GSQi Blog

Analysis of Google’s Perspectives Filter and Carousel – A New Mobile SERP Feature Aiming To Surface Personal Experiences

On June 10, 2023 Google rolled out the much-anticipated Perspectives feature in the mobile search results. This was teased at Google I/O in May and aims to bring more personal experiences to the SERPs. For example, many people append “Reddit” to their searches to find personal recommendations and advice. Google basically knew that was a … Read more

People Also Search For, Or Do They Always? How Google Might Use A Trained Generative Model To Generate Query Variants For Search Features Like PASF, PAA and more [Patent]

I was checking out some patents from Google the other day and surfaced an interesting one that was granted and published on May 30, 2023. It was titled “Generating Query Variants Using A Trained Generative Model” and it definitely piqued my curiosity. It was originally filed in 2018, but was granted in late May. And … Read more

Disavowing The Disavow Tool [Case Study] – How a site owner finally removed a disavow file with 15K+ domains, stopped continually disavowing links, and then surged back from the dead

There aren’t many topics in SEO as controversial as disavowing links. Ever since Google introduced the ability to disavow links, there has been a ton of confusion about how to use the disavow tool, what types of links should be disavowed, when to ignore the disavow tool altogether, and more. Then add third-party tools that … Read more

Google’s April 2023 Reviews Update – Exploring its evolution from PRU to RU, a powerful tremor on 4/19, and how its “Review Radar” found larger publishers

Google launched the first Product Reviews Update in April of 2021 and it’s been fascinating to watch the evolution of the system over time. With each successive update, you can see Google fine-tuning the system, expanding to other languages, and more. And now we have the next step in its evolution, and it was a … Read more

Google’s Video Thumbnail Apocalypse Is Causing A Huge Drop In Video Snippets In The Search Results (But Traffic Could Remain Stable)

On April 13, Google announced a change to how video thumbnails would be presented in the search results. Until now, a listing could receive a video thumbnail even when that video content was not the main content on the page. Although that was a nice benefit for the sites receiving the video thumbnail, it was … Read more

Unraveling SERP Features – How to track and analyze urls ranking within Top Stories, People Also Ask, Image Packs, Short Videos, Recipe Packs, and more using Semrush’s New SERP Features reporting

Google’s search engine result pages are filled with an amazing combination of features to present many different types of content. From images to video to news to recipes, there’s no shortage of interesting features at your fingertips. And for site owners and SEOs, we want to track all of them, and at a granular level. … Read more

How to compare hourly sessions in Google Analytics 4 to track the impact from major Google algorithm updates (like broad core updates)

I was just asked on Twitter if there was an easy way to compare Google organic traffic hourly like you can in Universal Analytics. That’s a great question, and that’s a super useful report to have as major algorithm updates roll out. You can typically start to see the separation over time as the update … Read more

It’s all in the (site) name: 9 tips for troubleshooting why your site name isn’t showing up properly in the Google search results

Update: April 21, 2023Google published a form for reporting site name problems in the search results. This is based on a number of companies reporting the wrong site names appearing in the SERPs. Read more here: —— With favicons and site names now appearing in both the mobile and desktop search results, it’s important to … Read more

Google Explore – The sneaky mobile content feed that’s displacing rankings in mobile search and could be eating clicks and impressions

I just completed a SERP analysis for a client and decided to write this post to highlight an important search feature that I don’t hear many people talking about in the industry. It’s Google Explore and it’s a super-interesting feature I have covered in a previous blog post. Google tested Explore in the spring of … Read more

Bing Chat in the Edge Sidebar – An AI companion that can summarize articles, provide additional information, and even generate new content as you browse the web

I’ve been heavily testing Bing AI Chat since last week and it’s been fascinating to see how it works both in the search results and in chat mode. As I explained in my post about the “code red” that triggered thousands of “code reds” at publishers, AI in the SERPs is one of the most … Read more

The Google “Code Red” That Triggered Thousands of “Code Reds” at Publishers: Bard, Bing Chat, And The Potential Impact of AI in the Search Results

In this post I cover if AI will cite, or not cite, sources in the search results, and the potential impact to publishers that rely on that traffic for revenue. i.e. Will clicks from the SERPs get pummeled like we think it might? Last week, both Google and Bing announced AI chat in the search … Read more