Join Nate Matherson as he sits down with Kevin Indig for the sixty-fifth episode of the Optimize podcast. Kevin is an advisor to some of the world’s fastest-growing startups and has defined organic growth strategies for companies like Ramp, Reddit, Bounce, Dropbox, and Hims. Before becoming an advisor, Kevin led SEO and growth at major companies like Shopify, G2, and Atlassian. He also publishes the Growth Memo, a popular newsletter with over 14,000 subscribers, where he shares insights on SEO, growth, and digital marketing.
In our episode today, Nate and Kevin dive into the latest on Google’s core updates, including early insights into the August core update. Kevin shares his observations on recoveries related to the Helpful Content Update and discusses the impact of volatility in search results. Listen to hear why he suggests caution when making changes in response to core updates.
In this week’s deep dive, Kevin explains everything you need to know about AI overviews in 2024. Kevin gets tactical, sharing insights from his extensive analysis of AI-generated content, including the pros and cons of using AI in SEO strategies.
Rounding out the episode, Kevin and Nate cover topics like the rising importance of user-generated content (UGC) sites, the evolving role of backlinks, and the surge of interest in programmatic SEO. Closing the episode is our popular lightning round of questions!
I know it's early, but do you have any insights so far on this most recent August core update?
Yeah, a couple of insights that I can share. Absolutely. Keep it in mind that, you know, you don't want to judge an update too quickly before it's rolled out completely, but some early insights that I think are, are shareable.
Um, one of them is that I see some recoveries of the helpful content update, which we talked about in our first interview. And, um, there has been a lot of, you know, buzz or circulation around the helpful content update. It hits some brands incredibly hard. We've seen a couple of examples of sites in the SEO community being discussed that might have been quote-unquote hit unfairly.
Some of them are coming back in full force. Some of them are coming back in a tiny bit. But there seems to be a correlation to the helpful content update from 2023. The way, that I explained this to myself is that the helpful content update has been integrated into the core ranking system, or better said, the helpful content classifier has been integrated.
Um, and so now as part of the core update or any core update, you'll also have that helpful content classifier running what I find hard to understand though, is that some sites recover. Completely some, some of my clients also without doing much about it, you know, like everybody wants to recover, but that to me is a red flag because what it means is essentially Google having made the wrong call.
Kevin Indig is back. Hi, and welcome to the Optimize podcast. My name is Nate Matherson, and I'm the host of this weekly podcast. We sit down with some of the smartest minds in content marketing and SEO. Our goal is to give you perspective and insights on what's moving the needle in organic search. Today, I'm thrilled to sit down.
With Kevin for a second time, Kevin is an advisor to some of the world's fastest-growing startups and has defined. Organic growth strategies for companies like ramp, Reddit, bounce, Dropbox, and hymns. Before becoming an advisor, Kevin led SEO and growth at the world's leading e-commerce platform, Shopify, the number one marketplace for software.
G2 and the number one developer company Atlassian. Once a week, he sends the growth memo to over 14, 000 subscribers and regularly speaks at conferences around the world. On today's episode, Kevin and I are going to chat about core updates, including the most recent August core update, AI overviews, UGC, and so much more.
Thanks for listening to this week's episode. Episode of the optimized podcast. It's brought to you by positional. If you don't know by now, my name is Nate and I'm one of the co-founders of positional. And we've built what I think is a pretty awesome tool set for content marketing and SEO teams. We've got tools for keyword research, internal linking, content optimization, and even a couple of tools for analytics.
We'd love for you to check it out at positional.com. com. Kevin, thanks for coming back on the Optimize podcast.
Yeah, thanks for having me. The first time was a blast and I'm sure the second time will be as well.
Yeah, last time, you know, that was, uh, about like 10 months ago and, uh, it was right after that helpful content update that had happened in 2023.
But, you know, since then there's been like a lot more change. A lot more volatility in the SERPs and I'm excited to chat with you again today and get your perspective on all that has happened in the last 10 months. But first, like what's the latest in your world? It seems like the growth memo is kind of taking off.
I know you've got like, uh, the pro plan now, I think. How, how's everything been going?
Thanks for asking Nate. Uh, it's been going really well, learning a lot. Um, but as you said, the free, the free kind of version of the newsletter is growing really, really well. We Crossed 14, 000, actually 14, 100 subscribers to be precise.
Uh, which is amazing. And, uh, the paid version is also growing really well. I'm kind of learning, and experimenting more in that area. I've recently started to do live sessions, which you can imagine almost like an interactive webinar, I present some of my findings and critical news, and then I have a q and a session with the audience.
Uh, and that has also really been working really well. Uh, resonance is very, very positive. People love that. And, so, you know, I'm just tinkering with the right balance between sending people long-form written content and uh, engaging live sessions. And that's been a lot of.
Yeah, well, hopefully, you pick up a few more subscribers after this episode drops.
And for all of our listeners who are not already subscribed to the growth memo, you definitely should be. Kevin creates some of the best content in the SEO space. And, uh, you know, I always share it with my co-founder, Matt. Every time he publishes, I don't know if Matt subscribed, but he should be. Um, but you know, Kevin, it's, uh, it's.
It's been a pretty, uh, hectic few months and, you know, I think the August core update is still rolling out. I don't think it's finished yet. You know, I know it's early, but do you have any insights so far on this most recent August core update?
Yeah. A couple of insights that I can share. Absolutely. Keep it in mind.
That's. You know, uh, you don't want to judge an update too quickly before it's rolled out completely, but some early insights that I think are, are shareable, um, one of them is that I see some recoveries of the helpful content update, which we talked about in our first, um, uh, interview. And, um, There has been a lot of, you know, buzz or circulation around the helpful content update.
It hit some brands incredibly hard. We've seen a couple of examples of sites in the SEO community being discussed that might have been quote-unquote hit unfairly. And of course, everybody's hit unfairly by a core update. I want to keep in mind that, you know, we might not know everything about these, uh, domains or why they were punished, but, um, some of them are coming back full force.
Some of them are coming back in a tiny bit, but there seems to be a correlation to the helpful content update from 2023. The way, that I explained this to myself is that the helpful content update has been integrated into the core ranking system, or better said, the helpful content classifier has been integrated.
And so now as part of the core update or any core update, you'll also have that helpful content classifier running. What I find hard to understand though, is that some sites recover completely, some of my clients also, without doing much about it. And that to me You know, like everybody wants to recover, but, uh, that to me is, uh, is a red flag because what it means is essentially Google having made the wrong call.
I would be very shocked if there was a significant state change or a significant change in popularity of these sites. Um, It's between the first helpful content update and the core update now, so, um, I do understand that Google fine tunes algorithms and that they look at the Internet and broad aggregates, but, um, I think the takeaway here, the strategic takeaway is that, first of all, um, A core update might take away traffic for you that could return in 12 months, 24 months without any changes, which is pretty concerning, right?
And so that is just a general strategy risk that we need to factor in. Two, the question is also about, you know, what did we learn from that? And so I think one learning is that you want to be very cautious with making changes based on core updates. And I do say that fully knowing that when you're hit by a core update, that, that can really hurt your business, right?
And it can really pull out a stress on everybody at the company. But, uh, reality is that. Some of these recoveries happen without much action. So you want to factor that into your plan. And then maybe the third takeaway or lesson here, um, I think is that, um, search is just so more volatile, right? Um, these core updates can hit you maybe, maybe unfairly, right?
Or, or maybe that could be Google's state of mind at that moment. And then a couple of months later, that could change again. So, um, you want to factor in a certain volatility and you probably, if you, especially if you work in a house or with clients, You want to. make that part of how people, especially leadership thinks about SEO, not to scare them away and say, Oh, you know, traffic could drop any time and we're at a high risk here, but more so to say, look, um, Google search is a, is a volatile environment and things can change and they can revert.
Um, and we just need to be mentally prepared for that.
Kevin, I, I think those were such good insights and I have a follow up to, to one of the points that you made about, you know, some websites not doing hardly anything and like now they're, they're bouncing back and, you know, other sites may be proactively trying to correct or improve the quality of their websites.
Have you seen any like. Correlation there, like for the companies that did take action and try to improve their website, are they bouncing back to a greater degree than the sites that just did nothing? Or is it about the same across the board?
Yeah, it's such a really good question because, um, some of the, the kind of Biggest remedies that I've seen or things that sites that have improved have done is to just, um, improve the content that I put out as, as dull as that sounds, but they have, you know, used, uh, more, more tools, maybe like positional to improve the quality of their content, uh, what they cover, making sure they hit the right user intent, um, and provide a good experience.
Another thing that I'm seeing across the board, and then I'm actually working with a lot of clients on is just reducing the number of low quality pages that you expose to Google's index. Low quality is probably a deeper topic, but essentially I define that as low engagement compared to other pages of that same page type.
Low content quality, maybe it's old content, outdated, not written that well, maybe there's some factual errors, misspellings, those kind of things. And then three, some technical issues. So I've seen, for example, that duplicate content is, Google seems to be much, much more allergic to duplicate content these days.
And these are things that you want to kind of monitor. I have not seen a recovery during the August core update 24, um, that has driven more traffic than, um, was taken away during the helpful content and 23 yet, but I think it's possible, right? Um, at the end of the day, Search is a zero sum game and it could be that you recover and you get some, you know, change on top because maybe some of your competitors have, have lost some traffic.
So it's possible. I haven't observed that in my world yet though.
I want to ask you about zero sum in a little bit. I wonder, like, do you think this, like, rollback or adjustment here had anything to do with, like, the public outrage that you see on Twitter? You know, folks complaining that their site got dinged for no reason.
I know we're getting into conspiracy theories here, but do you think, like, folks complaining on Twitter had anything to do with this most recent update?
I wouldn't rule it as impossible. Um, the question is Was it the complaining on Twitter, or was it that Google was made aware of some sites that were Quote unquote, unfairly punished.
And, uh, there were some activities where Google specifically, Danny Sullivan invited some of the people, um, who are working on these sites to hear their kind of point of view out and understand more what happened. So, you know, I think it's totally realistic that maybe Google realized, Oh, we cut too deeply here and we need to reverse some of that based on some of the feedback they got from the community.
