C (2:46)

I do. I pay for it. Oh, it's dramatically better. I. I never seen ad. I gotta say, I'm worth. It's worth it. We watch a lot of YouTube, so it's fine. I love the documentaries and stuff.

D (2:58)

Fair enough. Fair enough.

C (3:00)

So that's good.

D (3:01)

You won't have this problem.

C (3:02)

Yeah. Until they decide that you have to do that. Even then, I wouldn't be surprised.

D (3:08)

We have the cheap Netflix account right now where it's like $4 or something, but with ads. And it's like, do I want to pay more? I don't know if I want to pay more or not. I can't decide. I'm cheap. But I hate ads, so I don't know.

C (3:21)

I hate them too much and they know it. I think they keep. Yeah, I don't know. Soon they'll have targeted pricing, so everyone will have different pricing based on how much you hate it or not.

D (3:34)

So if you hate it, you pay less or more.

C (3:37)

I don't know if it's obvious you hate it a lot. They'll pay. Make you pay more. Okay.

D (3:41)

Darn. I love you guys.

C (3:44)

Yeah, so that is. That's pretty crappy. I don't like anything that you can't remove. I just think that's a breach of trust in my opinion. Again, Google's gone down the tubes in my opinion. And this is the YouTube.

D (3:58)

Yep, there we go. There we go. Going down the YouTubes.

C (4:02)

There you go. All right, we're right into SEO news. I am proud to say I published a post the other day on seogrok.com. everything feels like an accomplishment to me whenever I get a content piece out. But yeah, SEO grok j r o k.com and the title is how to add AI generated multimedia to your content in 10 minutes with real prompts that work. It's long, but it gets the point across. Anyway, I've included helpful tips on how to easily create multimodal assets for your content. We've talked about multimodal modal before. It's just a fancy term for different types of media on one piece of content. And it's something that you should Be doing going back, looking at your top content and sprucing up with some imagery video. It's so easy to do now and it looks damn good and I've got, I think I'm pretty proud of it. Some really good takeaways there I think you'll find very useful. And no lie, you could have a nice chart on your page. Within three minutes you could have a video and just slamming video like really, really impressively done. It'll never be perfect for what you do in this time frame, but within 10 minutes depending of course on how long it takes for it to render. I won't give away what it is because you need to check it out. I think there's lots of good takeaways there, so I hope you enjoy that. Also. Mind Maps infograph I'm covering the whole gamut in there.

D (5:38)

You know I took a look, I haven't read the full article, I confess, but at a skim it looks awesome. Like the graphics in there and the charts look great. I watched the first minute or so of the video and it was like wow. Like this video was created by clicking a button. Like it blows my mind. It really, it's really cool. I think even if you don't care about this post, you should care and you should read it. But just look at it and look at what you can do. It's. You know, it would take hours old way hours and hours and hours and.

C (6:08)

You'Ve got to remember and I've got some stats in there I looked up and they even shocked me when I did the research. But the amount of people that learn visually is jaw dropping. I happen to be one of them and text at some point just seems to blur to me and just get boring and I miss points and then whatever. Even if I'm connected and I'm really enjoying it. Imagery speaks volumes to me it and it makes me remember things and that was one of the actually one of the stats. I can't remember what it was but it was. It increased your retention significantly of the content that you're reading. So think about it that way. You're really helping people out. Plus you're adding value to the page that AI will like and frankly just Google alike. It's just a win, win, win. So do check it out and I hope you enjoy it. Again, it's all free. Just putting it out there to help everyone out and have some fun doing it. We have to learn it anyway and why not Share Next up, new Google search ad layout. Wonderful is causing accidental clicks.

