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- [00:00]
Buzz CRM Representative
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- [00:47]
Wix Representative
Would be without you. Imagine where it could go with more of you. Well, with wix you can create a website with more of your vision, your voice, your expertise. Wix gives you the freedom to truly own your brand and do it on your own with full customization and advanced AI tools that help turn your ideas into reality, scale up without being held back by cookie cutter solutions, and grow your business into your online brand. Because without you, your business is just business as usual. Take control. Go to wix.com@ritual we know what goes into the holiday season. The potluck planning, the gift giving, the spreadsheets. So this new year, take a moment for yourself with science backed support that puts you first. So whether you're focusing on supporting foundational health with a clean vegan multivitamin or supporting your gut health with symbiotic plus, do it with 30% off your first month@ritual.com podcast. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.
- [01:59]
Ross Dunn
Hello and welcome to SEO101 on WMR FM episode number 493. This is Ross Dunn, CEO of Step Forth Web Marketing and my co host is my company Senior SEO. So Scott Vanack. Well, we had another short break there as I was sick again. It's been like a rough ride. Anyway, I'm glad we're back and we've got lots to share. Plenty. Oh my gosh, it's almost. We were just joking. It's almost an AI episode, which is really not surprising since that's taking over our lives. With that said, why don't we jump right into this? This is some non SEO news, but it's about Google Says Google erases promise not to use AI technology for weapons or surveillance. How surprised are we? So, do tell. What's up?
- [02:52]
Scott Vanack
Yeah, well, first they removed their don't be evil. So you knew when that happened more bad stuff was going to happen eventually. But Originally published in 2018, Google's AI ethics policy has now been updated. Originally when they published it, they promised that they would not use AI to pursue weapons or other technology intended to injure people and, and also not to use it for surveillance. Well, they've, they've stepped back on that now and removed that language and I guess they're going to surveil and attack us now. I don't know. But they are definitely leaning in the direction of evil. So there we go. Who knows what's to come. But they're not playing nice anymore.
- [03:36]
Ross Dunn
More reasons to have such belief in mankind, huh?
- [03:41]
Scott Vanack
It's, it's a scary time with AI right now. It really is. And I don't know, using it for, for warfare, which I mean obviously it's going to happen and they're going to sell to the highest bidder if they develop the technology. Not just Google, but I mean anybody in AI.
- [03:55]
Ross Dunn
So they must have been tempted pretty hard by the governments offering them a lot of money to use some of their tools.
- [04:04]
Scott Vanack
I think Arnold Schwarzenegger, Schwarzenegger just went back in time and asked them to remove it. I think that's what happened. Ah, could be the future Terminators will thank them.
- [04:13]
Ross Dunn
Yeah, exactly. All right, well now we're jumping into the SEO news finally. So report is that Google AI overviews are killing click through rates. Unfortunately I've seen a lot about this. This is a study by Seer Interactive which shows that the impact of AIO reviews is having on click through rates for organic search and paid ads. It appears that's a big issue. Organic click through rate where AI overviews were not shown was about 2.68% to 3.97%. That's pretty good. That's about normal. When AI overviews were shown it went down to 1.41% to 0.64%. Now this is organic I should specify. So that's anyone just using a normal search and there's no paid ads there in a way or anything. Now if paid ads are there, paid click through rates were where AI overviews are not shown were 23% to 17%. Pretty good, right? That drops to 8.76 to 6.56% when AI overviews are shown. So and the other, the other issue too is that AI overviews aren't leading to click throughs to sites very often now either. Now it does depend if it's a very simplistic answer then no almost never do people click through to the site if it's something that's more in depth and it's by an influencer or by just written frankly with a great deal deal of detail and there's more to learn they have a better chance of getting clickthroughs. So do keep that in mind. So having fantastic articles and writing them in the way that AI likes there's a lot to be read about that I'd have to. We'd have to maybe cover that in episode and perhaps we will then that is gonna work for you. You know, make sure that it's solid, has a ton of great content in it and really just gets gets right to the meat of the issue as well as answering some of the secondary questions I guess is the simplest way to put it. Anyway, they looked at the study looked at about 10,000 keywords in the top 20 with informational intent reminder that is informational intent which is when someone's looking for information about a specific topic like how to bake a cake. So what does that mean? Well if it's what do you my words today what the other intent, the commercial intent. If it was commercial intent, that's an entirely different type of search and could have entirely different stats. So this isn't the end all be all that. This does not represent every type of search intent but it is something that is a bit alarmist and in a good in a I think a justifiable way. Wow. My our AI is going to have a fun time trying to interpret everything I just said.