Absolutely. Um, I think the other question that is. very close to this is, was it kind of the outrage against Google? And that is a hard one to say. I wouldn't think it's completely impossible because Google has some reputation issues lately, right? I think, especially since ChatGPD came out and Google had a series of fun builds, they have the lawsuit, they have, you know, negative SEO community for a while now.
And so. It's hard to say if that was the deciding factor, but I completely, I wouldn't rule it out. But I think that the more decisive factor was maybe that they saw some examples of false negatives that they tried to revert.
Well, my next question is, You know, some of these bounce backs that we're seeing are, are kind of sad in my opinion.
Like, for example, there's like one website that I tracked that was down like 99 percent over the last like nine, 10 months and like their site is bouncing back. It's, you know, tripled in organic search traffic in the last few weeks, but like they're still down 96 percent from like where they were in 2023.
Is there a world where these websites bounce back fully? Like, is that a realistic to expect or is it, is, is the new normal down 90 percent for some of these sites?
I don't want to guarantee it because I have not yet worked with a site that got hit that hard and then made a full comeback. So I cannot. I cannot speak out of first hand experience.
It's probably not completely impossible, but it depends so much on what has led to that downturn. And, um, I think you need to figure that out on the keyword level. What are some of the keywords that we lost rank for? Um, what does that new landscape look like now? Is it that all of our competitors just moved up one rank and we moved down hundreds?
Positions or has the constellation, meaning the type of results completely changed for those SERPs. So I think you need to like really go down deeply on that end. I also think you need to make some technical checks and see what happened on, you know, what happened there. Um, but very broadly, I think one factor that we haven't discussed yet is this, is this factor of, of a big brand.
And what I have noticed, especially in these industry deep dives that I've written for, for the paid memo is that in a lot of industries, Google just simply prefers large brands and kicks out more aggregators. When I say kick out more aggregators, I mean, reduce the visibility of some aggregators. For example, in e commerce, you see that a lot of large retailers are losing visibility.
at the cost of the actual brands that sell their products also with these retailers, but also directly gaining more visibility. Same in flights, right? Or travel where, um, maybe airlines, uh, gain more visibility at the expense of air creators like Booking or Expedia, et cetera. So that is certainly something to factor in as well.
I wouldn't say that's the cause for a 97 percent drop though. So there is more going on. And I think there is no way around going down to the keyword level for it to answer this.
So this company, uh, it's like a venture backed startup. They're actually an aggregator. Um, my advice to them like six months ago was like, you've got 100, 000 pages on your site.
And like, I asked him, I was like, when's the last time you converted a customer from 80 percent of these pages? Like, we just need to like, Peel it back as a starting point, um, and refocus on quality. But I agree with you that with that observation, that I feel like we are seeing a lot more brands in the SERP and less aggregators.
Like I used to look at the keywords, like best credit cards, best travel, credit cards, best rewards, credit cards all the time. Cause that's where I spent like the first seven years of my career. And like back then you had. You know, red ventures with like three different sites on the first page of the syrup.
But like today you've got companies like chase, you know, I'm looking at it now. I've got a URL from United for like their credit card on the first page of best credit cards. And like that definitely wasn't the case like three or four years ago.
Yep. Yep, absolutely. Um, and it kind of makes sense in some cases and in other cases, I think it's, um, you know, it's, it's a bit of a tougher call.
I know there's been a lot of complaints about, you know, why does Forbes rank for everything? Um, but, um, it does also seem at the same time that users seek out familiar brands more, and that creates a circular problem where, you know, Of course, Google wants to satisfy what users are looking for, but at the same time, if there is no chance for new entrants to the search game, um, that is probably also not good for, for Google and for the broader web.
So that is a fine balance to strike. And I think, uh, you know, especially with AI overviews, um, that, that problem could only, could only grow. And so then the question is, how do you gain visibility and make an entrance as a newcomer? And I think the answer is probably to focus on, on new keywords that are, that are kind of slowly growing on search volume rather than trying to enter at the top of the market.
Well, I'm going to ask you a question that I've been kind of thinking about. I've been talking to Matt, my co founder about this, like I've always fallen into the camp that like backlinks are quite important. Um, and I've been thinking about this fundamental question though, of like, if I was to launch a new credit card.
And it was actually the best credit card that's ever been released in the history of humankind. But I've got a brand new website and I have, don't have any backlinks and like, do backlinks almost become like in an antiquated ranking factor for certain search queries. And that like, I'm never going to be able to accumulate more backlinks than nerd wallet, but I actually have a better credit card.
And so. I wonder, like, does brand almost become, like, more important than a metric like domain authority? Like, it's just something I've been thinking about. Do you have any thoughts there?
Yeah, absolutely. Um, I do generally think backlinks are important. And the question is, in what case? And the way I think about this is the following, right?
You have some of these more established searches like best credit card that I will call it an established search, as in people have been searching for this for a long time, Google had a lot of data and a lot of time to figure out what the optimal optimal kind of mix of results would be. And for that, you know, backlink, like these sites have accumulated a ton of backlinks and really strong backlinks over time.
The opposite of that would be newer searches, right? Maybe a topic that is just coming up. Maybe it's something like, let's just pretend digital credit cards are new and more and more people are searching for that. And that's something where Google does not yet have a lot of data and insights or results that are ranking for these probably didn't have a lot of time to accumulate backlinks yet.