D (7:24)

Have you seen, have you noticed it yet? No, I had noticed it but didn't realize I had noticed it until I read this article at SE Roundtable and like, oh yeah, I have seen that. So now what Google's doing for sponsored links is they've got a heading, sponsored results. I think they word it and then there's you know, a thin horizontal line and then all your sponsored listings that look exactly like traditional organic listings, you can't tell the difference. And then at the bottom of them the, there's a little link that says hide. What is, what's the exact word? It's like oh, I didn't write down. It just says like hide. Oh, hide. Sponsored results there obviously, duh. But of course by that point you've already seen all the sponsored results because it's at the bottom and it's usually below the fold. So they sponsored results really look organic. Like you have to be paying attention. It kind of looks like the first result is sponsored and then all the rest are just regular organic listings. And so people are complaining that they're clicking on these sponsored listings when they don't want to because they look like organic listings. So Google claims that this change was to make navigation easier. I, I don't know how that's easier. You're hiding what people are actually clicking on. And I guess back in May, and I missed this in May, they, they did a test back in May on this and then it rolled out completely on October 13th. So about a month ago now they've been live. So I, I makes me wonder how many sponsored links I've clicked on thinking they're organic and never really noticed because you can't, you can't easily tell. And I'm in there all the time and I didn't notice. So it's pretty sneaky.

C (9:03)

Yeah. And you know the sneakiness. I imagine it's hard for them not to just enjoy and be all over because they frankly, it's making them so much money. Yeah, I was shocked. I tried to find the article quickly. I couldn't. But I did find one doesn't have a date on it, which makes me suspicious. Very suspicious. People put dates on your content, especially news, please. In short, they have never made more money in their history than now and by a wide margin. Stunning really. And I have to wonder whether a lot of that's from people staying on Google due to AI overviews. I don't know, it wasn't even suggested. But you gotta wonder. It was like double digit percentages, perhaps Even more than 20% again, I can't trust what I'm looking at here. So I can't give you a real number. Maybe I can find something while we're going here. But it was stunning. Okay. Here, see? Yeah, yeah. Anyway, I can't show you anything, but it is stunning. And this kind of thing must be just like. They must just laugh all the way to the bank as we just grumble.

D (10:27)

Yeah.

C (10:27)

What are we going to do?

D (10:29)

Nothing. Not advertise. I don't know. Kind of needed these days.

C (10:34)

But one of the points someone made I noticed on the Search Engine Land article that I think it was Search Engine Land that no Search Engine Roundtable article that Barry posted is that this is costing people money. Yeah. Because people are clicking on these and maybe they find later that this is sponsored and rubs off badly on the people who were doing the paid ads. No one wants to be tricked. No one. And this. Well, I've already stopped treating at leave the top three listings in any search as honest to God, organic. Even if I don't see sponsored, I'm suspicious as hell because most of the time it's just not paid. So there you go. I mean, obviously we're maybe the canary in the coal mine if we're really lucky, but a lot of people probably don't feel that same way. And they don't notice. I don't know.

D (11:31)

I think most people. Yeah. Don't notice.

C (11:33)

Yeah.

D (11:33)

Or don't care.

C (11:35)

All right, well, Google is going to remove some more search features. In this case, a Google spokesperson told Barry at Search Engine Roundtable that in the coming months, Google will begin removing a number of search features but did not disclose features. What a shock.

D (11:51)

Not a full list.

C (11:54)

Some of them though included practice problem schema markup. I saw an article about this. I don't know anything about it. What do they mean by practice problems?

D (12:03)

I think that's math related, like educational math. I haven't seen it recently, but it really sounds familiar and I feel like I heard about that ages ago.

C (12:12)

Okay.

D (12:13)

I might be wrong. If I'm wrong, go to our Facebook group and tell me to my face and post and I'll. And then also ask a question.

C (12:22)

Well, the first time I saw it, I saw practice. I thought dental.

D (12:26)

Oh yeah, clinical.

C (12:27)

But that doesn't make any sense. Practice problem. But anyway, I think you're. I think you probably got that nailed. The next one is data set, structured data data set, search. None of these I've got any experience with, that I know of.

D (12:39)

That's why they're removing them.

C (12:41)

Yeah. Perhaps for once they're removing things because they're not being used instead of people loving them.