- [07:29]
Scott Vanack
I think I understood you. I think we're good.
- [07:31]
Ross Dunn
Gosh. Okay. That's what happens from being sicky for so long. Still got it. But anyway. All right, next up, how to track click through rate in Google Search Console for AI overviews. This is right up your alley.
- [07:44]
Scott Vanack
Yeah, so this is just kind of a fun little thing that was found so in the stuff Ross just talked about in that article at was it Search Engine Roundtable, Barry referenced this post from Glenn Gabe and Glenn had posted this to X where he said Google Search Console data for AI overviews is nearly impossible to view. Until now. The catch is though that your site must have a manual action. So if you have a manual action against your site you it's kind of a loophole in Search Console because what's happening currently at least sites with manual actions are still sometimes appearing in AI overviews. So when you see data in search console and you have a manual action, there's a strong chance that that data is actually a result of AI overviews. Makes sense, right? Clear as mud. So let's see here. Yeah. So, Glenn, actually go. There's a post that will be in our show notes if you want to know more about this. Definitely check it out. But essentially by visiting the performance report in Google Search Console and filtering for pages or directories on your site that are impacted by a manual action, and then selecting the date range for a period of time when the action was active, the data you see will relate to AI overviews. So it's kind of a loopy scam, hole, scam thing there. Loopy scamhole. What the heck? I heard it and I was gonna not. I couldn't not go back to it. Yeah, this is a blooper episode. No, it is. What was I even gonna say? Check out the post. Check out Glenn's post. You'll see it in the show notes. It's really quite interesting. If you. I don't have any clients that have a manual action, so I can't even test this. I. Oh, gosh.
- [09:29]
Ross Dunn
Thank goodness.
- [09:31]
Scott Vanack
Like, I'm glad we don't, but I kind of want to try it. But, you know, who can we give a manual action to? I love all my clients. If I didn't love them all, maybe I could do something evil. Not that I actually would, but yeah.
- [09:43]
Ross Dunn
We would just take that out of our ethics and go for it.
- [09:45]
Scott Vanack
Let's take it out right now. Oh, look. Be evil. Look at that.
- [09:48]
Ross Dunn
Okay. Oh, dear. All right, well, this happened. I think I was just thinking I should check our prediction episode, but I think this happened sooner than I expected. ChatGPT search, which originally launched in October and then was made available for all users when they signed in, is now available for anyone. You don't have to log in anymore. You don't have an account to use ChatGPT search. So that's interesting. I. I think I was predicting mid. Mid year, maybe second quarter. I'm not sure. Anyway, it's. It's fast. I mean, I guess that's just it. Everything's coming fast. And I kind of predicted it would take longer because of the absolutely immense amount of computational power and, well, frankly, just power that it would require to open it up to everyone and the lack of, you know, login data and all that stuff. But little do I know they're going for it. And I Guess they're just going to ramp up as they get busier. So good for them. They're having a hard time competing against Perplexity, apparently. And that's quite interesting to see that Perplexity is a great search engine. I'm really impressed with it and I'm glad that they're eating away a little bit of Google. So we'll see what happens there.
- [11:14]
Scott Vanack
It's going to be an interesting year. Like, where are we going to be at next year? You know, it's just coming crazy.
- [11:19]
Ross Dunn
It's really difficult to tell. Yeah, I agree. All right. Google guidelines warn up significant scrolling on recipe blogs what's this?