So that's where backlinks were probably have less of an importance. Um, and that's where you have better chances. So I think part of the question, you know, when you talk about. Best credit cards, or you have the best credit card, right? Part of the question is always for who and for what situation. If I were you, then I would think about maybe instead of trying to rank for best credit card, can I rank for a query or user intent that is maybe just growing in popularity, right?
Where people are just starting to, to, to think about it. And search for it. And there, I think you have really good cards then to maybe kind of position yourself as a first mover and anchor your position over time. So I always factor in how, how long has this like trends been a thing? And that decides a little bit like how important backlinks are for me.
And then in general, you know, to answer your other question about, about brand, I think backlinks certainly feed into this big signal that we call brands. Um, I think mentions across the web also factor in it, especially In the context of how is your brand mentioned? What's the sentiment? What's the context overall?
I think that also matters. And then how many people search for your brand and how many people search for your brand in combination with generic keywords, right? So, um, are people searching for, uh, Nate or are they also searching for Nate credit card?
We had a competitor back in the day that, um, you know, as soon as they started running like TV ads and like billboards, billboard advertisements, like we saw like an immediate uptick in like their organic search performance for a lot of those non branded queries that they, they had not been ranking as well on.
And I think that's some that Google's just gotten a lot better at in the last like six, seven years, maybe at like 2018 is kind of when I. felt like that started to be more important. Um, but, uh, you know, one, speaking of trends, uh, you know, UGC sites, obviously you've got Reddit, but you've also got like the, the many different forums of the world.
Like I was looking at a forum the other day, just for like Mazda Miatas and like, they're doing incredible. Um, it seems like user generated content sites have continued to do really well. Um, over the last like eight, nine months, since we last talked, what do you make of that trend? Do you think that's something that'll continue here in the year ahead?
I think that will continue. And this all started with a hidden gems update in the last year. I think it was around May or June. I'm calling that out because like people get this wrong all the time and I see this, get it, you know, Even like big publishers, uh, when they write about the uprise of Reddit organic search, they also get this wrong because they all say it's about, it started with a core update.
And that's just not true. Google has introduced a new rank classifier, which is promoting what they call hidden gems. Um, and it's essentially forums and use UGC. As you already mentioned, right? It's not just Reddit and core. It's not just the big forums, but All forums across the web has gained visibility.
You can pick your favorite and check it in your rank tracker of choice, and you'll see an uptick ever since. So Google wants more form content in the search results. And the question is why? Um, and there's a couple of reasons. One of them, and I learned this when I observed my, my, uh, wife, um, browsing the web on her phone, when we're on the couch.
And, um, She specifically sought out a Reddit result and asked her like, why don't you click on this Reddit result? And she said, well, that's the only place where I can get a, a review or an answer that I know comes from a human that is not incentivized by something. And I think that the hints at a larger problem, which is that most of the web is incentivized to either sell you an affiliate link ads SaaS or a software, right?
Like there's, there's almost every site has some sort of an incentive. And I get that right? You need to make money. Or you want to make money, but that could also mean that there's a certain bias introduced in all this content. And the benefit of a forum like Reddit is that people are largely unbiased.
Now, I will acknowledge that, you know, more brands are active on Reddit. You can spam like to some degree on Reddit. You can influence the conversation. All of that is true. But I think people underestimate how large Reddit is and how Good. The quality of Reddit answer is in most cases, you know, not looking at the, some of the spam results or incentivized, um, kind of hidden results.
So that is one of the reasons. The other reason is of course, um, is of course AI, right? Um, so now where everybody can create at least mediocre content very quickly with AI for some searches, the, the dynamic of the web for Google is just falling apart. meaning if there is no kind of exceptional result that is most likely human created, that means everybody else can create the same result with AI, and it becomes incredibly hard to rank the best result at the top.
Sure, you could look at engagement, you could look at brand and all that kind of stuff. But at the end of the day, if most of the content is the same, then there is no value in web results anymore. And that's also where I think Google will give the answer away, right? Themselves, or link you to user generated content where you get an answer or an input from another human.
And so I see these two trends really as being the reason why forum content is so popular in the search results and also why I don't think this will go away anytime soon. I think if at all, Google will get better at weeding out unhelpful forum results and understand forum content better.
Well, I've got two quick follow up questions before I ask you about AI overviews, because I've got a few questions about AI overviews.
Um, first follow up question, um, you know, on our website, positional. com, like I've written like 80 blog posts. We have not used an AI writing tool. Our site's doing pretty well from an SEO point of view. But I feel like part of me wonders if I'm just like getting this totally wrong, because like I get asked about AI writing tools basically every single day.
And for the last like two years, I've basically said, don't use an AI writing tool. Um, that's, that's what I would do. Like, I wouldn't use an AI writing tool. I haven't used an AI writing tool. Am I just. Am I getting this wrong? Like, as SEOs building content led SEO strategies, should we be using an AI writing tool to create content on our site if everyone else is doing it?
