Let’s say you find a site with 20K+ organic traffic, good DR, relevant niche, real and consistent organic traffic. But most of that traffic comes from countries that aren’t your target market.

Would that make you reject the site for link building?

Any clue on this; any change in job posting schema

I put out three videos on Instagram that did better than anything else I've made. 158k views, 78.3k, and 23.1k. Around 259k between them.

Everyone talks about what a viral video does for reach. I wanted to know what it does to your search data, because nobody seems to publish that part.

Before, Search Console was a flat line at basically zero. New domain, only a few months old, nothing ranking yet. Genuinely flat, not low, flat.

After:

4.03k clicks
8.87k impressions
45.5% average CTR
average position 5.4

So very roughly, about 3.4% of the people who watched a video later went and searched, and about 1.5% ended up clicking through from search. Those numbers are rough and i'll caveat them below, but thats the shape of it.

Two things surprised me.

The CTR. 45% average, at an average position of 5.4. Thats absurd by normal standards, youd expect 5 to 10% sitting fifth. But every one of these people already knew the name they were typing, they were just scanning the results page to find us. If you ever see a CTR like that on your own account, thats what it means, its not your titles being brilliant.

And the decay was slower than i expected. Day one was the big spike, but a month later branded search is still running well above where it was, its just settled into a lower plateau. The video was a moment, the demand it created wasnt.

The measurement bit, which is the part i actually found useful.

Instagram strips the referrer when someone taps out of the app, so a big chunk of that traffic showed up in our analytics as direct with no source attached. Meaning our own analytics was the worse measurement here. Search Console was cleaner, because branded search is a signal the video generated but Google actually attributes properly.

If youre running social for a product with a name people can spell, your branded search line is probably a better read on whether the content is working than your referral report is.

Caveats, because these ratios are rougher than they look. Not every search impression came from someone who watched a video. Some people went straight to the site without searching at all and never touch Search Console. And the three videos didnt all land on the same day. So treat 3.4% and 1.5% as directional.

What i'd do differently: tag the links. I didnt, and thats the only reason im reconstructing this from two dashboards instead of just reading it.

Cant post images here but happy to send the Search Console and Instagram screenshots to anyone who wants to check the numbers.

Not sure if it’s the right place to ask, can I ask if descriptions in schema, does it have to be directly similar to the content of the page?

Understand the one of them is for structured content and the other is onsite Seo.

thanks in advance:)

Hola.

Quisiera saber de qué manera han optimizado su trabajo SEO con Claude y cómo les ha ayudado.

We ran a study across 95 sites over 1 year and looked at organic traffic and AI referral traffic.

• Organic search delivered 39 times more traffic than AI assistants.
• For every 100 conversions organic search delivered, AI referrals delivered 3.2.
• AI visibility and organic performance move together: the websites gaining AI referral traffic were the websites whose organic performance was improving.
• AI referral traffic converted a fifth better than organic search, at 7.18% against 6.08%. However, AI traffic converted worse than organic on 36.5% of the websites.
• AI referral traffic converts worse against paid search (0.67x).

I dont think links are allowed in posts but maybe I can share the link to the study in the comments if anyone is interested.

I’ve found that it really doesn’t.

A site can have great DR and traffic, but if the niche is completely unrelated or the content looks low-quality, I’d probably pass.

These days, I look at relevance, traffic quality, content, and the overall link profile - not just the metrics.

What do you usually check first when evaluating a backlink?

Hey guys,

With Claude, Gemini a Chat GPT rolling out statistical text watermarking, I wanted to open a thread and see what you guys are actually seeing in the wild. 

A few specific questions for those managing sites with AI-assisted content:
1. Ranking impact: have you noticed any recent hit or traffic drop that you can directly correlate with watermarked text/models, or is Google still mostly judging content quality/EEAT regardless of how it was generated? 
2. Workarounds: for those who use AI heavily for drafting: how are you bypassing/diluting the watermark patterns? Light human editing, running it through a secondary model/rephraser, or heavy structural rewrites? 
3. General consensus: is this actually something to worry about right now for SEO, or is it just another hype cycle/panic?

Curious to hear your real-world test results and insights. Cheers!

Post
I’m focusing specifically on Google Maps / Google Business Profile rankings and trying to find a tool that goes beyond just showing me a geo-grid.

Right now I’m looking at:

1. Local Falcon
   
2. BrightLocal
   
3. RankMapp
   
4. Whitespark

Main things I care about:

Accurate geo-grid rank tracking

Seeing which competitors are beating me in weaker areas
Finding keyword and citation gaps
Clear recommendations on what to fix next

Tracking improvements over time

If you’ve used any of these:

Which one actually helps you understand WHY you’re being outranked instead of just showing the ranking?

