A recent case brought to Google’s attention involved a website that experienced an overwhelming surge in requests from Googlebot , leading to a significant drop in search visibility. The site was hit with millions of crawl requests targeting non-existent URLs, with one specific URL receiving over 2.4 million hits in a single month — a…
Google has updated its documentation for Recipe structured data, offering clearer guidance on how the image property works and what it affects. This update confirms some important details about how images are ranked in both regular search results and rich results. Structured data plays a key role in making content eligible for Google’s rich results…
Recent data from the BrightEdge Enterprise SEO platform highlights emerging trends in traffic referrals from AI search and chatbot platforms. The findings spotlight a clear dominance of desktop-originated visits compared to mobile, with Google Search being the notable exception. Desktop Leads AI Traffic BrightEdge’s analysis shows that most website traffic generated by AI tools such…
Greg Boser, a seasoned search marketing expert with decades of experience, recently took to social media to debunk myths surrounding SEO in the age of generative AI. His commentary was in response to misleading narratives that claim traditional SEO is outdated and that a new strategy—often dubbed “GEO” (Generative Engine Optimization)—is now essential for success….
Google has released new documentation to help websites that have been mistakenly filtered by its SafeSearch system. SafeSearch is designed to block explicit content from appearing in search results, but sometimes it can incorrectly flag non-explicit sites. If your site has been affected, Google outlines three main steps to address the issue: 1. Check if…
New findings from ZipTie highlight a significant blind spot in Google Search Console (GSC) : nearly half of all search queries driving traffic to websites are not being reported. The research, led by Tomasz Rudzki, co-founder of ZipTie, shows that GSC fails to capture many conversational queries , especially those phrased like natural language questions….
A newly published patent from Google highlights how artificial intelligence (AI) assistants can leverage real-world contextual signals to generate more personalized, engaging responses. The patent outlines how these systems move beyond traditional keyword-based approaches by incorporating at least five key contextual factors into their decision-making process. The patent is titled “Using Large Language Model(s) In…
A recent U.S. Justice Department deposition featuring a Google engineer has shed light on some of the inner workings of Google’s search ranking systems. Although much of the information is high-level and generalized, it offers valuable insights into how Google evaluates and ranks web pages. Hand-Crafted Signals in Google’s Algorithm One key takeaway is the…
In a recent episode of the “Search Off the Record” podcast, members of Google’s Search Relations team—Gary Illyes and Martin Splitt—shared insights into how Google handles various HTTP status codes. Their discussion clarified some common misconceptions among SEO professionals. Key Takeaways 1xx Status Codes: Not Important for SEO Google’s crawlers completely ignore all 1xx (informational)…
Referral traffic is often seen as a sign of success—proof that your brand is being recognized and shared by others. However, Mordy Oberstein, a respected figure in search marketing, has made the bold claim that referral traffic may actually be harmful to long-term brand growth. His argument? Over-reliance on referrals creates vulnerabilities that can undermine…