Well, um, it's a, it's a broad question. I would, I would say generally you want to look for AI efficiency gains. The, the place where you probably don't want to look is can AI write all of the content for us? I think a reasonable approach is to say, can AI get us from a blank page to a draft to build on in a short amount of time?
I think that's, that's a really good start. Um, the other thing is. To use AI to figure out ways to make content outstanding, right? So one thing that I really like to do is to, um, use, you know, whatever tool doesn't matter as much. You can do this with, with any tool really, but to, um, to, to try to figure out how can we make this even better?
I think that is a key question for many different reasons, but I think in this world to rank and to stand out, you really have to provide something special. And figure out what that special thing could be with AI. I think that's a really good use case. Um, And then there are probably some other kind of efficiency gains, like keeping the brand voice consistent and typos and all that kind of stuff.
I would look at using AI more as something like, um, that can augment my work rather than replace my work. The other, the other kind of point of view that I want to, Um, share is that AI content works better. The more defined or data driven a piece of content is. So a programmatic content, for example, that leans heavily on data can work really well.
We found that at Nextdoor, that's been called out on earnings reports, been very successful. I've done it with other clients where we used public data sets, um, about. Locales, for example, like states and cities to build programmatic pages. And they work incredibly well because they're just grounded in facts, right?
The room for hallucination is very, very small. And the goal is really to turn numbers into sentences and context that makes sense for people. Um, where it fails though, is if you try to generate any type of thought leadership, um, press releases, or, or kind of like more PR content is probably a better way to say it, or anything where you need a human viewpoint or human experience or human empathy to create something truly outstanding.
So that's, that's probably another way to think about it.
And so Kevin, my second, very tactical follow up question before I ask you about AI overviews, I feel a little funny asking this question, but it was asked to me by like one of our customers. And so I'm going to ask you, um, given that like forums seem to be doing really well in the SERP, One of our customers had this idea essentially to like bolt on a forum to their website and have AIs essentially talk to each other.
Um, essentially to build a forum of like AIs talking to AIs. I won't tell you what I said to this client. I'd be curious to hear what you said or what you think. How would you respond to a question like that?
Isn't that how Reddit got started? I might do them a disservice, uh, gotta be careful because they're also a client, but uh, I, um, I think there was some kind of growth hack back in the day.
Yeah, you know, I've heard the Reddit founders speak about this. Like they were the original commenters, but.
Yeah, exactly, exactly. They kind of, you know, fake this a little bit. And like, look, I get where this is coming from. Okay. Um, And to me, the question really is, you know, first of all, what are the potential, what's the potential harm to users, right?
Um, like is somebody looking at these answers? Does somebody make sure that there are no kind of factually wrong things or wrong recommendations or something that could harm users? The other thing is how high is your, your pain and risk tolerance. I think you're introducing a risk that it could have a reputational damage that it could have an SEO, um, a negative SEO implication down the line.
Um, but at the same time, you know, I, there's the other question in the room, which is, should you start a forum and. I think SEO shouldn't be the only criteria for you to make that decision. But if there are other good reasons, and if you are in a position from a resource perspective to stand up a forum, it's probably a good idea.
Also, if you already have an existing forum that maybe has fallen asleep, or you haven't taken care of, now is the time to maybe reinvest some, some resources into making really good from a technical optimization perspective. From a staffing perspective, you probably want to have at least one person moderating and grooming the community, but generally I think it's a good idea.
Uh, and again, I don't think this will stop. I think this is a growth asset. Um, and, um, and the other question is, you know, what could be a Forum Lite experience? How can you test into this? But if that was a client coming to me, I would say, look, I would help you work on this, but under the premise that we make sure that there's no harm to people done, right?
The question is also what, what industry is this in? Are we talking about a health form? I'd probably be very reluctant to do this. Or are we talking maybe about, I don't know, computer games where it's, it's much less, uh, harmful to people.
Yeah, I think that's a very good point. We as SEOs, we need to be responsible, uh, for what people see in search results.
Um, and in some ways I, you know, I'm going to ask you about AI overviews, I promise, but like Google has said, like, search results are, I think, 45 percent more helpful than they used to be. Do you think in your own searching, the search results have gotten more helpful over the last year?
You know, I've come to, to hate the term helpful a little bit, because I don't know what that means, you know, like for me to understand.
So look, like if you, if you use a term to summarize the outcome of something so complex as search, then you need to show me what the inverse of this term means, right? Like I need to somehow need to see the contrast to understand what that term means. And so, um, at the end of the day, right? Like what is an unhelpful result?
And how is that different to what we did before? And that's just where I, I mean, if it's, Is it unhelpful if it doesn't answer my question? Sure. But that's not new. That has always been part of search. So I'm at odds with that term. I think the term in itself is not helpful because it doesn't help me understand what I should do.
It's not a good way to, to, to guide and direct SEOs and creators and web website owners into what they should change or what they should do down the line. And that's why, you know, when I hear, Oh, this is helpful. Um, I don't know what that means. So I think we need to find a different term. Um, but to answer your question, have I found the quality of results gotten better for me personally?
Um, Not really. I think for me, maybe the, the, the, the experience is probably flat. Um, and what I have seen at the same time, though, one, I look a lot more at AI overviews. So I think they work and I use them myself at least to get an initial gauge to my answer. I use chat GPT a lot more for certain use cases.
