Last Updated: July 26, 2024

July 2024 SEO News Recap

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Hands holding phone and typing on laptop with search bar

Welcome to our July 2024 SEO News Recap! This month, we cover some basic SEO strategy to implement on your site, Google updates on AI overviews, the end to Google’s continuous scroll feature, and more. Also, be sure to check out our new installment of “ROI Answers” at the bottom of this article to find answers to commonly asked SEO questions.

Jump to each July 2024 SEO News Recap topic using the links below:

Soft 404s & 404s

If you’re an SEO client of ours, you’ve probably seen recommendations to remove “soft 404” errors on your site. But what exactly is a soft 404? Soft 404s are pages that return a 200-status code but should return a 404-status code instead. We typically see this with category pages showing two products or fewer, or a product page that was not properly redirected once sold out. Gary Illyes from Google recently reminded us that soft 404s likely won’t show up in search results, and they can distract Googlebot from the pages you actually want crawled on your site. So, why keep them and waste Googlebot’s limited time on your site? 

On the flip side, if your site has 404 errors that should return a 200-status code, be sure to put in 301-redirects or add content to those pages. Also, there is no need to fix all 404s on a site; only fix “those that will actually help users,” according to Gary.

Google Search Console Data Freshness

We understand that GA4 comes with data delays, meaning data can still change in the platform, Looker Studio reports, etc., for up to a week or more after the data is collected. Did you know Google Search Console can also struggle with data delays as well? Rest assured that these delays are not indicative of a core algo update. John Mueller of Google reiterated that Google will announce when a core update occurs, and these delays are unrelated.

It’s good to be aware that the data you’re referencing may not always be as fresh as you expect, but as of early July, Google Search Console was working on fixing these delays.

To see when your GSC data was last updated, click into the Performance Report and look in the upper right-hand corner at the Last Updated time.

Shipping & Returns in GSC

Displaying shipping and returns information in search results can give you a leg up on competitors that don’t show this information. Google now makes it even easier for you to specify this information with these five options, listed in order of which one takes precedence:

  1. Product-level feeds submitted in Merchant Center
  2. Return settings in the Content API for Shopping
  3. Settings in Merchant Center or Search Console
  4. Organization-level markup
  5. Product-level merchant listing markup

If you wish to add delivery time, shipping cost, return window, and/or return cost via your GSC account, head to Settings > Shopping > Shipping and returns. Note, you must have full user/owner access to see and edit this info in Search Console.

Google Releases FAQs about AI Overviews

May’s initial roll-out of Google’s AI Overviews – AI-generated answers to queries – was rough. Public reaction ranged from humor caused by answers that told people to do things like add glue to their pizza to annoyance voiced by users on social media asking how to turn the feature off. Google listened and responded in its Support Forums by releasing frequently asked questions about AI Overviews. Here are two key questions and answers (quoted directly):

  • Are AI Overviews Always Accurate?
    • Generative AI is experimental and can make mistakes. We’re constantly improving accuracy to ensure AI Overviews uphold Search’s quality standards.
  • How do I remove AI Overviews?
    • AI Overviews in Search (outside of Search Labs) are a Search feature like knowledge panels and can’t be turned off. However, you can select the Web filter after you perform a search. This filter displays only text-based links without features like AI Overviews.

With feedback from users and tweaks from Google, AI Overviews seems to have become more stable with more accurate answers. However, we still hear from people who would prefer them to be absent from the SERPs. If you are one of those people, your best bet is to use the web filter to see results that are more like the ten blue links of old.

If you don’t like the rich features and AI Overviews on the “All” tab in Google results pages, use the menu to find the “Web” tab.

Google Ends Continuous Scroll

Speaking of the Google of yesteryear, at the end of June, Google announced it would return to paginated search results. The end of continuous scroll on desktop happened quickly with mobile to follow in the months to come.

