A (3:20)

No, that's good. Like I, I had that happen to me. I had just a little website that was kind of a nothing website. Doesn't really matter. But it was hacked and the same thing happened. It was probably months or maybe even years before they suddenly decided to turn it on. And all of my backups were compromised. And because it didn't make me money and it was a hobby and I didn't really care, I just deleted it. I got rid of it. But of course, if you're running a business that's bringing in money, that's not an option. Right. And how do you fix this? Do you start from scratch? Do you actually go in and get someone to fix it manually and track it down? I guess it all depends on the scope of the hack and how badly you need to fix right away. But what a nightmare.

B (3:58)

So.

A (3:59)

Gotta be on this stuff.

B (4:01)

All right, well, next up, there's another vulnerability. Which one's this?

A (4:04)

Another vulnerability. This one's in a WooCommerce plugin or add on or whatever you want to call it. The customer review plugin. Affecting about 80,000 sites, this flaw basically makes it possible for attackers again to inject scripts into web pages and execute code. So, you know, these are brutal. If you get one of these, it could do people. These hackers could do whatever they want. So, yeah, keep it updated. WordPress customer review plugin for WooCommerce. So update that one as well.

B (4:35)

And you might as well take the next one too, because this is another of yours. Yeah.

A (4:39)

Sweet. It's a Scott show today.

B (4:43)

Well, the title. I'll do the title. Your ChatGPT conversations may be visible in Google search there. I did something Spoiler alert.

A (4:51)

So be careful, be careful what you say to ChatGPT because this is, this is actually terrible and kind of funny. Not funny like make me laugh funny, but like, how can this be possible? ChatGPT shared links are being indexed by by Google. So some AI conversations are being indexed and discoverable by, by a straight Google search. So first of all, how do you find these? If you go into Google and you do a search site colon chat GPT.com share then a space, then a plus and then a keyword or your easy. So easy. That was pretty easy. Come on, do a search for that site colon search chat GPT. Throw the keyword in there and you'll see real conversations people have had with ChatGPT. The prompts they use, the responses they got. I've tried a few that didn't really bring anything up. And then I tried one. Maybe we talk about phishing too much, but that was my example and I did plus phishing and I got a whole bunch of conversations that people had had started. Now the people that posted the original conversation, the original person, whatever was just listed as anonymous. I didn't see any that I checked that showed any real names. So that's good. But it really can happen to anyone unknowingly clicking the share conversation button in ChatGPT. That's the way the article at Search Engine Land says they're being found. They're very likely found other ways as well. I'm not sure. So just be careful. You know, SEOs and marketers experiment a lot with AI to test messaging and content ideas and more. And this could really expose a lot of those prompts, strategies, client names, campaign details, private information. If you're having a love affair with your AI, well, your mom knows now, so you got to be careful, right? One recommendation. Yeah, yeah, one recommendation is to disable public chats in Team GPT. For example, one of the ones we use, I found it under Settings and General, and it's just a little toggle button. You can turn it on and off. So keep it off. Don't have anything be public ever. And then another recommendation I saw was to do this search along with your brand name and see if anything regarding your brand is showing up. So I tried our brand name step forth and it didn't show anything, which is good. I tried a number of clients just out of curiosity. Didn't show anything, which is good. And then I did one client and it showed a ton. And I went to like panic mode. Not really, because it's not something I Did, but now it's like, I gotta tell them to not whatever do this. Well, it wasn't actually anything related to the client. It's because they're. Their business name is essentially a compound word of two regular English words. And Google split it into just using these two words, so it's everything related to those two words. So it was like, okay, this is not relevant, but check it. Do a search for your brand name, and if you see all your private AI chats, you know, I tell you what to do about it, but I'm not actually sure right now.

B (7:51)

I'm not sure how you get rid of those. And do keep in mind that based on the current laws, even if it's not shared online, everything you do type into chatgpt is saved and is available for law enforcement and anything. And if that means, if it. If that's the case, you just have to wonder how hard is it for a hacker to get access to that information. So, you know, never type anything in a search like that that's really private. It's just not a good idea.

