Digital News

AI is on everyone’s mind.

The reason is AI could potentially revolutionize how we consume information.

People are already beginning to use chatbots for research purposes.

And in response, Bing and Google are embracing generative AI into their platforms.

This begs the question…

How will AI impact the SEO industry?

What will SEO look like in the next few years?

Now since I can’t find my crystal ball (my kids were playing with it), I don’t have all the answers.

That said, in this post, I’ll explore where I think the industry is going and how we should react.

After a long wait, we finally saw the May Core Update. When the update started, the Rank Risk Index reported violent SERP fluctuations starting on May 26th. Fluctuation levels quickly returned to normal the following day and remained that way until Google announced that the update was over.

However…

The story was far from over.

We then saw violent SERP fluctuations starting again on June 20th. What’s more, the fluctuations continued all the way to June 29th. We can only speculate that the updates are related.

I'm not one to quote (or even listen to) Katy Perry, but her "adage" of "you're up then you're down" is quite applicable to the rank fluctuations seen on the Google SERP in the recent past. There was some downright bizarre movement on the SERP in August... on multiple occasions... There have also been changes to how Google extends 'Search Journeys' (and how Google promotes its own shopping experience), the schema supported by Google, scroll to text highlights, etc.

I'll be diving into all this and more! This is the September 2020 edition of the SERP News!

Cosmic balance. It exists in reality (perhaps) and it exists on the SERP (evidently). Just as Google announced a new verification badge that could set businesses back 50 bucks the search engine forwent its commission on sales made via Buy on Google! How's that for bringing balance to the SERP?

Plus, has COVID-19 become the norm on the SERP? With less COVID related updates to features and more consistent COVID rankings, that seems to be the case (for better or worse).

Of course, there were like a gazillion other tests, changes, and updates to the SERP.

So let's have at it... Here's the SERP News for August 20

This was one of my favorite months on the Google SERP. Not because the changes Google made "broke the way of the SEO industry." Rather, it's because the changes Google made may seem slight or even negligible. But that would underestimate the search engine. Sometimes, the most innocuous changes to the Google SERP harbor the biggest impact. Such was the case on the June SERP.

Get ready, get set, here comes the July 2020 edition of the SERP News!

May 2020 has come and gone and so has another core update. Google's May 2020 Core Update brought a blast of rank volatility to the SERP the likes of which we have not seen for some time. A lot to talk about here from the update's timeline to who and what were most impacted. Beyond algorithmic changes, Google's adjustments to the ever-evolving COVID-19 pandemic continues as a few curious tests and updates made their way to the SERP recently.

Get ready to explore a month of Google SERP intrigue.... This is the June 2020 edition of the SERP News!

As COVID-19 continues to rage on Google has been quite adept at updating the SERP accordingly. While March saw the introduction of major COVID-19 elements to the SERP, this past month saw Google refine the way it handles the pandemic.

But wait, that's not all. April also saw Google set its shopping experience free... literally. Add on a few notable tests and changes and you have yourself quite the brimming month on the Google SERP.

This is the May 2020 edition of the SERP News!

As a result of COVID-19 there are a significant number of changes to the SERP, to Google My Business listings, to Google Ads, etc., that arise from the current pandemic. So we'll get to that.

At the same time, Google has made other serious changes to the SERP including the migration of right-side Featured Snippets and the release of stricter FAQ markup guidelines. So we'll get to that as well.

This is the April 2020 edition of the SERP news.

Havoc.

That's how you might describe the February SERP, particularly the unconfirmed update that hit mid-month. With reversal upon reversal, the rankings resembled the sort of discombobulated u-turn a 16-year-old would make on their way to failing their driver's test for the umpteenth time. Throw on such SERP spectaculars like new entity pairings and a new multi-image carousel for Google Posts and you have yourself a month of SERP changes to remember.

This is the March 2020 edition of the SERP news!

It seems like everything and everything that was once the Google SERP has been turned on its head in what has been a downpour of serious changes to the results page! Featured Snippet URLs have been pulled from the organic results, the desktop SERP started to look like the mobile SERP only for it to not look like the mobile SERP, and life just got a bit more complex for retailers with Google's Popular Products extravaganza. Oh, and we got our first core update of 2020 to boot!

Welcome to the February 2020 edition of the SERP News.

It's 2020 and what better way to kick off the new year than by looking back at the December 2019 SERP! Don't think for a second that Google took it easy as 2019 wound down.... The last month of the year saw Google take BERT international and use the natural language processing (NLP) technique to take the Top Stories feature to places no news carousel has gone before. Couple that with an onslaught of local changes to the SERP and you have yourself a mighty month of SERP madness!

And away we go!

Did you blink? Because if you did you may have missed Google's clandestine algorithm update that mystified not only the SEO industry but every single rank fluctuation weather tracker! How does it connect to the November 2019 Local Update?

We'll cover the latest update incarnation as well as changes and tests to the SERP that brought Google's travel domination to all-new levels, kicked Featured Snippet URLs out of the organic results, and gave recipe hunters one less reason to click on your site!

It's on. Welcome to the December edition of the SERP News!