The Featured Snippet is the official SEO newsletter of Performics, dedicated to keeping you up to date with the latest SEO industry news, trends, and events. See below for the latest version of The Featured Snippet:
In the September 2023 issue of The Featured Snippet:
The September 2023 Google helpful content update includes an improved classifier for the helpful content system. Google has also added a section in its documentation emphasizing the potential impact of hosting third-party content on a site’s search rankings, suggesting it should be blocked from indexing if it’s largely independent of the main site’s purpose. Additionally, Google removed the requirement that content must be “written by people,” indicating that AI-generated content can also be considered helpful, and encourages site owners to self-assess their content if they notice a negative impact from the update.
Sources:
Google is expanding its generative AI experience in Search to India and Japan, allowing users in these countries to access Search Generative Experience (SGE) in their local languages, and implementing features like voice input and language toggles for multilingual speakers. The generative AI in Search is being used for more complex queries and it is receiving positive feedback, particularly from younger users who appreciate the conversational interaction and follow-up question suggestions.
Sources:
Google’s generative AI experiment Bard has introduced Bard Extensions in English, allowing users to interact and collaborate with Bard in new ways. Bard now integrates with various Google apps and services like Gmail, Docs, Drive, Google Maps, YouTube, and Google Flights, enabling it to find and present relevant information from these tools in one conversation. Additionally, Bard’s “Google it” feature has been improved for users to double-check its responses, while access to features like uploading images with Lens and getting Search images in responses has been expanded to over 40 languages.
Sources:
Google has introduced a new control mechanism called “Google-Extended” that allows web publishers to manage whether their sites help improve Bard and Vertex AI generative APIs. This control is available through robots.txt and enables website administrators to decide whether they want to contribute to enhancing Google’s AI models. It follows a public discussion initiated by Google in July to gather input from various stakeholders about choice and control over web content.
Sources:
A recent analysis shows that 26% of the top 100 most popular websites are currently blocking GPTBot, a web crawler introduced by OpenAI in August. This represents a 250% increase from the previous month when only 69 of the top 1,000 websites had implemented such blocks, with big brands like Pinterest, Indeed, The Guardian, and others now choosing to block GPTBot, presumably to prevent data scraping without compensation or proper attribution.
Sources:
Google has completely removed How-To Rich Results from desktop as of September 13th. Google announced that this change was made in Google’s continuous effort to simplify search results. Schema for how to rich results will no longer be beneficial within the SERP, however it can still be used.
Sources:
TikTok is testing a feature where it displays a link back to Google’s search results in its internal search results page . For now, this feature is just a trial in select markets, and it’s unclear if this feature will eventually become permanent.
Source:
There is a new report available within Bing Webmaster Tools that reports on data previously unavailable to be reported on. The performance report now gains data on Bing Images, Bing Videos, Bing News, Bing Knowledge Panel, and more. Bing Chat data is included within the report as well, however you are unable to filter out Bing Chat data specifically.
Source: