Google & SEO

Google’s Martin Splitt gives insight into audio versions of blog posts

One of Google’s Developer Advocates, Martin Splitt, recently gave some insight into audio blog posts. Martin was asked whether adding an audio version of a blog post could have an impact on Google’s search rankings. The short answer? Probably not.

However, Splitt still gave us some interesting information that we can put to good use for future blog pieces. Splitt went on to elaborate further: “I don’t think it will… I think it is a good thing for the user, though, so I would definitely do it — but not for SEO reasons.”

So even though adding audio versions of blog posts likely won’t make your site rank higher in and of itself, it can still help your readers navigate your site better. It’s well known by now that Google is all about creating helpful, useful and people-first content – adding audio versions of your blogs to your site may help people with vision issues and disabilities to access your content, fitting well with Google’s helpful ethos. Audio content can also make your site more accessible and engaging for those people who prefer to listen than read, even if they do not have any vision issues.

It’s not just about impressing Google with your skills either. It’s also important to consider the fact that the more helpful your content is, the more likely it is that it will be shared and distributed with other people, gaining more views, links and interactions overall.

See for yourself below!

Read the full report on SearchEngineLand here.

Ahrefs Study Reveals Over Half of Websites Receive AI Traffic

Ahrefs recently conducted a study to understand how much traffic is made up of AI, including where it is directly coming from, the most common referral sources, and how that differs depending on the size of the website. 

We know that Google announced that AI overviews get a higher click-through rate than normal web search results, and that generative AI is already impacting website rankings and traffic – there’s no denying that it’s here to stay. 

The study analysed the differences between sites driving greater than 10,000 visitors, between 1,000 and 9,000 visitors, and below 999 visitors per month, across the following AI chatbots: ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot, Gemini, Perplexity, Jasper, and Mistral.

The results? According to data, there is roughly a 2 in 3 chance of receiving a site visit via AI. Knowing this, you can monitor your AI traffic which can show you which sources send users your way, which pages on your site act as AI magnets, and how that traffic is changing or growing over time. 

ChatGPT sent over half of the AI traffic, while Perplexity sent 30.7% and Gemini referred 17.6%. If you want traffic from AI, pay attention to these ‘big three’ chatbots.

New study shows Google organic and paid CTRs have hit a new low

Organic and paid click-through rates (CTRs) are reported to have declined with the introduction of Google’s AI Overviews playing a role. A study carried out by Seer Interactive reveals that organic CTRs have dropped from 1.41% to 0.64% on average when AI overviews are present on the SERP, but increasing when absent. For paid CTRs, the study showed that this had declined across the board, regardless of whether an AI overview was present or not.

However, the flip side to this is when a brand appeared within the AI Overviews, then the CTRs for both paid and organic performed better. Organic CTRs increased from 0.74% to 1.02% and paid CTRs increased from 7.89% to 11% on average.

This data does indicate that AI Overviews influence search visibility and how users interact with the SERP but not necessarily in a way that benefits every website. Google still states that AI overviews enhance users’ search satisfaction, but the data does tell different narratives about this.

We spoke to Sara Taher, SEO consultant and Speaker, about this update:

Expert opinion

Sara Taher, SEO consultant and Speaker

"While the organic CTRs have dropped from 1.41% to 0.64% on average when AI overviews are present on the SERP, but increasing when absent, appearing in AI Overviews increases the CTR too. Which is good news, it only means we can no longer measure CTR solely on the clicks to the 10 blue links. So far AI Overviews is focused on mid to low/zero search volume keywords, and many of the keywords AI Overviews appear for were long tail complex conversational keywords. Many of those queries had no good answers in SERPs so even if we used to get those clicks, they may not have been very valuable to us. It’s also time we connect the number of organic clicks, organic sessions, and organic conversions to see the actual impact vs. judging by one metric, the CTR. CTR as a metric is a tricky one, if AIO caused a 50% drop in clicks, this can be 1 click of 2 clicks, or 1000 clicks of 2000. I’m not dismissing the study, but we need other metrics to see the full picture and understand the “business impact”. The Paid CTR decreases across the board, regardless of whether an AI overview was present or not. I have no idea why, but this should mean more clicks to organic results that appear with no AI overviews right? Overall great study, but my recommendation is to look at different metrics to understand what we actually lost - and potentially gained - and not just the CTR, in this new era of search."

