What happened in SEO this month?
Each month, Lumar’s in-house tech SEO experts hand-pick some of the SEO industry’s top news items from across the web to keep you up-to-date on all things SEO and website optimization.
This month, our SEO news roundup includes:
- A new Google core update launches in November 2024
- SearchGPT is now live for all paid users
- OpenAI hosts a Reddit AMA following the launch of SearchGPT
- Google rolls out AI Overviews to more locations (now 100+ countries have access)
- A new study reveals that Google AI Overviews are inaccurate in 43% of finance-related searches
- Google updates its Core Web Vitals (CWV) documentation, adding more details on INP
- And more!
Now, let’s dig into the key SEO headlines from November…
Google launches the November 2024 core algorithm update
The third (and potentially final) core update of 2024 is underway. Google officially announced the rollout on November 11th and estimated the usual timeframe of 2 weeks for completion via the Search Status Dashboard. The last core update finished back in September, although rankings have remained volatile ever since.
Google has already warned sites impacted by September 2023’s helpful content update that they shouldn’t expect to see major recoveries this time around. In the midst of what’s been a highly turbulent time for many site owners, the industry waits with baited breath to see what changes this particular update does bring.
Source: Search Engine Land
ChatGPT Search is finally here
Also known as SearchGPT, the product has now gone live to all ChatGPT Plus and Team users, as well as those that had previously signed up to the waitlist. A full rollout for all free users of ChatGPT is scheduled for the coming months. OpenAI claims the search model is built ‘using novel synthetic data generation techniques’ and have confirmed that the Search index is powered in part by Bing. A new Chrome extension also allows users to search directly from their browser’s URL bar.
The initial response has been mixed. Some users have praised SearchGPT’s ability to handle time-sensitive queries, especially when compared with Google’s AI Overviews. But it’s still within its infancy, and many will argue it doesn’t have the extensive knowledge graph or additional product integrations needed to truly be seen as a threat. What we do know is that as OpenAI continues to build on and refine its product over the coming months, the race for search engine supremacy just got a lot more interesting.
Source: OpenAI
OpenAI hosts a Reddit AMA following the launch of ChatGPT Search
Hot on the heels of the ChatGPT Search rollout, a Reddit AMA was hosted by its parent company, OpenAI. When asked what makes their product favourable to other well-known search engines, the team highlighted the speed at which ChatGPT Search surfaces results. They also listed the tool’s ability to handle complex queries as an advantage. In this sense, the kind of natural language interactions users are used to with ChatGPT could help to encourage more nuanced searches and surface better results.
Source: Search Engine Journal
Google’s AI Overviews go global
Google has expanded its rollout of AI Overviews into more than 100 different countries, bringing the feature to an estimated 1 billion monthly Google Search users. There will also be enhanced language support coming to AI Overviews very soon.
The news comes just a few weeks after Google introduced ads to AI Overviews in the US.
Source: Google ‘The Keyword’ Blog
Study reveals that Google AI Overviews are inaccurate in 43% of finance-related searches
A new study conducted by The College Investor finds that 43% of Google’s AI Overview results for finance-related searches provide factually inaccurate responses. The publication does acknowledge that Google has recently added a disclaimer to many finance-related AI Overview results. However, there are still major concerns about the number of misleading and inaccurate summaries being surfaced for personal finance queries, including those related to student loans. While this study looked at finance specifically, it certainly raises broader concerns about the reliability of AI Overviews for YMYL queries.
Source: The College Investor
Google updates its CWV documentation, adding more details on INP
It’s been a little over six months since INP (Interaction to Next Paint) replaced FID (First Input Delay) as a Core Web Vitals metric. Google has updated its documentation to provide a better understanding of the metric’s inner workings and how the thresholds are calculated.
Throughout the documentation, there’s reference to making sure that a good INP score is achievable. The top 10K websites globally were analyzed before the Chrome team settled on the 200ms ‘good’ threshold. This is considered fast enough for a slick user experience while still being attainable for most sites.
Source: Search Engine Journal
Podcast: Understanding how users experience your website
Search engines always encourage SEOs to prioritize user experience. But to do that, it’s important to understand the ‘why’ behind user behavior on your site.
In this episode of Search Off the Record, Iva Barisic Hafner, a user experience researcher on the Google Shopping team, explains how to use UXR methods to learn more about the users who interact with your brand.
Source: Google ‘Search Off the Record’ Podcast
Google hosts its first-ever Web Creator Conversation Event
Google broke new ground recently by inviting a small number of content creators to its California HQ for the first-ever Google Creator Summit. Led by Google Search Liaison Danny Sullivan, the event provided an open forum for publishers and Google Search employees to share feedback and get their questions answered. Notable among the guests were several publishers whose sites were negatively impacted by last year’s Helpful Content Update (HCU).
Many of the attendees shared their thoughts on the invite-only event via social media. The main takeaway for many of the attendees was that Google could provide no guarantees on recovery for those impacted by the HCU. Rather surprisingly, the team also told site owners that many ranking drops weren’t caused by the quality or helpfulness of their content at all.
Source: Marie Haynes
