Let's talk about the disconnect between Google's PR and its reality.

Google's PR: Flying me to the Creator Summit, giving me a hug, and making me feel like a valued partner.

Google's Reality: A mysterious algorithm update that completely wiped out my $250k/year business, forced me to fire my employees, and has me eating at a food bank.

Danny Sullivan, after that warm welcome, you told me to hide my struggle from your engineers. Why? Were you afraid the truth would be inconvenient?

A question for the leadership team: Nick Fox, Elizabeth Reid, Prabhakar Raghavan, Sagar Kamdar, John Mueller.

Why did you essentially delete one of the top-ranking outdoor gear sites from the internet? My organic keywords are in a freefall, down by thousands in just months.

You offer no recourse, no explanation, and no human decency to even reply. You gaslight publishers, telling us to "make better content" while your own engineers privately tell me they use Bing for better results.

You should know that your actions are creating an army of witnesses. Every publisher you've destroyed is a potential testimony. Firms like Susman Godfrey L.L.P. are building a powerful case, and the DOJ is watching.

You took my business. You won't take my voice.

(P.S. I've already started two new local businesses. Unlike Google, I build instead of destroy. Good luck training your AI on the ashes of the websites you've burned.)

#GoogleSearch #Antitrust #Fraud #SmallBusinessOwner #Leadership #GoogleUpdate #TechAccountability

Google’s AI Overviews seem to be slipping in search rankings, opening new chances for SEOs to outrank them and reclaim lost clicks.

Google AI Overviews no longer hold the top spot for U.S. desktop search results 12.4% of the time. That’s a significant change from a month ago, when less than 2% of AI Overviews ranked below Position 1, according to new research from seoClarity, an enterprise SEO platform.

Why we care. Google’s AI Overviews have sparked concern among SEOs and publishers, especially following the loss of clicks and traffic. This data suggests there are still opportunities to outrank an AI Overview and get clicks from organic results.

By the numbers. AI Overviews appear in 19% of all U.S. desktop keyword searches overall. Here’s the latest breakdown of where AI Overviews rank, based on seoClarity’s research, which factors in SERP features excluding ads:

• 87.6% of AI Overviews appear in Position 1.
• 7.6% appear in Position 2.
• 2.8% appear in position 3.
• 2% appear in Position 4 or lower.

Source: SearchEngineLand.com

Hey folks,

I’ve been in the digital marketing world for a while — mainly PPC (Google/Meta), email marketing, and copywriting for the past 6+ years. At my agency I have to learn SEO and so far it feels kinda.....awkward.

Right now I’m brushing up on the basics: keyword research, on-page stuff, technical SEO, etc. My background definitely helps but this whole world of crawling/indexing/site structure feels like learning a new language lol.

For those of you who made the same transition or just have solid experience in SEO — any advice?

What helped you really understand SEO beyond the surface-level stuff?

Any tools, mindsets, or rabbit holes you wish you explored earlier?

Appreciate any insights!

From Google on Bluesky:

June 2025 core update - Released the June 2025 core update . The rollout may take up to 3 weeks to complete.

Dashboard:

https://status.search.google.com/incidents/riq1AuqETW46NfBCe5NT

Hey all. I have an interview for an SEO position next week. I am not concerned about the interview I’m concerned about the future of SEO and being let go in the future. Like in CS/programming it’s hard to find jobs in that field. What’s your thoughts on this?

They released an article today saying: "Today, July 1, what we’re calling Content Independence Day. Cloudflare, along with a majority of the world's leading publishers and AI companies, is changing the default to block AI crawlers unless they pay creators for their content. That content is the fuel that powers AI engines, and so it's only fair that content creators are compensated directly for it."

What do you think of this? Will it even have any effect on SEO?

r/techseo said post wasn’t the right fit for the sub so I’m going to ask this here.

I’m trying to wrap my head around tracking visibility in LLM-based platforms like ChatGPT and Claude. My team is seeing more referrals from chatgpt and we don’t really know what queries people entered to find us.

I’ve looked into some tools, but I’m unsure (some are built for LLM monitoring, others just tacking on prompt-based tracking) and the data feels inconsistent. We’re also looking into investing into some GEO, but first we need a reliable metric to track it first. Open to any suggestions. Ideally something that covers ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and Perplexity in one place

Thanks in advance.

Update; Thanks for your pointers, we’re going to go with parse atm. I trialed them with a free plan and they seem to have what we need - prompt tracking, multi-model data, response insights etc.

During the days of high volatility in June, one of my websites jumped in rakings - basically the share of voice doubled this month. And I didn't do anything specific to it.

I was wondering if anyone else experienced dramatic changes during this month.

Lots of hype around AIO / GEO but am struggling to understanding how ranking in LLMs differs from ranking in Search Engines at a practical / initiative / "what I can do about it" level? If you have any suggestions / tips / personal experiences keen to learn

I work at a dentist office and I just took over the social media pages. I have noticed there is a company who posts on there that also has control of the website. When I have made posts, it gets a lot of traction.

The posts are every 4-5 days, almost certainly written by AI with some modulations (serious cookie cutter stuff) and then post a link which educates you on the topic. I get trying to increase backlinks, but is this not an inefficient way to generate traffic? A majority of our new patients aren’t from website but word of mouth/partnership we have.

I get not every post will be a home run, but we are talking no engagement on these posts. ZERO.

The owners are paying SIGNIFICANTLY extra for this service. I set up a meeting with them to learn about how effectively this is. What questions do I need to ask to verify this is working or worth the value? What questions should I be asking them?

