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Showing posts from September, 2026

Product page stuck on “Discovered – currently not indexed”

I have a product page that’s been stuck on discovered – currently not indexed since early August. GSC shows Last crawled: N/A, and the page has internal links pointing to it from elsewhere on my site. What would you check first to figure out why Google isn’t crawling it? Any advice would be appreciated. PS. I tried including the link, but the post was removed, so I’ve left it out this time. submitted by /u/CaPpedDoG [link] [comments] from The SEO Authority https://ift.tt/bPRWdhi

when to un-pause Google Ads after investing in SEO?

Moving company. We were running Google Ads and seeing okay return (4x ROI) but decided to pause that and invest in SEO to build a stronger foundation for long-term results. We're 3 months into an at least 6 month contract, and I'm wondering when it would be safe to un-pause Google Ads without cannibalizing on SEO efforts. I.e., I'd hate for us to have paid a bunch of money to increase ranking for organic search terms, only for the ranking to go back down because people are clicking the ad instead. Hope my question makes sense.. I'm new to SEO and Marketing in general submitted by /u/Objective_Ninja_462 [link] [comments] from The SEO Authority https://ift.tt/Z7Yw1xT

Rankings during spam update

hi, is it advisable to report on rankings during ongoing spam update? tools like awr,openseo show ranking drop offs for several of keywords today and there’s no big change made to the site. Should I wait for spam update to settle and then report on rankings? Or did my rankings genuinely dropped from serp? submitted by /u/Opposite_Benefit_169 [link] [comments] from The SEO Authority https://ift.tt/TIK3Usi

Google On What’s Next In AI Search + 5 Local Marketing Strategy Fixes via @sejournal, @hethr_campbell

Google and Uberall explain how to improve local AI-search readiness through accurate Business Profiles, relevant content, review responses, and location-level measurement. The post Google On What’s Next In AI Search + 5 Local Marketing Strategy Fixes appeared first on Search Engine Journal . from Search Engine Journal https://ift.tt/HuyieYs

Small business wrong expectations?

Posting for my partner who owns a small physio company. For the past 2 years he had an SEO guy who didn’t really seem to be doing much, switched to a new guy 7 months ago and is paying him £420 a month. In this time there hasn’t been improvement in website visits, bookings, visibility etc. which isn’t a huge issue right now as the business is relatively busy and steady, but the goal is to grow. The SEO guy’s point is ‘well it’s not getting worse’. We want to know if this is good enough for £420 a month, or what should the actual expectations be? My partner tends to just leave people to do their thing, so it’s always hard to tell if he’s being conned or not. If he was to find somebody new, should he have clearer goals eg. I want to increase website visits by X amount in X time, and if this is reasonable how do we evaluate what’s fair based on our limited knowledge of SEO? Thanks! submitted by /u/halfajob [link] [comments] from The SEO Authority https://if...

Court Filing Quotes OpenAI Engineer: Users “Won’t Click” Links via @sejournal, @MattGSouthern

A court brief quotes an OpenAI engineer saying users "won't click" links and cites Microsoft data on lower CTRs in Bing Chat than in search. The post Court Filing Quotes OpenAI Engineer: Users “Won’t Click” Links appeared first on Search Engine Journal . from Search Engine Journal https://ift.tt/fj8Etk0

MIT & Harvard Data Show How SEO And Paid Media Managers Become Directors via @sejournal, @gregjarboe

SEO and paid media managers can strengthen their promotion case by proving AI's net gains and building a reskilling plan for their teams. The post MIT & Harvard Data Show How SEO And Paid Media Managers Become Directors appeared first on Search Engine Journal . from Search Engine Journal https://ift.tt/V69AxyL

Is 2.5M monthly website traffic for a new website actually achievable?

So this tech startup has an ambitious goal of getting 1-2.5 million traffic (paid and organic) per month. Right now, they have about 1k traffic. While they mentioned that paid traffic will be included, that doesn’t mean they’re willing to spend tens of thousands for that. My question is, is this realistically possible for a new website? If yes, what’s the best course of action to make for me to be able to achieve the goal? Thank you! submitted by /u/tachichuchi [link] [comments] from The SEO Authority https://ift.tt/cr9lpgv

Any recommendations for learning Tech SEO?

I get doing things on a website can be the easiest way go learning but I would like to do some sort of course or certification. Something that gives me knowledge so I can actually start doing things on a website. Any recommendations? I'm currently just a link builder but I would like to expand my horizons beyond my current knowledge. submitted by /u/Rookie_11 [link] [comments] from The SEO Authority https://ift.tt/u6Rdj4M

How do you verify an AI visibility tracker is actually pulling live answers?

