SEO 101 Ep 506: AI Overviews Eroding Web Traffic, Google's Update Volatility, and CSS for SEO

Summary

SEO 101 Episode 506: AI Overviews Eroding Web Traffic, Google's Update Volatility, and CSS for SEO

Release Date: July 24, 2025
Hosts: Ross Dunn and Scott Vanak
Platform: WMR.FM

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Introduction

In Episode 506 of SEO 101, hosts Ross Dunn and Scott Vanak delve into several pivotal topics affecting the search engine optimization landscape. From recent Google core updates and their impact on various industries to the evolving role of AI in search results, the episode offers actionable insights for both beginners and seasoned SEO practitioners. Additionally, the hosts explore technical aspects of CSS in relation to SEO, providing listeners with a comprehensive understanding of current trends and best practices.

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1. Google’s June Core Update: Volatility and Industry Impact

[01:03] Ross Dunn: "The June core update has officially completed."

Scott Vanak elaborates on the nuances of this update, noting its initial volatility and the sectors most affected. The June Core Update, despite its name, began rolling out around June 30th, leading some to refer to it as the July Core Update. According to Scott, there has been some recovery for those impacted by previous updates in March and September 2023.

Notable Insights:

• Industry Impact: The health industry experienced significant fluctuations, while the finance sector saw slightly less volatility.
• Client Experiences: Ross shares that his clients have observed mixed results—some rankings improved, while others declined, but no client was severely affected.

[02:10] Scott Vanak: "Nobody seems to be hit really hard as an individual, which is great."

Expert Opinions:

• Glenn Gabe: Described the update as a "red hot broad core algorithm update causing a lot of volatility across verticals and countries" ([02:30]).
• Marie Haynes: Highlighted a shift in Google’s ranking signals towards AI, which is expected to be beneficial ([03:00]).
• Alita Solis: Noted that brands are seeing visibility improvements for their branded terms due to fewer shopping packs and carousels above the first position ([03:30]).

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2. Local SEO Developments

Ross touches upon the ongoing discussion about how the June 2025 Google update affects local search impressions. While some anecdotal evidence suggests minimal improvement, the consensus remains inconclusive.

[05:10] Ross Dunn: "We have to say that it wasn't part of that update or it's just a long tail after some sort of after effects."

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3. AI Overviews and Their Impact on Web Traffic

A significant portion of the episode is dedicated to discussing a Pew Research study revealing that AI-generated overviews in search results are diminishing web traffic.

Key Findings:

• Reduction in Click-Through Rates (CTR): AI summaries led to only 8% of users clicking on any links, compared to 15% without AI overviews.
• Drop in Citations: Only 1% of AI-linked citations directed users to sources like Wikipedia, YouTube, and Reddit.
• Increase in Zero Click Searches: Nearly 66% of searches with AI overviews resulted in no clicks, indicating users are satisfied with the AI-generated answers.

[06:39] Scott Vanak: "Pew Research confirms Google AI Overviews are eroding the web ecosystem."

Ross’s Commentary: Ross expresses concern for the web publishing industry, emphasizing the importance of maintaining visibility despite Google's AI advancements. He references an Ars Technica article that underscores the tension between Google's profitability and the challenges faced by content creators.

[09:49] Scott Vanak: "Google's use of AI is changing the way people gather information and interact with search results."

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4. OpenAI’s LLMs.txt and Google’s Stance

The hosts explore the controversy surrounding OpenAI’s crawling of LLMs.txt files and Google's official position on this matter.

Key Points:

• Google’s Official Stance: John Mueller from Google stated that Google does not support LLMs.txt and has no plans to do so ([12:34]).
• Reality Check: Despite Google's claims, evidence suggests that OpenAI is actively crawling these files, as reported by Ray Martinez from Search Engine Land ([13:15]).
• Technical Implications: Scott and Ross discuss the potential impact of LLMs.txt files being crawled, including concerns about these files appearing in search results and how to mitigate such issues using noindex tags.

Notable Quote: Scott Vanak: "John Mueller noted that no AI system is currently using LLMs.txt file officially. [...] It might make sense to no index the LLMs.txt file" ([14:00]).

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5. CSS and SEO: Best Practices

A detailed discussion on the relationship between CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) and SEO, featuring insights from John Mueller and Martin Split.

Key Topics:

• CSS File Sizes: While CSS files have grown over the years, it's crucial to manage their size to avoid performance issues. An extreme example cited was a 78 MB CSS file.

  [17:02] Scott Vanak: "CSS defines the fonts, colors, spacings, margins—the aesthetics of the site."

• Class Names: Google does not consider CSS class names for SEO. Attempting to insert keywords into class names is ineffective.