A (8:19)

No. And I don't even know, like, if you wanted to have like a fake private conversation with AI, I don't know if there's even a way you could do that, knowing that it would never get discovered by. Well, that I do that. But I'm just curious, like, you know, if you want something to be really locked down.

B (8:34)

It depends. There are. Now, ChatGPT may be the engine behind some other systems that are based on offering counseling.

A (8:45)

Right?

B (8:45)

AI counseling. And if that's the case, then who knows? I would hope not. I mean, I'm sure it would still come across as anonymous, but depending what you ask, it can include personal details, I guess. I'm sure it's possible. So it's a leaky, very leaky faucet. I don't know. Don't know about it anyway. Totally. All right, so SEO versus geo. What's different and what's the same? First of all, of course, you know, SEO is search engine optimization, whereas GEO is generative engine optimization. Generative being, you know, perplexity. ChatGPT, search, search. I can't wait to see how AI translates that. Anyway, search, GPT, deep seq, you name it. All these different places where you can get a result from their search. So what is the difference and what's the same? Clear headings? I guess these are all the same.

A (9:48)

Sorry, sorry. What? I. I should have changed something in these notes here a little bit. What I basically extracted was some of the takeaways from the article on what you could do to optimize for both. Okay, essentially, so I should have edited the title, but I didn't because I'm a dummy and I forgot my Hawaiian shirt and it's just a total fail of a day.

B (10:07)

Got my nice Hawaiian shirt on. Yeah, you're so lucky if you can see it at some point. These will be posted someday decades from now anyway, and you'll know what I was wearing. So Clear Headings Use headings to guide users and AI through your main points. Be sure to use the correct hierarchy. So typically heading one is your title or your main subject of the page. Heading two is what you'd use for each of the questions on the page that you're answering below. If there's a heading 3, it's typically just a sub heading of one of the questions if I'm thinking about a question based article with numerous questions and answers all right, ensure headings are reflective of the content. Okay, yeah, let's hope that you're writing it correctly. Some Compelling Data Points Try to include at least one data point or statistic in each key section to boost credibility and give AI answers concrete figures to cite. This can be a percentage, case study result, survey findings, or other useful statistical date. Weave figures into your text so they are natural. Oh my God. So I I am the currently the prompt engineer for step fourth. So I, I, I'm typically trying to create prompts that will automate specific actions within our business because you know, I'm being the business owner, I'm currently trying I'll constantly trying to find ways to streamline everything and maximize using AI and et cetera, et cetera. Well one of the things we're doing is writing exceptionally good content for our clients and I'm wow, I'm really really focused on this and trying to tell AI how to weave in stats is way harder than you might think. And when they do it I tell them never to fake anything and I will tell them that ad nauseam. And it never ceases to amaze me how they still fake stuff all the time. All the time. And it's just driving me mad. But I have managed to get exceptional results out of it. Stuff that I would be so impressed if I wrote it myself. That does exactly what these this listing which we haven't finished yet does so do. Listen. This is really good stuff and it's really how you need to write these days, which is not easy for some and might be very natural for some authoritative references. Add references and quotes from industry experts and studies to reinforce trust, use concise paragraphs that introduce insight, context and explain why your data matters. Now one Another thing I should mention is remember from last week, and we've talked about this before, it doesn't matter if Google, if anything, can detect that you've written something in AI, it's the quality. So don't obsess over obvious AI traits in your content. All right, now I should qualify that a bit because if it's completely obvious that it's totally AI driven and maybe it's not providing a lot of value, then people might be a bit annoyed. And there are. There's definitely going to be a component of people who are regular readers and they are not going to like anything, even if it is amazing if it's obviously written by AI. So do consider that, I guess. But just just saying that Google doesn't care. They just want to make sure that people who read it will enjoy it. Geo focused tweaks convert dense paragraphs into shorter sentences that focus on distinct facts or into numbered steps. 100% agree with this, and generally that's pretty easy to tell AI how to do. Even if you just use that, it will understand it. Add a brief key takeaways box at the end of each significant section. 100% agree for longer content. TLDR section at the top of the post can also be helpful. That's too long. Didn't read what I'm typically doing. I've dabbled over putting short answer at the top and then the answer like kind of like the the brief. I've dabbled over using tldr. What I think I'm just going to settle on is just putting kind of a without even titling it, an intro paragraph. That's the summary in a sense. And then people can jump into the real content and dig into the real meat of it. And if you include stats in that brief and you include like it's truly really valuable, there's a really good chance it's going to be using an AI overview. So put a little effort into that and it'll work out. The recommendation summary is clear subheadings, concise data points, expert quotes, quote quotes, quotes, useful questions, and conversational phrases that people and AI might use and incorporate structured markup. All right, there you go. Now some local SEO news. Google Business profile We had an issue where since 2022 we weren't getting any reviews. I know for a fact I'd asked for reviews from a couple people who would totally follow through. They even told me they did. I mean, there's always a chance. You go, maybe they just said they did and they didn't. And I took that into consideration. Maybe there's a couple that didn't. But I knew for sure we had at least a few. Well, I. And I will not. I don't. I can't believe this happened. But I contacted support and they fixed it immediately.