Been messing around with a couple of AI visibility tools and got paranoid about whether the scores are even real. Without web search on, ChatGPT and Gemini can answer purely from training data that's up to a year stale, so if a tool is quietly doing that, the number it gives you might have nothing to do with what a buyer sees today. My own sanity check: I only trust a tracker if it stores the full answer with the date it was fetched, and the sources cited, not just a percentage. A score history is meaningless if you can't open an old answer and see what actually changed month to month. I have also started using Perplexity as a second check since it always searches the web and shows sources, so it's a decent way to sanity test another tool's output. Curious how others here validate this stuff. Do you manually spot check prompts against your tools regularly or just trust the vendor's methodology page? submitted by /u/successful1806 [link] [co...

how do you separate an ai visibility improvement from a change in the sample?

for anyone including ai visibility in seo reports, how do you handle a higher score when fewer questions returned answers? an invented example: a brand appears in 20 of 100 answers one week. the next week it appears in 20 of 80 completed answers because 20 other questions failed. the reported percentage rises from 20% to 25%, even though the number of mentions is unchanged would you compare only the questions that returned answers in both weeks? and how would you explain the missing questions to a client, especially if the failed ones came from one topic? i'm also interested in what you count as visibility. a visible brand mention, a source link and a recommendation can describe different things. which of those do you report separately, and what evidence do you keep behind the number? submitted by /u/abhijeetgupta [link] [comments] from The SEO Authority https://ift.tt/hz8IJxX

Mortgage recruiting SEO: how would you separate lender and candidate search intent?

I run a mortgage recruiting and advisory business serving two audiences: lenders hiring loan officers and branch managers, and mortgage professionals considering a career move. We also offer mortgage sales coaching and an affinity continuing-education catalog. Our site has separate employer service pages, candidate career pages, and practical recruiting guides. For a phrase like 'mortgage recruiters,' either audience could be searching. For 'loan officer recruiting,' a service page and a how-to guide can both be relevant. For those who have worked on recruitment sites, what evidence do you use to decide whether overlapping rankings are healthy mixed intent or a real consolidation problem? Would you keep an employer service page and a candidate page separate, with clear audience language and contextual links, or use a shared recruiting hub? Also, what original proof has helped your service pages compete: a documented search process, anonymized case studies with outcom...

Thoughts on SEOmatic

Hi SEO Community! Wondering if anyone has used services like SEOmatic or OTTO SEO. If so, I would love to hear the pros and cons. submitted by /u/FuckTheHedgeFundzNow [link] [comments] from The SEO Authority https://ift.tt/ZI0Gr4f

Anyone here doing agentic SEO at scale?

Curious how many blog posts you're actually publishing per day/week/month. Like are you doing 10, 50, 100, 500+ posts a month? And for people publishing at high volume.. is it actually working? Would love to hear traffic/results too.. submitted by /u/OutsideOver8815 [link] [comments] from The SEO Authority https://ift.tt/OsgKz9Q

What is actually neccesery for SEO?

I am generaly a fullstack software enginner workin on React apps, BE systems and DBs. I want to start making websites also to promote various things. I want to understand SEO. I have started from reading this docs: https://developers.google.com/search/docs I went through it and some other online blogs. From what I understood is that all the developer has to do is Semantic HTML tags like headings, sections, footer, nav, ... title tags desc tag core web vitals to be good alt tags cannonical tag if needed js and images seo sitemaps robots file All the rest is on the content it self. So content needs to be unique, user-facing, helpfull. Also I guess it is more important to have word of mouth and soical media to promote. Questions: Is there something big I missed? If I want to start a website agency for example. What is there unique to do? How can I compete with big agencies with reviews and that are there for a long time? Structured data: from the docs all I have inf...

Editorial Blog at 7 Months: Struggling with 0 Traffic and a Sudden GSC Drop from 300 to 50 Impressions. Looking for Next Steps.

Hi everyone, I launched an editorial blog in the affordable luxury fashion, home decor, and lifestyle niche. My target audience is primarily a tier-1 English-speaking market. I bought the domain late last year, published my first post early this year, and currently have just over 30 posts live. For context on my structure, around 60% of my posts are in fashion, 30% are in decor, and the rest are in lifestyle. I have structured the site using pillar posts and adding content clusters around them, with each post having multiple internal links. The Problems: First, the whole traffic on the blog itself has always been practically 0 real organic users anyway—the site is only frequented by myself, bots, and potential affiliate or backlink partners. After 7 months of blogging with 0 traffic, I feel completely exhausted and worried that overall I am putting my effort in the wrong direction. Second, a month ago, my GSC dashboard impressions hit a small peak of 300 daily and I started to get ...

GOOGLE: GBP Profiles Gives You Four Days To Reject User Suggested Edits

Google updated its help document to clarify that you have four days to reject a user suggested edit to your Google Business Profile. If you do not reject the edit within four days, Google may apply that edit to your Google local listing. The new help document added a whole section named "Understand notifications about suggested edits" and in that section, there are these two lines: If a suggested edit requires your review, you may receive an email or an in-product notification. Once notified, you have 4 days to accept or reject the suggestion. If you don’t respond within 4 days, Google may automatically publish the update if it is supported by other publicly available information, such as your business website. Google wrote, "Google may receive suggestions from users to update your Business Profile. To help you maintain accurate information and provide more control, Google will notify you about certain suggested edits before they are published." ...