  [17:25] Scott Vanak: "Use whatever makes the most sense and makes it easy for you to figure out what that class does."

• Pseudo Elements: These should solely be used for decorative purposes and not contain meaningful content, as Google does not index them.

• Images in CSS:

  • Decorative Images: Using background-image for non-essential visuals does not convey content to Google.
  • Content Images: Essential images should use standard HTML <img> tags to ensure proper indexing.

  [19:36] Ross Dunn: "Putting critical content within CSS hinders a search engine's understanding and accessibility for that image."

• Tables: For tabular data, use HTML table elements instead of CSS-created tables to ensure better accessibility and indexing by search engines.

  [20:36] Scott Vanak: "Creating tables in some CMSs is a nightmare with CSS, so using HTML is preferred."

Conclusion: Proper use of CSS is vital for maintaining both website aesthetics and SEO performance. Misuse can lead to poor indexing and reduced visibility.

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6. SEO in the Age of AI: Evolution, Not Extinction

Addressing the recurring question, "Is SEO dead?" the hosts emphasize that SEO is not only alive but evolving in response to AI advancements.

[24:05] Ross Dunn: "Is SEO dead? No, it's evolving."

Key Takeaways:

• Fundamental Principles: The core tenets of SEO—creating helpful and reliable content—remain crucial for appearing in AI-powered search features.

• Opportunities for Creators: Despite challenges, new technologies are creating avenues for content creators to enhance their reach and engagement.

  [24:23] Scott Vanak: "The fundamental principles of SEO are more important than ever for appearing in new AI-powered features."

Ross expresses skepticism about the sustainability of traditional SEO practices in a landscape increasingly dominated by AI, suggesting that while opportunities exist, the playing field is shifting.

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7. Google's AI Reshaping the Search Experience

Gary Ish highlights the transformative impact of AI on search, detailing how it alters user behavior and expectations.

Highlights:

• Growth in Search Usage: Gen Z remains the most active searchers, countering the belief that younger generations prefer alternative information sources.

  [21:52] Gary Ish: "Gen Z users issue more search queries than any other age group."

• Visual and Interactive Search: Tools like Google Lens are experiencing significant growth, with 65% year-over-year increase and over 100 billion visual searches conducted annually.

  [22:30] Scott Vanak: "I took a picture of it and just showed it on Google Lens—it was amazing."

• AI Mode for Complex Queries: Introduced to handle multi-step reasoning and in-depth research needs, enhancing the search experience for more intricate queries.

[26:30] Gary Ish: "AI overviews are one of the most significant changes to search in 20 years."

Discussion: While AI enhances user satisfaction for straightforward queries, Ross and Scott acknowledge potential drawbacks, such as the limitations of AI-generated answers in nuanced searches and the risk of misinformation.

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8. Handling Product Pricing Variations by State

Addressing the challenge of displaying different product prices based on the user’s state, the hosts relay John Mueller’s advice.

Solutions Provided:

1. Using the Tax Field: Adjust the product price dynamically by incorporating state-specific taxes, ensuring the final amount reflects regional pricing.

   [29:01] Scott Vanak: "Alternatively, you might have users select their state before the price changes."

2. Separate Product Pages: Create individual pages for each state using hreflang tags to specify regional variations.

   [30:16] Scott Vanak: "You could have a page for California and a page for New York with hreflang referencing one another."

Considerations:

• Scalability: Managing multiple product pages can become cumbersome for businesses with extensive regional variations.
• SEO Impact: Proper implementation using hreflang is essential to avoid duplicate content issues and ensure search engines correctly index regional pages.

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9. Managing Expired Event Pages

The final segment covers strategies for handling URLs dedicated to past events, ensuring minimal negative impact on SEO.

John Mueller’s Recommendations:

• Long-Term References: Keep pages for unique or highly sought-after events to serve as long-term references.
• Temporary Relevance: Allow some time for interest to wane before removing pages, depending on the event's uniqueness and demand.
• Redirects vs. 404s:
  • 301 Redirects: Redirect to the most relevant higher-level page if the expired event has related content.
  • 404/410 Status Codes: Use when the page no longer holds value or relevance, especially if maintaining redirects is impractical.

[32:13] Scott Vanak: "If the page has any value, redirect it to a suitable replacement to retain any SEO value."

Ross’s Input: Ross suggests centralizing event information on main category pages to streamline management and improve user navigation.

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Conclusion and Call to Action

Ross and Scott wrap up the episode by inviting listeners facing challenges in adapting their SEO strategies amidst AI advancements to reach out for free strategy calls. They emphasize their ongoing efforts to stay updated with the latest SEO trends and provide tailored solutions to their audience.

[35:08] Ross Dunn: "If you want to have a chat at the very least, book one of our free strategy calls on our website."

