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Zoe Saldana
Hi, Zoe Saldana. Welcome to T Mobile. Here's your new iPhone 16 Pro on us.
Customer
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Zoe Saldana
You don't need to trade in. When you switch to T Mobile, we'll give you a new iPhone 16 Pro. Plus we'll help you pay off your old phone. Up to 800 bucks and you still get to keep it.
Customer
There's always a trade in.
Zoe Saldana
Not right now. At T Mobile.
Customer
I feel like I have to give you something in return for karma.
Zoe Saldana
That's okay.
Customer
I don't really have much in my purse. Oh, let's see. Hand sanitizer. It's lavender.
Zoe Saldana
I'm good.
Customer
Seriously, Let me check this pocket. Oh, mints.
Zoe Saldana
Really, I'm fine.
Customer
Oh, I have raisins. I'm a mom. Wait, wait one sec. I've got cupcakes in the car.
T Mobile Representative
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Richard Karn
Hi, I'm Richard Karn and you may have seen me on TV talking about the world's number one expandable garden hose. Well, the brand new pocket hose Copperhead with Pocket Pivot is here and it's a total game changer. Old fashioned hoses get kinks and creases at the spigot, but the Copperhead's pocket pivot swivels 360° for full water flow and freedom to water with ease all around your home. When you're all done, this rust proof anti burst hose shrinks back down to pocket size for effortless handling and tidy storage. Plus your super light and ultra durable pocket hose. Copperhead is backed with a 10 year warranty. What could be better than that? I'll tell you what an exciting radio exclusive offer just for you for a limited time. You can get a free Pocket Pivot and their 10 pattern sprayer with the purchase of any size Copperhead hose. Just text water to 64,000. That's water to 64,000 for your two free gifts with purchase w a t e r to 64,000.
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Ross Dunn
Welcome to SEO 101 on WMR FM. Episode number 501. This is Ross Dunn, CEO of Step 4th Web Marketing. And my co host is my company senior SEO Scott Vanack. All right, well, 500th episode is done and we are rocking and rolling with a whole new set of news here. We're going to have some special stuff still happening in the 500s, some special guests and stuff, I promise, I promise. But for now, let's just jump right into some non SEO news. And the first is that SMX Advanced in Boston this June and it's in person. The first time it's been in real life since 2019. I have to say I'm a bit bummed it's not in Seattle again. That's the one conference that's so close by I, I'm tempted to go to. But sorry, not Boston. That is just way too far from here. It is a shame.
Scott Vanack
It's a. It's a big trip if you're going for three days.
Ross Dunn
Yeah, it really is. You got to get some time in before and after.
Scott Vanack
And why don't you quickly book 10 days in Boston for the two of us and we'll just, we'll just go.
Ross Dunn
Yeah, we'll just go. Be working on those other days.
Scott Vanack
Yeah, definitely. No sightseeing.
Ross Dunn
No, none. No. No drinking. Nothing. No angels. Okay. All right, well, let's jump right into the SEO news. Google is testing a recently viewed label. Oh my gosh. This sounds exciting. Okay, tell us all about it.
Scott Vanack
So yeah, the recently viewed label is appearing next to some search result snippets that you have clicked on in your recent search history. Google has tested something similar. It was. You visit often back in 2023. It wasn't around long. I was thinking about this and I don't know if this is going to be good or bad for click through rates. If I'm doing a search and I'm seeing sites that I've seen before, if I know I've been there, am I going to be more likely to go again or am I going to be more likely to skip it because I've already been there and maybe I know it's there, I think it's probably going to be good, similar to how remarketing kind of works in the paid ad world, but I really don't know. It's just a test at this point. They've tested before. Nothing stuck. So who knows if it'll kick stick around or not, but I wouldn't gamble on it.
Ross Dunn
Nothing seems to stick around for very long at Google, but they do a.
Scott Vanack
Lot of these little tests and you know, I don't want to talk about them for an hour or anything but I feel like it's worth mentioning sometimes when they're around because this could have an impact on click through rates for sure.
Ross Dunn
So yeah, yeah, as long as we show up and it's not just all AI.
Scott Vanack
It might be. Yeah, it might be.
Ross Dunn
I know. That's good though. All right, next one I wanted to add here, sort of last minute. It was interesting. It's Google. Sundar Pichai, pardon me if I'm butchering that. He is the CEO of Google, doesn't think that web publishing is dead. What a relief. So that's.