Amazon Marketing Cloud’s 5-Year Dataset: 6 Use Cases Worth Building Now

Use Amazon Marketing Cloud's extended purchase history to set acquisition budgets, identify valuable customers, and retarget shoppers beyond the old 13-month limit. The post Amazon Marketing Cloud’s 5-Year Dataset: 6 Use Cases Worth Building Now appeared first on Search Engine Journal . from Search Engine Journal https://ift.tt/wgNX1uO

Recommendations on which SEO tool

I’m looking to scale my consulting business by adding in features of SEO. I already do GBP optimization and Website Building. Which platform do you recommend for the following: AI visibility, Comparing local competitors, and back end like schema/title tags etc, even a heat map. I think these will be much easier for a small business owner to understand without over complicating everything. Thanks you submitted by /u/MrKittyCodeRed [link] [comments] from The SEO Authority https://ift.tt/DX04kr1

Thinking of running an agency summit specifically for SEO/AEO/GEO agencies

I’ve been want to do this for a while. I think it would be cool to have a virtual summit for SEO/AEO practitioners where we can discuss some of the misconceptions related to how LLMs are reshaping search. It’s a huge topic. We’ve done big in-person events but logistics was always a challenge. I prefer to hold it the second week of November. Is anyone here interested in being a speaker? If not, what topics would you like talks on? submitted by /u/Strong_Post5367 [link] [comments] from The SEO Authority https://ift.tt/fSK1vbG

Google Site Migration Stuck for 9 Months — Has Anyone Had a Similar Experience?

I own and run a website in a niche business consulting field. The site is about 15 years old and relatively small (~150 pages). All content is unique, written by a human based on personal experience, with no any AI-generated content. The site is available in Russian and English. The old domain has always ranked very well in Google for its niche. Indexing was also excellent: new pages were usually crawled, indexed, and appeared in SERPs quickly. The old site used a .RU ccTLD . The goal was to move it to a .COM gTLD . The migration started on December 17, 2025 , more than 9 months ago. It was carefully implemented according to Google's official recommendations, but the migration appears to have stalled almost completely. I can provide the old and new domains URLs if useful. Current symptoms: The site still appears in Google SERPs primarily under the old .RU URLs, even though the site has physically been on the .COM domain for more than 9 months. Google continues to crawl the ...

Client wants proof that our GEO work caused the improvement

And I don't really have it. Their AI visibility has improved since we started working on it, but during the same period we've updated content, earned new mentions, done regular SEO work and made a bunch of smaller changes. I can show correlation pretty easily. Saying our GEO work caused the increase feels like bullshit. How are agencies handling attribution here without taking credit for something they can't prove? submitted by /u/huhihuhiz [link] [comments] from The SEO Authority https://ift.tt/Jiu0aOX

How To Find The Sources Shaping AI Answers In Your Industry via @sejournal, @hethr_campbell

Trendos' Gintare Rimolaityte explains how to map AI citation sources by industry and engine, identify competitor gaps, and turn an audit into content and outreach priorities. The post How To Find The Sources Shaping AI Answers In Your Industry appeared first on Search Engine Journal . from Search Engine Journal https://ift.tt/i4sOL2x

What happened to the Similarweb Chrome extension?

I noticed that the Similarweb Chrome extension no longer seems to be available in the Chrome Web Store. Does anyone know if it was discontinued, temporarily removed, or replaced by something else? I used it quite a bit for quickly checking website traffic estimates and other stats. submitted by /u/toniro [link] [comments] from The SEO Authority https://ift.tt/pnsv6x2

SEO college course. Any actually free SEO keyword research tools that i can use for one single assignment?

SEO is VERY new to me, and I am in a digital marketing SEO class. One of our first major assignments requires us to use a keyword search tool to do analitics to find out Monthly search amounts, CPC, dificulty, relevance, and trend. The thing is the course materials are out dated as fuck, giving us recommendations to use keyword search tools which used might have been completely free before 2010, bit now require you to pay them after searching 3 keywords. I am looking for a completley free keyword research tool that i can use to finish this dumb assignment. submitted by /u/Winter_Reference_481 [link] [comments] from The SEO Authority https://ift.tt/D3Udfgk

Does listing the same product in multiple categories waste crawl budget?

I run an e-commerce store with around 500 products. The same product can appear in several relevant categories, such as men’s bracelets, gold-plated bracelets, and silver bracelets. Every category links to the exact same product URL . Each category has its own URL and self-referencing canonical, but the product listings overlap. Would appearing in, say, five categories cause unnecessary product recrawling, or is the additional crawl cost mainly the category pages themselves? Would you keep separate, indexable categories targeting distinct search intents, or consolidate them into a broader category with filters? I’d appreciate current insights for 2026, especially observations from server logs or real e-commerce projects. submitted by /u/Key-War-3434 [link] [comments] from The SEO Authority https://ift.tt/zwJTciq

