Google Says To Optimize For Humans, Not For AI

, ,

Since AI overviews have taken over search results and reduced the amount of clicks going to traditional search results, a debate has emerged within the SEO community. While one half of the community insists that the rise of AI calls for an entirely new approach to website optimization, others have cautioned that there is no need to reinvent the wheel. 

Now, two leading figures from Google have chimed in with a lengthy discussion on AI, how it is impacting search, and whether you need to be doing anything new to improve your visibility in AI overviews. 

Do You Need To Be Doing Anything New To Optimize For AI Search?

In a recent episode of the Search Off The Record podcast, Google’s Danny Sullivan and John Mueller spoke about AI and how it has changed search (and how it hasn’t). While they concede that it feels like search has changed significantly over the past couple years, the rise of artificial intelligence in search doesn’t actually call for any changes to how you optimize your website. 

Instead, they say that AI overviews use many of the same signals that were being used by the search engine.

To start the discussion, Jonn Mueller asked:

“So everything kind of around AI, or is this really a new thing? It feels like these fads come and go. Is AI in fad? How do you think?”

To which, Danny Sullivan said:

“Oh gosh, my favorite thing is that we should be calling it LMNOPEO because there’s just so many acronyms for it. It’s GEO for generative engine optimization or AEO for answer engine optimization and AIEO. I don’t know. There’s so many different names for it.

I used to write about SEO and search. I did that for like 20 years. And part of me is just so relieved. I don’t have to do that aspect of it anymore to try to keep up with everything that people are wondering about.

And on the other hand, you still have to kind of keep up on it because we still try to explain to people what’s going on. And I think the good news is like, There’s not a lot you actually really need to be worrying about.

It’s understandable. I think people keep having these questions, right? I mean, you see search formats changing, you see all sorts of things happening and you wonder, well, is there something new I should be doing? Totally get that.

And remember, we, John and I and others, we all came together because we had this blog post we did in May, which we’ll drop a link to or we’ll point you to somehow to it, but it was… we were getting asked again and again, well, what should we be doing? What should we be thinking about?

And we all put our heads together and we talked with the engineers and everything else. So we came up with nothing really that different.”

Google’s Systems Prioritize The Best Content For Humans

According to Danny Sullivan, the reason you don’t need new strategies to optimize for overviews is that Google’s AI systems aim to surface the best content for human users – the same as Google’s traditional search systems. 

As Sullivan explained:

“And when it comes to all of our ranking systems, it’s about how are we trying to reward content that we think is great for people, that it was written for human beings in mind, not written for search algorithms, not written for LLMs, not written for LMNO, PEO, whatever you want to call it.

It’s that everything we do and all the things that we tailor and all the things that we try to improve, it’s all about how do we reward content that human beings find satisfying and say, that was what I was looking for, that’s what I needed. So if all of our systems are lining up with that, it’s that thing about you’re going to be ahead of it if you’re already doing that.

To whereas the more you’re trying to… Optimize or GEO or whatever you think it is for a specific kind of system, the more you’re potentially going to get away from the main goal, especially if those systems improve and get better, then you’re kind of having to shift and play a lot of catch up.

So, you know, we’re going to talk about some of that stuff here with the big caveat, we’re only talking about Google, right? That’s who we work for. So we don’t say what, anybody else’s AI search, chat search, whatever you want to kind of deal with and kind of go with it from there. But we’ll talk about how we look at things and how it works.”

Optimizing For Humans Is The Key To Google Success

While Sullivan’s comments are limited to Google’s own AI systems, they make it clear that optimizing for anything or anyone other than the end user is a mistake. Instead, it is crucial to do everything possible to deliver the best content and most value for real human visitors to your site. 

This makes sense in the big scheme of things. Ultimately, Google’s goal is to provide the best experience for real human users and delivering websites optimized primarily for artificial systems isn’t likely to win over many users. If you keep your goals aligned with providing the most value and best experience for human users, you’re better positioned to be the type of site Google wants to highlight. 

For more from Danny Sullivan’s discussion with John Mueller, listen to the full Search Off The Record episode here.

/0 Comments

YouTube Brings Title A/B Testing To All Creators

,

YouTube is giving creators a new tool that makes A/B testing titles for their videos easy. This means any creators with access to advanced features will be able to guarantee they are using the most engaging titles that drive the most clicks using real-world data.