Scott Vanack
Oh, I can, I can sleep tonight now.
Ross Dunn
Now he believes that. Well, first of all, this was an interview done by Nilay Nilay butchering it again, I'm sure. Nile Patel of the Verge. The Verge is a great content provider and he raised concerns about how AI changes in Google search have adversely affected web publishers. However, Sundar disagrees. He believes that there's a 45% that since there's 45% more content available online than two years ago, things are being actually getting better. But Ne says that complex dynamics question the viability of re establishing the Verge as a traditional website, suggesting a pivot to platforms like TikTok or YouTube instead. As a side note there, I mean, we've been talking about how YouTube is. I mean a lot of these video platforms are really taking off even more and I believe they are going to flourish during AI. A lot of people will be pushing that and unfortunately there'll be a lot of AI crap on there too because people don't want to put the effort in to create proper videos. So it's going to be a bit of a mess anyway. Pinch or Pinch disagrees. He believes that the Verge could still yield a, a, a, a strong web presence. He believes that the consumer demand for information across various platforms is rising and so is the number of content creators. Well, exactly what we just said. There's going to be a lot of them. He believes the ongoing evolution of the web. He noted the ongoing evolution of the web in response to changing consumer behaviors and technology. And he predicts that Google will continue to prioritize sending users to a broad range of websites and will increase traffic to web publishers over the next five years. I will believe it when I see it. And I think that's exactly what Nile was thinking. I just, I don't know. Anyway, the conversation hinted at a disconnect between Google's perspective on web publishing and actual publishers. And yeah, I can't imagine how freaked out they are. Their content is being used and yet they're not getting the credit. Well, they're getting the credit in the form of a little anchor link that shows up next to the AI overview. Yeah, that's not enough. I believe they should be picking one article instead of having a click out where it shows up a number of them or at least giving the one that's on the top credit and putting the name next to that anchor source, New York Times or whatever it is. Then at least while you're reading, you're seeing brand, brand attention, you're seeing some authority showing up. And it also gives you some reassurance that the content being provided by the AI isn't utter crap. Not to say the New York Times or any of these guys don't make mistakes, but it's a lot less than some of the other sites that AI picks from.
Scott Vanack
And you can tell often just by the URL alone that hey, this is going to be a garbage piece of content. You know, sometimes the URLs are so spammy and terrible and yeah, why? They just need to be more transparent with that stuff. Just a little paperclip link is not good enough.
Ross Dunn
No. And again, like I came across this idea the other day, but I really believe this would make a lot of people happy if they had the name next to that. Again, usually when you click on that anchor, it opens up another panel that shows a number of sources but give credit to the first one or something. And then at least there are rankings still, there's something to work with. There's credit being given and people will continue to strive. If they don't have that ability to strive, they just think all their content's going to be poached and there's no way to build authority. Google's not going to be very in a very good place either. It's not a win win. And they could end up blocking Google. There's a lot of things that could go badly if this isn't done correctly, so I'm hoping for that. It's also of course, something that would make SEOs happy because it gives us something to really target other than just this little pane full of links, which of course is all we're going to have to work with if we don't, because there will Be a time where I believe AI ORVs pretty much take up the everything. It's just. That's may be a couple years off, but it's coming.
Scott Vanack
Those days of just all AI mode, it's inevitable really. Like I can't see how it would never happen. We're just accelerating so much in that direction now. It's not going to go backwards.
Ross Dunn
No. I think maybe to appease people there might, might. I don't know, there might be an option. It might be still a tab where it's links or traditional or I don't know what they call it, but some way you can click on it and see universal search again instead of just AI.
Scott Vanack
This would not work at all in the mobile first world. But we're on desktops for work all the time and on a desktop with a big screen, I would like it if the AI overview took up a side column. Middle column was organic search and another side column for ads like in the olden days, something like that. Or for, you know, the knowledge panel stuff and all that. Like I don't like AI overview sometimes taking up so much of the upper real estate, it's not what I want half the time. Sometimes it is though. So I don't know. But on a cell phone that doesn't really. That doesn't work so.
Ross Dunn
Or it's no. And on a mobile phone, what I was mentioning there about having the name of the source show up next to the anchor, at least the top source. That wouldn't work out so well either. It depends how they format it. But even an icon of the top source make people work on their fav icons a lot more. Cool.
