In this week’s digital news, new data shows that Google’s August spam update caused bigger ranking swings than a normal week, with nearly two times as many top 10 rankings falling out of the top 100 altogether. Google also confirmed it will stop applying manual actions for site reputation abuse across the European Economic Area. It is the first time Google has switched off a spam policy in one region, and the UK is not covered.
Microsoft has made AI Max available to every advertiser, Google is changing the links in its own search results, and a study of 60,000 queries asks whether listicles still earn their place. Meta has also settled a landmark US case, agreeing to limits that will cut how long teenagers spend on Facebook and Instagram, and make organic reach harder to come by.
Google’s August spam update hit rankings hard
We covered the August spam update finishing its rollout last week. Now, new figures from SE Ranking show how severe that update was. During the update, 16.71% of URLs that had been ranking in the top 10 fell beyond position 100 for the same keyword. In a comparable five-day stretch in July, that figure was 9.2%. In other words, a top 10 URL was roughly 1.8 times more likely to disappear from the first 100 results.
One caveat worth keeping in mind: SE Ranking only tracked positions 1 to 100, so the data cannot tell us whether those pages were removed from the index or simply pushed below position 100. It also does not explain why any individual page lost its ranking. It was also noted that volatility has carried on since the update finished on 21 August, so if your rankings are still moving, you are not imagining it. Hold off on drawing firm conclusions until things settle.
Read more here.
Read our own blog about how to avoid scaled content abuse here
Google won’t enforce site reputation abuse manual actions in Europe
From 30 August, Google will no longer apply manual actions under its site reputation abuse policy inside the European Economic Area. The change follows a mandate from the European Commission. Google was blunt about the consequence: searchers in the EEA will not benefit from its spam prevention for sites flagged under that policy. Where a site does get a manual action, it will still apply for searchers outside the EEA.
Site reputation abuse is the practice sometimes called parasite SEO, where a strong domain rents out sections of its site to third-party content that has nothing to do with the brand. As the UK is not part of the EEA, UK searchers and UK sites sit outside this enforcement, but if you run sites across both markets, you now have two different sets of rules to plan against. And if you have been tempted by parasite tactics because a competitor appears to be getting away with it in Europe, the risk in the UK has not changed at all.
Read more here.
Microsoft opens up AI Max to all advertisers
AI Max is now available to every advertiser in Microsoft Advertising. It bundles three features into standard Search campaigns: search term matching, which finds relevant queries beyond your keyword list, text customisation, which generates and tests extra ad copy variations, and final URL expansion, which can route a click to a more relevant page than your set landing page. In early tests, Microsoft reported at least an 8% lift in conversions against control campaigns, with bigger gains for accounts leaning heavily on exact and phrase match.
Two details to note: AI Max will be switched on by default for any new Search campaign you create, although you can turn it off during setup or afterwards. And if you use Google Import, AI Max settings will carry across from Google Ads, including on scheduled imports. That means a setting you chose in Google could also appear in your Microsoft account. If you want reach without losing control, start with brand inclusions and exclusions and term exclusions. Then the new ‘AI optimised’ match type label in your search term report will show you what it is actually matching.
Read more here.
Google is changing the links in its own search results
Google has confirmed it is rolling out google.com/goto as a passthrough URL on search result links, after testing it from July. Rather than linking straight to your page, results now route through a Google URL first. Google says it deploys technical measures against evolving forms of abuse, and that this is one of them.
For most marketers this changes nothing about how people find you. It matters for anything that reads or parses search result pages, which covers a good chunk of the rank tracking and SERP analysis tools our industry relies on. If a tool starts reporting oddly over the next few weeks, this is a likely cause.
Read more here.
AI Overviews are expanding, and pushing people towards AI Mode
Google is dynamically expanding AI Overviews for some queries. The effect is that the normal results get pushed further down the page and you get something close to an AI Mode experience inside the standard search interface. Separately, some AI Overviews have dropped the “show more” button and now nudge people into AI Mode instead.
Neither change is a formal announcement, but the direction is consistent. The space above your organic listing keeps growing, and the click that used to be yours is increasingly resolved on Google’s page. If you are still reporting organic performance on sessions alone, this is the quarter to add visibility and citation tracking alongside it, so you can show what is happening rather than just watching traffic soften.
Read more here.
Google’s August Demand Gen drop adds messaging ads and AI video
Google has expanded Demand Gen with messaging ads, travel-specific tools and AI video creation. The stated aim is to shorten the path from discovery to conversion and make it easier to produce creative at volume across campaigns.
The more useful read this week is Search Engine Land’s companion piece on what you gain and lose moving from Display to Demand Gen. You get new inventory and AI-generated creative. You give up some of the controls Display teams are used to. If a client is facing that migration, go in knowing which levers disappear rather than finding out mid-quarter.
Read more here.
Has Google demoted listicles?
A new Search Engine Land analysis of 60,000 queries looked at where listicles still rank, where they have slipped, and why holding a position no longer guarantees the click. It follows the finding we covered last week that ChatGPT has cut back on citing listicles and comparison pages.
Two separate systems appear to be pulling in the same direction, which makes this a good moment to look at your own content mix. If a large share of your organic pages are “best of” or “top 10” formats built to catch a ranking, check what those pages are actually delivering now. Ranking and earning attention are drifting apart, and the answer is rarely to publish more of the same.
Read more here.
Meta’s $18bn settlement won’t kill social, but it will change how you earn attention
On 26 August, Meta settled a case brought by US states over designing Facebook and Instagram to keep teenagers hooked. Under-18s now get a two-hour daily cap across both apps, a night curfew, hidden likes and tighter age checks, with direct messages and longform video exempt. The upshot for marketers is far less teen time on the feed.
We Are Social argues this matures social rather than kills social. Less passive scrolling means less passive attention, so reach gets scarcer and more expensive while the attention left goes to content people actively choose. They point out that brands don’t own their audiences on social, the algorithm does, which is a good argument for building the channels you do control in-house. As the piece puts it, being discoverable matters, but being worth discovering matters more.
It’s a US settlement, so there are no changes for the UK yet. But regulators elsewhere are watching, and TikTok, YouTube and Snap are expected to face similar pressure.
Read more here.
If you’d like more information on any of the stories we’ve mentioned, or support with your digital marketing, get in touch with our expert team by booking a call.
