Hello everyone,

Here's what I found interesting and important in search and AI this week. Once again, there's a lot!

On Friday, Danny Sullivan made us all think a huge update was happening (It didn’t as far as I know.) He also gave some very detailed and helpful insight when asked about a page that was struggling to rank. Bard made some advances and a real human got a Neuralink brain implant so they can control an app with their thoughts.

If you just have a few minutes, here is a super quick summary of what is new and interesting in SEO this week:

SEO

• Google Update Speculation. Danny Sullivan hinted at a possible update, but nothing significant has occurred.
• Advice from Google on a site with quality issues. The response from Danny is so helpful.
• SERP changes: Personalization, more notes in SERPs, carousels of “results from the web”, coupon codes, emojis in GBP reviews and categories.
• Helpful content carousels appearing often in SERPs.
• You can no longer see cached pages from the SERPs.

AI

• Google earnings call. Bard Advanced coming, Assistant is complementary to Search. Over time Bard will act more like an agent.
• Bard climbs the LLM leaderboard.
• Include your GPTs in conversations.
• Neuralink implanted in a human.
• Pixel/Fitbit granted patent to determine mental health.
• Apple Pro vision reviews are in and it’s quite impressive.

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OK, here we go!

Cryptic words from Google: Update soon?

This was awkward. Lily Ray commented that we hadn’t seen a Google update in a while (as it’s been 12 weeks). Danny Sullivan replied with a gif saying, “Someone’s cooking up a storm tonight.”

It sure sounded like he was telling us once again to buckle up because updates are coming. Barry wrote an article about it.

It got more confusing when Danny said, “That’s Fred. Fred Buckle.” Now, if you watch the show that Danny’s gif comes from, you might know that Fred Buckle is the name of the character he is talking about. But, if you are like most people, you would not know that.

Barry jumped to the same conclusion as me:

If you don’t get the joke, he’s talking about the time when Gary Illyes told us that every update from 2017 on should be named Fred, as Gary was into underwater photography and had decided to name the fish he took pictures of Fred.

I think it’s no coincidence that something else important happened at Google in 2017. It was the year that Google developed the transformer, the technology that makes all AI tools including ChatGPT possible. (The T stands for transformer.)

This conversation happened Friday, and we still haven’t seen a monster update.

I did find it interesting though that when I tweeted that we are certainly due for an update, the tweet was liked by Google’s Search Quality Analyst Duy Nguyen who wrote the blog posts on Google spam updates. I am really hoping for a big spam update soon.

Danny Sullivan gives advice on quality for a specific site

Brandon Saltamacchia tweeted asking for help because his articles are not showing up in the search results. Here is one of them. You don’t often see Google giving specific advice on improving quality. Danny’s response was quite helpful.

Danny’s points were:

• It’s not obvious that there is original content. (My note: This is the first thing mentioned in Google's helpful content guidance, "Does the content provide original information, reporting, research, or analysis?"
• It’s not clear that they’ve actually used the product (they apparently have, but it’s not clear to the reader as the content demonstrating experience is hidden within a video carousel.)
• Some of the devices they are recommending don’t exist! Might be unsatisfying for a reader.
• The last updated date keeps changing, even though the page wasn’t updated. (Note: This was something Google specifically called out in their helpful content documentation recently.)
• Some of the information on the page is dated.

He pointed out that none of those things were direct ranking factors, but Google’s systems are designed to reward reliable helpful content meant for people, and the more content aligns with that goal, the more likely it is to be successful.

This is probably a good place to recommend my helpful content workbook. If you buy it now, I’ll send you my new book once it is complete as well. My goal is to have it published before Pubcon in early March, so I promise it is coming soon! Both the workbook and the new book will help you improve to better align with Google's guidance.

SERP changes of note

Cindy Krum noticed interesting personalization where the search results showed her an icon next to pages she had visited previously.

More people are seeing places where Google is encouraging users to add a note.

​Results from the web? These look like some of the groups of helpful content websites we have been seeing pop up in SGE like features.

You can no longer see the cache of a page from the SERPs. You can still see one by going to https://google.com/search?q=cache:yoursite.com.

Brodie Clark noticed a new snippet that allows users to copy a coupon code from the search results.

Google may add a frowning or smiley face emoji to the filters you can use when searching reviews.

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Shalom Goodman noticed a new type of website carousel in SGE. I’ve been seeing this type of result in Assistant as well, and others have seen similar results within the regular search results.

The websites recommended always fit the bill of helpful content. They usually are either websites known for their topic, authoritative sites in general, or something that demonstrates experience (like a YouTube video perhaps.)

Here are more spotted by Semantic Entity. These search queries are fantastic. 😂

More SEO info and tips

Colan Nielsen from Sterling Sky tested to see if adding a custom service to your GBP improved rankings. It turns out that there may be some benefit.

Colan also noticed that emojis added to your custom services get pulled into your justifications.

