Navigating Google’s Search Monopoly and AI Disruption

GOOGLE IS REELING

1. The Justice Department has brought an antitrust suit against Google claiming that it is propping up a search monopoly and abusing advertisers.
2. Google was caught flat-footed with AI developments that threaten to upend search.
3. It looks like SEO strategists are winning the cat-and-mouse game between the search algorithm that wants to give you high-quality content and the advertisers that want to give their clients’ content, regardless of its inherent quality.
4. Google Search has had a documentation leak that sheds unparalleled light on Google’s search algorithm.

For most of our clients (energy, government, health & nutrition, and food & beverage), despite algorithm changes, organic search has been a relatively steady traffic component. The exceptions, ironically, are those clients that rely upon search to drive their business. Clients looking for web leads have seen substantial waves – doubling, then halving, then doubling again – in the last 16 months in clicks or impressions from Google.

 

HERE’S WHAT WE HAVE LEARNED ABOUT SEO

Over the last 5 years, we have analyzed data for a variety of clients as they undergo SEO campaigns. The techniques we have seen include:

1. Technical improvements to improve crawlability
2. Existing content tweaks (language changes to optimize for search)
3. New high-quality content (relevant blogs) 
4. Categorical improvements to existing content (filling a void in the infosphere)
5. Long-tail content creation (programmatic seo)

As for methodology, we monitor early signs of improvements using search console data and observing: (a) the Number of Search Queries, and (b) expanding impression share for existing search queries. Through experience, we find that if these two things improve within the first 45 days of making optimizations, then we will see substantially expanded traffic and improved rankings for core keywords in the months to come. In the long-run, there are a combination of efforts and the effects are blurred together, so we have to rely on early indicators to gauge the importance of each.

METHODS OF IMPROVEMENT

• Technical Improvements to Improve Crawlability

For our clients, meta tags, URL structure and other technical improvements to ‘crawlability’ did not expand the number of search queries that lead to our client’s site or the number of impressions per search query enough to be noticed above the noise. To be clear, though, our client’s sites were already crawlable. If they were not, this would be critical.

• Existing Content Tweaks

Here, we are talking about content tools that help shape the word choice and emphasis of content. We noticed small but positive expansions in the number of search queries we ranked for and more impressions per existing search query.

• New High-Quality Website Content

By new high-quality content, we are thinking human-written blog entries, press releases, news rooms, etc. We have observed that, for the most part, creating content increases the number of search queries that our clients rank for, but does not impact the impressions for existing search queries very much. The overall effect is modest.

• Industry-Bucking Website Content

For this, we are talking about revealing things that are not normally revealed, bucking the trend in your industry. This could be sharing prices, directory of service providers, or other normally-private information that customers would love to get their hands on. For our clients, we have seen large improvements in the impression per search query, but not much change in the number of search queries. The overall effect is profound.

• Long-Tail Content Creation Through Programmatic SEO

For this technique, we are imagining scenarios where clients decide to produce thousands of pages of website content, backed by a database they have, in an effort to make relevant pages for thousands of queries. Common examples include creating local pages, a long list of products and services pages or a customer-community-driven wiki. The challenge here is to programmatically make pages that are still useful. For these, we see a profound increase in the number of search queries and the number of impressions.

The landscape of Google Search and SEO is undergoing significant shifts due to a combination of legal pressures, AI advancements, and evolving SEO strategies. Despite fluctuations in search traffic for some industries, consistent SEO strategies such as technical improvements, content tweaks, high-quality content creation, industry-bucking content, and long-tail content creation through programmatic SEO have proven to be effective. These approaches have demonstrated varying levels of success increasing search queries and impressions, highlighting the dynamic nature of SEO in response to Google’s evolving algorithms and external pressures. As the landscape continues to shift, staying informed and adaptable will be crucial for businesses relying on search traffic to drive their success.