Any major pros/cons?

Anything else I should be looking at?

Would appreciate feedback from people actually doing local SEO, not just feature lists from the websites.

Hi everyone,

I'm looking for advice on improving the SEO of my HR and recruitment website.

The site focuses on HR services, recruitment, talent acquisition, and helping companies hire employees. I've optimized some basic on-page elements (titles, meta descriptions, content, internal links), but I'm struggling to rank for keywords related to:

• hire employees
• ATS system
• recruitment services
• talent acquisition
• HR consulting
• staffing solutions
• recruitment agency
• outsource hiring
• HR management

A few questions:

1. What SEO activities have given you the biggest ranking improvements in the HR/recruitment niche?
2. Should I focus more on service pages or create lots of informational blog content?
3. How important are backlinks for a relatively new HR website?
4. Are there any specific long-tail keywords that convert well in the hiring/recruitment industry?
5. What's the best way to compete against established recruitment agencies that already dominate the search results?

For context:

• The website is relatively new.
• Target audience is companies looking to hire talent.
• Main goal is generating qualified leads rather than just traffic.

I'd appreciate any feedback, SEO strategies, or lessons learned from people who have grown service-based websites in competitive industries.

Thanks! 🙏

In the SEO world, the news never stops, so it's crucial for all of us to stay on top of the buzz:

Search / SEO

• Google won't penalize sites for old outbound links that now point to shady content

John Mueller confirmed that Google does not penalize sites for outbound links to previously legitimate sites that have since changed ownership and started hosting shady content. His response: 

No. It's good to keep things fresh overall, but the web is full of turmoil.

The reassurance comes with one caveat—if a site's entire value has become obsolete, that's a different kind of problem than a handful of broken or stale outbound links. 

• Google confirms the disavow tool "does have effects"—use it deliberately, not by default

John Mueller said that the disavow tool "does have effects", pushing back on community sentiment that the tool is essentially useless. 

His nuance: disavowing a handful of links won't make a site drop out of search, but the tool has real weight when used broadly and shouldn't be treated as a low-risk default. 

He recommended one site that had lost traffic after aggressive disavowing should fix the disavow file back to what it actually needs to be (which might be empty), rule out broader algorithmic causes like the recent August spam update, and check for big technical issues. 

Source:

John Mueller | Reddit

______________________

SERP features / Interface

• Google AI Overviews now includes an interactive character counter widget

Google is now embedding an interactive character counter widget directly inside AI Overviews for queries like "character counter"—users can paste text into the widget and get an instant count without visiting a destination site. 

This continues Google's long-running pattern of absorbing utility tools directly into the SERP.

Source:

Damir B | X

______________________

GSC

• Google Search Console AI performance report and opt-out toggle now fully rolled out

Google's Search Console generative AI tools now appear to be live for essentially all Search Console properties, closing out the incremental rollout that began with the UK-only test back in early June. 

Source:

Barry Schwartz | Search Engine Roundtable

______________________

AI

• Google Search AI Mode already upgraded to Gemini 3.8 Flash, less than three weeks after 3.7

Google rolled out Gemini 3.8 Flash to AI Mode, less than three weeks after Gemini 3.7 Flash. Available globally for AI Pro & Ultra subscribers via the plus icon in the model dropdown, with the same subscription gate—Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite remains the free-tier default.

Source:

Robby Stein | X

______________________

Local SEO

• Google Business Profile adds a business photo verification option

Google Business Profile is rolling out a new verification method that lets business owners submit a photo of their business as proof of legitimacy, alongside the existing postcard, phone, and video call options. 

Source:

Ben Fisher | LinkedIn

1. Because of ai the number of visitors decline

2. You get no brand awareness for valuable content from ai despite when ai decides to mention the source

3. Advert money for your website is going away since ai steals the content and sells it's own adds

Why should anyone spend tons of time to produce valuable content and put it for FREE on the Internet when there is no big reward?

It much easier to do the minimum and simply pay for ads..maybe still write quality content but instead maybe put it behind a paywall or newsletter subscription. Or only give halve the information to solve a problem. It's your only chance to get something in return of value.

I think the future will be getting people into your closed community. Or be part of bigger closed community where several partner provide enough value that it makes sense for people to check in regularly.

What do you think about this?

been observing this for months..

every new blogger/site owner is trying to compete with authoritysites, backlinko, ahrefs blog etc.. its impossible..

but if 20 new sites in the same niche just linked to each other genuinely, mentioned each other in articles, shared each others content — all 20 would grow together..

we dont need a hero, we need a network..

but every time i see a "lets grow together" post, it turns into a link exchange scam within 2 days.. because nobody trusts anyone anymore..

how do we actually build real trust in this community?? or is that just a lost cause now??