Listeners are encouraged to subscribe to the Show Notes newsletter at seo101radio.com for more insights and updates.

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Post-Episode Advertisement Skipped

Note: Advertisements, intros, outros, and non-content sections have been omitted to focus solely on the informative segments of the podcast.

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Key Takeaways

• Stay Updated with Core Updates: Understanding the impact of Google's algorithm changes is crucial for maintaining and improving search rankings.
• Adapt to AI’s Growing Role: Embrace AI tools like Google Lens while being mindful of their limitations and effects on web traffic.
• Optimize Technical SEO: Proper use of CSS and HTML elements significantly influences SEO performance and accessibility.
• Strategize Content Management: Effective handling of regional pricing and expired event pages can preserve SEO value and enhance user experience.
• SEO is Evolving, Not Dying: Fundamental SEO principles remain vital, but adapting to new technologies and user behaviors is essential for continued success.

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By integrating these insights, listeners can better navigate the ever-changing SEO landscape, leveraging both traditional strategies and emerging technologies to enhance their online presence.

Transcript

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[Ross Dunn]

Hello and welcome to SEO 101 on WMR FM episode number 506. This is Ross Dunn, CEO of Step 4th Web Marketing and my co host is my company senior SEO Scott Vanak. Well, we got a really good show for you today. Tons of stuff to talk about and lots of meat, so hope you enjoy. I'll start with SEO News here. The June core update has officially completed. Wow. I know you wrote a bunch down here, so I'll let you take it away.

[Scott Vanak]

Yeah, so this one, it's kind of funny how they call it the June Core Update. It started what, June 30th or something like that? The last day of June. Basically it's a July core update and actually you'll see it referenced that like that in a few places where people are calling it the July Update, but Google is officially calling it June took 16 days. There are reports that people who were hurt in the March and even September 2023 core updates have seen some recovery. So that's good. There was a lot of people saying that this is one of the most volatile core updates in a long time. Not a big surprise. They've also were saying that the health industry is one of the highest hit or the hardest hit by this update, the finance industry saw slightly less fluctuation. Uh, how did you favor? Among my clients, what I'm generally seeing is some up and some down for not. And for each individual client they'll see some rankings up and some down. Nobody seems to be hit really hard as an individual, which is great. Um, but I, I didn't really see anything substantial. So that's always good in our case, but not what Happens always. But in this case it did the the usual if you're hit by it is weight but build good content. You know, we talk about it a thousand times but there are a few quotes here from a few industry experts that I felt were worth sharing. Glenn, Gabe had said the June Core update was a red hot broad core algorithm update causing a lot of volatility across verticals and countries. And that's fitting since it rolled up right before the July 4th holiday when we already see fireworks. Don't you love that Google does it right before a holiday? Always Fridays, you know, Christmas Eve, all that kind of stuff. If I book a holiday, no matter what, guarantee they're going to do something crazy the day before, it doesn't matter when it is that and I'll get.

[Ross Dunn]

A lot of business.

[Scott Vanak]

That's right. Yeah. Isn't that the truth? We always get to get big contracts whenever I go away or Ross goes away.

[Ross Dunn]

So everyone, Scott's planning on doing a trip soon, so please give me a call. It's just about time. I want to make sure I keep the trend.

[Scott Vanak]

Yeah. I'm only up for a few days but it's on Sunday so you got to get all your contracts in by tomorrow.

[Ross Dunn]

Oh, I'm sure you got another one coming.

[Scott Vanak]

Yeah, exactly. So that's fun. Marie Haynes had said, I believe the June 25 core update marks the start of some significant changes in search where Google shifts further away from using traditional ranking signals and more towards using AI to identify content. That's likely to be helpful. Seems pretty accurate to me, which is why I included obvious two.

[Ross Dunn]

Yeah, yeah.

[Scott Vanak]

And Alita Solis had said brands are also seeing visibility improvements for many of their own branded terms due to fewer shopping packs, carousels, et cetera, shown above the first position. So that's always helpful too. If you have your own branded search, you, you certainly want to rank and it sucks when you're not at the very top for that stuff. So it's over now. Although there are a lot of reports that things are still kind of crazy right now. So I don't know if there's a another update we rolled right into that isn't official yet, but we'll keep our eyes peeled and see.

[Ross Dunn]

Yeah, I guess you roll. We're rolling right into this next one, the Google search core because you. Oh no, nevermind. That is a different article. You could do that. Why don't you go for it?

[Scott Vanak]

I'm just going to do it. Ross.

[Ross Dunn]

Thank you.