Google results VS GSC

Hello, I'm new to SEO and would like your help in resolving a discrepancy. Google Search Console tells me that my Page A has an average position of 30 for query X. However, when I type query X into Google (Google account logged out, incognito mode, browsing history and cookies cleared), my page A appears as the first or third result. How can such a significant discrepancy be explained? Which metric is more reliable? Thank you for your help! submitted by /u/Psykoala69 [link] [comments] from The SEO Authority https://ift.tt/cJxSd21

I Made My Website Charge AI Agents A Penny Per Page, Then I Watched Claude Pay It via @sejournal, @suganthan

GPTBot, ClaudeBot, and Googlebot won't pay your price yet. Charge now and you lose citations. Here's what to decide before the dashboard toggle arrives. The post I Made My Website Charge AI Agents A Penny Per Page, Then I Watched Claude Pay It appeared first on Search Engine Journal . from Search Engine Journal https://ift.tt/2XgcVsP

New SEO role secured ... any advice?

I recently secured an SEO role in a large company that has thousands of products for hire, pivoting from my history as a senior marketeer. I understand SEO best practice, and have been someone who looks after the relationship between marketing and SEO. I've looked at GA4 and GSC before, read SEO reports, written optimised blogs. I understand keywords, and competitor analysis, and photography best practice. However, I have never done this entirely on my own. This new role would put me solely in charge of SEO as the company tries to move from working with an external SEO company, to doing it internally. They're also interested in GEO, which from my (limited) understanding is heavily focused on structuring content to be understandable for AI. I know I've got a bit of a learning curve here. The more I (over) think it, the more I feel like I might be in over my head! I know I'm smart, and a quick learner, I'm adaptable, write pretty solid content, and I have the techn...

Best spend for $2000 budget? Backlinks?

We have a $2000 budget for improving the organic SEO of our e-commerce website over the next 6 months. Optimizing the site (on-page SEO) and content creation is already being handled outside of this budget (as is PPC advertising). What's the most cost-efficient spend of this budget? 5 years ago, I would have said hands-down...invest in some good quality backlinks, but I'm not sure if that's still the best option in 2026. If you had $2000 to spend, with the goal of improving your ranking on Google and visibility in AI chatbots, how would you spend it? submitted by /u/Correct-Cream2410 [link] [comments] from The SEO Authority https://ift.tt/zgeUWhN

Started logging AI crawler traffic separately from Google. Does it work?

Added an llms.txt file and set up a small middleware log to separate GPTBot/ClaudeBot/PerplexityBot hits from normal traffic. Not expecting a huge impact yet, but I’m curious whether anyone here has seen anything useful from doing this for SEO. Once we have a full week of data, I can share the raw numbers. If you’ve tried it, what did you actually learn from the logs? Any tips on what to look for? submitted by /u/OstrichBudget6882 [link] [comments] from The SEO Authority https://ift.tt/HBPZ1GQ

Cloudflare Lets Sites Disallow AI Training Without Blocking Googlebot via @sejournal, @MattGSouthern

Cloudflare's Disallow AI Training keeps mixed-use crawlers available for search. Google and Apple honor training opt-outs; Bing robots.txt support is pending. The post Cloudflare Lets Sites Disallow AI Training Without Blocking Googlebot appeared first on Search Engine Journal . from Search Engine Journal https://ift.tt/QiAzm4a

Brand Protection In AI Search: How To Audit And Defend Your Brand’s Identity

Spot false claims and impersonators in AI search, then match each brand protection problem to the right correction, report, or preventive action. The post Brand Protection In AI Search: How To Audit And Defend Your Brand’s Identity appeared first on Search Engine Journal . from Search Engine Journal https://ift.tt/wH6Bx3s

Brand query disappeared overnight in most countries, still #1 in quotes or with any extra word. Anyone recovered from this?

Small local photography business, domain about 5 weeks old. The brand query (a 2-word personal name + "photography") ranked #1 on Google until Sept 9, then on Sept 10 the site vanished from the organic results for that exact query in France, US, UK, Germany and Spain. Directory listings and social profiles (Instagram, Pages Jaunes, Mappy) now show instead. What still works: - Same query in quotes: #1 - Same query + any extra word (e.g. a service name): #1 - Same query in Turkey with Turkish UI: #1 - Google Images for the same query: mostly my site - Bing and DuckDuckGo: #1 What I checked: homepage indexed, Google-selected canonical is the homepage itself, recrawled Sept 13, no manual action, no security issues, server logs show Googlebot getting full 200 responses, total traffic and non-brand queries are stable. What changed right before the drop (Sept 4-8): new Wikidata item, sameAs links added to schema, new directory listings (Pages Jaunes etc.), new LinkedIn/Behance pr...

Traffic dropped by 90% after Dec 2025 update – All actions without improvement

Hi everyone, I’m desperate for some advice. For the last 9 months, I've tried everything to recover my Google rankings, but nothing is working. Context: I run an online shop for custom tool storage solutions and drawer slides (hookz.pro). It’s a very specific niche with low competition. Customers are extremely happy (nearly 0% return rate), but Google seems to hate me now. In 2025, organic search grew nicely, peaking in Nov 2025 (#1–#3 for main keywords). The Problem: In mid-December 2025, my organic traffic crashed by ~90% and hasn't recovered since. Naturally, organic sales completely collapsed alongside it, which is incredibly frustrating. Most of my current customers now come via word-of-mouth or direct brand searches. (See my first comment below for Google Search Console screenshots). What I’ve tried so far: Content: Replaced all AI-assisted text with 100% human-written content in Jan 2026. Keyword Optimization & De-cannibalization: Mapped distinct target ...