Continuous scroll was implemented in 2021 (mobile) and 2022 (desktop) and was meant to improve the search experience, but it didn’t lead to additional user satisfaction, and it slowed the process of serving results. Going back to paginated results should improve Google’s speed. It could also lead to fewer impressions and clicks for businesses with results on page two. After all, the old joke was “Where do you bury a body to ensure no one finds it? Page two of Google.”  

New Zero-Click Report Shows How Many Searches End Without a Click

For the first time since 2021, Rand Fishkin of SparkToro published the results of his analysis of Google search behavior. This year’s Zero-Click Report shows that 41.5% of searches performed in the U.S. end with a click, and 75% of those clicks go to an organic result. That means 58.5% of searches end without a click. Either the session ends, or the user tries a new search query.

The 37.1% of searches that end without a click or new search indicates users are either satisfied with the results shown on the page and feel no need to visit a website, or they are frustrated and give up. Unfortunately, there’s no way to break that percentage down further to answer how many are satisfied by featured snippets, AI Overviews, or some other result they’ve found on the page.

Additional concerns that Fishkin raises in the report:

  • We’re undercounting zero-click results because “this data does not account for use of voice-answered searches through Google Assistant, or searches done in the Google mobile search app (which, while similar to in-browser results, features even more rich answer results).”
  • Google’s self-preference sends almost 30% of clicks to Google’s own properties, like YouTube, Google Maps, Google Flights, etc.
  • “For every 1,000 searches on Google in the United States, 360 clicks make it to a non-Google-owned, non-Google-ad-paying property.

The high number of zero-click searches mean that capturing rich results and similar SERP features is as important as ever, whether those are featured snippets, AI Overviews, or People Also Asked answers. Your ROI Revolution SEO team is always testing ways to put our clients front and center on Google so that even zero-click searches result in improved visibility.

Ambiguous Titles and Content Can Cause Issues

Answering a question posted in a LinkedIn Forum, Google spokesperson John Mueller told a user that ranking for irrelevant keywords could mean that his title tags and content were not clear enough. Revising them to be less ambiguous could help solve the issue. Mueller also pointed out that ranking for irrelevant keywords doesn’t actually hurt a website. (We’ll add “in most cases,” because reputation matters.)

The user asked if blocking a page from being indexed would help, but all that would do is ensure the page is not indexed. If he wants a page to be found by Google users, doing that would ensure they can’t find it. Improving the content of the page is a better long-term solution.

Feedback on the March 2024 Core Update

After the core algorithm update of March 2024, Google released a feedback form and encouraged SEOs and site owners to use it. In a Google Search News video, John Mueller thanked users for the feedback and said it has been reviewed with the Search Quality and Ranking teams. We’ll be watching to see if the next update (expected soon!) brings changes based on that feedback, and we’ll keep you posted!

June 2024 Spam Update Rolled Out in Just One Week

Google rolled out another spam update between June 20 and June 27, 2024. The update reinforced Google’s spam policy. Google did not specify what spam techniques it targeted, but stated the update focused on sites violating spam policy, clarifying that it was not about link spam or reputation abuse. Spam updates do not typically heavily impact well-established websites, but they can affect rankings overall as spammy websites are demoted or removed the SERPs.

ICYMI: Recent SEO Blog Posts

Want to catch up with last month’s news? We shared SEO news at the end of June, including an important update on how GA4 changes are affecting organic & paid search campaigns, ensuring your site is accessible on mobile, and more. Check out June’s SEO News Recap.

ROI Answers: SEO FAQ of the Month

Q: When you see our organic listing, it looks like Google is pulling it from a random part of our homepage, not what our meta description says in the page’s source code. How do we stop this?

A: Unfortunately, Google often rewrites meta descriptions with what it seems to think is more helpful information than what is prescribed by a website’s html. Even less fortunately, Google sometimes gets it wrong by pulling random copy that doesn’t help anyone.

In this case, because it keeps pulling the same copy for the meta description, you could try using the data-nosnippet HTML attribute around that text to prevent Google from using it. We can’t guarantee that this means Google will choose the meta description you wrote, but it’s worth trying.

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