Daily Search Forum Recap: May 15, 2024

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.

Google AI Overviews (formerly SGE) is officially live in the US search results, my article goes deeper on this than most. Google also is rolling out new AI features in search in the coming months. Google Search has a new filter to just show text links, it is called "web." Google has lowered the search rankings for Deepfake porn sites. Google may be showing more review stars in the search results.

Search Engine Roundtable Stories:

• Google AI Overviews Launch In US Search Results
  Google, as expected, has officially launched AI Overviews in the US and will expand the launch to other countries by the end of this year. AI Overviews were in Search Labs under the Search Generative Experience last year and has finally launched.
• New Google AI Search Features Coming Soon - From Google I/O
  Google not only announced that AI Overviews are rolling out in the US this week but a number of new AI based search features coming out later in Google Search and in Google Search Labs. These features include the ability to adjust AI Overviews, muti-stepping reasoning, planning, AI-organized search results and Lens search with video.
• Google Web Filter Goes Live To Show Just Text Links
  In February, we caught Google testing a new search filter named "Web Results." Well, last night it went live under the name "Web." You can now filter search results to only show text links and weed out all the videos, images, and other non-text links.
• Google Lowers Search Rankings Of Deepfake Porn Sites
  Bloomberg reports that Google has downgraded/lowered the search rankings of Deepfake porn sites. Bloomberg wrote, The company is lowering such content in search rankings, a spokesperson said, adding Google is "continuing to decrease the visibility of involuntary synthetic pornography in search and develop more safeguards as this space evolves."
• Google Mobile Search Showing More Review Stars?
  Google may be showing more review stars in the mobile search results, according to some reports. RankRanger six-point lift in how often review stars are showing in mobile search, while is also showing a lift but more modest lift.
• Sundar Pichai Shares Photo From Back Of Google I/O Stage
  Google's CEO, Sundar Pichai, shared a photo right before he got on stage at the Google I/O event. You can see it is from the back of the I/O keynote stage and it shows the thousands of people in the stands at the Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, California.

Other Great Search Threads:

• Adding the markup with JS is fine. IMO it makes it harder to debug on your side, and I wouldn't over-do it & follow general JS-SEO best practices, but it can work. The difference is mor, John Mueller on X
• As a pre-Google I/O warm up we've just released web-vitals v4. See the below thread for all the improvements. And, later this week, check out @malchata 's talk for Google I/O where he'll be explaining how to use some of these to, Barry Pollard on X
• I'm not aware of any changes there., John Mueller on X
• It has to be rendered to be seen. With a complex JS configuration (chained JS files, conditional API requests, etc), rendering gets harder. You can make it really hard to render pages for search, you can also make it easy. Valid JSON-LD in HTML is the eas, John Mueller on X
• Project Astra is a prototype from @GoogleDeepMind exploring how a universal AI agent can be truly helpful in everyday life. Watch our prototype in action in two parts, each captured in a single take, in real time, Google on X

Search Engine Land Stories:

• Google adds “web” filter to only show text-based links in Google Search results
• Reddit appoints ex-Googler as first VP of Ads Product
• New Google Search AI features to help you plan, research and learn
• Google rolls out AI Overviews in US with more countries coming soon
• 10 powerful reasons to enter the Search Engine Land Awards
• How to build a custom GPT to redefine keyword research
• Google RSAs in 2024: Everything you need to know

Other Great Search Stories:

Analytics

• How To Use RegEx in GA4 and Looker Studio, Go Fish Digital

Industry & Business

• CNBC Transcript: Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai Speaks with CNBC’s Deirdre Bosa on “Closing Bell: Overtime”, CNBC Exclusive
• Google’s New HQ Opens With Only a Fraction of the Nearby Low-Cost Housing Promised by Pols, The City
• Here’s Sergey Brin holding court with reporters at Google I/O., The Verge
• Ilya Sutskever, OpenAI co-founder and longtime chief scientist, departs, TechCrunch
• In loving memory of our dear friend Mark Irvine, SearchLab Digital
• What OpenAI did, One Useful Thing

Links & Content Marketing

• 86 Summer-Ready June Content Ideas, WordStream
• Content MVP Framework: Create & rank on any budget, Wix SEO Hub
• The AI Content Quality Discussion: 7 Steps To Improve AI Content, BruceClay
• Time To Evolve Your Social Media Strategy for 2024, Content Marketing Institute
• What makes content evergreen?, Oncrawl

Local & Maps

• Apple Maps vs. Google Maps: Is the iPhone Maker Really Catching Up?, AutoEvolution
• Google is bringing Gemini capabilities to Google Maps Platform, TechCrunch

Mobile & Voice

• Android 15 Beta 2 is coming on Wednesday , 9to5Google
• Google just snuck a pair of AR glasses into a Project Astra demo at I/O, Engadget
• I/O 2024: New ways to experience Google AI on Android, Google Blog

SEO

• SEO Writing - 13 Tips To Optimise Your Content For SEO, Keyword Insights
• Cognitive Biases in SEO, Moz
• Google’s broken link to the web, Platformer

PPC

• Open Letter to Google Ads Leadership - Appendix A in Ponderings of a PPC Professional, ZATO Marketing
• FIN7 Hacker Group Leverages Malicious Google Ads to Deliver NetSupport RAT, The Hacker News

Other Search

• Google’s Gemini video search makes factual error in demo, The Verge
• Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas on AI and Google, Axios
• Gemini 1.5 Pro updates, 1.5 Flash debut and 2 new Gemma models, Google Blog

Feedback:

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