Looking for the premium members version? Log in here or become a member. 

Last week’s episode (271)  See all episodes

Things are moving quickly! Google is hosting an event next week to share with us how they will be implementing their response to ChatGPT in search. I say, “their response”, but really Google has been leading the field of AI for years now.

Bing put ChatGPT into search today. While some think this may just be a fad, I strongly believe that we are at the start of a brand new era.

However, not all agree with me.

How concerned are you over Google introducing AI based chat features in a few weeks?

— Dr. Marie Haynes🐼 (@Marie_Haynes) February 3, 2023

Greg, I'm feeling like I've gone crazy. How can people not see the potential impact here? Even if only *some* of the people who are getting answers from AI chat no longer visit websites, this is going to have an impact on traffic.

This should be all we are talking about!

— Dr. Marie Haynes🐼 (@Marie_Haynes) February 3, 2023

Google’s introduction of AI chat has the potential to radically change how people search.

In this episode

There is so much happening. In this episode we discuss:

• Google’s response to ChatGPT is coming in a few weeks.
• Bing implemented ChatGPT into search today.
• Google is prompting people to auto-migrate to GA4
• Many are seeing big drops in traffic starting Jan 26

In the paid version you’re going to want to grab a hot drink and sit and read this one.

• Brief insight into a poss Jan 26 algorithm update
• What can SEO’s learn from the Yandex source code leak?
• A very cool case study (including everything the site owner did) sent to me. This site recovered from the October spam update in dramatic fashion after following the advice in my spam recovery book. This book is free for paid newsletter subscribers.

• I looked at more sites affected by the supposed “featured snippet ban” and found what seems to me to be an obvious pattern.
• AI News:
  • Google Apprentice Bard
  • An article I found about how Google Sparrow works to reduce the risk of producing unsafe or inappropriate answers in AI chat
  • The founder of Gmail says ChatGPT could destroy Google in 2 years. I give my thoughts on why he is saying that with detailed examples.
  • My thoughts on how AI chat will dramatically change search including answering the question of what will happen when AI doesn’t have websites to draw on for information.
  • The best tips I could find this week on prompting and getting good use out of ChatGPT

There’s also loads of SEO tips and info on new Author Cards in SERPS.

Join the free version

You’ll get an email from me once a week with a link to this newsletter.

Become a paid member

Same email, plus also I email you as soon as I hear of a Google update happening. And you get a LOT more of my teachings and musings.

Become a paid member for $18 per month

A few weeks😮https://t.co/30H05KLRLZ

— Dr. Marie Haynes🐼 (@Marie_Haynes) February 3, 2023

Some interesting points from this article:

• “In the coming weeks and months, we’ll make these language models available, starting with LaMDA, so that people can engage directly with them,” CEO Sundar Pichai said.”
• Google focused on responsible AI. They are aware of the problems with bias and wrong answers LLM technology can produce.
• Google will produce AI tools for developers.

This is the line that struck me the most:

“A healthy disregard for the impossible has been core to our company culture from the very beginning.”

The article also discusses economic concerns for Google:

• Operating expenses were up $22.5 billion (10%) last year.
• TikTok has drawn audience from YouTube.
• ChatGPT has shown there are new ways to search online.
• Google faces a lawsuit via the Justice Department over its dominance in online advertising. (Legal fees are part of the reason for their increased expenses.)
• Google cut 15% of its workforce last month.
• Employees have been asked to help with a “simplicity sprint” to crowdsource ideas for streamlining Google’s processes.

Is Google adding more AI powered search features a big deal? Many of the SEOs I know and respect feel that it is not. I vehemently disagree. I have shared more on my thoughts on how search is likely to change in the AI News section of newsletter.

This is Sundar from Google's Q4 earnings conference call transcript yesterday. Sounds like Google is moving fast to address the ChatGPT threat. This was said in the first two mins of the call. pic.twitter.com/xjr2Fybp7S

— Colan Nielsen (@ColanNielsen) February 3, 2023

From Sundar Pichai: “In the coming weeks and months, we’ll make these language models available, starting with LaMDA, so that people can engage directly with them. This will help us continue to get feedback, test and safely improve them. These models are particularly amazing for composing, constructing and summarizing. They will become even more useful for people as they provide up-to-date, more factual information.”

Bing's ChatGPT integration just appeared for me. Replaces the search bar with a composer for natural-language questions pic.twitter.com/NxZ0k9O92C

— Owen Yin (@Owen_Yin) February 3, 2023

Bing also introduced the ChatGPT technology into Microsoft Teams Premium already as well.

I used to think OpenAI would shape into being a platform. But now I'm thinking something more like "intel inside". https://t.co/DU4NshODdH

— George Siemens (@gsiemens) February 2, 2023

On my own site, I got a prompt to migrate to GA4.

Except that the message asking whether I'm migrating was shown to me on the GA4 profile that we had set up already.

This is going to cause a lot of confusion. pic.twitter.com/ouDdKBGc3B

— Dr. Marie Haynes🐼 (@Marie_Haynes) February 2, 2023

I also received an email inviting me to move things over. The thing is though I already have a GA4 profile set up. Dana DiTomaso who set this up for me says it may not be a good idea to accept Google’s offer of auto-migration:

They are separate on purpose. This new prompt is massively confusing! Don't make a new one.

— Dana DiTomaso (@danaditomaso) February 2, 2023

I've heard from SO many people whose sites have suffered big traffic losses lately. ☹️

If that's you – *group hug*

If you've managed to recover, could you please share what you did in this 🧵?

(Even if all you did was wait it out.)