[Scott Vanak]

So this is something I noticed. I just happened to Notice this? I kind of forgot about it. In our last episode we talked about how in Google Search Console the core web vital statistics were showing the number of pages being tested plummeting and it didn't make any sense. John Mueller had even said that, you know, they just changed the number of pages. They don't always scan everything. But it was happening to every single account I looked at, like every single one. Well, I checked and it is back. All, all of the drops have rebounded and Google has said it was a bug and they fixed it. So go figure. But that's good. So you should see more accurate data in the search console section there.

[Ross Dunn]

Good. Nice to see some changes there. Positive. A nice tie in though, because for local SEO news I wanted to just give you an update on last week's mention. That was when I discussed how the June 2025 Google update may be affecting local search impressions. So far on the same local search form thread, which is a pretty good barometer of such things because people are pretty active on there. So far no one has responded that things have improved and one person has said that they don't see any improvements yet, but they're working on older data so we'll have to see. We don't know if it hasn't improved then we have to say that it wasn't part of that update or it's just a long tail after some sort of a, I don't know, considered one of the after effects and let's just hope it clears up. We don't know what's going on there. All right. In AI news, I'll might as well take this one too. Poo.

[Scott Vanak]

I would say Research.

[Ross Dunn]

Pew Research confirms Google AI Overviews is eroding the web ecosystem. Now that was the title in a search engine journal article which was pretty good. My favorite though of I was an article I read about the same topic from Ars Technica. I think it was really good because they're also a content specific company. They're getting a lot of their business from traffic to their sites. So they take this stuff pretty personally. Anyway, you'll see what I mean in a sec. A recent study by Pew Research shows AI Overviews is reducing clicks. Now here are a few of the main bits here. It's a smaller study of 900 adults who agreed to install a browsing tracker for the month of March. The Data set contains 68,000, let's say 70,000 unique Google queries. Of the results, they found that one in five searches now have AI overviews. Only 8% of users who encountered an AI summary clicked on any links in the result, AI or otherwise. So that means only 8% of people did anything. For users who only saw standard search results, that's the search results we're used to seeing. Without AI, 15% of them clicked on a link. However, we should probably reverse that order. Only 8%, like I said, activated or did anything when there was AI summary. That's just over half or just under half of those people did anything versus what we used to have in a search, a common search result without AI. Overall, only 1% of queries displaying an AI summary resulted in a click to a noted citation. Now, most frequently those citations were for Wikipedia, YouTube and Reddit, which account collectively for about 15% of all AI sources. The study further found that nearly 66% of all searches resulted in zero clicks, far more trolling Google users are more likely to end their browsing session after seeing an AI overview. Well, we don't know for sure they saw that. They just went there and saw result and left. But that was a page with an AI overview, perhaps expecting the result that they got was true and well, no. I've seen personally quite a few that are incorrect. And that's because it's done by AI that hallucinates answers quite regularly, or at least facts within answers. Even so be very, very, very careful. Don't take them as writ. It's just not the way to go. The Ars Technical Ars Technica article ends with something rather poignant, I thought. Here's a quote. Google's use of AI is changing the way people gather information and interact with search results. The trends are bad for web publishing, but Google's profits have never been higher. Funny how that works.

[Scott Vanak]

Yeah, yeah.

[Ross Dunn]

And I have extreme pity for anyone in the web publishing industry. I just feel terribly for them. I hope they keep going and doing well. I love reading Ars Technica and a lot of these other sites, but again, I don't do it every day. I don't particularly have it as my desktop. I have to find them. They pop up in different places. So this is really important. They need to keep showing up, so I hope hopefully they do. All right, let's take a quick break. When we come back, we're going to talk a little bit open about OpenAI's LLM text fil. Welcome back to SEO 101 on WMR FM, hosted by myself, Ross Dunn, CEO of Stepforth Web Marketing, and my company senior SEO Scott Vanack. And I kind of messed up that last thing. The question this Next story is is OpenAI crawling the LLMs TXT? You're a professional web creator who needs a platform that works as hard as you do. Wix Studio is built for you whether you're a designer, developer or marketer ready to amplify your impact. Build intuitively with advanced design features and AI powered tools.

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Join me Won't you file? Google says it won't. All right, what's really says a lot already in the title, but tell us more.

[Scott Vanak]

Scott Next no So yeah, we've spoken a lot about LLMs txt in recent shows. If you missed it really simple. What LLMs txt is is it's a simple text file similar to robots TXT that guides LLMs on which content is most relevant, that sort of at its core what it is. And see our other shows or or AI overviews to learn more. Don't. Don't use AI Overviews. So over at Google Search Central Live Deep Dive event. Good old Gary over at Google and I'm calling him Gary because I always say his last name wrong every single freaking time and I can't ever get it right and I don't know why so I'm not even going to try.

[Ross Dunn]

Gary Ish. Ish. Are you sure?