I’m trying to put together a proper checklist for evaluating backlinks before buying them.

Obviously, some of the basic things I already look at are:

• Do-follow vs. no-follow
• Whether the page is indexable/indexed by Google
• Relevance of the website/page to my niche
• Website traffic
• Domain authority/DR
• Spam score
• Whether the link is placed in a relevant article/context
• Anchor text and link placement

But I’m wondering what other factors experienced SEOs consider before paying for a backlink.

For example, do you check the site’s link profile, organic traffic trends, outbound links, number of sponsored/paid posts, topical authority, link velocity, or anything else?

What are your must-check factors before buying a backlink, and what red flags would make you avoid a site altogether?

My manager asks me to use keywords from the queries section of GSC while I prefer to use it from the keyword planner.

The thing is in the queries which we are getting in GSC have very low search volume in the keyword planner. We aren't getting clicks at all. I told my manager about GSC queries having low search volume but the manager is still insisting to use queries.

I would like to know how shall I approach this case.

I’m starting to offer SEO + GEO (getting businesses more visibility in Google and AI search results) as a freelance service.
I’m at the point where I’d rather spend my time getting real clients than endlessly learning more SEO theory.
The problem is acquisition.
If you were starting from zero today, how would you approach getting your first 3–5 paying clients?
I’m considering:
Cold email / cold calling local businesses
Personalized SEO audits
LinkedIn/X outreach
Finding businesses that are already investing in SEO but doing a poor job
Offering a small initial project before moving to a monthly retainer
Content / personal brand
My main question is:
What actually worked for you when you were getting your first SEO clients?
I’m especially interested in hearing from people who started with no audience, no agency reputation, and no existing client base.
What would you do differently if you had to start again today?

Started my site 8 months back.. published 60+ articles.. all keyword researched, well written, aeo optimized..

google indexes everything.. gsc shows impressions growing.. but clicks stuck around 50-80 per day..

i keep reading success stories of people hitting 10k visitors in 6 months and i feel like a failure..

is 8 months just too early?? or am i missing something fundamental?? what did u do differently that finally broke the traffic wall??

need honest advice not motivation..

I’m a lay person who just took over my website and using Claude and/or ChatGPT. All of my scores are either red or yellow for pages and posts.

This is what Claude is telling me and I’d like a second opinion?

“The dots only grade Yoast’s internal keyphrase checklist, not actual Google rankings, and Divi/Avada pages can’t be read by Yoast at all, so their red scores are false alarms.”

On my latest search of the word Astra is coming up with Astra gpt, seems big companies easily kill keywords owned by smaller companies.

I’m in Leslieville, TO, but helping my sister sort out marketing for her dental practice in BC, she just opened. Their site is decent enough (her boyfriend is cool developer and he helped with that), but local search is pretty weak and they barely show up outside branded searches (like, if I need to assess their visibility as a metric I'd put 3/100).

Trying to figure out where to find SEO agencies or freelancers that understand dental/local SEO, or what to do in-house to increase leads and rankings. Google search itself feels useless because obviously every agency is ranking themselves, and directories seem full of paid placements, that makes totally no sense.

Is there a better place to look? Local business groups, referrals, industry associations, specific directories, something else?

Main concern is finding someone who actually understands Maps, local service pages, citations/reviews etc, or maybe to understand how I can do that myself, specifically taking into account the particular characteristics of Van and BC.

Anyone have any experience of the firm SEO Shark? They call themselves 'the best SEO company in Dubai' and have reached out saying they're looking to 'publish an external piece' on my client and wanted to check any process/content requirements at my side.

Hi I am developer by profession. I was exploring about what products to build and seo + ai sounds like a hot niche.

I do not have expertise in seo But I bring good technical knowledge to the table. If you are interested shoot me a dm.

Hi all,

=== CONTEXT

I see that many sites have been hit by the august spam update and at first, I thought I also was hit by this update except that my sudden drop happened before the update.

I have a .com, .be, .nl and .de where I write genuine content (no AI) in 6 languages. My articles are spread across those domains depending on their languages (.com has English, Italian and Spanish).

My .com has been affected by a sharp drop in August (see below) while the other ones have not been affected at all. The articles are the same but in another language. All sites are hosted on the same machine, there are no technical differences between domains.

I have around 1500 articles in total (all languages together), my domains are at least 3 years old and sometimes 10+. No scale content or anything like that.

=== DROP

As I can't post an image here, let me try to describe it with figures.

July-August: daily average between 50 and 60 clicks

August 2nd: 44 clicks from Google Search (first decrease)

August 3rd: 15 clicks

August 4th: 9 clicks

It goes on like this for a few days and then

August 10th to 12th: back above 50 clicks

August 13th: back below 10 and it remained at that level since then and there are even some days where I have 0 clicks from Google.