And I think that, um, not in every case, but there's a segment, a group of use cases where the results of chat GPT. are significantly better than search. And I think that's a problem for Google, especially when it comes to long tail or very specific things. I think that's a massive problem for Google. And so I think the question is easier to answer when we look at very specific use cases.
So in e commerce, for example, when it comes to shopping search, um, I find the results Less and less useful for me personally, uh, when it comes to informational searches, though, I think AI overviews broadly a good job in helping me, uh, you know, answer my query, um, maybe even better than before. So I hope, I hope that kind of answers your question.
Yeah, it does. Uh, and to, you know, I'll give Google a little credit here. They do have that documentation and, uh, search central, which. tries to give you like a self assessment checklist for like what is a helpful piece of content in terms of its helpfulness. Like, for example, is there, you know, does this content satisfy the search intent?
Does it say something substantially unique from the existing SERP? Is it based in first hand experience? Would you expect to see this content, you know, referenced in a magazine? Um, so like Google does give us some self assessment tests. You've transitioned us though. Thank you. We've, we've finally gotten to AI overviews and you've done some fantastic research on AI overviews over the last couple of months.
Um, and when you and I talked, uh, you know, 10 or so months ago, it was, it was still called SG. I think a lot of SEOs were freaking out. You know, I had some folks saying to me, like, I'm not going to do SEO. It's over. Like we've got, we've got SGE coming. I'm curious, like, uh, what do you make of these AI overviews?
Have you seen them be at all disruptive for, for the clients you work with in terms of traffic?
You know, it's a really good point. Um, I will say, um, that a lot of SEOs are trying to get out of the game right now. Um, I think this is something that is more, that is not publicly talked about and more said, you know, between, uh, um, you know, hushed breaths, but a lot of SEOs are trying to get out because it's getting wild.
And so I'll just leave that statement in the room. Um, there's probably more to unpack there. But to answer your question, it's really interesting. I'm actually working on a, like a really large analysis right now of, it's like over 550, 000 AI overview results. And so I expect to learn a lot from that. Um, but what I've, what I've seen so far, so I've done a couple of things where I tracked AI overviews in different industries, um, and, uh, track them for clients where I have search console access to.
The problem is you have to. make some assumptions because Google does not give us clicks from AI overviews or referral traffic. So you kind of have to make sure that an AI overview was present for a keyword over a certain amount of time. And then you have to monitor the citations and the classic web results.
And I've done that for a couple thousand keywords. And what I've found so far is that there is generally a negative impact when an AI overview is present on the sites that are not cited in the AI overview. That we can say negative impact is broadly about 10%. So it's luckily not quote unquote, Killing traffic overall.
Um, but I will also say that we need to repeat these studies over time because there is a novelty effect of AI overviews in the search results, right? People are starting to see this now also in the incognito version. So in the locked out version. People are starting to see this and they might at first just skip it because they might not trust it.
That's my theory. But over time it could be that more and more clicks are being attracted by AI overviews away from classic web results. The other thing that I learned is that when you are cited in the AI overview, In some cases, you can get more traffic in many cases, less traffic. I think it has to do with this novelty effect.
And with the fact that a lot of times the answer is already given by an AI overview. I will also say that we need to differentiate between queries that have a transactional intent or informational intent, right? So if you want to buy something, the chance of you getting traffic down the line, even though AI overviews are present is much, much higher than when it's about finding out an answer that is given out directly in the AI overviews.
So a lot of nuance here, um, a lot of it depends, and it depends on the industry you're in, the user intent, where you're cited, right? If you're in the citation carousel, for example, if you're at the very front, you'll get more clicks than at the very back, where you might probably get no clicks. And then Google also tinkers with this all the time, right?
Now we have a test that I see all the time. Where instead of a carousel of links, they have this list of links on the right hand rail. It looks almost like a, like a mini SERP and that will also impact click behavior, right? So it's a little bit of a cat and mouse game where we're running analysis that could become redundant in the next couple of weeks and months, which means it's really hard to make a definite statement.
Um, and at the same time, makes it really, really important to just stay Close to the puck and keep analyzing, keep spotting where things are going and how things are changing over time.
You're right. There's been some very recent changes with AI overviews and incognito. Maybe that means we get better like tracking as far as our placement in them.
Could be an interesting, uh, result from the, the release of AI overviews and in our incognito. But, uh, I think with the most recent UX UI change, it actually feels like those source links are like a little bit more prominent, at least it felt that way to me, like maybe they'll draw more traffic than even just like a month ago.
So you're right. Like these things are constantly changing and we've, we've got people like you are, who are doing the hard work and analysis. And I like, Told our listeners, they need to subscribe to the growth memo and, uh, make sure they, uh, they get the latest from you. Thank you. This is a tough question to ask.
So I had Brian Dean on the podcast, uh, maybe around the same time I last had you on and, and he, he suggested that AI overviews SG at the time would be similar to like the rollout of mobile in that, like maybe mobile reduces click through rate for certain queries, but. The fact that mobile is now a thing is actually led to many more searches.