How can I create website through AI

Hi everyone, I create the website through Claude, copilot, google antigravity and also chatgpt. The thing is these all Ai tools are free. I don't have money too purchase the subscription. Actually I didn't complete my website because every ai tool have finished the limit and then I search the next tool and move to the next tool. I am literally frustrated how to make website from free tool. I also have free tool but I want to build best website but free ai tool didn't build as per as I want. So, what's the solution. Could anyone tell me how you all make the website. Which tool fo you use. Does that tool free aur paid. I don't have any job to earn money. Thanks. submitted by /u/Ok_Active_2793 [link] [comments] from The SEO Authority https://ift.tt/J0o4UHI

1,300 page local service site where's the cap off?

Building out a landscaping contractor's site in Orange County, CA. He's done his own SEO research (and a fair bit of asking AI) and landed on wanting 1,000+ pages. The math: 35 services × 38 cities in the county = ~1,330 service-in-city pages, plus the 8 existing pages. Where the site is today: 8 pages, all indexed 29,337 impressions / 115 clicks over 90 days (CTR 0.39%, most pages sitting position 20–30) Zero referring domains — no link profile at all Domain is 4.8 years old, established business, real Google Business Profile He also wants a blog and guide layer — St. Augustine vs fescue grass, St. Aug care guide, Fescue care guide, that whole thing. I have no issue with that part; it's genuinely useful content and he knows the material. My questions: I know duplicate content is the obvious trap here. But if I actually solve that each page carrying real local specifics (soil, HOA rules, water district, actual project photos, different pricing) rather than a cit...

Started a niche website in March. Now at 217K Google impressions and 1.14K clicks, with zero paid marketing.

I started a website in March with a simple idea: build my own education in physical AI by researching and writing about everything I was curious about. Since then, I’ve published more than 50 deep dives, added a news section, and started a newsletter. I use AI to help with research and writing, while learning about the subject and SEO along the way. The screenshot shows my last six months in Google Search Console: 217K impressions and 1.14K clicks. I haven’t spent a single dollar on paid marketing. What motivates me most is the trend. There was very little happening at the beginning, but the daily effort is starting to show up in the numbers. There’s still plenty to improve, including a 0.5% click through rate. But seeing people discover something I started out of curiosity makes me want to keep going. I’m now building a presence on X and LinkedIn too, sharing the research and connecting with people interested in the same space. If you’re thinking about starting something, do it....

chatgpt content hurts seo?

I use ai for improving my content all the time, and I revamped my site to be way better, i added advanced calculators, improved design, keep most of the original content and my rankings dropped like 70 % even though google said they will not punish sites for using ai content submitted by /u/maomao19 [link] [comments] from The SEO Authority https://ift.tt/IJxDulB

How do I know if my SEO team are doing a good job

I have 2 team members doing two separate jobs. 1 is doing digital paid for google and meta and another is doing the google search console and organic marketing. Which report can I share here (or in private) to get someone’s real professional feedback. We’re spending money and I don’t know if we have gotten leads to our clients(some captured, some not) and what our CPL is. Please help if you genuinely know. Thanks! submitted by /u/Blackmask811 [link] [comments] from The SEO Authority https://ift.tt/SdDsgfJ

What's the SECRET to build backlinks in End-2026?

Hi I've been trying to build backlinks for a business website, which is in very competitive niche. We have tried Digital PR but no helpful results. And for other types of links (Guest Posts, Link Insertion, and broken links), sites ask for way too much money. HARO has not been helpful as well since we have very few (less than 5% of related pitches) How you guys are building backlinks for FREE/CHEAP? submitted by /u/Affectionate_Soil611 [link] [comments] from The SEO Authority https://ift.tt/HQK83AN

SEO For Paws Live Stream Conference: Free Tickets & Big Names For A Good Cause via @sejournal, @theshelleywalsh

SEO For Paws is back with Barry Schwartz, Glenn Gabe, and a lineup of search experts talking about search in the AI era. The post SEO For Paws Live Stream Conference: Free Tickets & Big Names For A Good Cause appeared first on Search Engine Journal . from Search Engine Journal https://ift.tt/NsKAhQ5

How do I handle NAP consistency across GMB, directories, and Chamber of Commerce?

I just finished building a site that sells tickets to live tourism events in a state other than the one I live in, covering three distinct locations within that state. It's structured as a reseller/affiliate model — when someone book on my site it is linked to the event provider's own booking system, and all the details (confirmation, contact info, cancellation policy) come from the provider, not me. I don't take phone calls or manage bookings directly. Now I'm starting on local SEO and I'm stuck on a few NAP (Name, Address, Phone) questions: Address for Google Business Profile — Since I operate out of state and don't have a storefront in any of the three service areas, what address do I actually use when setting up GBP listings for each location? Do I need to pay for a real business address/virtual office in-state, or is a PO Box acceptable? Or should I just use my registered business address (which is out of state)? Multiple locations, one business — Sin...

