Welcome to our October 2024 SEO News Recap! This month, we cover technical SEO, generative AI in search and more. Also, be sure to check out our latest installment of “ROI Answers” at the bottom of this article to find answers to commonly asked SEO questions.
Jump to each October 2024 SEO News Recap topic using the links below:
- Google to Roll Out C2PA Image Authentication Standards
- JavaScript “Noindex” Tags Caused Issues for Googlebot
- Avoid JavaScript-Added Schema Markup
- HCU Victims Likely Won’t See AI Overview Citations
- Spam Policy Updates and Hits
- Bing Generative Search Expands
- ChatGPT Will Include SearchGPT Soon
- Google Starts Rolling Out AI-Organized Search Results
- ICYMI: Recent SEO Blog Posts
- ROI Answers: SEO FAQ of the Month
Google to Roll Out C2PA Image Authentication Standards
Sometimes, AI photos look so convincing. Other times, it’s very obvious they’re AI-generated (looking at you, photos of humans with 6+ fingers). Finally, Google has announced its plans to adopt the C2PA authentication standard and trust list, which will let users know if images in ads and search results were taken by someone’s camera or edited with AI tools. Currently, only some cameras and platforms support this standard, though others have promised to adopt it in the future. Be on the lookout in the coming months to see what this looks like “in the wild.”
JavaScript “Noindex” Tags Caused Issues for Googlebot
In September, Google confirmed that it experienced an issue processing pages with “noindex” meta robots tags added via JavaScript and that those pages were, in fact, getting indexed. To make sure the pages you don’t want indexed stay out of SERPs, look for alternative methods to JavaScript to add “noindex” tags when possible.
Avoid JavaScript-Added Schema Markup
As noted in #2 above, Google sometimes has issues with JavaScript-added tags, and Schema markup is no exception. Google recently updated its developer documentation to encourage site owners to “put product structured data markup in the initial HTML for best results.” While JavaScript-generated markup can be okay, it requires your server to render your site’s pages quickly enough for Googlebot to see the markup.
HCU Victims Likely Won’t See AI Overview Citations
We already know that if you want to appear in Google’s AI Overviews (AIOs), you need to make sure you’re writing unique, helpful, relevant content for your site’s audience. Now, it appears you also cannot be a victim of the Helpful Content Update (HCU) or a Core Algorithm Update.
According to Search Engine Roundtable, AI Overviews appear to not link to sites or provide citations for sites that were affected by these updates. So, even if your site ranks well organically in the “blue links” and the question is directly related to your site, if it was affected by one of these updates, you will likely see AIOs for your competitors’ sites or other websites that are talking about your site.
Spam Policy Updates and Hits
In late September, Google updated its documentation to clarify wording about spam policies, including a definition of “close involvement” by publishers. For example, if a website is truly gathering coupons for its users to help them save money, then the coupons section of the site is not spam, but if it’s using a third-party, “white label” or “turnkey” service to redistribute coupons for the manipulation of rankings, that’s spam.
Site reputation abuse violations are being enforced by manual actions, and we’re seeing possible hits to well-known websites. Just days after the policy’s wording update, Forbes Marketplace, a subfolder of Forbes.com that is run by a third-party affiliate service, saw a sharp decline in organic traffic. And this week, Fortune Recommends, a product reviews subfolder of Fortune.com, seems to have taken a similar hit.
While only insiders with access to those Google Search Console accounts would know for sure if they were hit by a manual action, it appears Google is serious about enforcing the site reputation abuse policy.
Bing Generative Search Expands
A while back, Google said Search using generative AI would eventually look more like a Wikipedia page with information about a topic organized in such a way as to make it easier for users to navigate learning. It seems that Bing is beating them to the punch. However, it doesn’t look like a Wikipedia page; it’s better!
Go to Bing and type “Bing generative search” into the search bar. This will result in a carousel of examples of how Bing Generative Search will help users learn about new topics, solve complex problems, and more. Here’s an example of the search for “how can i get started with learning to play the guitar”:
You can use the “Deep Search” button at the top of the Bing results page to see generative AI results like this for your own query. Keep in mind that the experience is in beta, so you may find some bugs in the process.
Notice that there are organic links throughout the page results, so while it’s using ChatGPT 4o and other in-house models to generate the results, it’s also linking to its sources, which can help authoritative websites gain organic traffic.
ChatGPT Will Include SearchGPT Soon
Launched in July as a prototype, SearchGPT will be integrated into ChatGPT by the end of the year, according to OpenAI. The company expects the improved experience to drive more traffic from new users to the publishers cited in the results, but publishers are not expecting a significant enough boost to help with revenue growth. Only time will tell.
While the news is notable in terms of AI, in the long run, it could mean that ChatGPT will be a larger player in the Search space, potentially taking some market share from Google, making it worth keeping an eye on.
Google Starts Rolling Out AI-Organized Search Results
The search giant is beginning to release AI-organized search results on mobile, with an initial focus on recipes. Compared to Bing’s generative AI results covered above, this feels a little anticlimactic. Google said in its announcement, “You’ll now see a full-page experience, with relevant results organized just for you. You can easily explore content and perspectives from across the web including articles, videos, forums and more — all in one place.”
In the same post, Google also introduced new ways to use Lens. Now, there are more options for searching and shopping. Here are the highlights:
- Search Lab users can hold down the shutter button to record a video of what they’re looking at and ask a question. Google will understand the video and the question in relation to each other to produce an AI Overview answer.
- Global users can use voice input for Google Lens by pointing their camera at a still object and holding the shutter button while asking a question. The result will provide an AI Overview.
- Using Lens for shopping got an upgrade. Now when you point your camera at an object, you’ll not only see results listing where to buy it, but you’ll also see reviews and pricing information across retailers.
For more advances rolled out this month, read Google’s October Updates blog post.
ICYMI: Other Recent SEO Blog Posts
The State of SEO for Ecommerce in 2024
ROI Answers: SEO FAQ of the Month
Q: How do I know if my website’s pages are cannibalizing each other for keywords?
A: There are a few things you can look at to determine if keyword cannibalization is an issue:
- First, you can do an incognito search for the keyword in question to see which of your pages are showing in the SERPs. If the most relevant page is ranking well for the keyword, that’s a sign that Google understands the keyword within the context of the page.
On the other hand, if the correct page is ranking poorly or not ranking at all, or if none of your pages are ranking, you may need to clean up copy on competing pages to help Google better understand and differentiate them. If Google has to choose between two or more pages for a keyword, it will often not rank any of them. - Next, you could use a tool like SEMrush’s Domain Overview to look at which keywords each page is ranking for and how well they are ranking. If you see the same keywords listed there and both pages are ranking poorly, you have a cannibalization problem. If the most relevant page is ranking well and the other is ranking poorly, it’s not a cause for concern.
- The third thing you can do is query the keyword with your brand name added to it to see which pages are ranking for that keyword. Keep in mind that when you add your brand name, Google may show many more of your site’s pages as it’s trying to surface any that might be relevant. It’s a good sign if the correct page is ranking at the top of the search results, but if another page is, it’s time to detangle those pages.
The easiest way to fix keyword cannibalization is to ensure each page has only one primary keyword, and each primary keyword has only one page for each possible intent. This means you could use the same keyword for an informational, transactional, or commercial page, but you cannot use the same keyword for two informational pages. Google will surface the page that best matches its understanding of the user’s intent within the context of the user’s search history.
Still confused or have additional questions? Reach out to ROI Revolution’s SEO team to see how we can help!
