. We also talk about HCU recoveries, Core Update recoveries, tons of things AI, and more on a busy getting over it edition of Webcolgy.
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This episode also covers a lot of the week’s general news including the coming of ChatGPT5, Meta’s near universal introduction of AI to Facebook and Instagram, TikTok’s upcoming turmoil, how plans to kill the cookie have again gone stale, that Webcology was, this week, named among the top SEO podcasts to listen to in 2024 by Search Engine Journal. Thanks to SEJ and to everyone for listening and contributing to our shared industry in whatever ways you do. We cover a lot of other Googley things but nothing compares to the Google April 2024 Rotten to the Core Scandal. It’s been a long week since yesterday’s news. Mark it in your calendars and diaries, April 24, 2024 was the day Google’s greatest myth was finally busted. Recorded live the day after the world learned conclusively how Google manipulated and degraded results to produce a higher query frequency in order to bump its bottom line, this episode deals primarily with what could be Google’s worst week ever. Google broke the Ghostbuster Protocol and merged the paid and organic streams of interest and in a long, detailed, and absolutely damning 4200 word essay released yesterday, former Google insider Edward Zitron fills in the five-Ws; who, what, where, when, and why. The piece traces the devolution of Google search back to an emergency all hands meeting in 2019 and places blame at the feet of the man who previously led Yahoo Search to oblivion’s great beyond. A stunning and scandalous story is quickly emerging and this marks the first open chapter.
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This episode, recorded in the seventh week of the longest Google update ever, covers a lot of news stories as quickly as we can. Stories range from news about AI and the various players in the industry pushing to integrate AI into everything to general advice on dealing with the various Googly issues search brings. We discuss the new sets of Google videos being made available, marvel at John Mueller's unending well of patience, and marvel at Twixter's carelessness as it auto-converted Xs to URLs. This episode covers a lot of ground in leaps and bounds as we move forward towards the inevitable end of the update.
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