[Scott Vanak]

It just seems wrong. That's probably why.

[Ross Dunn]

I know it does, but that's what I've been told by people who know better than me. So that's what I go by that just seems wr Sounds weird enough to be true.

[Scott Vanak]

I promise I'll forget it for next time and we'll do this all over again. Anyways, he says that Google does not support LLMs Txt and has no plans to do so. Google does this so sometimes they say they don't do something and then they do it, or they say they do something and then they don't do it. So you know, right now, apparently they don't and they won't. So. But this does not mean that it might not be important in the future. Ray Martinez and I'm sorry Ray, I have absolutely no idea who you are, but you're somebody important because you showed up on Search Engine land. So there we go. Ray posted a screenshot of his log files to x that shows OpenAI crawling his LLMs text file about every 15 minutes. So we know OpenAI is crawling it. Others most likely are. Also doesn't really seem to matter right now. So it appears that several LLMs are crawling that text file now. Not many are using it. John Mueller noted that no AI system is currently using llmstext file officially. Officially as far as he knows about I think it was two weeks ago, so the beginning of July or so he said that this will likely change and I do have in relation to story a little Mueller bonus. Maybe that's going to be a thing I do now. Or maybe this, maybe this will be the first and last time. I don't know. It didn't justify its own whole thing but but it's relevant to this over at Scroundtable, this is where this was found. John said that it might make sense to no index the LLMs txt file. He says using no index using no index for it the file could make sense as sites might link to it and it could otherwise become indexed, which would be weird for users. So it would be kind of weird if you did a search and it came up and you landed on that page and you didn't know anything. Like if you're not a technical person, like what is this? Would it rank like we've never seen robots Txt files rank?

[Ross Dunn]

I don't know. It seems like a very low chance of anything happening there, but oh well, whatever.

[Scott Vanak]

But maybe, maybe it's worth doing.

[Ross Dunn]

What would they honestly search to find that? I don't get it. But anyway.

[Scott Vanak]

Well, I think because the the LLMs text file isn't just directives, it can include actual content in it. So I think the idea is the content in that file. Because you have, like, snippets and things, right?

[Ross Dunn]

Yeah.

[Scott Vanak]

Anyways, that's why it's a bonus and not its whole thing.

[Ross Dunn]

Well, and it's a pre. Bonus to the Mueller files, which is next here.

[Scott Vanak]

Yeah, we got a few of them.

[Ross Dunn]

Yeah. So we might as well tag team this one. Google on CSS and SEO. There's a lot to share here. In a recent Search off the Record podcast, John Mueller and Martin Split spoke for about 40 minutes on CSS and SEO. Here are some of the key takeaways. First, I'll take is CSS file sizes. They note that the size of a CSS file has grown over the years, but be sure that the size does not get out of control. They noted an extreme example of a CSS file that was 78 megabytes, which is highly unusual and problematic. Yeah, I mean, so the CSS file is a cascading style sheet. It is what's used to essentially explain. Well, essentially it explains. What's the word? It. I want to use the word explain all the time. Whatever. It explains to browsers how to show content that is on a page. It's. It's like the design in a file. For those who don't know. I don't know how else to put it. Anyway, what's. What's. You take the next one.

[Scott Vanak]

Yeah, I would just add to Ross's there and say, like, it defines the fonts that are used, the colors, the spacings, the margins, the. The aesthetics of the site are basically defined in that file.

[Ross Dunn]

Yeah.

[Scott Vanak]

And then they apply everything.

[Ross Dunn]

Like the padding, the lines where images show up. I mean, it's. It's really the structural blueprint.

[Scott Vanak]

Let's get.

[Ross Dunn]

There we go.

[Scott Vanak]

Blueprint. Yeah. I like it.

[Ross Dunn]

Okay.

[Scott Vanak]

Yeah. So they did talk a little bit as well about CSS class names and SEO. So when you set up a class in css, you assign a name to it. They said that those class names. And this is not a big surprise for me, it might be for some of you out there. Class names have no impact on SEO. They are purely for styling and not considered visible text. Content crawlers typically parse HTML for text and strip out attributes like class names. So if you're giving a class name, you know, and trying to insert keywords into class names, you're just wasting your time. Use whatever makes the most sense and, you know, makes it easy for you to figure out what that class does. If you ever have to go back and try to fix something and you just have, like, numbered classes I've seen that before where the classes make no sense. They're almost like garbledy goop. Good luck. Yeah, really good luck with that.

[Ross Dunn]

So fair enough. Next is pseudo elements. CSS pseudo elements allow developers to add decorative elements like icons or small symbols before or after an element. They are not directly added to the HTML and are not picked up by Google's rendering and indexing. Old only use pseudo elements for decorative purposes, do not use them for any meaningful content.