Ahrefs study released about if links really do “matter less”

Following Google stating that “links are less important than they used to be” for organic rankings, Ahrefs have completed a study into this across an array of queries and industries. 

Within the analysis, they looked back on a 2019 study into backlinks and ranking correlation which highlighted the shift in which Google was alluding to. 

Interestingly, also Ahrefs discovered that backlinks align a lot closer for impact within both informational content and local results and queries, which makes sense given these more specific content types should naturally be gaining links if they’re high quality and useful for users. 

Just as Google may be shifting away from weighting links ever so slightly, this doesn’t mean you need to shift focus away from authority building in order to achieve success. There are hundreds of ranking factors which could be playing a part and they’re continuing to tweak their algorithms in order to find the perfect recipe which works within the SERPs.

We spoke to Carl Ashfield, SEO Manager at Quirky Digital who said:

Expert opinion

Carl Ashfield, SEO Manager at Quirky Digital

"Backlinks remain one of the most important ranking factors in SEO, serving as trust signals to search engines regarding the credibility of a site and how relevant its content is. As Google's algorithms continue to change, a meaningful backlink strategy, in conjunction with content optimisation and internal linking, remains essential to higher rankings and long-term success"

Google updates Search Quality Raters Guidelines

Yesterday, Google updated the Search Quality Raters Guidelines with a clear focus on eliminating spammy SEO tactics.

The updates aim to clarify and align with Google Search Web Spam Policies. It also includes expanding the guidance, adding illustrations, and tidying up typos and outdated examples.

What does this mean for SEO and Digital PR teams? We now have a clearer understanding of what Google Search Quality Raters are looking for – and it starts with quality content. Ensuring we’re following best practices when it comes to content will be key, especially if you want your Digital PR strategy to cut through the noise.

Dan Richardson, SEO Consultant at danrich.co told Embryo:

Expert opinion

Dan Richardson, SEO Consultant at danrich.co

"Google’s latest updates to the Search Quality Rater Guidelines signal a further push towards attempting to combat low-effort AI content. With an increased focus on E-E-A-T and closer scrutiny of YMYL topics, it seems that Google is attempting to reduce the visibility of content that has minimal fact-checking done, by favouring sites that have high levels of trustworthiness and demonstrable expertise. What's particularly interesting, is the table of examples of 'lowest quality content' that they've added to it (seen from page 45 onwards). Essentially if quality raters believe your content to be: Inaccurate, deceptive, manipulative, unsafe, scam, auto-generated, or plagiarised, then you should expect search performance to suffer sooner or later. That said this aligns with what we already recognise as low-quality content, whether these rater guideline changes will translate into meaningful action from Google to effectively tackle the problem remains to be seen."

Breadcrumb removed from mobile SERP snippets

Google has removed the breadcrumb from mobile search results, which means only the domain name is now visible in the SERP snippets. The search engine has done this to provide a ‘cleaner, more streamlined look for how URLs appear in search results’ and revealed that the change will affect all mobile results in ‘all languages and regions.’

Google revealed another reason for the change on LinkedIn: ‘Because of how breadcrumbs get truncated on smaller screens, we’ve found the breadcrumb element isn’t as useful to people who are searching on mobile.’

Mobile search results now look like this:

Google’s market share drops below 90% for the first time in a decade

For the first time since 2015, Google’s share of the global search engine market has fallen to below 90%. This happened not just once, but three times during the final few months of 2024.

According to Statcounter, the data shows that for the final three months of the year, Google’s market share was the following:

• October – 89.34%
• November – 89.99%
• December – 89.73%

Recently, we reported that studies are suggesting that Reddit is preferred to traditional search engines… do we see the truth in action here?