Scott Vanack
Have the fav icon. Can you mouse over on a phone? Not really, but maybe one tap and it blows up. And this is Ross's website and whatever stuff, I don't know. I wouldn't go to that one, by the way.
Ross Dunn
No, no, fair enough, fair enough. Anyway, it's top of mind for everyone in the industry right now how they're going to make this work. All right, next up here, Google Search ranking volatility heats up. May 29th.
Scott Vanack
Yeah, we would have talked a little bit about some ranking volatility in our last 500 show, but that show was special and it's kind of the same every time. So yeah, May 29, which is actually today, they're seeing a lot of fluctuation volatility in organic rankings. Speculation. It's another Google update. Barry Schwartz did report multiple times throughout the month of May that rankings have been very volatile. So, like all the little checker tools and like SEO weather tools and whatever you want to call them have been spiking like crazy this month. Last core update was back in March, so we're. What is that, three months? Almost three months now. So maybe due. So keep your eyes peeled. Not much else to say because there's nothing confirmed yet. But of course we'll let you know in the next episode if anything is worth chatting about.
Ross Dunn
All right, next up, Google database speed beats page count for crawl budget. All right. Oh, sorry. Data speed, Google. I should have said google beginning database speed beats page count for crawl budget. Yes, tell me more.
Scott Vanack
Okay, so for the past four or five years, Google has sort of had a 1 million page threshold when crawling your website. So it doesn't mean they won't crawl and index more than a million pages, but they're not going to spend more time than a million at a time sort of thing. But that 1 million pages is not a hard rule. So who said this? This is over at Search Engine Journal. Was it Matt Southern? I think it was his article. Was it Gary from Google? Shoot. Sorry, I can't remember. Anyways, what Google is saying though is that your database speed is more important than the number of pages you're trying to get indexed. So if you have a fast database, Google will index more than a million pages at a shot. If you have a slow database, they might not get through a couple hundred thousand pages. So really their recommendation coming from Google is that if you exceed a million pages, focus on database speed, improvements to ensure higher indexing call rates, that sort of thing. So what you should review are query execution times, caching effectiveness and the speed of dynamic content generation. And how do you do all this? I don't know. You got to talk to your developer because this is, this is over my head, the how to. But we know the what, so. And if you have a smaller site below a million pages, Google says, as we always do, basically is just focus on excellent content and user experience, that sort of thing. So you don't really have to worry about this unless you have a very large website.
Ross Dunn
So yeah, dollars to donuts, this is all based on. This was also extracted from the video how googlebot crawls the web by the Google Search Central podcast. I'll be talking about it more in a, in a few minutes.
Scott Vanack
So you know what's funny, funny about the show is that we have a client. Well, they're not currently a client, but they, we've done a little bit of consulting with them periodically over the years and they're having some issues right now and we might do a bit of a content audit or whatever for them. We'll see whether that goes. They have well over a million pages on their site. So here's something that came up for us preparing the show and it's like, yeah, I can use this information specifically for that one job I'm going to work on. So that's why you should listen to every single episode because you never know when you're gonna, you know, a light bulb is going to turn on over your head or something.
Ross Dunn
So, yes, that, and of course, the handsome timber of our voices.
Scott Vanack
Well, that goes without saying. Yeah, sure. Or not.
Ross Dunn
Oh, boy. On that note, we need to take a quick break. We'll be right back. 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. So for local SEO news today, Google has updated when local questions and answers display. Now, if you're familiar with this on the Google Business Pro.
Zoe Saldana
Hi, Zoe Saldana. Welcome to T Mobile. Here's your new iPhone 16 Pro on us.
Customer
Thanks. And here's my old phone to trade in.
Zoe Saldana
You don't need a trade in. When you switch to T Mobile, we'll give you a new iPhone 16 Pro. Plus we'll help you pay off your old Phone up to 800 bucks and you still get to keep it.
Customer
There's always a trade in.
Zoe Saldana
Not right now. @ T Mobile.
Customer
I feel like I have to give you something in return for karma.
Zoe Saldana
That's okay.
Customer
I don't really have much in my purse. Oh, let's see. Hand sanitizer. It's lavender.
Zoe Saldana
I'm good. Seriously.