Is Your Local SEO Strategy Ready For Google’s Next AI Updates? [Webinar] via @sejournal, @hethr_campbell

Google & Uberall go live on Sept 24, sharing what comes next in Google Search and five local marketing strategy fixes that get locations recommended. The post Is Your Local SEO Strategy Ready For Google’s Next AI Updates? [Webinar] appeared first on Search Engine Journal . from Search Engine Journal https://ift.tt/QTjdoZp

Is $8k a month fair for "AI SEO" when nobody can show a single citation moved?

My company added an "AI Visibility" line to our SEO retainer this quarter. Same agency, same crew, $3k more a month. What do we get for it? A slide deck with screenshots of ChatGPT answers, no prompt set, no before/after, nothing dated. I asked for the actual prompts they test against. They didn't have one. I've been reading about outfits that run this as a measured experiment, fixed prompts, before/after share of voice. HumansWith.AI does this, so does Profound. That's the bar now, not screenshots. I'm in-house, not an agency guy. Just trying to figure out if paying extra for vibes dressed up as AI SEO is normal. Or if I'm getting played twice in one retainer. submitted by /u/seth_bingo [link] [comments] from The SEO Authority https://ift.tt/c1jMuLw

ChatGPT loves us, Gemini apparently has no idea we exist

Been testing the same commercial queries across a few models and the differences are kinda ridiculous. We're showing up consistently in ChatGPT for one category and then almost disappear when I check Gemini. Different competitors too. Anyone else seeing gaps this big between engines? Starting to think combining everything into one AI visibility score hides more than it helps. submitted by /u/Quinnsation [link] [comments] from The SEO Authority https://ift.tt/jiMdmeI

Newbie to SEO

I'm doing an internship at a local private medical clinic in Spain. How would you compete with a clinic that already has a strong SEO strategy and is consistently doing all the right things? I'm trying to figure out what areas I should focus on when the main competitor already ranks well, has good content, strong local SEO, reviews, backlinks, etc. submitted by /u/No-Remote-6916 [link] [comments] from The SEO Authority https://ift.tt/sf6SWHM

ChatGPT, Gemini & Claude Lead AI Visibility, Is It Time To Stop Tracking Perplexity? via @sejournal, @gregjarboe

Giving Perplexity less weight in AI search tracking can prevent distorted visibility scores without erasing useful competitive signals. The post ChatGPT, Gemini & Claude Lead AI Visibility, Is It Time To Stop Tracking Perplexity? appeared first on Search Engine Journal . from Search Engine Journal https://ift.tt/21wizXp

Why won't Google increase impressions/exposure on a query where I have a high CTR?

Greetings everyone, I’m looking at some data in Google Search Console and I’m deeply confused by Google's logic. My website is new, it's ~6-7 months old that's an important info. I have some specific search queries where my site gets a very low volume of impressions but click rate is 20-100% and position is 1-5 and maybe 8%. Isn't Google logic: "This is getting a click, show to more people until CTR stabilizes." ? so higher CTR and higher impressions until the true value shows ? I am almost 100% sure that the total searches for these queries is not the limiting factor. Is it because google is still testing the website ? It's showing it in some searches in top positions then hiding it almost completely ? Appreciate any insights or advice. submitted by /u/telgou [link] [comments] from The SEO Authority https://ift.tt/WInq4F8

Google Testing Thinner AI Overview Citations Panel

Via u/rustybrick - apparently Google is testing a thinner AIOcitations panel: Google is testing a thinner design for the citations/link panel on the right side of the AI Overview. The citations panel is noticeably thinner and may be less noticeable to searchers, maybe leading to fewer clicks? This was spotted by Khushal Bherwani who posted on X saying, "Google AI reference left side panel with different style." I am able to replicate it, here is the new thinner style: submitted by /u/WebLinkr [link] [comments] from The SEO Authority https://ift.tt/IASU5hp

Traffic dropped to absolute zero overnight after index bloat issue (3 months later, still no recovery). Need advice.

Hey everyone, I need some advice on a sudden and sustained traffic drop: The Run-Up: The site was growing steadily until June 12 (last day nearly 900 impressions and 30 clicks), reaching solid daily impressions and clicks. The Crash: Literally overnight around June 12-14, Google impressions and clicks crashed to near zero and have stayed flatlined ever since. Bing Contrast: Meanwhile, Bing still sends around 30–60 clicks/day steadily. What likely triggered it (Index Bloat): A single page was accidentally indexed as 500–600 distinct URLs due to URL query parameters. Once the traffic crashed and I realized what happened: First, I blocked those query parameter URLs in robots.txt . Later, realizing Google needs to crawl them to drop them, I unblocked them from robots.txt and added a noindex tag to all parameterized URLs (along with canonicals pointing to the clean page). It has been nearly 3 months since the fix, but Google impressions are still flat zero across the ent...