Bill Sebald, Founder and Managing Partner at Greenlane Search Marketing, told Embryo:

Expert opinion

Bill Sebald, Founder and Managing Partner at Greenlane Search Marketing

"This terrifies Google (and shareholders) because the lion's share of Google's revenue comes from ads. This may not seem like a huge number, but it is massive in terms of revenue. Today, the dynamics are different—factors like privacy concerns, increasing reliance on social platforms like Reddit for direct information, and growing competition from alternative AI search engines like Bing and ChatGPT Search are reshaping the market. This shift highlights the importance of diversifying digital strategies when Google is not the only solution in town. Marketers and businesses should closely watch these trends, as they may signal further fragmentation in the search engine landscape, creating opportunities for challengers and changes in how users seek information."

Study suggests Reddit is preferred over traditional search engines

Is it time to rethink our approach to writing for search engines? Reddit’s latest study certainly suggests that consumer behaviour is changing, with 47% of social media users reporting that ‘irrelevant search terms’ found in traditional engines force many to turn to the personalised advice and recommendations of Reddit.

Surveying 1000 social media users in seven key product areas, including cars, TVs, movie tickets, makeup, credit cards, laptops and refrigerators, participants were tasked with analysing a range of recommendation sources. Close to half of the surveyed participants reported being unsatisfied with the quality of search engines, preferring Reddit’s concise, specific answers.

So, what could this mean for the future of search? It certainly seems to be the case that consumers are beginning to prefer personalised search results that feel like human recommendations, rather than a cold, corporate alternative. After all, as the company claims, “Reddit conversations are the new landing page for business discovery”.

We spoke to Alex Moss, Co-Founder of FireCask and Principal SEO at Yoast.

Expert opinion

Alex Moss, Founder of FireCask and Principal SEO at Yoast

"Reddit’s study reinforces a growing trend in how consumer search behaviour has dramatically changed over the past couple of years. This aligns with Google’s own recognition of the importance of third-party perspectives from their post in May 2023 (https://blog.google/products/search/google-search-perspectives/) where third party opinion is sought after and provides much better context than that of just one party. Whilst some SEOs have claimed that the Reddit x Google deal has made SERPs less useful, this isn't something that will happen in the long term as we shift towards a more conversational and community-driven approach to searching and discovering. For brands and SEOs, this means that, just like it has time and time again, our range of skills must again evolve and expand, utilising multiple channels to help increase visibility. Brands and businesses must engage where discussions are happening - whether that’s Reddit, Linkedin, Discord, or other community platforms. As search engines - both traditional and AI focussed platforms - increasingly surface third-party perspectives, digital word of mouth is more important than ever."

Read more on this in Embryo’s blog- Discover how to use Reddit for SEO

Google launches its ‘Year in Search’

To round up 2024, Google has published its Year in Search. It seems 2024 was the the year for users to discover more about Donald Trump, Deadpool & Wolverine, and The British Museum amongst other searches.

To see all the top data and to view the video click here.

So now we’re looked back, it’s time to look forward and what 2025 has in store for SEO.  Apparently the question on everyone’s lips is ‘is SEO dead in 2025?’. Well the short answer is NO.

However, it will continue to change, and to save your rankings in 2025 you will need to evolve your current SEO strategy to keep up with the continuous algorithm updates.

SEO continues to be valuable for companies who want to drive relevant traffic to the site, conversions, brand awareness, and overall revenue. As long as users continue to find search engines for the information they need SEO remains still as strong as ever because ranking in first position within the SERP will get you 27% of clicks.

To elevate your SEO in 2025 and keep up with the competition here are some of the top tips.

1. Raise The Bar on Quality Content to Keep up with Google.
2. Topical Authority is Becoming More Important
3. Regularly Update your Content

Expert opinion

Amy Leach, Organic Lead at Embryo

"As we head into 2025, Google made numerous changes to the algorithms to further adapt their results and provide their users with the most relevant results, no matter the search. You only have to review the number of Google updates we had at the end of 2024 to understand how much the search landscape is continuing to change. Eradicating spam and focusing on user intent continues to be at the forefront of every update, emphasising the importance of longer-term strategies to improve organic performance. With the introduction of AI overviews and enhancements of SERP features, it’s getting harder to compete for those “organic listings” too - so SEOs really need to think outside the box in 2025 to gain traffic and improve site visibility."