Customer
Let me check this pocket. Oh, mints.
Zoe Saldana
Really, I'm fine.
Customer
Oh, I have raisins. I'm a mom. Wait, wait one sec. I've got cupcakes in the car.
T Mobile Representative
It's our best iPhone offer ever. Switch to T Mobile, get a new iPhone 16 Pro with Apple intelligence on us, no trade in needed. We'll even pay off your phone up.
T Mobile Offer Announcer
To 800 bucks with 24 monthly bill credits. New line 100 plus a month on experience beyond Finance Agreement 999.99 and qualifying ported for well qualified plus tax and $10 connection charge payout via virtual prepaid card. Allow 15 days credits and balance due if you pay off early or cancel see T mobile dot com.
Richard Karn
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Ross Dunn
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Ross Dunn
File Sometimes you see a Q and A area where you can ask questions as a potential buyer or just wondering something about the business. And you'll also see other people's questions and answers, providing that the actual business has responded, which is definitely not a given. Well, signs have indicated that Google's been slowly phasing out the questions and Answers section in Google Business Profiles. However, it seems that it's not quite that bad. This is finding from the Joy Hawkins in her local search forum. Apparently the new criteria for Google Maps Q and A visibility is. And here's just a few things Q and A is visible in Google Search when a user clicks on a result from a map package. However, it will not be shown if the search leads directly to a single result or a knowledge panel without a map pack. In Google Maps, the Q and A feature is available across all search types. Additionally, business owners can still access all Q and A via their Google Business Profile and the API, so it doesn't sound quite as doom and gloom as it was Because I thought the Q and A feature was brilliant. Again, not heavily used. It should be used more. But it's a. It's a great idea and be pretty sad if they just phased it out. Though in this case maybe I wouldn't have been able to blame them. Again, because very few people use it.
Scott Vanack
It's too bad because it could be a great source for FAQ content for a website. You know, if you're a business owner, pay attention to it, answer your questions and then throw them up on your website or something.
Ross Dunn
Totally. Yeah. You could say, hey, you could link to your Google Business profile and say, hey, this is a question from our Google Business profile, which gives your profile a little bit of a push. Note the question and then get into more detail on it. It's a win. Absolutely. Maybe even do video. You go nuts with it. All right, and this is. Now we're into AI News. Not that we haven't touched on a bit of AI already, but this is formally the AI News section. Google's Gary Ish warns AI agents will create web congestion. And this is what I was talking about we'd be following up a bit on. It's based on the video how Googlebot crawls the web within the Google search central on YouTube or podcasts. You can get on the podcast. So he has a few sayings in this particular one. I love what Gary usually has some funny stuff he says, but he talks about how everyone and his grandmother is launching a web crawler and lots of AI shenanigans. So anyway, what this all boils down to is that because there are so many people launching crawlers in the form of AI agents. Let's take a pause there. What is an AI agent? You're going to hear a lot more about this more and more and more and more and more. But essentially there will be a time where we all can have our own AI agent and it will be doing work for us. It will go out and research things for us. And this is already happening, by the way, but in a very basic level that at least consumers are have access to. And it can take a while. It can take hours and accumulate great data. In fact, I believe there's even. I think OpenAI already has one, actually. I'm 99.9% sure. And they already do. That's a deep search kind of thing. Anyways. It will take time and accumulate this. Well, what's that, What's. How is that being done? Well, crawlers are visiting websites and reading content that is going to add more weight and resource use to your website, which can be bad, especially as more and more of them come out. So he believes we're all going to need to make preparations to prepare our site for the oncoming resource deluge. Now keep in mind, before I mention these points, small websites, unless you're on an absolutely crap hosting, which unfortunately is quite common, you're going to be fine. I mean it's really not going to be that much. Even if there was a ton of traffic from agents, it's probably, probably not going to be a big deal. Bigger sites, however, like that million page site we were talking about, well that's going to have a serious impact. So he talks about number one, and there's four points here. Infrastructure. Evaluate your current hosting arrangements to ensure they can handle projected traffic loads. This includes assessing server capacity, considering the use of content delivery networks if you're not already using them, aka CDNs, and ensure response times remain fast and efficient. Number two, access control. Review your robots txt file to effectively manage which AI crawlers have access to your website, it's important to block unwanted bots while permitting beneficial ones, ensuring that legitimate activity is prioritized. Now I want to make a note here. There's no guarantee any AI bot is going to pay attention to what you put in the robots txt. In fact, I don't think any of them do right now. We haven't really tested it. Honestly, there's probably a few that do, but there's. We talked about. What was it, what Was that file?