[Scott Vanak]

And we got some image stuff which is fun. So decorative images such as backgrounds using which use the background dash image property within CSS do not convey essential content. Google does not index these images, which is interesting because I feel like I've probably seen examples where they do, but I've been questioning that. I need to go back and check now because I feel like I've seen that happen before, but maybe my brain is broken. I don't know. Standard HTML image tags img, which is like in the source code, should be used for all content images that are important for the site's meaning. Unless you're trying to get fancy, you're probably doing that already anyways. But there might be situations where you're trying to use css, so don't do that. CSS should really be strictly used for styling and not for content. Putting critical content within CSS hinders a search engine's understanding and accessibility for that image.

[Ross Dunn]

So great. And finally, tables. Using CSS to create table like layouts for tabular data is a general. In general is a misuse for actual tabular data, use HTML table elements, which is preferred. That's odd. I anyway, it allows search engines and screen readers screen readers to recognize rows and columns for better understanding and index fixing. That's kind of surprising to me. I would have thought that they were far more advanced by now that they could take a CSS table and understand that.

[Scott Vanak]

That surprised me too because creating tables in some content management systems is a nightmare. It's. You have to use CSS in some of them and from my perspective, I've tried to create tables using CSS and I have a really hard time with it. As a non programmer, I get it, how it works, but it's. It's tricky and doing it as HTML is so easy and I'm glad Google prefers it that way because it's the easy way to do it.

[Ross Dunn]

Yeah. All right, well next up here, Google says that normal SEO works to get into AI overviews. Now Gary Ish once again headed this up and really what he's Saying is to get your content and appear in an AI review, just stick to your normal SEO practices. You don't need quote geo, which is Generative Engine Optimization or LLM Optimization. Llmo. God, there's so many acronyms. Help. Anyway, this is getting ridiculous, but there's also some other great points here. And they were create. They were captured and posted by one of the Google dudes there who were I guess live blogging it or such while he was talking. So we'll start with number one here. Search is growing and Gen Z are power users. Quote, contrary to the belief that younger generations don't use traditional search. Gary revealed that Gen Z users, Those are ages 18 to 24, issue more search queries than any other age group. With over 5 trillion searches conducted globally each year, search is not only growing, but its user base is also staying young. Why don't you take the next one?

[Scott Vanak]

Yeah. So search is increasingly visual and interactive. The methods of searching are evolving rapidly. Google Lens has seen 65% year over year growth with over 100 billion visual searches conducted this year alone. And every one and one in every five of these has commercial intent. Furthermore, the new circle to search feature is already available on over 250 million Android devices. I can't play with that. I use an iPhone and I think. And I. And Ross hates me for it.

[Ross Dunn]

Laugh at you for it.

[Scott Vanak]

With early adopters using it for 10% of their search journeys.

[Ross Dunn]

I actually love that. Just to rub it in. I love that so much. It's so useful. No, actually I do. Especially doing all the ancestry I've been doing lately. And if I, If I'm uncertain of what I'm seeing, I can just circle it. I can even circle a portrait. Do you see any other versions of this? Or what do you see here? And when I'm doing research for even purchasing something for the house or actually I've been doing it even for my boat. So there's a particular part that I need. I can take a picture of it and just show it on Google Lens or go to my photo gallery where I did that and just circle it and see if there's anything. It's. It's. It's been pretty darn amazing. I gotta say, I'm surprised, actually. I wouldn't have thought that was limited. I thought that would be everywhere, even in house.

[Scott Vanak]

It's not quite the circle thing, but I've been using image search more often. Like the other day we were cleaning the house and we found a thing. It's like, what the heck is this thing and you don't want to throw it out because it's weird and you know, it's super important if it's weird. And I honestly can't remember what it was. So we took a picture of it, did a Google search and it told us exactly what it was. It was like, I don't know how our parents survived. You know, like before technology you'd have to go to the library and you'd have, you know, like it would take you days to figure out what this thing is and now you can do it in a second. I think we probably threw it away after that too. But it just anyways goes to show.

[Ross Dunn]

How much slower life was then, which is a good thing in many ways. Yeah, you could just go and you'd have to go to library, spend some time, go through things. I mean it was more labor intensive but it was less immediate gratification which just moves us onto the next thing and it becomes addictive.

[Scott Vanak]

Totally.

[Ross Dunn]

I'm fine. I'm going to skip this one and go back to it because I want to do this last one so bad. Is SEO dead? No, it's evolving. Gary humorously debunked the recurring question of SEO's demise, noting that people have claimed SEO is dying since 1997.

[Scott Vanak]

Since before it was SEO.

