SEO News from December 11th to December 17th, 2023
News collected from various sources, in particular the telegram channel of SEO specialist Olesia Korobka. Translation into English by Oleh Kovalenko, SEO specialist of Edina agency.
ChatGPT responds less willingly to questions
More and more users are noticing that ChatGPT is becoming less willing to answer questions, trimming code or text proposed for generation, and suggesting to continue writing independently or even consult a specialist. OpenAI says they will look into the matter. Denis suggests, besides not having fingers, adding that it is currently May 2023 — a month when responses were the longest.
The statement SGE from Google fully responds to user queries in SERP 75% of the time
WSJ investigation revealed: 40% of news site traffic comes from search. In 75% of cases, when searching, Google's new SGE fully answers the user's query, and there is no need to click elsewhere. According to journalists, this will negatively impact the news industry.
Another lawsuit against Google regarding AI, LLM, and the knowledge graph
One of the publications today filed another lawsuit against Google regarding AI, LLM, and even the knowledge graph.
Partnership of OpenAI with Axel Springer
OpenAI, in turn, decided not to wait for lawsuits and partnered with Axel Springer, including publications like Bild, Welt, and Business Insider. Part of the content will be used to train the model, similar to the partnership with the Associated Press. However, users were not pleased with the low quality of content from these publications.
A series of collaborations under Gemini
Google is launching a series of collabs under Gemini. The first one can be tried now: Prepare Christmas cards with Gemini and Sheets. If it doesn't work with your IP, use a VPN with a USA IP.
SGE and About This Result do not show what Google actually 'thinks' about the site
SGE doesn't display what Google actually "thinks" about a site, even if it seems so at first glance. About This Result also does not show Google's trust in the site.
Google is experimenting with displaying Discussions and forums, separating them from articles
Google has started experimenting with displaying forums and Q&A sites under the label Discussions and forums, separating them from articles.
John Mueller about PDF on the website
John Mueller mentions that you can publish content in both HTML and PDF. You can add the appropriate canonical or noindex to them. Or Google will automatically choose the best version for the user, and usually, it will be HTML. For the PDF version, it's better to add a link to the website. John Mueller also suggests that for staging sites, it's best not just to block in robots.txt but to set a password.
Has the Unannounced Google Update started?
Something started on Thursday for some and on Friday for others. Traffic changes can be significant. Many sites that saw a drop in traffic experienced an even larger drop. Deindexing has started again. Some sites, especially those that were neglected and were not hindered from recovering, have indeed recovered. Also, some already large sites. It's hard to say exactly what's happening, but it looks a lot like an unofficial update. You can check:
Let's hope that the Christmas holidays will bring peace to SEO specialists, and they won't have to think about positions, at least during the holiday.
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