And so he was making the argument that like AI overviews are going to get so good at some point that it's going to cause people to search more. And so even if click through rate goes down, like the net effect might be more traffic to publishers. Knowing what we know now, do you think that is at all possible or, uh, not so much?
It's similar to an argument that I made before and that Google is making a lot of times. It's actually funny because they have this text at the beginning that they now show in every announcement about AI overviews, which essentially says something like, yeah, there might be less traffic, but it's higher quality.
That is a view that I share. Um, I think that AI overviews can, in some cases, accelerate the user journey from awareness to purchase. And so the question though is, you know, how are you present along this journey? And can you convince people to come purchase on your site? I will say that, um, I think a related problem to AI overviews is that different to mobile AI overviews are, there's more competition.
So AI overviews and chat GPT, they're somewhat similar. And OpenAI is now launching search GPT, which looks a lot like AI overviews as well. And so I think, um, I don't think we'll see more traffic down the line. I could see that a lot of noisy traffic is going away and a lot more traffic from Google becomes higher quality because people have, you know, they're just further along in their search journey.
So they won't click around as much or come and go and come and go and come and go, but they might just come and buy, which is helpful for our understanding of traffic. But I think the challenge is for Google and for us that this playing field seems to become more fragmented, right? And that's different to mobile where there was really just, you know, uh, uh, Google in essence, um, and maybe Apple.
So I wonder how many more searches are going away from Google with introduction of AI overviews because Google, because users might get an even better experience, uh, on search GPT or maybe some other, uh, Yeah. I check bots.
Yeah. Your commentary echoes, uh, what we heard from, uh, Eli Schwartz a couple of weeks ago on this podcast.
He, he made a similar point that for his clients, they might get less traffic, but the quality of that traffic is, is going to be of, of higher quality. And, uh, speaking of search GPT, I was going to ask you, do you think search GPT is, is a credible threat to, uh, to Google's. I, I don't know, alleged monopoly. I think it's, I think it's still alleged if they're appealing it, but do you think a search GPT is something Google really needs to worry about?
I think so. Um, I think so. What I don't think is realistic is that search GPT will replace Google. And I don't think that Google will like, you know, tank like a, like a site that was hit by a core update. I don't think that's, what's going to happen. I think the danger to Google is similar to the danger in e commerce for Google.
where they're losing the battle to Amazon and now more purchase journeys and shopping start on Amazon. And they're kind of trying to catch up. And I think the danger for Google is that Search GPT does what they're trying to do with AI overviews, you know, maybe, maybe not, maybe not just as good, but maybe good enough.
And so, um, the danger for Google really is to, for them to lose their big headstart, right? We compare, for example, um, Google before AI overviews with With Bing before Copilot, um, there was a clear head start that Google had, right? And nobody was ever able to catch up. And now you see more Chatbots and more solutions like search GPT being able to come much, much closer to where Google is today.
And I think that's the big danger because that means that a simple integration could take away significant share from Google. And when I say integration, it could be, you know, what if open AI becomes the standard for informational searches on Apple devices, or maybe they bring out their own phone and they somehow managed to get more market share.
And then they're the default. I think that's the bigger. danger because the margin, the head start that Google had seems to be smaller now with AI results. Um, but how that's going to play out down the line, that is hard to say at this point.
I want to transition a little bit. And I know you've got, uh, some real hands on experience with, uh, programmatic SEO.
And it feels like more so in the last, like, three months I've been getting asked about programmatic SEO over and over and over again by startups. Let's say Series A, Series B companies, they want to do programmatic SEO. And sometimes like I look at the site, I'm like, I don't know what the programmatic SEO strategy is here that like we could, we could try to deploy.
Um, do you think programmatic SEO is like, it's becoming a fad? Like, uh, or, or rightly so, it should be a strategy that all, all startups are thinking about.
Yeah, I think it's a good question because it definitely has a little bit of the flavor of the day. To it, but I will also say that I think before programmatic became so hyped to few companies, we're probably exploring that.
So now I think the pendulum has swung in the other direction where everybody wants to do programmatic and it's not in the cars for everyone. And before it was probably not enough people were doing or more companies could have done programmatic. So I hope it will normalize to a healthy degree. But I will say, you know, with AI and also with no code and some of the new platforms coming out, it's easier than ever to create programmatic content.
And it's also easier than ever to create poor programmatic content. So the, the key is in finding a programmatic play that makes sense for your company and product to Finding an angle or a way to make that pro chromatic content really, really good. You know, um, it really good. I don't want to say helpful, but providing a good experience, answering the, the, the questions that people have when they search for it and kind of having maybe some unique data or some, some unique content that, that is either impossible or very hard for other companies to get, that would be.
The criteria for me to say, okay, you should absolutely launch this, or you should, you should explore this. Um, also because there is a real risk to introducing a lot of low quality pages on your domain. I hinted at that earlier, but, um, I see more and more companies gets quote unquote, dinged inorganic traffic when they launch a lot of pages that.
either have a subpar experience or that are, you know, uh, poor to read. Um, and it, it does also seem that Google has introduced a twiddler, a little re-ranking system, um, a while ago. I think it was around October 23. That is my, um, my theory. A little twiddler takes another look at a domain when too many pages are launched at the same time.
