Google released the August 2025 spam update on August 26, 2025 at 9:00 a.m. Pacific Time (11:00 p.m. Bangkok Time). - This is the first major spam update since December 2024; previous core updates occurred in March and June 2025. - The update is global, affecting every language and country, with a rollout expected to last several weeks. - Google confirmed the rollout via their Search Status Dashboard and social channels. **Main Types of Spam Targeted** - Scaled Content Abuse: Mass-produced content written for ranking, not helping users. Includes pages with thin, repetitive content or copied templates targeting numerous localities (e.g., “best plumber in every town”). - Site Reputation Abuse: Third-party content, such as coupon or review sections on high-authority domains, created purely for SEO manipulation and not aligned with the main site’s audience. - Expired Domain Abuse: Purchasing expired domains and repurposing them with unrelated, often commercial content (e.g., converting a former cooking blog into a crypto site). - Additionally, Google continues to crack down on classic spam tactics: cloaking, doorway pages, hacked content, link spam, and keyword stuffing. **Sites Most Impacted** - Sites with thin, scaled pages, parasite placements on powerful domains, repurposed expired domains, or manipulative link schemes are suffering severe traffic declines—up to 90% losses overnight. - Affiliate sites, content aggregators, and blogs employing low-value AI-generated content are hit especially hard. - Local businesses with fake reviews or spammy local listing tactics see drops in visibility. - Winners are sites with helpful, specific content, strong topical authority, clean link profiles, and clear authorship. **What Google “Wants” Now (Winners)** - Original, user-centric content with real expertise and depth—aligned with Google’s EAT (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) guidelines. Focused topical authority rather than generic, multi-niche content.

This is a great article from SE roundtable. There are people out there that think ChatGPT and other AI platforms just won't be able to catch up to Google. Source: https://www.seroundtable.com/referral-traffic-from-chatgpt-vs-google-39972.html

Here is what you should have in your robots.txt file IF you want Googlebot, social and AI platforms to be able to crawl your site content/pages. This is super important for AEO! User-agent: Googlebot Allow: / User-agent: Bingbot Allow: / User-agent: Twitterbot Allow: / User-agent: facebookexternalhit Allow: / User-agent: GPTBot Allow: / User-agent: Google-Extended Allow: / User-agent: CCBot Allow: / User-agent: ClaudeBot Allow: / User-agent: anthropic-ai Allow: / User-agent: Applebot Allow: / User-agent: Applebot-Extended Allow: / User-agent: PerplexityBot Allow: / User-agent: DuckDuckBot Allow: / User-agent: LinkedInBot Allow: / User-agent: facebot Allow: / User-agent: * Allow: / Sitemap: https://targetdomain.com/sitemap.xml

🔍 Google just shared some interesting data about how AI is impacting search and website traffic. Here's what you need to know: **The Big Picture:** • Overall organic click volume to websites remains stable year-over-year • AI Overviews are driving MORE searches, not fewer - people are asking longer, more complex questions • Click QUALITY is actually up - when people do click through, they're more engaged **What's Really Happening:** • People search more frequently now that they can ask questions they couldn't before • For quick answers (like "when is the next full moon"), users might not click further - but this was already true for other features like Knowledge Graph • For complex topics, AI responses act like a "lay of the land" - people still click through to dive deeper **Winners in This Shift:** Sites seeing traffic increases tend to offer: ✓ Forums, videos, podcasts with authentic voices ✓ First-hand perspectives and experiences ✓ In-depth reviews and original analysis ✓ Thoughtful, unique content that helps people learn more **Google's Approach:** They're positioning this as "web AND AI" rather than "web OR AI" - AI responses include prominent links, citations, and attribution to drive quality traffic to sources. **Bottom Line:** The shift isn't killing website traffic overall, but it IS rewarding sites that provide genuine value, original insights, and authentic human perspectives over generic content. What are you seeing in your own analytics? 📊 Source: https://blog.google/products/search/ai-search-driving-more-queries-higher-quality-clicks/

The March 2025 core update finished rolling out on March 27, 2025. I do NOT have knee-jerk reactions to algorithm updates as that can lead to improper conclusions and actions. Now that we have about 45 days in from this update, here are my key findings after auditing a number of SEO campaigns that were affected by the Core Update: Resolving weaknesses in websites is/has been a KEY component to getting local maps rankings, BUT the March 2025 Core Update put a greater emphasis on SITE SIGNALS, including page speed and site quality as it evaluates every page on the site against the HCS (helpful content system). The weaknesses in these websites I am auditing fall under a few main areas: #1 - performance/page speed on mobile #2 - thin content on key pages or all pages #3 - very weak site metrics (use Search Atlas site explorer) like DA/DR, Backlinks, Trust Flow, etc #4 - improper blog categorization and/or no implementation of blog category in the URL permalinks #5 - no phone numbers in the header that match the GBP listing, and no addresses in the footers that match the GBP listing #6 - no GBP map embed on the contact page and in footer if you can fit it (also the map embed code MUST be from the proper/new way to generate it in Google Cloud Console via the GBP link to "Add a Map to Your Website" #7 - The linking and interlinking strategy is non-existent or just not optimized at all #8 - schema not deployed at all or improperly (ie. organization schema on all pages) FOCUS on these 8 key website components/areas to drive better rankings, especially if you have seen a recent dip in map or organic rankings. Improving site metrics (#3 above) can take time and very specific actions to acquire backlinks and referring domains to improve overall trust flow, domain authority, and page-level authority for the key site pages.