D (12:49)

Oh man, that's a whole show. Let's list off the things that they've gotten rid of that we love.

C (12:53)

Yeah. Google's also removing today's doodle box. Oh no. What is Barry going to do? Isn't that really helpful for him? I think he posts those images all the time.

D (13:02)

Oh, does he?

C (13:03)

The latest Google doodle. Anyway, nutrition facts that I don't like. They're also removing nearby offers and events, local bike share, station status. Wow. And TV season selector.

D (13:22)

Yeah. So how many of us did you know about the doodle box? Nutrition facts. That's it.

C (13:28)

Yeah. For me, I'm sure they're all stuff you can find if you just do a normal search though, or. Sorry, an AI search or dig deeper.

D (13:37)

Yeah, that's what they're not telling you. Yeah, it just shows up in AI overviews now. Yeah, well, with the exception of the. The support for some structured data types being removed, but that's a bit different.

C (13:47)

But yeah, John Mueller noted that, quote, we're beginning to phase out these lesser used features. This update will simplify the page and improve the speed of search results. Unquote. Well, let's hope speed hasn't really been a problem for search results. But hey, I know every, every millisecond is money to them, so it's.

D (14:09)

Oh, huge money too. Huge money. Yeah, when you're talking billions of searches a day. I don't remember the numbers anymore, but trillions of seconds.

C (14:19)

Well, let's take a quick break. When we come back, we're going to talk about AI overviews and how they are dropping well, making a direct impact on clickstreams. Welcome back to SCO 101 on WMR FM, hosted by myself, Ross Dunn, CEO.

D (14:47)

Extra value meals are back for just $5.

A (14:51)

Get a savory and sweet sausage, egg and cheese McGriddles plus hash browns and.

D (14:55)

A coffee only at McDonald's for limited time only. Prices and participation may vary. Prices may be higher in Hawaii, Alaska and California.

A (15:02)

And for delivery, if you're a maintenance supervisor at a manufacturing facility and your machinery isn't working right, Grainger knows you need to understand what's wrong as soon as possible. So when a conveyor motor falters, Grainger offers diagnostic tools like calibration kits and multimeters to help you identify and fix the problem. With Grainger, you can be confident you have everything you need to keep your facility running smoothly. Call 1-800-GRAINGER click granger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done.

C (15:32)

Of step 4th web marketing and my company, Senior SEO Scott Van aka all right, so the title is AI overviews result in drops in organic and paid search. What do we got here?

D (15:45)

Yeah, so everybody is clicking less. According to a SEER Interactive study, even when AI overviews are not present, click through rates are down. So I'll give you some of the data here and then I'll tell you where it comes from. So organic click through rates in October of 2024. So about a year ago when AI overviews were shown, the click through rates were approximately 1.19 on average. In 2025 they are 0.61%. When no AI overviews are are present, they've gone from 2.8% down to 1.6%. So a drop of, I think it's around, around the 50 mark anyways. Way down. Interestingly. Yeah, interestingly enough it's the same for paid ads. Paid ads, the percentages are higher but the decline is similar right around 50, 60% September. So when AI overviews are not shown, we're seeing a drop from about 13%. Sorry, a drop from 16% down to 13%. So about 3% less clicks for ads. When AI overviews are shown, they're dropping from about 14% down to about 6%. So anyone that says, and this is their data is based on 3,119 informational queries across 42 organizations. It spans 25 million organic and just over a million paid impressions between June 2024 and September 2025. So you know, granted it's a sample size. I mean it's not a tiny sample size but it, you know, Google says that AI overviews is not affecting clicks. But you know, we see it in all our clients. We see clients. Well, not all of them, but a lot of them where rankings are up, impressions are up, everything is going great, but clicks are down and it's just sort of, I don't know, it's what we're seeing everywhere online. People are complaining about it all over the place. So just a bit more evidence to show that AI overviews are not always your friend.

C (17:48)

Would you say impressions are up? Because usually that's down as well.