December 2024 Core & Spam Update

The December 2024 core update completed its rollout last week (18 December). Just 24 hours after the core update was complete, the December 2024 spam update was launched. This update lasted just over seven days and finished on Boxing Day. 

The December 2024 spam update was a “general and broad spam update.” This means it is not a link spam update and does not automate the site reputation abuse policy, which will still be done manually and can be found in Google Search Console.

Initial rumours suggest that the spam update is a big one. The update has hit very hard; many SEO tools reported considerable fluctuation, which was more widespread than expected. If you have been affected, Google recommends “review our spam policies to ensure they comply with those.”

Image: SEMRush SERP volatility sensor

Mark Williams-Cook, Director at Candor and Founder of AlsoAsked, told Embryo:

Expert opinion

Mark Williams-Cook

"The Google update that rolled out from December 19th and concluded on Boxing Day has largely been reported as a quiet or minor update by the SEO community. However, this perception may stem from the nature of the update itself—it was a spam update, not a core update. These types of updates focus on enhancing systems like SpamBrain to detect and penalize spammy behaviour in search results. The impact is therefore primarily felt by sites engaging in manipulative or spam tactics, while sites already adhering to best practices may notice little to no difference. That said, our SERP tracking did highlight some notable movement, particularly within the UK pharmaceutical sector, where we observed legitimate players consolidating their rankings. This appears to be a direct result of grey-area and spam sites being removed or demoted, a win for businesses that have been playing by the rules. This update serves as a reminder of the enduring value of a long-term, ethical approach to SEO. Quick fixes and black-hat strategies may yield short-term gains, but they leave sites vulnerable to these types of updates. Sustainable success comes from building quality content, earning trust, and aligning with Google’s ongoing mission to deliver relevant and authoritative results"

AI will assist content, not overtake it in 2025

Since the introduction of Google’s AI Overview in 2024, many names in the marketing industry have worried about the role of user-generated content on search engines. Predictions for 2025 however suggest that AI won’t be coming for content writers just yet and instead, we’ll see a boom in AI agents and tools that will help streamline the content creation process.

With AI being able to draft content ideas from a range of different sources, research time is greatly reduced for marketing teams, meaning more time can be spent on creating fresh, quality content. Compelling copy and search engine optimization will still be implemented by talented writers, but we’ll see AI tools help writers align their content with brand voice and performance objectives more easily.

With the increased use of AI comes a larger focus on visual content, with predictions for AI-generated images becoming more prevalent in marketing content. For industries where imagery is not readily available, this software can be used to help add images to pages that will boost user engagement and understanding.

December 2024 Core Update

On 12th December, Google announced an early Christmas present for us all – the roll out of yet another core algorithm update, just one week after the last update was completed.

Google is implying this update is impacting a different system than the previous November 2024 Core Update, as they ‘have different systems that are considered core to our ranking process; this month’s core update involves an improvement to a different core system than last month.’.

This is the same reasoning they gave in 2023 for releasing the October and November Core Updates so close together.

We have no further information on the new update at this point, but Google said it should take around two weeks to complete. We’ll provide further details once the update is complete.

Expert opinion

Ben Carter, SEO Account Manager at Embryo

"The December 2024 Google Core Update has now been rolled out. Starting on the 12th December 2024 it lasted around 5 days finishing on the 18th December. This update was a typical core update where Google updated its core ranking system to make search results more relevant and helpful to the user rewarding original and high-quality material that provides value to the users. Websites with unoriginal or low-quality content may have experienced declines. Coming quickly after the November Core Update it may have come as a surprise that there was a second core update so soon however Google stated If you’re wondering why there’s a core update this month after one last month, we have different core systems we’re always improving. We noticed the update touched down pretty quickly after just a couple of days of being launched we saw third-party tracking tools see big spikes indicating the volatility within the SERP following this update."