A (15:56)

Wait, Google support? Like Google? This is April Fool's episode, I think.

B (16:02)

Totally blew me away immediately. A review popped up within a two days. I mean, that's. Wow. So it can work. I swear there should be trumpets blaring somewhere. That's just amazing. I've heard nothing but bad, negative experiences about it. And the one time I finally really follow through and need it, it worked.

A (16:23)

So support is actually supportive.

B (16:26)

Yes.

A (16:27)

Sometimes.

B (16:28)

We finally have fresh reviews appearing on our Google business profile, which is a relief.

A (16:33)

So I guess the key takeaway there is don't give up, just get it fixed. Yeah.

B (16:38)

Now we'll tag team this one because I'm talking too much. But now some AI news. Should I still invest in SEO? We're going to cover that when we get back from the break. Welcome back to SEO 101 on WMR FM, hosted by myself, Ross Dunn, CEO of Step 4th Web Marketing, and my company, Senior SEO, Scott Vanik. Okay, so should we still invest in SEO? I mean everyone's. We're thinking about it all the time because we want to make sure we've got a livelihood, to be perfectly blunt. But the fact of the matter is thankfully yes. Now Lowe's has the Labor Day deals you need to give your home a new look. Buy one, get one free, select interior paint via Visa gift card rebate, then add the final touch with two for $8 on select 2.5 or 3 quart mums. Refresh your home and save big while doing it.

A (17:41)

Lowes.

B (17:42)

We help you Save valid through 93 mums offer in store only. Selection varies by location while supplies last. More terms and restrictions apply. Seeloes.com rebates for details. How do we argue this? First of all, it's important that you understand this article that we're covering here, which is actually from Search Engine Journal and written by. Was it Dan Taylor? Dan Taylor, yeah. A very well written article. But I believe he's principally speaking about enterprise level businesses, which is definitely his bread and butter in the company he works for and I and most of the shakeups we've been seeing amongst the SEO industry have been with SEO companies who have strong enterprise focuses they're the ones that have to be on the absolute bleeding edge and they're the ones who are going to get hit first when they're major changes in search. And so they are, they're getting hit. And this question is coming up, should companies still invest in SEO? This does not at this stage focus really affect local businesses very much. But whatever we talk about here is going to, so do keep that in mind. I would say the same thing about medium businesses. You know, 50, I, I, I sort of consider 50 employees to 100 employees, something like that. It's probably not accurate, but that's how I think about medium businesses. And you know, in many cases they are also in the space where they're probably worried they may have a local ranking. Depending on their business, they may have a local ranking for each of their different properties. So they use Google business profiles. They're probably okay if they are focused entirely on organic, then this may be affecting them already. All right, anyway, let's get right into this. Dan Taylor had some great points and I, I love them so much. I quoted them. The first one is so spot on. It says in an AI first search world, in an AI first search world, visibility starts before the click. That's going to make a lot more sense in a second. The brands that stay active will be the ones users see. And remember, this is no longer just about blue links and last click. It's about brand recognition and building visibility across the multiple faces of the modern search ecosystem. You take the next step.