Hi everyone

I have a small lighting business based in the UK and we work worldwide for some good clients. I wont post a link as i dont want to break rule #2

We have a good website, that is visually pleasing. We have recently implemented ecommerce and we keep our IG updated weekly/fortnightly.

But our DA is just crap!

ahrefs 4.7 (linking websites 4, backlinks 2)
Moz DA 12 (Linking root domain 12, Ranking keywords 14, spam score 1)
Semrush DA 2 (Backlinks 90, Referring Domains 69, Organic Traffic 2)

We have just started posting weekly blogs and we have implemented a mailing list.

Our on page SEO is good, according to our wordpress plug in that we use.

Are there any tried and tested legit ways to increase domain authority? Should i create a reddit account for our business and start posting on industry related subs with links to our website and posting about our projects?

Could i do the same on pinterest?

Just received an email from search labs about a new feature called AI mode. Its a tab like we have for images and videos etc. Do you guys think this might change the search landscape again ? So if I want to explore something without AI intervention I can do it like we have all done for decades ?

I've had a small online business for about 15 years; it's never gotten big, but it's paid my bills. Traffic has been dropping for awhile, and I fully own that I haven't done all I could to keep the site fresh. Part of that is time, and part is lack of clarity on what Big Brother really wants.

But this year, for me - as for many others - my traffic has dropped off a cliff. My search is 50% of what it was a couple of months ago. My relative position in organic results has changed that much, but given that the first half of the page is now ads, maps, social media - well, organic results get pushed down.

I don't have the budget for an SEO expert (and I haven't had great luck in the past); I certainly don't have the budget for Google ads.

So, here's my question. Is ranking as a small business - as Google tries to create an "ecosystem" of a few compliant monopolies - even possible?

I know that my story isn't unusual; I'm reading this more and more here. But has anyone who has been in a similar position found anything that's worked?

Thanks!

I am targeting a keyword where I’m positioned 4th. My competitors have significantly more backings then me. Now, if I want to reach to 1, should my focus be on earning backings or should I do other things like improving my content, ensuring that I follow best practices, etc.

Additionally if you replied yes to more back links, would you say that I should get equal to or more back links than my competitors who are ranking above me?

I run programmatic SEO in high finance topics and had 15K+ pages on Google that were all indexed.

Before anyone jumps in - it's high quality content delivered via APIs (company valuation data). All pages are very different from each other. No AI involved. All linked together, all correct meta, sitemaps etc. There were all indexed before and picked up by Google and LLMs (even though my domain reputation is just around 5).

I've made edits to those pages (technical stuff, adjusting formula calculations etc). After this, half of the pages got deindexed from Google. They sit at "Crawled - currently not indexed".

Now I assume it's because of those changes? But it has been a month and nearly nothing came back. I try to "validate fix" in GSC but it gives absolutely nothing, and even fails, on pages that work and are all correct.

Anyone has any idea?

I have a local junk removal business with 45 landing pages for nearby cities/towns. It is do or die time for me, and I’m trying to decide if I should pay for monthly seo. Is it worth it in my case? Thanks!

Not an expert by any means, but have done okay with using free tools like Google Analytics to track website traffic, but I would like something that is more helpful in growing a site rather than just measuring if traffic increased or not.

I've learnt that the most reccomended way to start SEO freelance is by creating a test website. I have a few questions, does this mean I should buy a domain for it to look more professional? What sort of content should I put on it? Or should I enroll in an affiliate program? Would they give me a professional looking domain to use? I guess what I'm asking is what is the best way to go about it?

I've tried MarketMuse, Frase, Surfer AI and copy... all content - shitty...

Have you ever used any tool for content writing that was actually valuable to you?

Let me rephrase - delivered conversions, not just rankings

Hey everyone. Not farming karmas but asking in a few groups cuz I just want to know the general opinion before I spend too much time on something that may not work in today's SEO landscape.

So I used to work in SEO for a while — had a few affiliate sites, did client work, the usual grind. A few years ago I kind of burned out and walked away from it all (also life happened).

I’ve been watching from the sidelines as Google keeps doing its thing (nuking sites left and right or what everyone seems to be saying at least) and now, with all these AI changes and whatever the hell is happening in the SERPs, I’m wondering… is it even worth getting back into affiliate SEO at this point?

To be clear: I’m not here for the “SEO isn’t dead, you just have to adapt” comments. I get it. I’m not saying SEO is dead (I know it isn't). But is it still worth the time and effort to build traditional affiliate-style websites — you know, content sites that rely mostly on organic traffic and affiliate links? Or has that ship mostly sailed unless you’re some huge authority site or brand?

I watched a Youtube video saying that you have to write about topics that haven't been covered in Google yet. With so many different opinions, I don't know what direction to follow. So is anyone here still making decent money with affiliate SEO in 2025? maybe not? How can my time be better spent?

Thanks in advance for any help. I am hearing more and more people reference AI, and saying things like "according to AI" vs "I googled, whatever subject and ..." I'm a small / med size business in a VERY competitive field. How do we go about getting indexed into AI? Thank you!!!! ps I've been working with a great SEO guy for 20 years. But thus far, we have not been indexed into AI other than times when our business name is included. Thank you

And what are the reasons for your success? Thanks.

Maybe this isn't something new, but I thought I’d share this because I saw my competitors were really sleeping on these simple tactics.

This is the second month of this project, and in the very first month, we created some service+cost related pages at the very first month.

We're already seeing results. Anyone interested in sharing what I can do more here? ( picture in the comment)

Thanks in advance