JohnMu: Google Can Lose Faith In Sites Based On Low Value Programmatic SEO / Scaled Content

Google's u/johnmu went off again on programmatic SEO, this time saying that programmatic SEO can "often leads to a site that's either spam, borderline spam, or low quality," he wrote. These tactics can often lead Google's "systems have possibly lost faith in your site providing good value to users based on the old pages," he added. He posted this on Bluesky adding, "It's easy to spin something up with many pages, it's hard to provide real value to users." And he then noted that if your site is not performing well over programmatic SEO, he said, "Resolving this tends to take time & significant effort to show the value." Basically, John said that once Google loses faith in the value of your content on your site, it can take many months and a lot of effort to gain that trust back and start to rank again. Here is his full post: Regarding the site you describe, it's hard to say, but I worry a bit because it sou...

OpenAI's ~$1 Billion GPT-6 Astra Heralds The Age Of AGI, According To NVIDIA's Jensen Huang, Yet Anthropic's Fable 5.1 Still Beats It On SWE-Bench Pro And Coding Benchmarks

What Is GPT-6 Astra and How Does It Work? Released on September 3, 2026, GPT-6 Astra is OpenAI's flagship reasoning and agentic model. “Agentic” means it is built to do more than answer a question. It can browse, write and run code, operate software, use tools, revise its plan and continue working towards an outcome. Think of an ordinary chatbot as a clever consultant across the table. Astra is closer to a digital project team that can also pick up the tools and do the work. OpenAI gives Astra a 1.05 million-token context window, a maximum output of 128,000 tokens and an April 30, 2026 knowledge cutoff. It supports five reasoning levels, from low to max, along with computer use, asynchronous tool calls, multi-agent workflows and mid-task steering. Those are the practical differences behind the launch, not merely a higher benchmark score. OpenAI's model documentation and launch guide provide the full specifications. The most revealing gains appear when the model must in...

Which keywords to use ?

My manager asks me to use keywords from the queries section of GSC while I prefer to use it from the keyword planner. The thing is in the queries which we are getting in GSC have very low search volume in the keyword planner. We aren't getting clicks at all. I told my manager about GSC queries having low search volume but the manager is still insisting to use queries. I would like to know how shall I approach this case. submitted by /u/Financial_Good_7248 [link] [comments] from The SEO Authority https://ift.tt/KSjMB1Y

Why hasn't AHREFs fixed the go-to google issue?

Most other SEO tools have already found a solution.... meanwhile Ahrefs' data has been completely useless for the last week and they haven't provided an update other than saying they're working on the issue. they are the most expensive SEO tool and are supposed to be the best but the way they've addressed this issue makes me want to cancel my subscription. submitted by /u/Mr_SERPs [link] [comments] from The SEO Authority https://ift.tt/Bu7kxLH

Just good quality links without quantity of referring domains - helped improve DR? - Have you increased authority with less referring domains count?

Hey, SEO with over 8 years experience. Always worked with mid to large sized sites with thousands to millions of traffic. First time working with a domain with AS 19. Content work is going great. Technical SEO top notch. Distribution is great. But backlinks, I do large scale outreach to get 10-20 links months through guest posts, link exchanges, article exchanges. Recently bought some directory links as well. All my competitors have a ref domain count over 2000. Mine stuck at 500-600. Slowly growing. AS grows slowly as well. Any trick we can use to get the AS up without having to buy spam links. Let's face it, most referring domains in many big sites are irrelevant and spammy. But they kinda get their base number up. I know it's the wrong way to think about it, but I can't help but see this number weigh down on our efforts. What is your take? Juniors with low experiences, try not to comment things out of internet. Experienced perspectives please. submitted by ...

Pages that are indexed get deindexed randomly

So I have a new website, like not even a month old and the pages are getting deindexed in a few days and saying "Alternate page with proper canonical tag" whereas nothing is wrong. Now after I do the URL Inspection it says Page can be indexed . Could someone please tell if this is normal with new websites or am I doing something wrong here. TIA submitted by /u/Affectionate-Tea3834 [link] [comments] from The SEO Authority https://ift.tt/4eyjaMp

What would you do?

Quick context: I have a service business website and there are 4 pages targeting different intents for specific vertical types. For instance: Best AI software agencies for healthcare businesses - comparisons of 10 agencies/companies Best software migration companies for healthcare businesses - comparisons of 10 agencies/companies Software agency for healthcare - service pages While the comparison pages are ranking and doing fairly well. The service pages are hardly getting any impressions. Anyway this could be fixed? I'd ideally want to drive traffic to my service pages rather than get it in comparison pages. How do you monetise the comparison pages traffic. I believe the comparison pages might not help me monetarily. Is it correct? submitted by /u/Affectionate-Tea3834 [link] [comments] from The SEO Authority https://ift.tt/5wZ0Dua

How to use correctly H3 and bulletpoints in an article?