D (17:52)

Well that's hard to complain to talk about right now because with all of that num equals 100 stuff we've talked about before, it's skewed all of that data. Right. So impressions have actually gone down and clicks have gone up since that September 11th change that Google made.

C (18:08)

Yeah. So, okay, yeah, so everything is skewed. You really don't know what's going on. Interesting. Okay, so how do they get this data, I wonder?

D (18:19)

So this data there was a bit more. I think it actually is from there, from sites that they have direct access to. It said that the data comes from a combination of Google Ads, Google Search Console and then their own tool. I can't remember what their tool was called. I can find it pretty quick though. I can find it. I'm not going to sing while I look for it though, like I almost did because that would be really embarrassing. Where is it? Oh my goodness. The listeners are like, Scott, just shut up. What's the number? Just. Just tell me the data. Okay. It from Sears Generative AI Tracker.

C (19:00)

So there we go, everyone. So that's where their data comes from now.

D (19:03)

But if it's coming from Search Console and Search Google Ads, clearly they have access to these. And it was only 41 like it. Some of the numbers are pretty high, you know, in millions of searches and that sort of thing. But it was only across 42 different organizations. So it could easily be their client base that they're looking at. But I can't.

C (19:23)

Yeah, I have to wonder how accurate this could be. I don't know. I'm no mathematician by any stretch, but how they could get data this even this close to act or accurate at all with the big changes in the num equals whatever for search results. Because that skewed everything. It blew up the data. Yeah, it must be. I don't know. I don't know. Anyway, it's something.

D (19:47)

If you do look at their study or even the search engine land or there's a Search Engine Roundtable article as well, there's a chart that shows month after month for the past 12 months. And even if you ignore September, which is where data started getting skewed in Search Console, if you look at August for instance, the numbers aren't much different. So I don't think their data is inaccurate for the September data. Good. But even if you ignore that.

C (20:15)

Yeah, it's.

D (20:17)

It doesn't look good if you want clicks.

C (20:19)

Yeah, yeah. It. Jumping into something somewhat relevant here is we were talking about how they have their own generative tracking tool. Well, a geo startup that's not geo as in geographic, but generative engine optimization startup, Lorelite has decided to shut down. It launched in April, was pitched as a proactive AI brand monitoring tool. It promised real time alerts when LLMs large language models misrepresented a brand and their goal was to help marketers control their brand narrative. Well, the owner or founder, I should say Benjamin Hui decided that. Pardon if I butchered the last name there Benjamin, but decided to shut it down. And the reason why is. Well, assuming he had enough business and such, we don't know. But I think the reason why makes a lot of sense. He said that when they kept all the research they were doing, showed up familiar traits, high quality helpful content was what was moving the needle. Mentions in authoritative publications were moving the needle. Strong reputations and subject matter expertise was moving the needle. And Ashoy wrote, quote it's the exact same stuff that's always worked for SEO, PR and brand building. There was no secret formula, no hidden hack or special optimization technique that only applied to AI. There's no secret geo strategy. AI models reward the same fundamentals, fundamentals that already drive SEO and pr. Unquote. Some notes here was, you know, some of the people who commented was Lily Ray. She said that the post was something the industry needed to hear. Gatano DeNardi called it saying the quiet, saying the quiet part out loud. Oh, I see. Christine Strange praised Hoy's courage to step away from the idea he believed in. Randall Cho countered that LLM visibility is already driving conversions, citing Data showing that ChatGPT source signups convert six times better than Google traffic. So what? How is that a counter?

D (22:40)

I don't know.