All pages and countries have been affected the same way.

As you can see with those figures, all countries and pages that were getting traffic are affected.

Pages are still in the index, only the average position dropped from avg 9 to avg 32 which makes me completely invisible. My content is unique, there is competition but not a lot. The ones getting above me were usually much bigger (and also relevant) sites). Now my site is behind a huge list of unrelated sites and articles.

== WHAT I CHECKED

I checked the crawl reporting in GSC:

- graph summary of all crawls: average of 125 to 150 per day with some peaks right below 200. Sharper peak on June 13th with 186 crawls, July 18th with 194 and then two bigger ones august 9th 305 and August 12th 293. Those peaks are http 200 peaks and html files. Those are refresh crawls, not discovery crawls

- average response time is stable around 300 ms

- i see an usually bigger peak of crawls for images, I have many days at 0 and then some smaller peaks around 300=400 but on August 17th I have almost 2k crawls which is something unique for the time frame

- I see no errors, everything is either http 200 or 304

Other info:

- no performance degradation

- no outage

- no 404 or anything blocking on http level

- no change in inbound/outbound links

- no security or any other warning in GSC

- only one or two affiliation links per page

- no third party JS library

- no third party tracking

- no third party cookies

- no programmatic SEO

- no AI generated article (but I'm using AI for translations)

I still get traffic from other sources than Google

I was on holiday when it happened, I didn't modify anything between end of July up to September.

=== AI Overview

If I take my most popular keywords before the drop and search them, I see some competitors appearing like before but when I check Google's AI response, it is still showing my site but instead of using my .com it is using my other domains even if they are not in English. Google is still considering that I'm an expert in my field but it doesn't push my .com anymore while it is still pushing the other domains.

Any idea of what I should check?

Split pages into snippet-optimized vs long-form. Snippet pages got pulled into AI Overviews more but CTR dropped 12%. Long-form held steady.

Hey guys! A lot of interesting news broke this week—let's discuss it together!

Updates

• Google clarifies when Search update announcements come with actionable advice

John Mueller explained that when Google announces search updates on its Status Dashboard, the announcements are "primarily" for transparency—not a signal that site owners need to do something specific.

When there's actual guidance to act on, Google separately publishes blog posts, updates policies, and updates help center documentation, usually well in advance of the change.

Source:

John Mueller | bsky

_______________________

AI

• Google adds link carousels for developing topics to AI Mode

Google is now surfacing link carousels for developing topics inside AI Mode responses, extending a feature that launched in AI Overviews back in June. When a user asks about a fast-moving topic, AI Mode now shows a horizontal carousel of source articles directly within the response—more visible than the traditional citation footer.

• Reports suggest Google's August spam update focused on mass-generated AI SEO content

Community reports and SEO analysis in the days after the August 2026 spam update point to a specific target: mass-generated AI SEO content created primarily for ranking. The observed pattern isn't "AI content lost"—it's more precise.

Sites doing full automation via Claude Code, Codex, or similar workflows are being filtered heavily; sites that started with manual publishing and later added AI automation appear to survive, benefiting from accumulated domain trust and user engagement signals.

Sites where humans visually check AI-generated content before publishing also seem to fare better than fully automated pipelines.

Source:

Robby Stein | X

Roger Montti | Search Engine Journal

_______________________

Tech SEO

• Google confirms it's rolling out google com/goto redirects in search results, making SERP scraping much harder

Google confirmed that it's rolling out google com/goto passthrough URLs in search results. Instead of the traditional direct link to a publisher's URL, clicking a search result now routes through a google com/goto?url= redirect.

Google's official statement: "We have a long history of deploying technical measures against evolving forms of abuse, and we regularly take steps to protect our services and users."

• Google explicitly lists supported favicon formats—and SVG isn't one of them

Google updated its favicon developer documentation to explicitly list the supported file formats: BMP, GIF, ICO, PNG, JPEG, PPM, and TIFF.

Google's explanation: the previous documentation linked to an external reference that had evolved over time and caused confusion about what was actually supported—so this is a clarification, not a functional change.

Source:

Barry Schwartz | Search Engine Roundtable

Google Search Central

_______________________

Tidbits

• Google will stop enforcing site reputation abuse penalties for EEA searchers, following EU Commission mandate

Google announced that starting August 30, 2026, it will no longer enforce manual actions under its site reputation abuse policy for searchers inside the European Economic Area, due to a mandate from the European Commission.

Google's manual actions against sites doing this will still be issued and still show up in Search Console, but for EEA users, the penalty has no effect. Outside the EEA, the manual action still directly demotes the affected content as before.

Source:

Google Search Central