In a recent episode of the Search Off the Record podcast, Google’s Martin Splitt and Gary Illyes tackled an ongoing debate in the SEO community: how technical should SEO professionals be? Their response? While deep coding skills aren’t mandatory, having a solid understanding of web technologies can significantly enhance an SEO expert’s effectiveness. Bridging the…
Yoast has rolled out an urgent fix for a bug in its premium WordPress plugin that inadvertently added hidden HTML classes—commonly associated with AI-generated content—to website text. The issue was discovered and shared online by SEO expert Alan Bleiweiss, prompting Yoast to respond swiftly with a patch. How the Bug Was Introduced The problem stemmed…
Yoast has introduced support for llms.txt in both the free and premium versions of its popular WordPress SEO plugin. This update aims to help websites prepare for the growing influence of artificial intelligence (AI) and large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT and Google Gemini in how content is discovered and indexed. What Is llms.txt? The…
Yoast has introduced support for llms.txt in both its free and premium WordPress plugins. This new feature aims to help websites prepare for the future of AI-driven search by making content more accessible to large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT and Google Gemini. What is llms.txt? The llms.txt file is a proposed standard designed to…
Overview of the ChatGPT Search Update OpenAI has quietly introduced a significant update to ChatGPT’s search functionality , aimed at improving how the model understands queries, delivers more detailed responses, and manages extended conversations. While the company hasn’t disclosed every technical detail, it has highlighted key enhancements in two primary areas: response quality and search…
Introduction to AI Overviews and Recipe Queries Recent observations indicate that certain recipe-related queries are triggering Google’s AI Overviews (AIO), a feature designed to provide concise, AI-generated summaries directly in the search results. However, not all recipe-related searches behave the same way—those with implicit recipe intent (without explicitly mentioning “recipe”) seem to be the ones…
Google has announced it will be discontinuing support for seven structured data types as part of an effort to streamline how information appears in search results. The changes are expected to roll out over the coming weeks and will affect how content is visually presented, though they will not impact search rankings . Why Is…
In a recent interview with podcaster Lex Fridman, Google CEO Sundar Pichai addressed growing concerns about how AI-driven search features like AI Overviews and AI Mode are reshaping the web ecosystem—and whether they threaten the future of human-created content. Pichai emphasized that Google remains deeply committed to supporting the open web and ensuring that users…
Google has confirmed a service disruption impacting some users’ ability to receive results through Google Lens , Discover , and Voice Search . According to Google’s official Search Status Dashboard , the incident began on June 12 at 1:00 p.m. Pacific Time . A follow-up update posted at 1:16 p.m. PT read: “There’s an ongoing…
In a recent episode of the Search Off the Record podcast, members of Google’s Search Relations team, Martin Splitt and Gary Illyes, opened up about why their advice to SEO professionals often seems vague or conditional. The conversation was part of what they described as a “more human episode,” where they aimed to show a…