So there is a, there is a risk to pro chromatic and, uh, and you kind of, you want to, you want to make sure you can provide something outstanding.
You know, I was talking to a company in, uh, in, in around like April, late April, May, like in between like the March core update and this most recent update and their site had been doing really well, it got through like the March update, uh, doubtful content update of 2023.
And like the site was doing really well. And then it just, you Started to nosedive and I asked him, like, what did, what did you do? Um, and what they did was they essentially published thousands of. Location pages, like landing pages to their site. And each one was only different in that like the H one must.
different. So they essentially published a thousand identical pages to their website for specific locations they wanted to serve. And the effect was that the entire site got dinged. And I know the helpful content system is running continuously now, but I guess I hadn't really seen it in practice.
And so I think you're right. There's this, like this risk element that if you've got like a great SEO strategy in place today, we need to be really thoughtful about any programmatic strategy we want to, we want to roll out. But Kevin, this is this has been so much fun. Um, you know, I've got a few lightning round questions.
Uh, does that sound good? Sounds great. So Google is a monopoly or an alleged monopoly. I think it's still getting put through the court system even here. Um, do you think in five years from now, Google will still be the default search engine on Apple devices?
I doubt it. I don't, I don't think so. That's a hard note for me.
Um, I think this will drag on for a bit longer. Um, and I think these exclusive distribution contracts. are really hard for Google to defend, especially when they say at the same time, we're the best search engine and people want us to want to want to use our product, then why are you paying for it? So I, I, I have a very clear no to this.
I guess the other part of it is even if Google can't pay Apple, do you think Apple would still default to Google or they'd take the money in and work with a company that can pay them? I
I think Apple is most likely to default to Google. Um, but what is? important to keep in mind there is that the agreement with Google says that Apple is not allowed to innovate, or develop their own search engine to develop a spotlight search and to develop Siri search.
So, um, I think Apple might still list Google as the default search engine, but I think they will also do a lot more to not even have people open their browsers and go to Google, but to catch more of those search intents, maybe in spotlight Siri or, or on the device level.
Totally. And you mentioned earlier that SEOs are getting out of the game.
Um, I, you know, I, I'm optimistic. I think I could find another job if I had to. Um, but, uh, what are, what are these SEOs doing? The ones that are getting out of the game? Are they becoming like general growth marketers? Are they, are they, what are, what are these SEOs doing after SEO is over?
I want to be clear.
I'm not sure. I don't think SEO is over. I think the fat easy years are over. But a lot of people who are getting out of SEO is, you know, they're, they're either adding search to their skill set, or they're moving further into product and then doing product growth. Some of them are kind of further moving into kind of like, just like broader growth marketing, as you said.
And others are just getting deeper into the content game or into the social game, right? They're, they're focusing more on stuff like video. TikTok, YouTube. So they're certainly branching out from SEO, or they're completely leaving SEO behind. And they just focus on the skillset they develop along the way, like, like maybe product management.
I meant to say that the SEO is over for them personally, maybe. Right, right. But you know, the best SEO is, I know, like, none of them wanted to be SEOs when they grew up. They were just like smart people who figured out how to get Documents to show up highly in the CERB. And so, I have to think that most of these people are just pretty smart individuals and that there will be a place for them if they decide to get out of SEO.
I love that. I would love it if everybody quit SEO, then it would just get a lot easier. Kevin, my last question for you is, uh, the growth memo. How can our listeners subscribe? What do they need to do to, uh, to hear more from you?
Thanks for the spotlight, Nate. Really appreciate it. You can find the growth memo on the growth memo.
com or just, just Google growth memo. Do not click on the growth memo. com. Those are, that's an imposter newsletter. People sometimes mistake. That is not my newsletter. Mine is just growth memo. com. Where you just, you know, uh, if you Google my name, you'll, you'll typically find that as well.
Nate Matherson We will link to the correct growth memo, uh, in the show notes.
And, uh, if the growth memo is listening, you, you better watch out, but, uh, Kevin, thank you so much for this conversation and coming back on, uh, this week's episode of the optimized podcast. Thank you.
51:27
Thanks for having me, Nate. It's been a pleasure as always.
And that's a wrap. And I just want to thank our sponsor Positional. They've got what is a pretty awesome tool set for content marketers and SEOs. They've even got a couple of tools for social media. Uh, we'd love for you to check out Positional and the tool set that we've created, uh, over the last 15 months at Positional.
And you can always reach out to me if you have any questions. My email is Nate at positional.com. com. Whether you've got questions about our tool set or comtoolsetd complaints, uh, or even positive feedback about this podcast, I'd love to hear from you. Um, and don't forget to hit the like and subscribe button, uh, wherever you are listening to this podcast.
Uh, thanks so much for tuning in.
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As an SEO novice, Positional makes it easy. I can quickly go from keyword research, to clustering, to content outlines, then go focus on just making good content. I felt like it helped bridge the gaps between what would’ve taken 3 or more tools in the past.
The first time we used Positional's toolset was to revamp an older but important piece of content. We used Optimize for optimization, and Internals for internal linking suggestions. We went from position #6 to #1 with the changes and increased our organic search traffic to the page by 400%. Today, Positional is an integral part of our blogging strategy, from topic generation to blog renovation.
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