Scott Vanack
AI file.LLMs TXT.
Ross Dunn
Thank you. That's going to be the, hopefully a standard coming up where we'll be able to block just AI crawlers or permit, whatever we want, whatever. I don't know where that's at. So until that's the case, I'm not sure how much access control we can provide here. Number three. Sorry.
Scott Vanack
Oh, I was just going to say I don't know if I would want to block any AI crawlers unless they were causing problems. I don't. I feel like I wouldn't want to close the door to potential traffic. Yeah. Unless my server was already being pushed to the limits a little bit and then I really had to fine tune that. But I don't know.
Ross Dunn
Well, there could be so many that you just, you just allow the big guys in. Right?
Scott Vanack
Yeah, that's fair.
Ross Dunn
Otherwise. Yeah, there's only so much you want to be spending on your website because the price is going to your, your, the resources and the expense is just going to skyrocket. For a big site. And then I guess you, you'd also have to. Here's a, here's a. A service and a new service for anyone listening. Someone's going to have to be keeping track of all these new bots and creating kind of an authority ranking for them so that you can choose which ones you want to let in and be. And be made aware of new ones that are trending and doing well otherwise. Oh my God. This is. There's so many challenges coming up, it's just crazy.
Scott Vanack
That's a good idea.
Ross Dunn
It's a good idea.
Scott Vanack
We should do that. You should do that after work today.
Ross Dunn
Yeah, I'll do it before dinner.
Scott Vanack
Yeah, do that before dinner.
Ross Dunn
Number three, database performance. Work on optimizing your database to manage resource consumption. Now that's something that Scott just mentioned. Focus on improving query efficiency and using caching systems. This is what actually exactly what you said, isn't it?
Scott Vanack
Almost word for word. Yeah, it's hilarious.
Ross Dunn
He says this can help reduce the strain in your servers caused by expensive database operations. Number four and the last one here, monitoring. Implement thorough logging and performance analysis to differentiate between legitimate web crawlers, AI agents and any malicious bots. This proactive approach will help maintain optimal performance and prevent resource wastage. That is a tall order. You'd need some pretty high end systems for that. But again this is Google talking to the, to everyone. So this is also them talking to enterprise level who do have access to this kind of stuff.
Scott Vanack
Yeah, like the big guys like Amazon and all those, they do all this. They've. Yeah, they're on it. But if, if you got a pizza restaurant, you're probably doing none of it. So it's guaranteed unless you have over a million toppings and each gets its own page. And then.
Ross Dunn
Okay, fair enough. All right, what's next here?
Scott Vanack
My me drinking water. That's nice.
Ross Dunn
Oh perfect. Sorry about that.
Scott Vanack
That's all good.
Ross Dunn
I should uncover you. I'm blocking you while we're talking here.
Scott Vanack
Oh, that's cruel.
Ross Dunn
I know.
Scott Vanack
I'm going to put some tape on my screen. I guess I could just minimize it. Guess you don't actually have to put stuff on the screen. Whiteout. I don't even know what I'm talking about anymore. Yeah. Okay. Google has launched AI mode to all us searchers. So back in actually in March AI mode was available. If you had a Labs account you could log in and you could play around with it. And you were in the states. And then on May 20th it was officially launched for all US based searchers. So now you can just see it. It is there for you. I am in Canada so I have not been able to play with it and it's. I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing, you know, as SEOs. AI mode. AI mode is a bit scary in some regards because it's so new and there's so many unknowns and to not have it available to us yet is kind of nice in a way but yeah, you know, we're blind to it too.
Ross Dunn
Yeah, exactly. I think it's, it's interesting but I'd rather just read what other people have discovered because it's gonna, it's, it's talking about a moving target. Whatever we see now really isn't going to be anything like what it's going.
Scott Vanack
To be in the end when it rolls out to the globe. Yeah, it will be different for sure. So one thing who was. Oh, I am so bad. Liz Reed, Google's head of search had basically said that search results in AI mode lead to longer results that can be two, three or even five times the traditional length of what you might see in a search result. So AI mode just gives you all kinds of data. There are also a number of updates that are occurring which include Deep search in AI mode, complex analysis and data visualization in AI mode a search live. I don't know exactly what that means. Personal context in AI mode shopping. Try it on Agentic checkout and I'm assuming It's using Gemini 2.5. These are bullet points. They didn't go into detail on each of them. Liz Reed had said Deep search uses the same query fan out technique but taken to the next level it can issue hundreds of searches, reason across disparate pieces of information and create an entry. Sorry, an expert level, fully cited report in just minutes saving you hours of research. So like I, I want to play with it. I want to see what it can do and I, as much as I'm. I don't say scared of it because I'm not scared but maybe nervous for the unknown and how it'll affect our world. But I'm curious. I don't know. I'm ready to play with it. So bring it to Canada. Google just do it. I don't know.
Ross Dunn
All right, well one of the things you mentioned here is the Try it on. There was a Google I O event recently where they. Which I highly recommend people check out. There's a huge list of things they released that honestly there's too much that was Just irrelevant to what we do in this podcast. So I didn't want to cover it, but one of them the tried on was funky. I don't know how well it's going to work, honestly, but it would. You'd use your phone to evaluate your body type, I guess from near. And then somehow you would go to a list of different products for sale and then they would put that clothes. Those clothes on you based on your body type and you'd be able to get an idea what it would look like. I don't know. It must be fairly advanced if they're willing to make it public. But it seems to me like a stretch.
Scott Vanack
You know, I've seen. I. I haven't in quite a few years now, but I used to buy my glasses online because they were just so much cheaper and they've had that for like just glasses alone for a while. I haven't seen it for things like regular clothing. That's actually quite interesting.
Ross Dunn
Yeah, so it's something. And there's a lot to play with there. So I'm kind of. Yeah, I'm a little bit jealous actually, come to think of it, that our American colleagues get access to this so quickly. But. Oh, well, soon enough we'll get it.
Scott Vanack
We'll check it out in Boston.
Ross Dunn
Have you checked? I haven't checked whether or not in Labs Mode in Canada we can get access to it.
Scott Vanack
I tried to do it back when it was new in March and I couldn't. But that doesn't mean we can't now, so I don't know. I haven't checked recently. Yeah.
Ross Dunn
Yeah. Okay. I'm going to let you handle the next one as well. Here it says AI mode in Google Search Console. Oh, can't hear you.
Scott Vanack
For some reason I was muted because I coughed. I'm sorry. Rookie move. This is my first episode ever, by the way. Hello, I'm Scott. So when I don't even know where you lost me. AI Mode, when it launched, a lot of people were kind of irritated because it's not showing up. There's no data showing up in Search Console and Analytics, Lily Ray referred to it as not provided 2.0. So you people were not too happy about why we can't find. Yeah, absolutely right. Why is it not passing referral data? So John Mueller did chime in and he said that he has reported it to the team. There's no reason that it shouldn't. And they are working on an AI mode data section within performance reports in Google Search Console. This is not live yet. I missed the not live yet part and I was scanning through search console preparing for this. Like, where is it? How do I do? I was so mad I couldn't find it. And then I saw the yet part.
Ross Dunn
They put that in small text at the end.
Scott Vanack
Yeah, exactly. By the way, you can't do this. So it is come. And this isn't the Canada US thing. It's just not available for anybody yet. So keep an eye out. I don't know what that's going to look like. I will definitely mention it on the first show after they implement it and we'll give you some tips on how to use that. But for now, just know it's coming. If you're, if you're wondering what's going on, it's on its way.
Ross Dunn
All right, well, this next bit I get a bit of, but I might have to get your help again. So Google says stop using Indexing API for unsupported content first, what is Google's Indexing API quote? Google's Indexing API is a tool that allows website owners to directly notify Google when they add, update or remove pages from their site, speeding up the indexing process and potentially improving search engine rankings. It's a way to get new or updated content indexed faster by bypassing the typical googlebot crawling queue. So, okay, I tried to quickly grab this. What is going on here?
Scott Vanack
So this API is currently only available only if you are using it to send job postings and live stream content. That is what the API is for. So if you have a shopping website or whatever, a blog, do not use this API.
Ross Dunn
So, but that's AI only index. Or do you mean Indexing API?