This could be really helpful for others. ❤️

— Niche Site Lady (@NicheSiteLady) January 31, 2023

Purely anecdotal, but IMO Google's purge of AI content has begun 💀.

A website I know that's been plagiarising and using AI content has experienced a swift fall in traffic.

It's so painful to look at. pic.twitter.com/slSdsZZTqn

— Julian startup SEO – $700k ARR (@JIC94) January 30, 2023

In this poll, while most people voted that they did not have a traffic loss starting January 6, 64 of the 385 people who voted said they had a catastrophic loss of Google organic traffic.

So many of the sites I looked at with traffic losses had patterns that looked like this: pic.twitter.com/hAEsNDKHde

— Dr. Marie Haynes🐼 (@Marie_Haynes) February 2, 2023

I thoroughly enjoyed this week’s call. A small group of us pored over analytics, rankings and content to analyze a couple of sites that were impacted by recent updates. We looked at several cases where it was really obvious that the page that Google had elevated over theirs did a much better job at quickly getting the searcher to the answer they came to find.

I am going to continue doing these calls, every 2-3 weeks. I’ll put a notification in newsletter the week before each one we do. These are open to all members of my paid newsletter community.

Oops. Google accidentally removed some legitimate reviews

Google has accidentally removed legitimate reviews from Local Guides. Here's what's gone on, and what you might need to look out for. https://t.co/AfpFpSTtjw

— BrightLocal 🇺🇦 (@brightlocal) February 2, 2023

Is review recency a ranking factor?

💭 Is Review Recency a Ranking Factor?

There are many theories about reviews being a ranking factor, but what contributes?
➡️ Is it text?
➡️ Is it quantity?
➡️ Is it frequency?

Joy shares our findings from a recent case study.

More 👉 https://t.co/k4dHjS6Zhw pic.twitter.com/7yoazYx1zR

— Sterling Sky Inc (@SterlingSkyInc) January 31, 2023

Joy had a case where she encouraged a business to incentivize employees to ask for more reviews. Following this and also a Google update, they had big improvements.

Tips for managing your Google Business Profile

The new #GoogleBuisinessProfile dashboard makes it easy to recognize individuals that leave a review.

Tips on how to manage your GBP reviews. 👇https://t.co/Oc0oAudjNp pic.twitter.com/MJs8TW0CkZ

— Jeannie Hill (@essentialskill) February 1, 2023

Company AI chat bots in the SERPs

Companies have their chat features right in Google now? I don't have to leave the SERPs to chat with AA support pic.twitter.com/t1TgkspqBv

— Andrew Prince (@AndrewPrince16) February 1, 2023

If they don't respond within 24 hours, G will remove the feature for them 😬

I imagine that response time is a big blocker for a lot of brands. pic.twitter.com/wWpmlCUvGg

— Brian Freiesleben (@type_SEO) February 1, 2023

Potentially related to this?

That's so interesting! I'm seeing it too. When clicked, it brings me to listings that offer "online appointments", an attribute available in Service options in the editing interface. Neat!

— Amy Toman ❄️🎄❄️ (@BubblesUp) February 3, 2023

Videos not getting approved?

I see it in the forums. Often a function of the age of the profile.

— Mike Blumenthal (@mblumenthal) January 28, 2023

A good reason to get keywords in your Google posts

.@JoyanneHawkins is absolutely right.

Google Posts may not impact rankings, but Google pulls snippets from them to use as justifications in the search results, which will drive more engagement and conversions.#seo #localseo pic.twitter.com/dkD0e6kWlM

— Darren Shaw (@DarrenShaw_) February 2, 2023

Looking for a new SEO job? SEOjobs.com is a job board curated by real SEOs for SEOs. Take a look at five of the hottest SEO job listing this week (below) and sign up for the weekly job listing email only available at SEOjobs.com.

• Sr Content Strategist  ~ Foodie Digital ~ $65k-$75k CAD ~ Remote
• Senior SEO Specialist ~ ESRI ~ $68k-$108K ~ Remote (US)
• SEO Manager ~ Vimeo ~ $83k-$132k ~ Remote or NYC
• SEO Specialist ~ Aya Healthcare ~ $55k – $65k ~ Remote (US)
• SEO Specialist ~ Fruition ~ $50K-$70k ~ Remote (US)

Traffic Drop Assessment tool

Got further along this week! It’s recognizing updates properly. Now I need to write the advice that goes along with the detected update hit.

Book and course

Google’s news today has made me rethink my book. Several chapters are already written…and will be outdated as soon as Google puts AI chat into search. It changes the game. I have decided to focus mostly on my course…although I’ve realized that it’s not really going to be just one course. As I’ve been developing my tool, I’ve been creating workbooks that people can buy to help them work through their site and improve quality. I hope to have the first of these out alongside my tool.

Podcast

Oh how much I want to be talking about search right now. Google’s announcement today has given me renewed energy to stay focused on what matters so that I can get my tool done and get back to podcasting and talking about the changes happening in search.

Consulting

I’m not taking on client work right now.

If you need SEO consulting, here are a few options:

• Sign up for my waiting list when I start doing site reviews again.
• Contact me for a recommendation to a professional. (Please know I’m only in email 1-2 times per week now so there may be a bit of a delay in my response.)
• Add your site to the list for me to use as I test my tool. You’ll be amongst the first to get a link to test it once it’s ready.

Join the free version

You’ll get an email from me once a week with a link to this newsletter.

Become a paid member

Same email, plus also I email you as soon as I hear of a Google update happening. And you get a LOT more of my teachings and musings.

Become a paid member for $18 per month

What a wild time this is. I had to rewrite several stories this week because things moved so quickly. We are in for an interesting ride!

Marie