[Ross Dunn]

Yeah, I don't actually remember SEO when I started my business. I don't think they even called it SEO yet. I don't know. Anyway, that's when I started in 97. But anyway, he stressed that this, that the fundamental principles of SEO are more important than ever for appearing in new AI powered features. The advice remains the same, focus on creating helpful, reliable content. These new tech, unless you're in the health industry who just got nailed hard, these new technologies are creating more opportunities for creators, not eliminating them. Now what do you think of that, Scott?

[Scott Vanak]

Yeah, I think I mostly agree with it, I guess.

[Ross Dunn]

I don't know, I kind of call bs. I'm not saying that SEO is dead. I don't mean that. I just mean that they're creating more opportunities. I mean for creators, yes, but not necessarily content like text content mostly for visual content, I would say, I don't know, it just like websites. I think they're pushing us to using their systems like YouTube and these different creator platforms where more money is generated and they can put their, you know, they can have a piece of ownership of them websites alone. They're going to have a hard time succeeding, I think in this new world. I don't know, it's gonna be interesting. The last one here is AI is fundamentally reshaping the search experience. Gary describes AI overviews as one of the most significant changes to search in 20 years. There's no doubt about that. Data shows that users of AI overviews search more frequently and express greater satisfaction. He also introduced AI mode, a more powerful experience for complex queries that require advanced reasoning and multi step planning allowing users to connect deeper breathier research. That is a quote breathier or breathier I breath here sounds right. Yeah. Anyway.

[Scott Vanak]

More satisfaction. I don't. Yeah see this is one I don't really agree with. I mean I will say you know some searches AI overviews are just nailing it but it depends on the type of search. Like if I ask you know how many pounds to a kilogram kind of thing like basic math type questions is bang on every time. If you ask it something that could have any wiggle room, well who knows what you're going to get unless it's a hard fact obvious answer that's agreed upon by everybody you who knows.

[Ross Dunn]

Yeah, I guess I, I take back what I said. I I do think certainly has increased my satisfaction research from a user's point of view because I'm typically not searching anything that's your money or your life why I am at YL which is one of the areas they're very cautious with. And so when I do get an answer and it's quick, it is kind of satisfying to get the hell out of there fast. There's that but I think it's a good layer. It's a very good layer. I don't want it to replace everything because I don't think it's there yet. And when things get to that point I think we're going to be more trouble than just search if AI gets that smart. Yeah more worried about that than search.

[Scott Vanak]

Engines when all we have is Google. When you do a Google search and it's just, it's not even a overviews it's just AI and there are no citations and it just gives you the answer from who knows where that could happen.

[Ross Dunn]

I hope it doesn't but there we go.

[Scott Vanak]

We'll be flocking to DuckDuckGo.

[Ross Dunn]

Exactly. Or maybe even bingo get more of the market. We'll see.

[Scott Vanak]

Yeah, yeah that's true. Right.

[Ross Dunn]

All right, so what's next?

[Scott Vanak]

All right. Google search doesn't support different product pricing by state. This was a little bit interesting because I don't know that I've seen that situation with any clients ever where their pricing is different on a per state level, but I guess that could happen. So John had actually issued a short YouTube video saying that Google does not have a mechanism to handle product pricing that differs by state. So if you have a price, a product that is priced differently in California than say it is in New York state, there's no way to tell Google. So John suggests two ways to handle this one, and I don't understand this, honestly, but this is like what John said is to use the tax field to adjust the price of the product to the final amount per state. All right. Take that as you will. That's what John says. I don't know.

[Ross Dunn]

Oh, I see. So essentially the person would have to. Either you'd automatically find out what state they're in by geo or you'd. If that wasn't available, you'd have to have them pick which state they're in before the price changes, and then the tax would reflect that state's tax.

[Scott Vanak]

Okay, yeah. All right. So that's one option. The other, he says, and I kind of hate this option, is to create a separate product page for each individual state. Now, I didn't like that idea. And then I got thinking, can use hreflang for states and provinces, because I've never had to do that and I just didn't know. And apparently you can, you can, you can specify individual states. So you could have a page for California and a page for New York state with the ahreflangs referencing one another. So that would be an option if you're in a situ. Again, I've never seen this situation in real life, but if you're there, that could be the workaround. But maybe someday Google will allow you to differentiate it through structured markup or some other way. But those are your options as of today, according to John. So.

[Ross Dunn]

Wow. Hrflang is pretty powerful if it's done right, isn't it?

[Scott Vanak]

Yeah, I think it would work. I mean, it works for country level stuff. I can't see why it wouldn't for state or provincial or maybe even like county and parishes. And how else do we break up a country? I don't know all the ways a country is broken up.

[Ross Dunn]

Yeah, yeah. Boroughs and you name it.

[Scott Vanak]

Yeah.

