Meh, Google organic search data.
Have you been tracking what’s going on over at Google?
It’s wild.
Google has been shouting from the rooftops that:
“With AI Overviews and AI Mode, people are using Search more often, asking new and more complex questions, and are more satisfied with their results. AI Overviews display links in a range of ways, and show a wider range of sources on the results page so it’s easy for people to click out and explore content on the web.”
First, their AI Overviews (AIOs) generate links to new searches.
Here’s an example:
Is this the increased usage?
Now think about this kind of stuff in the context of Google Search Console and Analytics data.
See the problem?
To make matters worse, as reported by Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Roundtable:
“Google released AI Mode in the U.S. a couple of days ago and Tom Critchlow and Patrick Stox noticed that Google prevented you from tracking referrer data from AI Mode. Well, that turned out to be unintentional and Google said it is a bug, and it will be fixed.”
Whoops.
Meh, your Google organic search data is 🤬.
Typically, on Lunch Hour Legal Marketing, Conrad and I are the first to call out bad SEO actors taking advantage of clients.
In this case, massive traffic losses probably have more to do with Google changes than anything they do.
With some major recent exceptions, of course…
If you haven’t already done so, priority number one has to be improving your intake data infrastructure.
Priority number two has to be diversifying your marketing resources.
Priority number three (but maybe one) is to increase resource deployment toward your brand.
Cut the middle people out.
This will be a significant topic at The Summit.