👀 What’s Up w/ Early March Algo Volatility

GM nerds,

Welcome back to the digital marketing newsletter that knows the struggle is real:

Here’s what’s good this week:

→ Google AI Mode Officially Drops 👀

→ Is SEO Worse Than Its Ever Been?👀👀

→ What’s Up w/ Early March Algo Volatility 👀👀👀

→ more, obviously 💬

But first…

​This Week's Video 🗣️🎙️​

In this week's video, I revisit the topic of parasite sites and their current rankings. It’s crucial to approach this carefully, and I’m sharing valuable insights to help you navigate it effectively. I’ll break down my experiences and proven techniques, whether you’re just starting or refining your strategy. Tune in!

​YouTube​​

What’s Going Down @ Google 📊

→ Rand Fishkin & SparkToro just dropped some new research: How Often Do Americans Search Google? This is a follow-up to last quarter's report on how people were really using Google in 2024. In this study, SparkToro found that 2/3rds of Americans search Google less than 100 times per month, 1/3 of that 2/3 searching 20 or fewer times. AKA— lots of Americans do not use Google very frequently.

→ Google’s statement on AI, personalization and the future of shopping has tons of interesting info re: where Google’s priorities are at, especially pertaining to YouTube. For example, they’re working on interactive YouTube ads that “help viewers learn about products right in the ad without leaving their viewing experience.”

→ Here’s another interesting study: Are Featured Snippets Losing Their Feature? How To Track Featured Snippet prevalence over time (as AI overviews take over). TLDR; Featured Snippets were considerably better for your traffic, but the feature is aggressively being replaced by AIOs.

→ Imagine my shock. We’re seeing some Early March Google Search Ranking Volatility. New month, same s***.

→ Here’s some sound advice for dealing with negative reviews on a variety of scales: a single legitimate review, a single instance of spam, a large-scale spam assault, or a severe scandal with brand-damaging potential.

AI Insight 🤖

→ Speaking of Google, “AI Mode” has arrived. AI Overviews are being expanded by Gemini 2.0 and the "AI Mode experiment in Search" is underway in Labs. According to Google, it's a mode that "expands what AI Overviews can do with more advanced reasoning, thinking and multimodal capabilities so you can get help with even your toughest questions."

→ And Google Shopping’s new AI tool announcement includes the 'Try it now' feature being made available to all users, an expansion of 'Virtual Try-On', and more.

→ And also, this week’s edition of Literally Nobody Asked For This: AIOs are finally being tested in Europe. Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, and more.

→ This piece on How To Use LLMs for Competitive Research and Gap Analysis has some great ideas. TLDR; you can use LLMs to analyze your website and competitors for audience insights, find community insights on Reddit, discover breaking news and trending topics, track Google Discover trends, perform content audits and theme tagging, and more— and the article explains how.

→ Here’s an interesting study comparing How Google, ChatGPT, & DeepSeek Handle YMYL Queries on health-related, political, financial, and legal matters:

- Response rate: ChatGPT delivers a 100% response rate for YMYL queries, DeepSeek restricts on certain legal & political matters, and AIOs show up for about 50% of YMYL queries
- Subjectivity Scores: ChatGPT is the least subjective, DeepSeek the most.
- Length: DeepSeek responses are the longest and AIOs are the shortest.
- Citations: DeepSeek is the most thoroughly cited and ChatGPT has the lowest citation rate compared to word count.

Lots of interesting info here. It’s definitely worth remembering that each of these has its own strengths and limitations.

→ A lot of ink has been spilled on how Generative AI is impacting the Content Quality Bell Curve. The TLDR; "amidst this flood of mediocrity, publishers will have to work harder to stand out" because "mediocrity is the new norm" and "need to be on the right edge of the bell curve to have any hope of getting people’s attention."

And if the TLDR is still TL, here’s the same point in image form…

Basically, the content landscape has gone from this:

Also

→ This piece- SEO Is the Worst It’s Ever Been (And It’s Still Your Best Marketing Channel)- takes a cold look at the hard facts (here’s the author’s own TLDR, BTW):

- "SERPs are drowning in AI-generated content"
-"Google’s algorithms seem biased towards big brands like Reddit"
- "AI Overviews are siphoning clicks away from creators"
- "Google is losing its monopoly on knowledge management as more people turn to LLMs"

And doesn't shy away from why all that matters.

Still, the piece lands on an important conclusion:

"SEO has historically been such a STUPIDLY lucrative marketing channel that even today, during AI search Armageddon, SEO is STILL the best marketing channel at your disposal."

Fair enough.

​

Jacky Chou​
Founder of Indexsy
hello@indexsy.com
Let's Connect on Twitter👇

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