Scott Vanack
Oh my goodness. Look at a typo. Just totally changing.
Ross Dunn
Okay.
Scott Vanack
Oh man. I didn't sleep much last night, as Ross knows, but I'm waking up now with all my mistakes.
Ross Dunn
No worries.
Scott Vanack
So one thing with this API is a lot of spammers tend to use it, but it doesn't do anything. So John Mueller, I'll just read his whole quote. He says we see a lot of spammers misuse the indexing API like this. So I'd recommend just sticking to the documented and supported use cases. Will your site get penalized? Question mark. I just use it properly or not use it? Could you get penalized then? Maybe. He's not really saying flat out no. If we wanted to suggest that people could use it regardless, we'd document it as such. So if your site publishes job postings or live streams content, look into the indexing API and actually, that makes you think of, oh, we don't have him as a client anymore. Darn. Otherwise, this tool basically serves no purpose. So there you go. But don't do it. He does kind of imply, if you read between the lines, that you could get a penalty for submitting content through through it that doesn't fit.
Ross Dunn
So they will just frown upon you.
Scott Vanack
They will say bad and that nothing will happen.
Ross Dunn
They will look down and smite you.
Scott Vanack
Okay, man, that's getting really harsh now.
Ross Dunn
Yeah, yeah. Or getting dark. All right, well, on behalf of Myself, Ross Dunn, CEO of Step 4th Web Marketing, and my company, Senior SEO Scott Fenach, thank you very much for joining us today. If you have any questions you'd 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 fm. We promise we're getting back on track. Thank you.
Scott Vanack
Awesome. Thanks for listening, everybody.
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SEO 101 Episode 501 Summary
Google’s Recently Viewed Labels, Launch of AI Mode, and Insights on Crawl Budget Management
Released on May 30, 2025
Hosts: Ross Dunn and Scott Vanack
Ross Dunn, CEO of Step 4th Web Marketing, welcomes listeners to the milestone 501st episode of SEO 101 on WMR.FM. He hints at upcoming special guests and content in future episodes but quickly dives into the latest SEO news.
Discussion: The hosts discuss the upcoming SMX Advanced conference scheduled to take place in Boston this June. Ross expresses disappointment that the event isn't returning to Seattle, emphasizing the inconvenience of traveling to Boston.
Notable Quote:
Overview: Scott Vanack introduces Google's new feature—Recently Viewed Labels—which appear next to search result snippets based on users' recent search history.
Insights:
Notable Quotes:
Topic: Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google, expresses that web publishing remains vital despite AI advancements.
Discussion Points:
Notable Quotes:
Update Date: May 29th, the day of the episode's release.
Details:
Notable Quotes:
Insight: Google's recent findings indicate that database speed is now more critical than the sheer number of pages when managing crawl budgets.
Key Points:
Notable Quotes:
Additional Insight:
Update: Google has refined how Questions and Answers (Q&A) appear in Google Business Profiles and Maps.
Changes:
Insights:
Notable Quotes:
Topic: Concerns about AI agents contributing to web congestion through increased crawling activity.
Discussion Points:
robots.txt file to manage crawler access, though effectiveness is uncertain.Notable Quotes:
Insights:
Update: Google officially launched AI Mode for all U.S.-based searchers on May 20th, expanding beyond the initial Labs account testers.
Features Highlighted by Liz Reed, Google's Head of Search:
Discussion Points:
Notable Quotes:
Additional Insights:
Update: AI Mode integration with Google Search Console is pending, causing confusion among users seeking performance data.
Details:
Discussion Points:
Notable Quotes:
Topic: Google advises against using the Indexing API for unsupported content types.
Key Points:
Discussion Points:
Notable Quotes:
Ross and Scott wrap up the episode by encouraging listeners to join their Facebook group and stay tuned for future episodes. They emphasize the importance of staying informed and adapting to the ever-evolving SEO landscape.
Episode 501 of SEO 101 provides a comprehensive overview of the latest developments in SEO, particularly focusing on Google's new features and their implications. Ross and Scott offer insightful analysis, balancing enthusiasm for technological advancements with caution about their potential challenges. Listeners gain valuable knowledge on managing crawl budgets, adapting to AI-driven changes, and optimizing their strategies in an evolving digital landscape.
Note: Timestamps are approximate and based on the provided transcript segments.