Almost all of Google's question boxes are now AI answers
Google's question boxes are now almost all AI answers, a scary Search Console warning turned out to be a bug, and a Google update may be underway.
What changed
A scary Google warning about homepages was just a bug
For a short time, Search Console (Google's free tool that shows how your site is doing in search) marked some homepages as "Crawled - currently not indexed" (Google looked at the page but did not add it to search results). Google's @johnmu confirmed it was a reporting bug and called it a "short blip". The pages were fine, only the report was wrong, and it was fixed quickly.
Google confirmed the indexing reporting bug with Search Console reporting "Crawled - currently not indexed" it was a "short blip" said Google's @johnmu
I'm sure that scared a bunch of site owners who happened to be checking around that time. It was fixed pretty quickly.
Who this affects: Anyone who checked Search Console during the blip and saw their homepage listed as not indexed.
- Do nothing. Google says the wrong status was a short blip and it has already been fixed.
- Our take: if your homepage still shows that status today, open Search Console, click Pages, and check again tomorrow before changing anything on your site.
Almost all of Google's question boxes now give AI answers
People Also Ask boxes (the expandable questions in Google results) used to open to a short answer with one link to a website. New data shows 97% of those answers in the first week of September were AI Overviews (Google's AI-written summary), up from 86% in August. One SEO, Gagan Ghotra, notes the AI answers link to many sites rather than one.
Almost 100% of Google's People also ask are answered by AI Overviews now
From Mark: "97% of PAA answers in the first week of September are AIOs, up from 86% in August.
Who this affects: Anyone whose pages get clicks from answering common questions people type into Google.
- Our take: keep writing pages that answer one specific question clearly and completely, since these answers now pull from several sources instead of one.
- Our take: open Search Console, click Performance, and compare clicks on your question-style pages over the next few weeks. The sources do not say how this changes traffic.
Worth watching
Google results are shifting and an update may be underway
Two SEOs (people who work on Google rankings) say Google's results are shuffling a lot today and that an update (a change to how Google ranks pages) may be coming or already running. Nothing is confirmed, and neither says what kind of update it might be. Gagan Ghotra says to watch for any updates by the end of the week.
all signs pointing towards a core or some other update soon!! #SEO
There's a Google update of some kind going on
Who this affects: Everyone with a website, if it turns out to be a real update.
- Our take: do nothing yet. Rankings bounce around while an update runs, and there is nothing to fix until it settles.
Quick hits
Experts rank relevance, links and content quality as what matters most
A new survey of 131 SEO practitioners by Cyrus SEO asked what matters most for ranking in Google. Relevance (how well a page matches what the searcher wants, 57.1%), backlinks (links from other sites to yours, 54.8%) and content quality (47.6%) came out on top. Experts described quality as originality, accuracy and freshness, and many stressed links from pages with real visitors.
Google's shopping tool adds AI search data to its reports
If you list products through Google Merchant Center (the tool that sends your product listings to Google), its AI performance report now includes AI Search intent, AI Search terms and AI attributes. Barry Schwartz reported the change, credited to @brodieseo, along with an updated help doc from Google.