- [11:29]
Scott Vanack
I. I kind of love this and partially because we were cooking something the other day and I found a random recipe for El Pastor tacos for the beef. I was barbecuing the. The. The pork and I, I know it's a. I'm rambling, but I had to scroll down forever to try to find the ingredients. I just wanted the ingredients on the marinade and I was going crazy because there was so much stuff. Well, that site's one of the ones that's going to be hit by this. I think so. So that's good. So what they're saying is Google has updated the quality rater guidelines. This was back in the. At the end of January, January 23rd. And they added a section for recipe sites that essentially states that significant scrolling is not good. And recipe sites are typically the worst for scrolling forever. Sure. And so in there, the guidelines for low quality justification they have a large quantity of prominent filler makes it difficult to find the helpful main content is one item and the other is ads. Supplemental content and filler main content distract from helpful main content. And so if you're seeing. Well, I'm just going to read this. This is a quote from the guidelines directly. Also was that I guess. But says the primary purpose of the page is to share a recipe for butterbeer. While helpful main content such as the ingredients and information about butterbeer are at the top of the page, significant scrolling is required to find the actual butterbeer recipe. The jump to recipe link itself is difficult to find. So that's an example of where it would be justified to be low quality. The actual page has a large amount of content unrelated to butterbeer between the butterbeer ingredients and the recipe. The page has photos and reviews of many other unrelated foods at Universal Studios. In addition, ads and SC significant. Oh, what does SC stand for again? Sorry, I copied this. I can't Remember what SC stands for? Supplemental content?
- [13:25]
Ross Dunn
Yes, there it is.
- [13:26]
Scott Vanack
And interstitials appear throughout, causing additional scrolling to finally find the recipe below. All of the above lead to a poor user experience. So really the gist of it is don't have a poor user experience. Even if you have a recipe site, make sure that that jump to recipe link is easy to find at the top of the page. Avoid lots of scrolling, avoid irrelevant content, excessive ads and interstitials and all that. And you should be okay. When I read this, we have one recipe client and I immediately went to site. Okay, is a jump to recipe button easy to find? Super easy. Right at the top easy. And he doesn't have a lot of irrelevant content. So our client I think is going to be great. But if you do have a recipe site, you're going to definitely want to check this out and you know, make sure you're not going to get some manual actions or demotions or anything as a result.
- [14:20]
Ross Dunn
Yeah, it's tricky. I mean, I can see from a user's perspective, I don't like it either. I hate going to recipe sites. Honestly, I will avoid it at all cost because they're garbage in terms of how they're laid out. And it's because these poor people are trying to make money and it's so difficult. Now they're paying, getting pennies for all these ads. It all adds up, right? And I wonder how much of this is. I'm trying to think of a way to blame Google because I got a feeling there is a way. It's almost like the Google's put them in the position where they have to do this. Especially now with AI overviews where they have to make money somehow, so they're trying to get it out of every which way. But now if there's just a simple jump to recipe thing, well, where are they making their money? I don't know what to do there. It's a very difficult thing. And now Google's going to penalize them with a low quality score because of this. Yet Google's also going to steal their recipe and put it in an AI overview and not give them anything.
- [15:21]
Scott Vanack
It's crazy. It's like it kind of comes back to the olden days. We'd say if it weren't for Google, would you do it anyways and look at any recipe site and if it weren't for Google, no, most of this content wouldn't exist. It would be the recipe with the destruct instructions and the ingredients and that would be it. But they have to have the history and why they love it. And. And because they. What else do you say about all these recipes? You have to write something. Right. And it's. And if you don't, Google gets mad. And if you do, your users get mad, which is bad user experience, which is bad for. It's like a total catch 22 situation. Really.
- [15:55]
Ross Dunn
Yeah, I mean, I think I was very clear about what I meant by the ads either. I mean, there has to be a better way to do ads that I do put on the recipe people. I mean, there has to be a better way to do it without just completely making your site distasteful. Pardon the pun, but it's. It's like. It's just. It can't be done right. It's got to be done better. And that. That's on them. But yeah, you're right in all the other aspects of making a page tasty. Gosh, I'm bad with. To. To Google is. It's because of Google. And now. Yeah, it's just a weird world. And all this is totally Google just manipulating them. And I'm so hopeful we're going to get more competition because it's out of control now. It's just too much. I'm so fed up with Google.
- [16:50]
Scott Vanack
Google says we want content. You give them content. We don't want content. Content bad. What do you want, Google?
- [16:59]
Ross Dunn
Something you mentioned earlier about how they removed that issue about ethics, about hurting people and using it for warfare and all this stuff. AI There was a point when they changed their ethics and a fairly significant portion of their staff publicly were pissed. I wonder if this is going to cause any of that at all times. This should.
- [17:27]
Scott Vanack
So I did see something about that, and that was in 2018, when they first created it. And originally, I think about 4,000 Google employees protested, and then a couple dozen resigned as a result. And then I think that's what led to putting that, you know, version of don't be evil essentially into their ethics policy. That's why they added it at the end of the day and now it's gone. So are people going to revolt again? I don't know.
- [17:51]
Ross Dunn
I'd be. I would have a hard time working for a company that did that. I'm not impressed. Lowers my opinion, I think of the people who stay there. It's just. Anyway, whatever. I know we all have our situations, and I can only imagine how well they're being paid. That's going to be another part. How much is that worth? Right.
- [18:13]
Scott Vanack
Yes.
- [18:13]
Ross Dunn
Okay, let's jump into some local SEO nos in a bit. We're going to take a quick break though. First.
- [18:27]
Buzz CRM Representative
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- [20:09]
Wix Representative
You know where your business would be without you. Imagine where it could go with more of you. Well, with Wix you can create a website with more of your vision, your voice, your expertise. Wix gives you the freedom to truly own your brand and do it on your own with full customization and advanced AI tools that help turn your ideas into reality, scale up without being held back by cookie cutter solutions and grow your business into your online brand. Because without you, your business is just business as usual. Take control. Go to wix.com@ritual we know what goes into the holiday season, the potluck planning, the gift giving, the spreadsheets. So this new year take a moment for yourself with science backed support that puts you first. So whether you're focusing on supporting foundational health with a clean vegan multivitamin or supporting your gut health with symbiotic plus. Do it with 30% off your first month at ritual.com podcast these statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.
- [21:17]
Ross Dunn
Foreign welcome back to SEO 101 on WMR FM, hosted by myself, Ross Dutton, CEO of Step 4th Web Marketing, and my company, Senior SEO Scott Van Ak. Remember, we have a Shownotes newsletter you can sign up for at seo101radio.com we have a lot of great notes we put in there, a lot of the links we've got from the show. It's pretty good. I think you'll really enjoy it and it's a useful thing to look back on or even search your email for something we might have said in the past show. So check it out. All right, Local SEO News Google Bug Cause Reviews to Drop out of Local Listings now, this has been a while, but apparently you're saying, okay, this is an issue for quite a while where reviews weren't showing up and it's caused a lot of people to get quite upset. You're mentioning here that on February 7th.
- [22:19]
Scott Vanack
Yeah, so this is a new. A new issue related to the same issue. I guess a different variation of the same problem. Yeah. So February 7th, Google began showing fewer and fewer reviews in local listings. They just started dropping off. Barry had noticed that dozens of complaints were popping up in all the forums from concerned businesses and SEOs, and it appeared to be a bug, but at the time it was unknown. Well, on February 10th, Google employee Victoria Crawl posted to the Google Business profile help that this is a known issue and they are working to resolve it. Review counts and displayed reviews are affected, but no reviews have been lost. So it's just Google stopped displaying the data, but the data's still there as of February 11, which for us that's yesterday. Things are starting to be fixed or people are seeing their reviews come back and it is not, as far as I can tell, fully returned, but they are in the process of fixing it. So if you've seen all your reviews plummet and disappear, they are coming back. Well, hopefully. Hopefully they're coming back. They're working on it.
- [23:27]
Ross Dunn
Let's see if ours has no see. Yeah, see, I've noticed something over the years like I've had verified submissions from clients to our Google reviews and but I don't show up. It drives me up the wall and I, I ended up Looking it up and this is quite a while ago. God, it could have been a year. I was almost wondering whether it was February 7, 2024, but it's just been so long and, and it turned out it was quite common. A lot of people were finding reviews just weren't showing up. And it's, it's. They're so hard to get as is. You know, people are busy, right? They don't. And it infuriates me when they don't show up. And again, I verified these actually happened. These people left reviews. It's not like they just said they did. So yeah, they still got work to do. I don't know what's going on there. I know that it can happen if they have a suspicion that it's fake, but there's no way that's the issue here. We're not doing anything that's not above board. So I don't know what's going on.
- [24:30]
Scott Vanack
I had sort of the other side of that happened to me a couple years ago. There was a business I went to. I can't remember what it was and I was like ticked. It was one of the worst experiences ever. So I left them A nasty review in Google. It never showed up. If I look in my Google reviews in my profile and see the reviews I've left, it's there. Like I can see it and find it. But if you search that business, it's, it's not reflected in their review count and it's not published. It's never, I've never actually seen it listed. And it does make you wonder like I'm obviously not the only person who's left a review that didn't appear and it was a legit review. It wasn't nasty. It wasn't like it was, you know, a bunch of swearing where Google. You can't say that it was an honest review and well, I think well written review. I don't think there's any reason why it should have been pulled. But it just never showed up ever. And I haven't checked in a while. It's probably still not there. So how many other reviews is this happening to? How many reviews are people getting good and bad that are just never seeing the light of day and, and why is that? Why? I don't know. But yeah, frustrating.
- [25:33]
Ross Dunn
They both have a good reason to be there, you know, equally. I think in some cases perhaps you'd want the negative to show up more. But for the business perspective, both are good. Negative makes you work harder and makes you do a Better job improving your business. I totally, I'm with it, I'm for it. And I think it's there. If you've got an issue, you need to know about it and this is a good way to respond because hell, it's airing your dirty laundry. It's good for a business, otherwise they shouldn't be around. So I don't understand. It doesn't make any sense to me. And again, yeah, makes me unhappy.
- [26:11]
Scott Vanack
Okay, I have one more tiny, funny thing I have to add to that. I saw just a screenshot of a review for a car wash the other day and the car wash got one out of five stars. And the write up said, I never go here, I just wash my car at home. They left one star.
- [26:26]
Ross Dunn
I know, I've seen a ton of that.
- [26:28]
Scott Vanack
In fact, it's like you just admitted you've never been to the business. How can you rate it?
- [26:33]
Ross Dunn
Yeah, and there's actually a ton of that on. Well, Amazon's pretty bad. But when you go to Amazon says, I haven't tried this product or bought it, but it looks really good.
- [26:43]
Scott Vanack
Yeah, five stars.
- [26:45]
Ross Dunn
Like what the. Oh, how, how do you get that in there? It's just, it's insane. Anyway, yeah, and I've got a few actually on Facebook. I think it's for step 4th that drive me crazy. And I've had them try to remove it I don't know how many times, saying we've got great financial services, definitely use us. Like what? What? That is not relevant. And Facebook's terrific support hasn't done it hasn't done anything about those.
- [27:13]
Scott Vanack
I didn't know about that wing of our business. Yeah, we do financial services. Geez, I gotta look into that.
- [27:18]
Ross Dunn
Yeah. Now it's on the web. Now we're. Now we're talking about it. So it's going to reinforce it.
- [27:22]
Scott Vanack
Yeah, yeah. That's the worst. Right? I'm going to start seeing ad for ads for financial services now too. My phone's listening.
- [27:29]
Ross Dunn
The regulatory body of financial advisors or something is going to call us. All right, so Google is search testing. Google search, sorry, is testing an AI mode. I think they did something like this at one point, at least an AI only page. But anyway, for those that are able to see this test, AI mode has been added to the list of options at the top of search results next to all images and videos. Yeah, they did this at one point.
- [27:57]
Scott Vanack
There was some talk that there was some brief testing I think in October of. Oh man, I'll see if I can find it anyway.
- [28:05]
Ross Dunn
It has been tested before, but yeah, it's using Gemini 2.0. It's open ended and it's useful for very long form questions that are not served well by current search search results. An example would be a search term like how many boxes of spaghetti should I buy to feed six adults and 10 children have enough for seconds.
- [28:23]
Scott Vanack
Nobody's typing that on their phone.
- [28:25]
Ross Dunn
No, no. The search brings up a very long and detailed response according to a screenshot posted by Barry Schwartz. Actually had a great call with Chris Ward yesterday. One of my advisors. She's amazing. Win the hour wintheday.com can't say enough about that company and her services. If you ever need anyone to advise you in your business and saving you time and making you more profitable, she's fantastic. I've been using her services for, geez, four years, three years, I don't know, every month. And it's really good stuff. Anyway, we had a chat and we get along super and we were talking about AI and she is not a typer. She doesn't like, she talks and she's very eloquent and excellent and her analogies are amazing and all this stuff. I'm like, okay. So I showed her what I was doing with AI and she said, oh, I wouldn't do that. I just used the voice. I'm like, what? I can't believe it. I didn't even notice it. It's like banner blindness. I didn't realize there was a little button you could press to do voice. Have you used voice on OpenAI yet?
- [29:30]
Scott Vanack
I don't use it for anything except this podcast. That's it.
- [29:33]
Ross Dunn
Okay, well that's got to change anyway. Yeah, yeah. So she just asks it questions verbally. She hasn't put a lot of time into the prompt. She just says, hey, I got this problem. This is what I want to do. And yeah, I need this and this and this. Oh, and it should also have this and this and this and this. And she goes on, she showed me one for quite a while and then it just replied with a fantastic answer. In audio you can pick the voice as well as showing the results in text. I felt like an idiot.
- [30:04]
Scott Vanack
I do that all the time. I was lying before.
- [30:07]
Ross Dunn
Anyway, I do mind you, when I'm doing it, I have a very targeted requirement and I'm writing a very concise prompt, usually even before I even put it into OpenAI. But I liked her way of using it and I've started doing it, admittedly by typing again, I guess because I'm just Faster that way. Yeah, I don't know. I use better words that way. I'm not, as you can tell, very eloquent listeners. So, yeah, it's pretty cool. This question, the longer question you wrote there kind of reminded me of that. I'm like, you know, that's sort of how she talks, except even more in depth. And the responses are great, like really great. They even seem to know her style because it came up with some suggestions in her response that were very Chris. I was like, wow, that's crazy. It makes sense. It was her OpenAI system, so maybe it does learn a bit about her. I don't know.
- [31:08]
Scott Vanack
Yeah, wow.
- [31:09]
Ross Dunn
All right. Google AI overviews now have detailed shopping comparisons. I don't think I've seen this yet. Is this only in states?
- [31:19]
Scott Vanack
I have not seen this myself, so it must be. Who is this Barry? I don't think this one was Barry. It's probably in the states only, it seems. Yeah, it was Barry. Barry Schwartz. He didn't specify. I have not been able to replicate it. So in the example here, I did the example in Google and I didn't even get an AI overview at all, let alone this one. So I think it's only going to be in the states or maybe in Select. I don't think it's test. It's not a test though. It's live. So. And people listening are like, what are you even talking about? So maybe I should say what we're talking about. So we're seeing detailed shopping comparisons. So there was one good example and it was a search for iPhone 15 versus iPhone 15 Pro. First of all, those people should know the 16 is out now, but you know, whatever. So when you do that search now, AI overviews is giving you just like your little snippet with a photo of each phone, you know, a brief summary of, you know, reviews, price, and then if you click to expand it, a huge comparison table that can. That shows everything very similar to what you'd find on Apple's website. If you've ever done that. Apple will let you go in and compare different models and, and give you a side by side view. It's a lot like that. I don't know, maybe they're pulling it mostly from Apple. They probably are actually. And so that's new to see this product comparison. So we're not really seeing it with anything else, just a variety of product comparison queries. It will most likely have an impact on organic search traffic. I would think Barry suspects it would have an impact on product comparison sites. And then their related affiliate commissions and that kind of stuff. So if you are a product comparison affiliate type website, this is kind of scary. It might pull eyeballs off of your website. So I don't know. I'd be nervous to be honest with you.