Ahrefs did an experiment where they added a summarize button at the top of an article for a user to generate an AI summary. Some people clicked on it, but not many. They didn’t notice any improvement in search traffic.

Here’s a link building tip by Jamie I.F. Do a reverse image search for your unique images. You can then reach out to people who are using those images without permission and ask if they can link to you.

In the latest Search off the Record podcast, Gary Illyes said that HTML structure doesn’t matter that much when it comes to rankings. He added more context on LinkedIn.

Podcast

Google’s Search Off the Record podcast this week discussed how they were going to make changes to their SEO starter guide. I thought it was really interesting so I recorded myself going through it. At the end of this video, I share how I used Gemini in AI studio to help me summarize stories like this for newsletter.

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AI News

Google’s Q4 earnings call

In this quarter’s earnings call we learned that Google will be soon coming out with Bard Advanced, which runs on the most powerful model at Google (Gemini Ultra). It will be a paid subscription, likely similar to ChatGPT Plus.

Sundar Pichai said that SGE is working well, especially for a certain category of queries where Google has not seen them before.

He also spoke of Assistant as being complementary to Search.

The most exciting bit for me was when Pichai said that over time Bard will “act more like an agent.” We have talked about Agents for a while now. What he is referring to is having an AI assistant that not only provides you with information but does things for you as well.

More, including Pichai’s full quotes in this article I wrote yesterday following the call: What we learned about the future of SGE and Assistant from Google's Q4 2023 earnings call​

Bard is getting better

Bard has made a stunning leap on the LMSYS leaderboard for LLMs, an independent leaderboard that tests the capabilities of large language models. Bard with Gemini Pro is now ranked second, just barely behind GPT-4 Turbo. People are attributing this to the fact that Bard can draw from the fresh web. And we have yet to see Bard with Gemini Ultra which has been trained not just on text but also image and video.

Speaking of the fresh web, I'd encourage you to try some Bard prompts to ask about recent news. Bard often gets it wrong. But if you ask, "Try again. You might need to search the web," or "Are you sure? Search the web for more info," you may find it is accurate. Sometimes you need to ask twice. I find this fascinating. I expect Bard will get better at recognizing when it should get fresh info from the web to help with its answer.

Bring GPTs into your conversations

You can now switch between your GPTs in one ChatGPT conversation. This is a huge change. On Monday I spent my whole day conversing with my different AI assistants as I worked on my course. I was writing on Google’s use of information satisfaction signals, so I called in the GPT I created that has loads of information in its knowledge base about search including patents, the DOJ trial testimony and more.

Then, a bit later, I realized that my GPT that has info from the QRG and Google’s helpful content documentation in its knowledge base would be better to converse with, so I started talking to it instead.

It felt like I was having a brainstorming meeting with a bunch of helpful assistants. Each had a specific area of knowledge that I could draw on. And each has been trained by me adjusting the instructions so that the GPT works as I want it to.

You can also bring in other people’s GPTs that you have used. For example, if you’ve used Seer’s Screaming Frog GPT, you can bring it into any of your conversations where you have a question about Screaming Frog.

Neuralink has been implanted in a human

This is wild. Elon Musk says initial results show “promising neuron spike detection.” The new device is called Telepathy. I have a lot of thoughts on this topic. I've asked a lot of people this question, "Would you get a Neuralink?" The answer is almost always an emphatic no. There are a few of you adventurous people out there who excitedly said yes. Right now, the idea of having a brain-computer interface implanted within your head probably sounds ludicrous. However, I believe the day will come where most of humanity interacts with technology via our thoughts, just like we all use phones today.

I’ve written an article to discuss why we should pay attention to Neuralink. I think we will likely see the day when brain-computer interfaces are the way we interact with machines. We’ll laugh at the day when humans used their fingers to type letters on a screen.

The good news is, we likely will find ways to connect with the brain in non-invasive ways that don’t require brain surgery.

Read more: Would you get a Neuralink implanted in your brain?​

More AI info

​Hugging Face and Google have partnered to build an open platform for AI.

​Pixel/Fitbit has been granted a patent to determine the state of a person’s mental health by measuring biological metrics and using machine learning to predict whether they are consistent with depression, bipolar disorder, and other conditions.

Apple is expected to introduce AI features to Siri this summer. The code shows that they are using calls to OpenAI’s ChatGPT app to test this. They’re unlikely to directly use ChatGPT, but this sure is interesting.

Speaking of Apple, early reviews of the Apple Vision Pro are really impressing journalists. Here’s a video where a woman wore it for an entire day.

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Remember how 9to5 Google found evidence that Assistant may be renamed as simply “Bard?” Well now the files call Assistant Gemini.

There is now an appeals process for GPTs that have been restricted from sharing in the store.

Remember how Bloomberg made their own model that was trained on financial data rather than language? A new model that cost only $100 has surpassed it in benchmarks.

​OpenAI partnered with Common Sense Media to strengthen their safety work and make AI safer for teens and families.