Commentary: Content updates going into 2025

Our resident content expert, Shona Worsman, recently created an internal content manifesto for the business, and here are a few highlights.

Content Marketing/Digital PR-Style Pieces

We have seen a prioritisation of user-focused content that also is very suitable for outreach. Content that has stats-based features, innovative angles, and content that is designed particularly well is where we are seeing improvement of efficacy. Content that can be simultaneously used for a web page or blog post, and also for digital PR outreach is going to be important in 2025 and beyond.

Content Repurposing

While many talk about it, very few actually repurpose content to any great degree. 2025 may just be a big year for ‘create once, use thrice’, especially in short-form video terms. Social media teams working closely with internal or external SEO/content teams becomes increasingly important as time passes.

E-E-A-T

This is more important than ever. Less and less content that is merely a ‘flat page of words’ is ranking well. It is therefore of great importance that content teams, and those responsible for the design of pages of a website work closely together. Time-poor marketing managers that say to internal or external teams, “just upload the text and we will sort it later” will find things getting tougher and tougher. Google is very good these days at assessing effort. And effort can be shown in terms of not only what and how content is written, but also how it is displayed.

Thoughtful e-commerce Informational Content

Again, ‘effort per page’ (a term that we at Embryo have coined ourselves) is increasingly important for e-commerce websites. Who wants to look at an ‘SQL query’ that merely lists all of the products of a particular category on a page? Users want interwoven content around products and categories. And Google rewards this accordingly. This became significant in August 2023, and every increasingly so since.

(Some) Forums are back, baby!

Reddit’s influence in the SERPS continues to skyrocket. Why shouldn’t it? Many millions of hours of content resides on the site, and if Google can filter it correctly, it becomes incredibly valuable to searchers during the ‘messy middle’. Many businesses (not just trilby-wearing keyboard warriors) are spending more and more time cultivating accounts. Another option for repurposing of content.

Visual Long-form Content

Long-form content continues to reign – despite many an SEO saying otherwise – but long-form content that contains (original) imagery, embedded YouTube videos, infographics, and more will always rank better. Google wants to see ‘crafted and curated’ content that looks like a lot of effort has gone into it.

Summary

Like many things with Google – a lot has changed, but really it still is the same way to do things – it’s just that Google has got better at determining what is great content that has taken great effort to achieve.

Google’s AI sales assistant seen in the wild

During Brodie Clark’s excellent monitoring of SERP changes, he has seen that Google is testing an AI Sales Assistant on branded organic sitelinks. You can then ask questions that then shows you appropriate pages on the site.

The feature seemingly uses a combination of AI, but importantly, on-page content to deliver its results.

Google told to sell Chrome by US DoJ

The BBC writes that the US Department of Justice (DOJ) has demanded Google sell Chrome, the world’s most popular web browser.

It continues, “It is one of a series of remedies proposed by the DOJ in a court filing late on Wednesday aimed at stopping the tech giant from maintaining its monopoly in online search.”

Expert Opinion

James Welch, Chief Innovation Officer, Embryo

"If Google is indeed forced to sell Chrome by the US DoJ it could lead to a loss of search engine dominance as Chrome ran by other companies could use other search engines such as Bing or DuckDuckGo…which would obviously be a mistake for the consumer, as those search engines are still way behind in terms of quality results. I’d imagine that Google/Alphabet then may be ‘for the taking’ once Chrome was out of their control, and other products and services may go the same route. Both of these would of course affect revenues, of which 80% are from ads still in 2024. And while competition is good in any market, I’d argue that because of the difference in quality between Google search and others, this would be a rare case when competition wouldn’t benefit the consumer - not for a long time if at all."

November 2024 Core Update

On November 11th, Google announced that their latest algorithm update rollout had commenced. This has come as no surprise as there’s been a lot of chatter in the industry, throughout October as SERPs have been extremely volatile.

We expect this rollout to take up to 2 weeks and we will provide further insight once confirmed this has been completed.