A (20:07)

Yeah, to stay visible in this world, you will still need content. In fact, content is the price of admission essentially. If you're not producing it, you're not part of the conversation. I hope every single one of my clients have heard me say that. Some of my clients are awesome. Like, well, they're all awesome, let's be real. But some of them, the content they produce is incredible and they keep doing it and they, they just perform really well. The ones that don't, you know, it's, it's a grind, it's a lot harder. So yeah, content, content has to work harder. A single piece might need to satisfy different intents, answer multiple questions or show up in several places from featured snippets, videos, product results or AI generated outputs.

B (20:50)

Yeah, and a side note there is we've mentioned how YouTube's getting more and more important. Well, that's a content, that's a place for content. And whatever you generate in YouTube can easily be multi used. I mean you can use it in podcasts or you know, hell, you could have created it from a podcast and then you create into content and it created into bite sized pieces to use for TikTok and all the different social platforms and oh my gosh, it's just endless. So do consider it that this isn't just written content. So no matter what size of company you are, should you still invest in SEO? The real question, he says, is whether you can afford not to invest. And again, I know this is self serving but well, you're listening to us because you know, we know we're talking about, I hope anyway. And when it comes down to it, that's still the case, you know it is. And this is actually he sums this up quite well. He says paid traffic dries up the second you stop paying. Organic builds on itself. It's one of the few channels that gives you more tomorrow for what you do today. Yep, unquote. That is perfect way to put it. It's what I love the most about what we do. Whatever the client puts out and really provides great value for, we can optimize and make sure it does come back later even better. And builds and builds that authority. At Step Force. We've been building AI into our client marketing plans for probably two years now. We realize there's way more significant changes to come but we're constantly building this out. Most of it's seamless. Our clients don't have to really do anything, which again that's going to change. We're really, really working hard to minimize the impact on clients simply because it's a lot. And why not just have us deal with that? You know, that's the best way we can go. But the fact is we're going to be pushing YouTube, we're going to be pushing restructuring content, consolidating like content into larger pieces. Cornerstone content throughout sites is going to be one of my Main pushes in 2026 and late 2025, but it's going to be carefully done and I'm looking forward to it in some ways because it's always nice to have a new learning curve. But it's also going to be. Well, the fact is we're dealing with clients who already have great rankings in most cases. So when we're changing content, we're consolidating them. It's going to be a bit nerve wracking because we want to make sure that those maintain those rankings maintain and we don't know what's going to happen there because as much as we do know, as much as we're following AI is still, well, you know, pulling us in every different direction. So we'll see what happens. Okay, what's next here?

A (23:57)

Yeah, so this is a small study by Bright Edge from over at Search Engine Land that brands are dominating in Google AI mode, but they struggle with AI overviews. So some of the data they found was that in AI mode, brands appeared in about 90% of all responses. In AI overviews, they appear in about 43% of all responses. So a little less than half of what you would suspect or what you would get from AI mode citations are showing up in AI mode, about five to seven source cards per search. In AI Overviews, you get about 20 or more per response. So you're getting a lot more citations in AI overviews as well. They're finding that AI mode is more stable with lower entry barriers and predictable patterns, whereas AI overviews is selective and volatile. Like AI Overviews is kind of the wild wild west still, really. Whereas AI mode is maybe closer to the early days of search in the sense that, you know, you can search today and you might get kind of the same response tomorrow and it won't be different every three or four seconds. I don't know. So generally what they're saying in this study is that you want your content to be comprehensive enough for AI mode and the authority and authoritative enough for AI overviews. So you really want to get a lot of authority for AI overviews and you want to focus on comprehensive content for AI mode. And of course, that's probably going to be different tomorrow or next week.

B (25:24)

Yeah, no doubt. So I should have actually finished this note a little bit better, but the next article is Query Fan out technique in AI mode. The new details from Google Query Fan out is. How do I describe this? I actually saw a great description for it, but I can't hunt for it at the moment. Essentially, when you do a search, Google is taking that query and it's fanning out the possible objectives of your query. It's also so. So in the traditional way, we would have done it to search for a particular query and it would give you back a result for that query. It's that simple. And you'd see universal search results with maybe a couple other things from YouTube or different things that may be contextually similar. That's about as far off base it would go. Let's just generalize it that way. Nowadays, with Query Fan out technique, that search is being done, but Google's looking at all the different ways that you could be looking at that particular search. What kind of results could you want and it even guesses areas where maybe aren't even a regular may not even have been in your thoughts when you're making the search. So let's just get into this a little bit. I've got a summary from this great article on Search Engine Journal and the introduction of QueryFeno, Google's VP of product for search. Robbie Stein elaborated on the Query Fano technique which enables AI mode to produce and execute multiple searches from a single user query. The technique allows for related searches to be conducted in the background, utilizing large language models and real time data to generate comprehensive responses that can unmentioned topics. So in other words, when you do the search, it's actually searching on Google for the different variations of that search and provides it in a in the search results you see. So it's effectively using Google in the background. It's integrated into AI mode, deep search and AI overview responses. One of the examples of usage is let's say you're searching for activities to do in Nashville. The system can autonomously explore related areas like dining and family activities activities combining results from various searches into a single response with relevant links. Now what's the scale of use? The AI powered functionality caters to approximately 1.5 billion users each month. Of course this is growing. It's using real time data sources like Google Shopping Graph which is updated frequently. You can also do a deep search. If you're of course familiar with this, you already know that if you've ever used it. And this is where they get into really complex reasoning. The deep search function can be activated to run dozens or even hundreds of queries at a time, which can take time for you to even get the result. But it's really truly doing the research, which is phenomenal. AI mode also uses Google's internal load tools like Google Finance to provide structured data for various inquiries like stock comparisons and shopping recommendations. All in all, the technique draws on similar process outlined in a Google patent regarding thematic search highlighting a shift from traditional keyword based organization, which is what I talked about earlier in my example, to a focus on inferred topics. What's the future implication here? Well, as AI driven search evolves, we're looking at potential challenges in SEO and attribution. This is going to require us to rethink our strategies so we can embrace this inferred strategy that AI is using. And really I'm struggling with this. Every single marketer is struggling with this. How do you attribute the success of SEO to a sale? Now? It's nearly impossible not only has Google locked down how much information we get out of Google Analytics, but we're also faced with many, many, many, many different ways that someone could have found you and at what point, at what search did they do it? Who knows? There's just no way to know anymore. Maybe I'm a bit extreme there, but we don't deal with enterprise level tools. Maybe there are some enterprise level tools out there that can do much better than what I'm saying, but for the vast majority of us, there's just really no way. Call tracking will help, but again, if you're tracking calls to a particular click in a paid ad campaign, that's one thing. But if you're doing it from a organic click, well actually in both cases you really don't know where they first clicked and how they found out about you. You have to be out there, you have to be in their face before they finally decide that you're worth the person you're worth calling or booking a time with or buying from. One thing Robbie Stein mentioned is we've integrated most of the real time information systems that are within Google. So it can make Google finance calls, for instance, flight data, movie information. There's 50 billion products in the shopping catalog and he says it's updated, I think about 2 billion times every hour or so. Geez, it's truly mind numbing how much change is happening right now. It's phenomenal and awe inspiring.

A (31:12)

2 billion times an hour.

B (31:16)

Just wow.

A (31:17)

I guess it helps explain why they're building their own nuclear power plant, so.

B (31:21)

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

A (31:23)

They're going to need a few of them.

B (31:26)

All right, what's next?

A (31:26)

Yeah, so this is kind of funny because earlier we talked about how Google is showing ChatGPT stuff in search. Well, Chat GPT is also using Google search so it's like a little symbiotic relationship between the two of them. So Barry Schwartz over at Search Engine Roundtable has been seeing numerous tests that seem to prove that Chat GPT is actually using Google Search Index. So there were a couple examples here that I'll share. So one was posted to X by I'm really sorry because I don't know that I could even get close to saying this name.

B (32:02)

Abhishek.

