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:
- Google is internally testing a new ‘AI mode’ for its search engine
- AI chatbots are sending more highly engaged, transactional traffic to homepages than Google Search, according to a new study by Kevin Indig
- Google updates its Product schema guidelines
- 63% of 3,000 websites studied received at least 1 visitor from AI chatbots
- Breadcrumbs have been removed from mobile SERPs
- & more!
Now, let’s dig into the key SEO headlines from February…
Google is internally testing a new ‘AI Mode’ for Search
The new AI mode (also referred to as “AIM”) currently being tested for Google Search is designed to handle open-ended queries in greater detail, with more space for users to add more context or ask follow-up questions, according to new reporting from 9to5Google. It uses a custom version of Gemini 2.0 and is currently being tested by Google’s internal teams. It’s understood that in its current state, AI Mode allows for interactions akin to AI chatbots, with information typically broken down into headings and bullet points.
(Source: 9to5Google )
AI chatbots send more transactional traffic to homepages than Google Search
A new study by Kevin Indig analyzed over 7 million sessions and found that AI chatbots (including ChatGPT and Gemini) send more transactional traffic to homepages than Google Search. What’s more, this traffic also leads to significantly higher engagement. Despite landing on more homepages, users stayed for longer and viewed more pages overall than those reaching the sites via traditional search methods.
Indig writes:
“My thinking was that Chat GPT or Perplexity users go through evaluation and exploration cycles … faster and are closer to a purchase intent when they click on an outgoing link.* But I couldn’t prove it at scale. Until now.”
However, it’s worth noting that AI chatbots still account for just a tiny fraction of the overall organic search landscape. AI results were also heavily dominated by eCom’s biggest hitters, including Amazon and other household names.
(Source: Growth Memo )
Google lifts the lid on how its Speculation Rules API affects Search
Google has published a new blog post explaining how the Speculation Rules API is used to minimize load time and navigation speed on SERPs. First launching on Chrome for Android back in 2022, Google actually prefetches the top two search results for any given query.
This has since rolled out to more results via the ‘moderate eagerness’ setting, which triggers prefetch on results further down the SERP as a user hovers over them.
(Source: Google Chrome for Developers )
Google updates its Product schema guidelines
Through the use of Product schema, Google now allows merchants to display various pricing options directly in SERPs, including sale prices, member-exclusive prices, and strikethrough pricing. This allows ecomm sites to highlight promotional offers and discounts directly in Google, providing users with clear pricing information upfront. Site owners are encouraged to update their product markup to incorporate these new properties.
(Source: Search Engine Journal )
63% of websites are now receiving traffic from AI chatbots
The team at Ahrefs studied 3,000 sites and found that 63% received at least one visit from AI chatbots. ChatGPT was by far the biggest driver of this traffic, accounting for more than 50% of AI-powered traffic.
Despite this, AI-driven visits still account for just 0.17% of an average website’s total traffic. Notably, smaller websites benefit more proportionally, receiving a higher percentage of their overall traffic from AI sources.
(Source: Ahrefs )
Combining GA and GSC data in Looker Studio
Google has published new guidance on how to use Google Analytics and Google Search Console data to its full potential. They’ve also shared a handy Looker Studio dashboard template, through which it’s easy to connect both GA and GSC and get all data points in one view. This integration enables the analysis of how search queries translate into site engagement, helping to identify areas for improvement in content and search visibility.
(Source: Google Search Central )
Breadcrumbs have been removed from mobile SERPs
Breadcrumbs have been phased out in mobile SERPs, according to Google. The change is part of plans to simplify how URL elements are displayed on mobile, where historically much of this information has been truncated or cut off from SERPS anyway. The domain is all that will be shown for each result, regardless of where on the site the page is located. No change is expected on desktop and Google still recommends the use of breadcrumb schema wherever possible.
(Source: Google Search Central )
Google’s Search Quality Rater Guidelines now directly address AI
Google has updated its Search Quality Rater Guidelines (QRG) in a bid to address AI-generated content and other spam types. The guidelines now state that while the use of AI tools is allowed, the content produced must offer unique value.
Three new spam categories have also been added to the QRG documentation:
- Expired domain abuse
- Site reputation abuse
- Scaled content abuse
(Source: Search Engine Journal )
