Matt Southern

1 week ago | searchenginejournal.com | Matt Southern |Loren Baker |Jenise Uehara Henrikson |Brent Csutoras

Google has confirmed that most websites still don’t need to worry about crawl budget unless they have over one million pages. However, there’s a twist. Google Search Relations team member Gary Illyes revealed on a recent podcast that how quickly your database operates matters more than the number of pages you have. This update comes five years after Google shared similar guidance on crawl budgets. Despite significant changes in web technology, Google’s advice remains unchanged.

1 week ago | searchenginejournal.com | Matt Southern |Loren Baker |Jenise Uehara Henrikson |Brent Csutoras

A Google engineer has warned that AI agents and automated bots will soon flood the internet with traffic. Gary Illyes, who works on Google’s Search Relations team, said “everyone and my grandmother is launching a crawler” during a recent podcast. The warning comes from Google’s latest Search Off the Record podcast episode. During his conversation with fellow Search Relations team member Martin Splitt, Illyes warned that AI agents and “AI shenanigans” will be significant sources of new web traffic.

1 week ago | searchenginejournal.com | Matt Southern |Loren Baker |Jenise Uehara Henrikson |Brent Csutoras

Google has fixed a bug that caused AI Mode search traffic to be reported as “direct traffic” instead of “organic traffic” in Google Analytics. The problem started last week. Google was adding a special code (rel=”noopener noreferrer”) to links in its AI Mode search results. This code caused Google Analytics to incorrectly attribute traffic to websites, rather than from Google search. Reports from Aleyda Solis, Founder at Orainti, and others in the SEO community confirm the issue is resolved.

1 week ago | searchenginejournal.com | Matt Southern |Loren Baker |Jenise Uehara Henrikson |Brent Csutoras

New research analyzing 25,000 user searches found that websites ranked #1 on Google appear in AI search answers 25% of the time. This data demonstrates that traditional SEO remains relevant, despite claims that AI has rendered it obsolete. Tomasz Rudzki, co-founder of ZipTie, studied real searches across ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google’s AI Overviews. His findings challenge the widespread belief that AI makes traditional SEO pointless.

1 week ago | searchenginejournal.com | Matt Southern |Loren Baker |Jenise Uehara Henrikson |Brent Csutoras

Google claims that search results with AI Overviews generate the same amount of advertising revenue as traditional search results. This claim was made during Google Marketing Live when the company revealed plans to expand AI Overview ads to desktop users and more English-speaking markets. If true, this could reshape how marketers perceive Google’s AI-powered future. However, the claim raises questions about how Google measures success and what it means for your campaigns.