C (22:41)

Like we're not saying that LLM traffic is useless, we're just saying that getting there is nothing. It's not rocket science, it's doing what we do. I do believe 100% that building around your expertise is very important. Drawing all of the different strings. I'm trying to look for analogy for this, but I still haven't found a great one. But pulling in all the different places that talk about you and making sure they all point to one single canonical Persona URL like my case RossDun.com building it in making sure everything links there and controlling your Persona controlling your what Google can see so it can determine the E a T. You know, always forget what the first E is. But expertise, authoritative trustworthiness is really what it comes down to. You want people to so you want AI. You want Google to say okay this guy knows what he's talking about. Let's make sure that credibility is rubbed off on this and gets a little, you know, gets a little more more views and is used in the knowledge graph. That is important. Not enough has been talked about about that. I mean, there, there's a lot of eat discussions, but there's nothing directly drawing it to doing a great job of connecting the dots and making sure your authorship is strong and, you know, building off that. Anyway, again, not rocket science, not easy work, but that's never going to change. You know, one of the things that I find really funny about AI these days is they people often say how easy it's making life. Well, it's not making life easy. I'm working harder than I've worked ever before just because I use AI and it helps me do other work. All is done is raised the bar for how much we need to deliver to make sure that clients can stay ahead of their competitors who are also using this. If you're sitting on your laurels and not doing anything well, you're going to pay for it. You need to work, you know, on your own marketing, using AI to enhance it carefully. Do not trust everything it says. I actually have an article that's going to be out within the next couple days on step 4th about how our roles and as SEOs are changing in the AI era. And part of it is, I believe we are going to be more often than not advisors on what you need to do to, you know, what tools you need to use for AI, reviewing the suggestions it provides, providing a more consistent strategy that isn't just based on the latest prompt, which is very dangerous. There are absolutely multitudes of, of bad of examples of how taking AI at face value is a bad idea. You need to use it holistically as a, or as a part of a holistic plan. Don't drive everything from it and do not take everything it says at face value. Beating that to death, probably, but it's so important. But yeah, I'll probably talk about that article next time we have a show. All right, moving on. Google tests a new version of AI mode. What's this all about?

D (26:26)

Yeah, just a fun little simple thing, I guess. Google is testing a new version of AI mode. In the wild above the AI mode responses, a prompt shows you're giving feedback on a new version of AI mode. Which response do you prefer? And it gives you side by side comparisons of old versus new and a little button at the bottom. I prefer this response. I would, I wish they would do something like this with AI overviews and have a few buttons like, is this response good? Is it garbage? Do you know, like have a little survey with every AI overview and yeah, let, let the people speak. But I don't know, I think it's kind of cool that they're allowing the side by side comparison. I haven't seen it in the wild myself, but I've never seen because we're in Canada. Yeah, that's true. That's a big part of it. Google just hates us.

C (27:17)

I know we use their tool and.

D (27:20)

They won't give us the cool stuff or the new stuff or the tests or which sometimes is good, I guess.

C (27:25)

But I think we should just be happy we've got AI mode now.

D (27:28)

We do. And that's it hasn't changed my life at all, but maybe it will someday. I don't know.

C (27:33)

Yes, maybe. Well, on behalf of myself, Ross Dunn, CEO of Stepforth Web Marketing, and my company, Senior SEO Scott Vanack, thank you for joining us today. Remember to check out SEO grok.com that's s e o g r o k dot com and check out my latest content there. And also on stepforth.com, we're going to have a great I really think you're going to enjoy that post about the changing role of an SEO. I know you're not SEOs necessarily, some of you are, but I think it'll give you a peek into what they need to consider and you might get a few nuggets that are useful for your business as well. Well, have a great week and remember to tune into future episodes which air every week on WMR FM. Awesome.

D (28:19)

Thank you for listening everybody.

B (28:43)

With savings over $390 this shopping season, VRVO helps you swap gift wrap time for quality time with those you love most. From snow on the roof to sand between your toes, we have all the vacation rental options covered. Go to VRBO now and book a last minute week long stay. Save over $390 this holiday season and book your next vacation rental home on VRBO. Average savings $396 select homes only in.

A (29:13)

Too many cities, dangerous illegals walk free as police are forced to stand down. Join ICE and help us catch the worst of the worst with bonuses up to $50,000 and generous benefits. Apply now. Join.ice.gov.