I’m in this picture and I do not like it:

📰 News & updates

94% of Google SGE links are different from organic search results: A new study found that AI-generated answers in Google’s Search Generative Experience (SGE) do not match any links from the top 10 Google organic search results 93.8% of the time.

Author bylines are not a ranking factor: Google’s Search Liaison had to clarify this widespread misconception.

Google has started phasing out third-party cookies: A new feature called Tracking Protection, which restricts third-party cookies by default, began rolling out to 1% of Chrome users globally on January 4, 2024.

The creation of websites with Google Business Profile is no longer supported:  Existing websites made with Google Business Profiles will be turned off in March 2024. When your customers click your website, they will be redirected to your Business Profile and the redirect will work until June 10, 2024.

🔝 SEO

SEO conferences for 2024: Here are the 12 we recommend this year, including WTSFest, BrightonSEO, PubCon, and more. We also included an interactive Google Sheet where you can filter conferences by location, duration, and price.

Free SEO tools: I’ve updated my free SEO tools blog post for the new year. Some new additions: Claude AI, WhiteSpark’s Google Review Link Generator, and our free title and meta description generators.

Google’s true moonshot: Ben Thompson argues that Google’s moonshot is deploying AI assistants that people would use all day without thought. But Google will need a founder-led initiative to push this, as it is a major risk. They may have to sacrifice their search revenue, estrange OEM partners, and spend astronomical amounts of money.

The consultant’s stance: SEO is consultative. Whether you’re in-house or agency side, you need to wrangle other teams' resources to get things done. Being consultative doesn’t mean being authoritative. Remove “You should” from your language and replace it with “There is an opportunity to…”

💻 Digital marketing

Best of Ahrefs’ Digest (Q4 2023): Thanks for reading our newsletter for the past year. I’ve collected what I thought were the best articles shared in Q4 into a roundup. Check them out if you missed them.

Prompt engineering best practices: They are—Write clear and specific instructions, give the model time to think, prompt multiple times and break down the task or prompt.

Till next time ;)
Cheers,