A (32:03)

Abhishek Ire. Abhishek. That still doesn't sound right. I'm sorry if I'm right. Woohoo me. Anyways, so this is from him from, from their ex post they coined a nonsense word. So this is. I'm not going to try to say the word because it's just a bunch of gibberish letters, and they put it on a page that was completely orphaned and not linked anywhere. They went and then went into Google Search Console and they requested indexing of that page. And after Google had indexed it, he asked Chat GPT to define the term and it quoted his hidden page verbatim. So ChatGPT found it right away. As soon as it was in Google's index, he did the same query with Bing ddg. Oh, duck, duck, go. Well, it took me a second Yandex. It didn't show up anywhere else, but Chat GPT picked it up almost immediately. So then Elita Solis had a similar experience where she had created new content, made sure no one had indexed it yet, and then soon as it was indexed by Google, it appeared in ChatGPT, and the results were basically identical to what was being shown in Google there also. So I don't know. Yeah, I don't know how Chat GPT is getting this. If they're using it through an API, they have an agreement with Google. They're just doing it. Who knows? But I guess, I guess it's basically a good thing. It's just that much easier to get into ChatGPT. So from SEO perspective, it's great. Any way you get in there. It doesn't matter. Good. It's good if you get in.

B (33:38)

So, yeah, the only reason they showed up right away is because they used a nonsense word. If it was something that was really competitive, then, then it would be evaluated whether or not there's enough authority for you to show up. Exactly. But.

A (33:50)

But still, the fact that it happened almost immediately shows that Chat GPT is getting that data all the time. You know, they're like, what did you say, 50 billion? Well, that was shopping links. 50 billion every hour or something. But it was up.

B (34:02)

Yeah. Updated a lot.

A (34:04)

This is a little bit different.

B (34:06)

Two billion times every hour.

A (34:07)

Yeah, there we go.

B (34:08)

Lots or so or so.

A (34:10)

What does that mean?

B (34:12)

Two billion times per hour or so or so.

A (34:15)

So two billion.

B (34:16)

N12 maybe.

A (34:18)

I bet it is. I bet it is. N12.

B (34:20)

Those engineers at Google, they just have to be accurate. All right.

A (34:23)

Well, yeah, exactly.

B (34:24)

So lastly, Bing recommends last mod tags for AI search indexing. In a recent Bing blog, it was noted that using the last mod field in your XML sitemap is a top signal for AI Dr. In indexing. It helps determine whether a page needs to be recrawled or if it can be skipped. The good news is, if you use Yoast, this is already done for you as it is with most XML sitemap plugins and modules for various platforms. If your plugin or platform does not use a last mod, you may want to consider changing or seeing what you can what should be customized. Bing also notes that the change frequency and priority tags in XML sitemaps are ignored. That's interesting.

A (35:07)

Yeah, like, you know, I don't really think about last mod and that stuff very often, especially because every one of our clients, it just, it's all automated at this point. Right.

B (35:14)

That stuff is.

A (35:14)

As an SEO, do you remember when site maps first came out and you had to do it by hand and it was like where's the tool to do this? So then you're crawling the site using Zenulink Sleuth. Oh yeah, and then dump it into Excel and some fancy Excel work. It was a freaking nightmare. And now it's like you don't even. You don't do anything. You just. It just does it most of the time.

B (35:35)

I still remember the wonderful days where I could update a site, submit it to Infoseek, refresh the search results and see the result.

A (35:43)

Oh yeah, right Live.

B (35:45)

Oh my God, that was great.

A (35:47)

Miss the good old days.

B (35:48)

Yep, it was pretty amazing. Well, there you go. That was a lot today, a lot of AI and I guess that's going to be the tone going forward. But this one in particular was pretty heavy duty and hope you got a lot out of it. So on behalf of myself, Ross Dunn, CEO of Stepforth Web Marketing, and my company, Senior SEO Scott Van Ak, thank you for joining us today. If you have any questions you would like to share with us, please feel free to post them on our Facebook group, easily found by searching SEO101podcast on Facebook. Have a great week and remember to tune into future episodes which air every week on wmr.

A (36:25)

Awesome. Thank you for listening everybody.

C (36:37)

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