[Ross Dunn]

Okay. How to handle old quote, show web pages. All right. John Mueller gives advice on what to do with show and event pages. After the date has lapsed, John was asked via Blue sky, which is a great social platform, by the way. I keep saying that because I think everyone needs to be using it more than Facebook.

[Scott Vanak]

Rossbot shares.

[Ross Dunn]

Yeah, I wish there was. No, actually I don't want to be anything to do with social shares. Thank you. Yeah, this is the question I'm going to read this verbatim and it doesn't sound like Read English anyway what to do with shows on their own URLs that have passed their performance date? These URLs are unlikely to get any traffic or minimal Do I delete or keep his response paraphrased? I see it a bit like products that are sold out or which are no longer made. For some products or shows a site might be a fantastic long term reference if the product is sufficiently unique and interesting for users long afterwards. If you're the last or only one to run a show, that's a nice reference to keep for longer. People will seek it out. For other products there might be a time limit in interest perhaps for a few months such as I went to X show last month and I liked it. Who was in it for these? Perhaps you want to give a bit of time for things to drop out of interest and then 404the pages and for yet others maybe you have a lot of things coming and going on the site. Perhaps you just 404 immediately to clean up and move on and you had a general recommendation here Scott.

[Scott Vanak]

Yeah, so mine and I've said this a trillion times really, but is whenever any page or event or otherwise is removed 301 redirected to a suitable replacement? Or you could serve a 404 or 410. 410 means gone. But if that page has any value at all, if it has even one inbound link pointing to it that somebody built or has a few rankings if you redirect it to the most relevant higher level page you might retain some of that value. So you could just 404 it. But why risk losing anything now? There might be situations where maybe you have events coming and going weekly and and the turnover is so quick on your site that you know, first of all it's not none of that content will be there long enough to establish these links or really any value. So why bother? And maybe the workload involved in redirecting them is just too ridiculous. So 404 is okay, or 410 might be better in some cases but I don't know if you can 301 it just retain and hang on to any little morsel of value that you really can. I don't know. That's. That's the way I look at it anyways.

[Ross Dunn]

I guess the Only problem is you could end up with way too many 301s.

[Scott Vanak]

You could. There's also something else and actually had a call with a client recently and they, they have events and they were actually asking essentially the same question, where should they redirect it to? And they, they were suggesting should they red to another similar event? And I was like, no, definitely don't do that because then you're going to end up in the long term having crazy weird redirect chains because then that event is gone and they're going to redirect it to another event and you're, you're just going to be ugly. So, you know, I would say to a top level category, something that won't likely change is probably this. But you know, is it scalable? Like maybe, but maybe not. I guess like you said, it depends on if you're talking. Maybe you have a website that's like an events calendar for Vegas or something like that, where there's just millions of events always happening. Your redirect list is going to be just crazy long. So it's probably not sensible to do that.

[Ross Dunn]

So no, I would like. In a lot of cases they have a central page for a specific act and then from there they can have sub pages for their different events coming up or maybe the odd one that's expired, but I would generally just expire them or, and, and just have that one page as your main page. Yeah.

[Scott Vanak]

Or a new page or something like that.

[Ross Dunn]

Yeah. And hopefully that will help. And then anyone searching for, let's say the next Sting show or whatever it might be, they can easily find that page and go, is there another one coming up? And it makes things a lot easier to manage.

[Scott Vanak]

I, I love how you reference Sting because it's just a good segue into your 70th birthday, which is coming up.

[Ross Dunn]

Right.

[Scott Vanak]

You're 70. Sorry, I might, might be wrong on that number.

[Ross Dunn]

Yeah, just a bit. Not even 50 yet. Yeah. And a last note, I want to mention that anyone out there who is currently, you know, having some issues with content these days, you know, trying to put together a content plan considering AI and all of the new strategies in place that are required to succeed. Yeah, let us know. I'm digging into this deeply these days, doing a lot of research, creating our, a brand new layout based on all of the proven tactics I've gotten from colleagues and from some private forums and et cetera, et cetera, trying to get as much information as I can. And I'm pretty excited about what we're putting together. So if you want to have a chat at the very least, book one of our free strategy calls on our website and you'll be speaking directly with me. And we can. We can chat. It's free and we'll see if we can help you out or at least gabble a bit about what you're up to and what might be possible in the future. Alrighty. Well, with that said, on behalf of myself, Ross Dunn, CEO of Stepforth Web Marketing, and my company's Senior SEO, Scott Vanik, thank you for joining us today. Remember, we have a Show Notes newsletter you can sign up [e-mail] have a great week and remember to tune into future episodes, which air every week on WMR fm.

[Scott Vanak]

Awesome. Thank you for listening everybody.

[Ross Dunn]

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[Scott Vanak]

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