Ben Goodey, Founder of Spicy Margarita SEO Growth Agency told us:

Expert Opinion

Ben Goodey, Founder of Spicy Margarita

"The November 2024 Google Core Update has stirred up the SEO world yet again, marking the fifth major update this year—a volatile year for SEOs. Early signals suggest no major changes for Reddit, which had significant gains earlier in the year, but some sites, like Forbes Advisor, saw dramatic traffic drops (which we all think points to manual penalties for 'parasite SEO'). Other sites, such as Jake-Jorgovan.com and Intelligent.com, also took major hits, it's early to tell but my immediate hunch is that Google has targeted unclear or missing labeling of sponsored content—a reminder that failing to use rel='sponsored' for advertised/paid links is a risk. For most sites, minor ranking drops in this time isn’t cause for huge alarm. If you only drop a couple of rankings, don't worry. Pay attention to the pages that saw major positions drops as those are likely actually hit and have things Google's algorithm has flagged"

More info on the update can be found here.

Ongoing Issue With Rankings in Google Search

On 15th August 2024, Google announced that they were experiencing ongoing issues with their rankings in Google Search, which is currently affecting a large number of websites.

The root cause was determined quickly and we were informed that an update will be released within 12 hours to address the issue.

It’s rare form for Google to be so forthcoming with issues in their Search Results, and we’re keen to hear the outcome and what caused the issue in the first place.

August 2024 Core Update

On the 15th of August 2024, Google finally released the latest core update, which was expected by many in the SEO community after numerous reports of high volatility in the SERPs across multiple industries.

This update is expected to take around a month to fully roll out.

But what makes this update different? This core update will be taking into account all the feedback that Google has received since the September 2023 helpful content update which has had a negative impact on performance for those smaller websites across Google’s index.

This latest algorithm update has been specifically designed to improve the quality of the SERP, ensuring more relevant content is shown to people which has actually been designed and curated to be helpful for the user rather than based on content that has just been created to perform well in the rankings.

James Taylor,  independent SEO consultant and the founder of Complete White Label tells us his thoughts:

Expert Opinion

James Taylor, Founder at Complete White Label

"Looking back, I think we've seen a lot of reputable publishers being unfairly hit by the August core update, or at least, sites like Reddit and Quora being viewed favourably above independent publishers. Does that mean that Google got things wrong? It's a tough question to answer because, in many ways, blogging had to evolve away from content made for SEO purposes alone, and it's a big part of what has resulted in the explosion of UGC results we see today in the SERP's. This approach also unfortunately meant that many publishers who did everything 'by the book' were still handed a significant visibility reduction, with many still not seeing recovery as we near the end of 2024 at the time of writing. Really I think the updates show that, even as SEO's, we can't create content in a vacuum. We have to consider strategies for broader brand building and the role of SEO within that, rather than an all-in approach to SEO alone. For example, having social media strategies in place, utilising video to support blog content and provide traffic opportunities via YouTube, TikTok and Instagram Reels. And, even current approaches to link building in terms of where they sit within what a 'real' brand would do (such as the role of digital PR and expert commentary rather than relying on private blog networks or link farms as a means of link acquisition)."

Google Drops Continuous Scroll in Search Results

In October 2021, Google launched “Continuous Scroll” on mobile search. This introduced a SERP that revealed more listings as the user “scrolled” down the page. In December 2022, Continuous Scroll was rolled out on Desktop search results.

As of 25th June 2024, Google removed this feature for Desktop, bringing back the pagination system that was in place before, which includes a “Next” button at the bottom of the page.

Mobile SERPs will have the Continuous Scroll function removed in the coming months.

So, what does this mean? Click-through rates from the SERP will likely be more contained to page 1 results, as users now have to take an extra “step” to visit page 2. Also, SEOs can now say “we got that keyword on to page 1!” again, instead of “we got that keyword in to positions 1-10!”

It’s the small wins.

June 2024 Spam Update

On 20th June 2024, after originally teasing that it would happen in May 2024, Google announced that they are rolling out the June 2024 Spam Update.

This is the “Core” element of the Spam update that had been previously announced in March 2024.

The update is focused on rewarding websites with good quality backlink profiles, and actively penalising websites that use spammy practices.