- [33:09]
Ross Dunn
I would do if they aren't already seeing a drop. I, I'm a huge, I got a power user of that, those type of searches. Um, I'm always looking up tech. It's, it's a bit ridiculous but like especially headphones. I've got a crazy thing for headphones. I got I don't know how many headphones but you have a lot of headphones. I do and I just love it. It's, it's a, they're all so different, they all have different feels sound stages. It's just fun but, and when you look up a comparison it's highly dependent on the user and the listener. But there is a lot of really interesting technology based responses and there's personal opinions. So these websites are big business. I'm sure they are. And, and I don't, I'd be concerned if I were them about this. They're going to have to be pay very close attention to what Google likes in terms of the, the pages that are being used in the actual breakdowns. Now the other thing too I think which is good is that there's almost. Well I guess unless they're, unless you're in AI mode the result won't be big enough and you know they're going to give some high, high points about the difference between the different phones in this example. But ultimately you're going to click through if you want more info so that's good. Those pages should get more traffic.
- [34:38]
Scott Vanack
One thing I think that is to the advantage of these content creators doing these comparison sites is at least with this iPhone example the data is all raw data like screen resolution. It's like numbers but it doesn't give you an opinion of the device. It doesn't give you that hands on review of which one is actually better. Numbers speak but not always right. Maybe the new one has a better processor but it, it crashes. I don't know. You know in that proper product review you're going to get a lot more detail in terms of what it's actually like. Well, you should, if people are doing their jobs and creating good product comparison content they should give you that detail and, and maybe videos of them using it and how to use it and all kinds of stuff. So I think it makes sense to still click through. But A lot of people might not, depending on what they're looking for.
- [35:24]
Ross Dunn
And you mentioned video. A big part of the search results in any kind of search like that is videoNOW because frankly, YouTube is killing it right now. If you're not doing video and you have any kind of a competitive landscape that could use video, use it. It's working like a hot damn. And you see it, it's evidential in search results. YouTube itself is getting a lot of searches and what it comes down to is if you do a great job, people will be looking for you. Hell with AI answers. There are specific people I will go and watch when I see their. If I look up a result for let's say a type of digital analog converter, a dac, which again, I love those things. I'm always researching them. I got too many too. And I look them up and there's a couple people. If they're in the results, I will definitely click on them. I don't talk, I won't care what's in AI overviews. How would you Google? I'll go to them. So becoming, you know, showing your expertise that will win every time. And hey, maybe that'll just line you in AI overviews anyway because Google can see that. But the fact is video is killing it. And just being a thought expert is always going to work for you.
- [36:48]
Scott Vanack
What a great.
- [36:49]
Ross Dunn
That's my belief anyway. I don't think that AI will ever usurp you in that regard. Fingers crossed. Okay. YouTube citations in Google AI overviews have surged 25%. Well, there you go.
- [37:05]
Scott Vanack
I actually just move things around while you're talking like no, this should come next because you went into the YouTube world.
- [37:10]
Ross Dunn
Yeah, yeah. Well, there you go. So it's, it's. If you're a power user of Google, which we unfortunately have to be. Yeah, this is pretty clear already. They've surged 25% since January 1st. What? That's crazy. Wow, that's massive. They've increased most significantly in instructional content. I'll see that everywhere for sure. Visual demonstrations, verifications or examples and current events. The actual percentages will probably be in our. Our show notes. I won't bother going through every one of them. I guess the highest one I should note is instructional content, which is 35.6%. That's. And how to queries are leading at 22.4%. I mean that's nuts. Top industry seeing the surge are. And these are important. Healthcare 42%. That's encouraging. I guess all the way down to education, which is at 3.87% anyway. I don't know how to feel about that. But anyway, because you know the healthcare ones are going to be questionable. They're always questionable. Yes. And especially the ones that end up leading. You're like, should that really be at the top? Well, yeah. Check out those percentages if you're interested. Or go to Search Engine Land where it says the actual top. The actual title is YouTube citations in Google AI overview surge 25%. Just wanted to mention that again in case you want to look for it. Lastly, Google Search launches Ask for Me. Ask For Me is a new search Labs experiment Google announced at the end of January that lets you use Google AI to call businesses on your behalf to find out what they charge for a service and also find out what is available. It's testing it with auto shops and nail salons right now. Whatever. Once opted in, search for something like oil Change near me to try it out. All calls are clearly disclosed, closed and businesses have the option to opt out. It's unknown at this point if this experiment will fully roll out. I kind of hope not. It's weird.
- [39:23]
Scott Vanack
I think it seems really weird.
- [39:25]
Ross Dunn
Then again, something like this could be totally normalized with AI and it's going to be weird. I don't know what's going to shake out.
- [39:34]
Scott Vanack
You know, here's a good example of where this might be good, might be really good is if you've moved to a new probably country and you don't speak the language and you need to call but you don't speak. You know, if you're, I don't know, maybe you only speak French and you're in an English speaking country and you don't know how to ask. Well, you can do Google Translate. Then get Google to call and ask the question for you and then they can. And you know, it's, it'd be kind of hard to call in voice and try to translate the call live. So you know, maybe there's examples like that where it would actually be really helpful for language issues or people with disabilities who can't actually call. Like if you're deaf, maybe.
- [40:09]
Ross Dunn
I don't know. Well and yeah, and Google will happily provide a service where the answers will be automated to Google.
- [40:17]
Scott Vanack
Yeah, exactly.
- [40:19]
Ross Dunn
So you don't have to answer. Oh, there's going to be money everywhere.
- [40:22]
Scott Vanack
Oh, they probably will, right? Like if you're a mechanic, they call you one time, you answer their questions and then that's just the answer for when anyone else asks that same question.
- [40:30]
Ross Dunn
If you pay for It. Yes.
- [40:31]
Scott Vanack
Yeah, yeah.
- [40:32]
Ross Dunn
If you pay for it or just make sure you're. Well, the smartest thing, which we. I mean it would be to use the frequently asked questions within a Google business profile is make sure you build out the common questions and answers there and then make sure it's updated regularly. And then you should be safer from not having those calls. And people can find the information they need or Google can just surface that content, assuming they are fairly certain you've been updating it on a regular basis, which is key to Google business profiles, by the way. People, if you have a local business, keep it updated. Go in there and refresh it. Add pictures of your business every day if you want. It's not going to hurt. It's never going to hurt to be. Keep it busy. It looks, feel, feel silly adding pictures all the time. You don't feel silly, but it's what Google wants. It wants you to know that you're loving it. Yeah. Just caress its ego and it'll pay off. It's just. It's ridiculous. It. Yeah. What? Some. One of the guys, the father of AI guy, I forget his name, is convinced that AI is already sentient. So there you go. Just consider AI is Google is. It's got ego.
- [41:43]
Scott Vanack
It does 100%.
- [41:46]
Ross Dunn
And all this slamming I've done today is sure going to pay off. I'm sure.
- [41:49]
Scott Vanack
Yeah, you're in trouble. I disconnect for a few weeks at least.
- [41:54]
Ross Dunn
Well, on behalf of myself, Ross Dunn, CEO of Stepforth Web Marketing, and my company, Senior SEO Scott Vanek, thank you for joining us today. Remember, we have a Show Notes newsletter you can sign up for@sc0101radio.com have a great week and remember to tune in to future episodes, which air every week on WMR fm.
- [42:13]
Scott Vanack
Thanks for listening, everybody.
- [42:38]
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