Industry News

It has actually been a couple of weeks since we last reported on a Google search ranking update, May 22/23rd, so it has been a while. But I am seeing new signs of another unconfirmed Google search algorithm ranking update today, around June 6th.

As expected, with Google I/O this month, we had a pretty busy month. We saw the all new Google Search Generative Experience demoed, and a few weeks later, Google started a limited rollout of it. Google said the next helpful content system will promote content, such as hidden gems on the web. And we had a number of unconfirmed algorithm updates.

Google began to slowly roll out the Google Search Generative Experience on Thursday and I posted many screenshots of what I found. Since then, Danny Sullivan, Google's Search Liaison, responded to some public complaints and criticism of this new search experience.

Noah Smith’s rumination on how technology has changed the world since he was young really resonated with me:

When I look back on the world I lived in when I was a kid in 1990, it absolutely stuns me how different things are now. The technological changes I’ve already lived through may not have changed what my kitchen looks like, but they have radically altered both my life and the society around me. Almost all of these changes came from information technology — computers, the internet,...

The first part Sara Ramaswamy’s Product-Led Growth and UX is just a summary (a good one!), but the “How UX Can Help” sections has some really great insights and ideas, like this one:

While macro conversions (high-level conversion tied to the primary purpose of the site) are often the first success indicators considered, it is, however, important to define and revisit micro conversions, which measure incremental improvements to the user experience. In product-led growth, products are...

The all-new and exciting Google Search Generative Experience is now rolling out as a labs experiment to some early waitlisted users. I should have access by now, but I am offline, I wrote this yesterday before I was able to play with it (which is why this news is not in my vide, which I recorded earlier yesterday).

I saw two deeply personal posts this week, each related to the dangers of chasing after vanity metrics. First, Justin Andersun tells us about The Ski Lesson, and concludes with this:

We should not lose touch with the spirit of what we’re doing. A job’s essence is to serve the needs of others, and friendship is to support the people we love. Metrics become vanity when they lose touch with that spirit.

Second, fio dossetto writes this about being mindful of vanity metrics:

Vanity...

I am seeing signs of another unconfirmed Google search ranking algorithm update, this one kicking off on May 22nd and continuing over the next few days. This one is unusual in that I see significant chatter amongst the SEO community but some of the more popular Google rank checking tools are not picking up on it.

I’ve been spending lots of time recently thinking about and working with my team on what I can only refer to as “how we should spend our life force.” If that sounds weird, hold on to your hats because I’m going to make it even weirder by (and I apologize in advance) throwing a 2×2 matrix into the mix. So. Come with me in this post as we discuss how our biggest strength as product managers can easily become our biggest weakness, and how we can protect our health and sanity in the midst of all...

Google showcased some additional Google Ads sponsored search ads in the new Google Search Generative Experience yesterday at Google Marketing Live. Google made a point to say these ad positions and features will likely change as Google continues to experiment with this new search experience.