THE END ISN'T NIGH. Our Top Picks...

Every Wednesday / 3rd July 2024 / goodsignals.com

SEO Trivia: With the US election in full swing (no, we're not talking about Joe Biden's golf swing, which saw a 3000+ increase in searches since the debate), where in the US cares most about crime?

As politicians gear up for their final hours of general election campaigning, Google is taking action to combat misinformation in political ads. I've been volunteering for a fact-checking organisation for a month now, and the level of misinformation is absolutely bonkers (my favourite is a deepfake of Keir Starmer ranting about how much he hates Liverpool). This announcement may come a bit late for the UK, but I'm sure it will change the landscape of political campaigns in the US election.

Before we get to our top picks, here are some other updates from this week: Sites hit by the Helpful Content Update are seeing small increases in traffic, and the spam update has finished rolling out. Meanwhile, Google is working to fix delays and latency issues with the Search Console Performance reports, testing top-quality store badges near site names, and placing link cards at the top of AI Overviews. And, if you're looking for a birthday bash, Google analyst Gary Illyes is celebrating the robots.txt file's 30th birthday on LinkedIn—join Gary here. In other news, researchers have developed a new method to spot AI fingerprints, so you can tell whether your content is written by ChatGPT.

Joyce, editor at The Signal

P.S. The answer to our trivia? We thought it would be New Mexico, which has the highest crime rate - it's the D.C. Discover more search trends around the US election here.

2024 Zero-Click Search Study - How do search behaviours compare in Europe and the US? Is Google losing to ChatGPT and other search engines? Has the rollout of AI Overviews changed the traffic to the open web? Read to find out. By Rand Fishkin on SparkToro.

Reimagining Search in the AI Era: Insights From ex-Bing Search Director - "Search was broken... and it's still broken," says the former director of Microsoft's Bing. But why? And how is search evolving in the AI era? Read exclusive insights from Stefan Weitz. By Danny Goodwin on Search Engine Land.

Google Search Ranks AI Spam Above Original Reporting in News Results - A reporter found that an article from his site was plagiarised by an AI-generated spammy site, and the content even ranked higher than the original one! According to a senior SEO, "this is a really rampant problem" in the industry. By Reece Rogers on Wired.

AI Overview Study for 8,000 Keywords in Google Search - We have another trivia quiz for you: five-word queries trigger an AI Overview most frequently - true or false? Discover the answer in this pioneering research and be ahead of the game in SEO strategies. By Philip Petrescu on Advanced Web Ranking.

Tactics for Multi-Stakeholder Reporting - It can be tricky to report to different stakeholders working on the same project - but don't worry, we've got this pocket guide for you! From crafting organisational charts to writing an executive summary, everything you need to know is here. By Judith Lewis on Wix.

10-Questions Scorecard to Assess Your Site's Likelihood of Recovery From Algorithm Updates - If your site's traffic has been impacted by Google's updates, you may want to take this 10-question test to see how likely you can recover and get things moving in the right direction. By Blair MacGregor on Trusthetics.

Why are so Many Affiliate Sites Losing Organic Traffic? - Smaller affiliate sites usually have a weaker brand search, causing them to lose visibility in rankings. What are the solutions? Developing an integrated PR and SEO strategy is the key. By Kevin Rowe on Search Engine Land.

Duplicate, Google Chose Different Canonical Than User. What it is, Causes, & How to Fix - Duplicated content is rampant on the Internet, which is why Google sometimes indexes a different URL than the one you selected. Here's an all-in-one guide on why you may have the issue and how you should fix it. By Patrick Stox on Ahrefs.

Google June 2024 Spam Update – Data Analysis - If you are curious, here's an in-depth analysis of the results of Google's latest spam update. Is it working and who are the losers? Read to find out. By Steve Paine on Sistrix.

Joyce Yang,

editor at The Signal

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