I'm a junior content SEO Editor, and I have seen that the texts that I have to edit has a lot of bullet points, and those bullet points are a big paragraph instead of a short phrase. Like theres a lot of H2 and a bunch of bulletpoints with big paragraphs beneath them. Making them an H3 would make a very, very long article. Hoy do I have to manage this kind of hierarchy, or how do I know when it's an H3 or when not? Any tips on how to use H3s, bullet points, and any other element in an SEO article correctly, beyond what the text says? submitted by /u/Interesting-Back-348 [link] [comments] from The SEO Authority https://ift.tt/bs7o6uk

Is this a realistic SEO workload for one person?

I recently joined a company as an SEO person, and I’m trying to understand whether the expectations I’ve been given are pretty standard or a bit ambitious. I don’t want to mention the company or too many specifics for obvious reasons 😭 A big part of my role is currently focused on link building, where I’m expected to build around 10–15 backlinks a week, along with roughly 2–3 third-party listicle placements. In my previous role, I had monthly targets, so moving to weekly targets has been a bit of an adjustment. The thing is, link building isn’t the only thing I’m expected to work on. I’m also supposed to contribute to on-page SEO and do some cold outreach for sales, alongside the regular SEO work. For people who work in-house or at agencies, does this sound like a normal workload for one SEO person? How do you usually balance link building with on-page SEO and other responsibilities? I’m still relatively early in my SEO career, so I’d genuinely appreciate some perspective. I’m mos...

How do I make more growth on CTR.

I have a project that I have been working on for the last 6 months, but its CTR (1.6-1.8)has remained the same for the last six months. Only impressions are increasing. I do everything that I can. Can anyone suggest how I can increase my CTR for this? submitted by /u/OnlineVisibilityExpe [link] [comments] from The SEO Authority https://ift.tt/ATyE7QB

How To Win More Citations In AI Answers, Live With Ahrefs’ Constance Tan via @sejournal, @hethr_campbell

Learn which AI visibility metrics matter, how to prioritize your next steps, and the tactics that win more citations in AI answers. The post How To Win More Citations In AI Answers, Live With Ahrefs’ Constance Tan appeared first on Search Engine Journal . from Search Engine Journal https://ift.tt/QLPNfoI

URL Hierarchy for Topical Authority

Has anyone ever used /topic/folder/ instead of /folder/topic/? Or do you have examples of sites that use "non-traditional" or creative folder structure? I'm interested in exploring the way AI/Google crawlers treat a non-traditional structure. If done well, it could be a simple hierarchical cluster pattern. But the question is -> could it have a benefit to "topical authority", AI citations or traditional rank + SERP features? Traditional: site.com has folders /services/, /blog/ and /locations/ with 2 topics /a/ and /b/ under each. That's 10 pages including homepage. Non-traditional: site.com has folders /b/ and /a/ with 3 categories /services/ /blog/ and /locations/ under each. That's 9 pages including homepage. It already make sense for a site that serves two unique audiences but doesn't need two websites. Like a multi-state chain of golf clubs with a restaurant that accepts non-members. golfclub.com / golf / membership, history, schedule ...

Google’s New Weather AI In Search Continues Shift Away From 10 Blue Links via @sejournal, @martinibuster

Google's latest Search integration is another step to a future where users get things done without traditional search results. The post Google’s New Weather AI In Search Continues Shift Away From 10 Blue Links appeared first on Search Engine Journal . from Search Engine Journal https://ift.tt/wHvC7ZU

Site title in search results

My site's title is my URL instead of my site name. It has been like this for a long time and I can't seem to change it even with WebSite in JSON-LD. Any ideas how to get this fixed? Site is hosted on Wix if that matters. submitted by /u/bucky494 [link] [comments] from The SEO Authority https://ift.tt/L62wiMV

What actually works when Google rejectes a fake review report m

I am curious what actually works when google rejects a fake review report. I was helping with a local business profile where a review looked completely unrelated to the business but the first report was rejected. The owner had already checked their customer records and could not find anything matching the person or the situation mentioned in the review. It seems like simply reporting the review again does not always get anywhere. For those managing SEO or google business profiles then what do you normally do after the first rejection? Do you appeal, contact support, provide more evidence or use another approach? submitted by /u/Jazzlike_Window_1992 [link] [comments] from The SEO Authority https://ift.tt/ugx0Vcv

Two separate service-area GBPs have identical coordinates. Has anyone seen this?

I manage a legitimate hidden-address service-area business in a midsized U.S. metro. A local competitor provides a very similar service, but we are separate businesses with different names, phone numbers, websites, categories, and Google place records. DataForSEO’s Google Maps results return the exact same latitude and longitude for both profiles, matching to six decimal places. A third hidden-address service-area business in the same market returns a different coordinate, so this does not appear to be a standard city or service-area center point. Neither business is known to operate from the property connected to the shared coordinate. Both profiles were created around the same general period and were later converted to hidden-address service-area businesses. There may have been some historical address overlap, but that part is not confirmed. I also ran 12 controlled local searches. The competitor appeared repeatedly, while my business was absent from the first 20 results in every...