YouTube announced that the feature, previously only available to a select number of channels, would be getting widely released in a video on its Creator Insider channel this week.

In the announcement, YouTube also took time to share more details about how their A/B testing works and address some questions from the community.

How It Works

The new A/B testing feature is available in YouTube’s “Test and Compare” section, alongside the tool that allows channels to test thumbnails. With the tool, you’ll be able to test up to three different titles on a single video.

Once selected, the tool will show users the video using one of the three titles and gather performance data across a period of up to two weeks. 

Once the test is complete, you will get a notification with the results. If one title drives significantly more engagement than the others, it will become the default choice for viewers. If not, YouTube will default to the first title you provided. 

Of course, creators can always choose to override the tool and select one specific title to display.

Why YouTube’s A/B Testing Prioritizes Watch Time

While the feature has largely been positively received, many have questioned why the A/B testing tool measures and optimizes titles based on watch time rather than click-through rate. 

The company addressed this in the announcement video: 

“We want to ensure that your A/B test experiment gets the highest viewer engagement, so we’re optimizing for overall watch time over other metrics like CTR. We believe that this metric will best inform our creators’ content strategy decisions and support their chances of success.”

Understanding A/B Test Results

When the test is complete, YouTube will deliver one of three results.r

If there is one title that clearly outperforms the others, it will be declared the “Winner”.

“Performed the same” means that all of your titles drove similar amounts of watch time. One may have slightly performed better, but not by a wide-enough margin for it to be statistically meaningful. 

In some cases, YouTube may declare the test “Inconclusive” if there were not enough impressions to deliver proper results within the time period.

For more, watch the full announcement from the Creator Insider channel below:

/0 Comments

Report Indicates LLMs.txt Files Have No Impact On AI Visibility

,

LLMs.txt files, an increasingly popular method to improve visibility in AI search, may not be as effective as previously thought.

After reviewing over 300,000 domains, a new analysis from SE Ranking found that LLMs.txt files have no noticeable effect on visibility in major LLMs. 

What Are LLMs.txt Files?

LLMs.txt files are files uploaded alongside your website with the intention of helping AI tools understand your domain and more easily navigate or index your site. In recent months, these..txt files have begun to catch on as a relatively easy way to optimize your site for major AI tools.

They are similar to robots.txt files, which are widely used to optimize websites for search engines like Google or Bing. 

While robots.txt files are well-established as an effective and simple SEO tool, it has been unclear whether any major LLM has begun using LLMs.txt files when indexing websites. 

Slow Adoption

As a new optimization strategy, LLMs.txt files have seen relatively slow adoption. According to SE Ranking’s data, just 10.13% of domains crawled for the study had implemented these files as an optimization strategy. 

Part of the reason for the slow adoption of these files is the lack of research or clear data showing their impact.

Notably, the sites that were most likely to use these files were mid-tier websites likely looking for any edge against high-traffic competition. 

Data Says LLMs.txt Files Are Not Tied To Visibility

For SE Ranking’s study, a team of researchers analyzed how frequently domains were cited across responses from several popular LLMs. 

Ultimately, their data was unable to provide any evidence that the strategy had any real effect, even when using alternate research models to compare.

While the study doesn’t outright discourage people from implementing LLMs.txt files, the researchers conclude fairly bluntly that LLMs.txt “doesn’t seem to directly impact AI citation frequency. At least not yet.”

Robots.txt Is Still Used – Even By AI

While LLMs.txt files had been gradually gaining popularity, the reality is that none of the major AI tools have indicated they use these files when crawling or indexing websites. 

Aside from limited data suggesting GPTBot sometimes fetches LLMs.txt files, there is no evidence of any major LLM using or recommending implementing these files. 

Instead, OpenAI encourages websites to focus on robots.txt files and Google seemingly defers to these types of files when crawling or indexing pages. 

For more about the analysis and how it was conducted, read SE Ranking’s full report here.

/0 Comments

Google’s Expert Martin Splitt Urge Caution About Relying On SEO Tools

Automated tools and audits can be essential parts of your online marketing toolkit when used to get a more complete view of your site, but Google’s Martin Splitt cautions sites from relying too heavily on these tools. 

In a recent Search Central Lightning Talk, Splitt – a member of Google’s Search Relations team – emphasized the importance of using context to make the most effective choices for your site. 

As Splitt said in the video:

“A technical audit, in my opinion, should make sure no technical issues prevent or interfere with crawling or indexing. It can use checklists and guidelines to do so, but it needs experience and expertise to adapt these guidelines and checklists to the site you audit.”

Specifically, Splitt laid out a three-step process he encourages sites to use to best assess a website’s performance and its needs. 

How To Audit Websites According To Martin Splitt

Splitt breaks down his website auditing process into three parts:

  1. Understand the Website
  2. Identify Potential Issues
  3. Make Sense of The Data

Before you ever start auditing a website directly, Martin Splitt says the first step is to take a moment and be sure you fully understand the site and its technical needs. This includes answering questions like what the website does, what technology it is built on, what sort of technical resources it uses, and how it is structured. 

This is essential to being able to effectively use tools later in the process to identify problems and spot the most effective areas for improvement. Without this, you may not even be able to identify the most effective tools to use for your site’s specific needs.

Once you have a broader view of a website, you can then start digging into data using relevant tools and analytics. Since you already understand the technical structure and needs of a site, you will be able to more effectively and efficiently understand the data these tools provide, filter out what isn’t relevant for your site, and hone in on the data that’s most important. 

Real-World Examples of Misleading Tools

Splitt used a real-world example to show how tools can be misleading if you don’t have a proper understanding of a site you are evaluating. He pointed to a high-number of 404 errors within a website as something that many tools will flag as an issue, even though they are often a normal consequence of website maintenance:

“A high number of 404s, for instance, is expected if you removed a lot of content recently. That’s not a problem. It’s a normal consequence of that. But if you have an unexplained rise in 404 responses, though, that’s something you want to point out and investigate…”

Context Matters

Ultimately, Splitt’s message is to rely on context to understand the tools you use online, rather than blindly relying on tools to understand your site. 

While tools can be hugely useful to get the best view of your site’s performance, they are unable to understand the unique details of your site and may not always have the best advice for your specific website.

As Martin Splitt stressed:

“Please, please don’t follow your tools blindly. Make sure your findings are meaningful for the website in question and take the time to prioritize them for maximum impact.”

Watch the full video from the recent Search Central Lightning Talk below:

/0 Comments

Google’s VP of Search Talks AI and Why People Still Want Human Perspectives

, ,

Google VP of Search, Liz Reid, recently spoke with The Wall Street Journal in a revealing interview focusing on the company’s approach to content as AI becomes more deeply integrated in both its search engine and society at large. 

Google Strives To Give Users What They Want

Liz Reid made it clear that what content Google decides to surface in both AI overviews and traditional search results are shaped heavily by user feedback.:

“…we do have to respond to who users want to hear from, right? Like, we are in the business of both giving them high quality information, but information that they seek out. And so we have over time adjusted our ranking to surface more of this content in response to what we’ve heard from users.

…You see it from users, right? Like we do everything from user research to we run an experiment. And so you take feedback from what you hear, from research about what users want, you then test it out, and then you see how users actually act. And then based on how users act, the system then starts to learn and adjust as well.”

This reflects how Google doesn’t just look for “the best content” but instead ranks “the best content for its users”. It is a small but important distinction which can have significant implications for what content gets seen on the search engine. Smart businesses and marketers will keep this in mind when creating online content. Don’t just make great content. Make great content that people want to engage with. 

Is AI Content Automatically Bad?

When discussing the idea of high quality content, Reid takes a moment to discuss AI content. Specifically she indicates that the search engine is essentially neutral about AI-generated content. While the search engine strives not to show “slop”, she suggests that AI content can easily rank alongside handmade content – so long as it passes the same quality standards:

“Now, AI generated content doesn’t necessarily equal spam.

But oftentimes when people are referring to it, they’re referring to the spam version of it, right? Or the phrase AI slop, right? This content that feels extremely low value across, okay? And we really want to make an effort that that doesn’t surface.”

People Want Unique Perspectives

When discussing what type of content users are most likely to click on, Reid emphasized that people don’t want surface level takes or superficial content. They want content that has depth and offers a unique perspective. This is especially true when it comes to what content people click on in AI overviews. 

As Reid said:

“But what we see is people want content from that human perspective. They want that sense of like, what’s the unique thing you bring to it, okay? And actually what we see on what people click on, on AI Overviews, is content that is richer and deeper, okay?

That surface-level AI generated content, people don’t want that because if they click on that, they don’t actually learn that much more than they previously got. They don’t trust the result anymore.

So what we see with AI Overviews is that we surface these sites and get fewer what we call bounce clicks. A bounce click is like you click on your site, Yeah, I didn’t want that, and you go back.

AI Overviews gives some content, and then we get to surface deeper, richer content, and we’ll look to continue to do that over time so that we really do get that creator content and not the AI generated.”

Even AI Tools Look For Human Perspectives

Throughout the interview, Reid makes it clear that users are looking for content that stands out from the noise. They want content with unique, strong perspectives and human experiences. While AI can help turn these perspectives into content people can enjoy, they ultimately require human guidance and insight to rise above all the other content online. 

The full interview has a lot of interesting insights from someone with deep knowledge of how Google search works and how it is advancing into the AI age. Watch it below:

/0 Comments

New YouTube Tools Lets You Track All Your Brand Mentions In One Place

, ,

YouTube is making it easy to track mentions of your brand across its platform – including paid ads, collaborations, and organic content – all in one place. 

The new Brand Pulse report tracks brand mentions across the entirety of YouTube in real-time, giving you a full view of your brand’s presence on the platform. 

In the announcement, YouTube said this is the first time that brands can easily monitor their full presence on the platform without multiple tools or manual monitoring:

“Historically, brands have found it difficult to measure the full impact of their presence across organic touchpoints — such as their YouTube channel, user-generated content and creator collaborations — together with their paid advertising.

That’s why today we are introducing the new brand pulse report. The report provides a unified view of your brand’s presence across all of YouTube — paid and organic. You’ll be able to better measure where you’re driving impact across the platform and maximize your return on ad spend.”

What Gets Tracked

Using a new multimodal AI system, the Brand Pulse report tracks every brand mention across YouTube including logos, product shots, text mentions, and even quick name drops. 

The report also includes a number of metrics like “Total Unique Viewers” and “% Share of Watch Time” which give you a better understanding of your audience and contextualize your presence. 

Turning Data Into Actionable Steps

Brands can leverage the insights from the Brand Pulse report to boost popular organic videos with partnership ads and use the data to inform their own content, connect more authentically with their audience, and boost ROI.

The report is already available to some advertisers, and is expected to be widely available soon. 

For more, read the full announcement here.

/0 Comments

Google Introduces New Widgets For Online Retailers

Google has recently added two new widgets that online stores can use to verify they are reliable sellers and win over online shoppers. 

E-commerce retailers can now add two new store widgets to their sites, which highlight their store quality to shoppers. 

Specifically, Google is adding a store quality widget and a store ratings widget to the existing top quality store widget so that brands can choose the most effective and relevant widget for their online store. 

What Do They Do

Each widget is designed to highlight specific performance ratings based on stores’ online sales, which in turn helps shoppers easily identify stores they can trust. As Google said in the announcement:

It addresses two fundamental challenges ecommerce retailers face: boosting visibility and establishing legitimacy. The widget helps you attract customers and encourage them to make a purchase. Businesses using the store widget on their websites saw up to 8% higher sales within 90 days compared to similar businesses without it.

Here’s a little more about each widget:

Top Quality Store Widget

Once a store has earned a Top Quality Store badge, the retailer can then add this widget to their site. The widget highlights top-quality reviews, shipping and return performance, and highly competitive pricing options. 

Store Ratings Widget

The Store Ratings widget is similar to the Top Quality Store widget in that it highlights your performance for the same set of metrics. However, the Store Ratings widget can be added to your website even if you have not earned a Top Quality Store badge yet. 

Store Quality Widget

The Store Quality widget is a streamlined version of the store widget intended for brands that do not have store ratings yet. Instead, it solely showcases your performance ratings for shipping, returns, pricing, and payment options. 

These widgets may not seem like gamechangers, but in a crowded online marketplace with scores of shady businesses, widgets like these can go a long way towards earning consumers’ trust and driving new sales.

/0 Comments

TikTok Says Search Ads Campaigns Drive 2x Purchase Lift

,

TikTok says its Search Ads campaigns help drive big increases to both engagement and purchases as its search engine grows in popularity. Since their launch in September, the search ads have helped advertisers claim high-value opportunities on search results with high purchase intent. 

In new data from the company, the campaigns contributed to significantly better performance than mid-funnel campaigns without search ads, including:

  • 2.0x higher purchase lift compared to TikTok initiatives without search campaigns.
  • Enterprise advertisers saw 2.2x purchase lift compared to initiatives without search campaigns. 
  • Enterprise retailers received 1.9x purchase lift and notably higher return on ad spend compared to those without search campaigns. 

While data from social networks themselves will likely always paint a rosy picture, these numbers suggest that Search Ads Campaigns are effective at capturing the attention of high-value searchers and turning those into purchases for advertisers. 

Why It Matters

TikTok is rapidly growing as not just a major social network, but also as a search engine. Younger internet users are increasingly turning to social search engines like one offered by the social network rather than using Google. Recent numbers indicate that TikTok is now processing billions of searches every day – including many with high purchase intent. 

Sissi Xu, TikTok’s Search Ads Product Strategy Lead, says this shift is driven by a desire for more perspectives and more diverse sources compared to traditional search. 

“Every query on TikTok is not only ‘What’s the Answer?’ but also ‘Whose take can I trust?’ Users scan a chorus of creators, friends, experts, and brands before deciding what resonates.”

This mindset may speak to why the company’s data drives 61% more action than other search tools and why 75% of TikTok search users think TikTok is the best place to discover new brands and products.

Search Ads Campaigns are one of TikTok’s first steps into search advertising, and it is already showing to be a powerful tool for those looking to capitalize on the popularity of TikTok search.

/0 Comments

Google Adds Loyalty Offerings To Ads and Product Listings

,

Google is giving online retailers new tools to highlight special offers and benefits to their most loyal customers. The new “loyalty offerings” available in Google Ads and Merchant Center add specialized tags to product listings that showcase special member pricing and shipping benefits.

According to Google, 61% of American adults say loyalty programs that are tailored to their preferences are the most attractive aspect of personalized shopping experiences. With these new annotations, retailers can feature their loyalty benefits to their most valuable customers, drive long-term relationships, and emphasize all of the benefits of doing business with them. 

Quick Details

  • Loyalty offerings add personalized annotations that display member-only discounts and benefits on both free and paid product listings. 
  • Retailers can optimize their ad budget with loyalty goals that prioritize ad bids with the most lifetime value.
  • In testing, Sephora US saw a 20% increase in CTRs when using loyalty annotations in personalized ads.
  • In the announcement, Google says the new loyalty offerings “help retailers retain lasting relationships and showcase their programs and Google […] driving deeper engagement with their most valuable shoppers.”
  • Loyalty offerings are available now to retailers based in the US, UK, Germany, France, and Australia. 
/0 Comments

Google Says AI-Generated Images Won’t Hurt Your Site’s Rankings

, ,

Google’s Gary Illyes recently explained that Google’s search engine treats AI-generated images essentially the same as any other images and does not penalize sites for using AI images.

In a Q&A with interviewer Kenichi Suzuki and shared by Search Engine Journal, Illyes explained that AI-generated images have no direct impact on SEO or online rankings. 

Instead, he suggested that any effect to rankings from AI-generated issues may be brought on by technical issues. He suggested that brands may even see increased traffic if they use AI to create unique images. 

How Does Google Handle AI-Generated Content?

Google has largely been trying to take a nuanced approach to how it handles content made with AI. While the company has encouraged those who use AI-generated text content to ensure it is reviewed by humans, they have also taken steps to derank low-quality AI content.

At the same time, Google has not directly addressed how it handles AI-generated images.

About 10 minutes into the recent interview, Illyes was asked if Google would punish a site if some of their images were made with AI:

“Say if there’s a content that the content itself is legit, the sentences are legit, but also there are a lot of images which are relevant to the content itself, but all of them – let’s say all of them are generated by AI. Will the content or the overall site, is it going to be penalized or not?”

In response, Illyes emphasized that AI-generated images don’t affect SEO in any direct way.

“No, no. So AI generated image doesn’t impact the SEO. Not direct.

So obviously when you put images on your site, you will have to sacrifice some resources to those images… But otherwise you are not going to, I don’t think that you’re going to see any negative impact from that.

If anything, you might get some traffic out of image search or video search or whatever, but otherwise it should just be fine.”

In other words, the only major SEO consideration a site should have when using AI-generated content is ensuring the images are small enough and properly optimized to load quickly. 

While brands should consider other potential issues you might encounter using AI-generated images, such as how your audience will respond, Illyes’s comments make it clear that Google won’t be punishing you simply for using AI to create your graphics or pictures.

/0 Comments