Meta released Code Llama 70B, their latest LLM for code generation. You can request access here.

Forbes says that GPT is disrupting the consulting industry. “We are seeing a GPT divide emerging: those who have embraced AI and operationalized it inside their firms and those still looking on from the sidelines.” Honestly, ChatGPT is such a helpful tool for a consultant. It has made me able to do so much more. For example, it helped me learn about neural networks, deep learning, etc. and then critiqued my writing on it for newsletter to help me be more accurate. If it weren't for ChatGPT I'd not have the confidence to share what I'm learning about these things.

​Google Medsender is bringing AI aided diagnosis, digital access appointments and more to healthcare.

The Biden administration is preparing to use the Defense Production Act to make it so that the US government must be informed about the most sensitive projects inside OpenAI, Google, Amazon and other tech companies competing in AI.

Other interesting news

​Mainstream media is struggling, with nearly a dozen mainstream media outlets making significant cuts recently.

The NYT redid their author bios to better highlight their experience and expertise. They say, “Research has shown that the more readers know about our reporters, the more likely they are to understand the rigors of our journalistic process and trust the results.” Here is an example of one of their updated author bios. If you missed it, I recently did a podcast episode with my updated thoughts on author bios.

And also, um, the NYT is building a team to explore using AI in the newsroom. It sounds like they want to explore how it can be used to help journalists.

Just before publishing I saw this on my phone. Pay attention News sites. I have been listening to News like radio stations. This is wild. These are just podcast episodes, but it is now incredibly easy for me at any time in the day to say, "Play the latest technology news" and suddenly my phone, watch, home, or whatever is playing a quick podcast from the providers of tech news that I have selected.

I want to know how to get on this list of podcasts.

Recommended learning

​SEO Ranking Factor #1 is Satisfactionby Cyrus Shepard on the Moz blog. This 10 year old article was one of the most important things I read all week.

If you're interested in reading more about information satisfaction signals, we did a deep dive on this in Marie's Thoughts (paid newsletter) last week.

Lily Ray’s article on the 2023 algo update winners in the US shows that six of the top ten websites with the absolute highest visibility increases primarily rely on user generated content. The biggest domain winners were Wikipedia, Reddit and LinkedIn. By percentage increase, the biggest winners were Cia.gov, Reddit and many government websites. Authoritative health publishers and institutions also saw substantial visibility gains.

​Eight tips for writing a press release that gets noticed by Gareth Hoyle. I am a big fan of press mentions if you can get them. Not paid ones, but mentions that happen because a journalist found your business interesting enough to cover. While Google doesn’t treat links exactly the same as they have in the past, legitimate press mentions likely speak to your EEAT and can help improve your recognition as an authority on a topic.

​WARM: On the Benefits of Weight Averaged Reward Models- This paper from Google’s DeepMind introduces Weight Averaged Reward Models (WARMs), are a method to improve language model alignment with human preferences. As Ethan Lazuk points out, it’s worth revisiting Dawn Anderson’s recent article reviewing research that indicates that eventually, fewer human quality raters will be needed when it comes to improving AI.

Tools

Michael Cottam made a tool to make your YT videos load faster. It loads the thumbnail as a still image, and puts a clickable play button on top. When clicked, the iframe is switched with the one that embeds the video as normal.

Jobs (from SEOJobs.com)

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​Generative Search Specialist ~ Golden Hippo ~ $100-$150k ~ Hybrid – Woodland Hills, CA (US) <-- This looks interesting! "We’re Looking For A: Generative Search Specialist responsible for optimizing, tracking and reporting AI Generative search and chat results across major platforms. This position requires a profound understanding of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) principles and the application of cutting-edge generative AI tools to augment content relevance and visibility."​
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​SEO Consultant ~ SearchLab Digital ~ $45k-$55k ~ Remote (US)​
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​SEO Manager ~ Copart ~ Remote (US)​
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​Senior SEO Specialist ~ Lead Generation Experts ~ $50k – $70k ~ Remote (US)​
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​Marketing Specialist ~ DX1 ~ $55k-$60k ~ Remote (US)​

See you at Pubcon Vegas?

I said I wasn’t going to do any travel any time soon and then Pubcon invited me to teach another Masters Group workshop in Vegas in early March. I think the sun will be good for me. And also, there are quite a few of you I haven't seen in a while. I’ll be teaching on ranking in Google’s AI driven search engines. At this point the plan is to talk a little about the helpful content system and then jump into reviewing sites and brainstorming with the group.

I’m not speaking other than this class, which means that I’ll have lots of opportunities to network (the professional word for party.) See you there?

That’s it for this week!

Hope you’ve enjoyed this episode and found it helpful. Please do leave a comment if you’ve got anything helpful to add about the stories discussed.

I’m working incredibly hard on my GPTs, course and book. My goal is to have it ready for sale before I travel to Pubcon.

Marie

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