Google’s Mueller Says Sites In A ‘Bad State’ May Need To Start Over
Google’s John Mueller says sites with low-quality AI content should rethink their purpose rather than manually rewrite pages. Starting fresh may be faster than recovering.
About
Matt G. Southern, Senior News Writer, has been with Search Engine Journal since 2013. With a bachelor’s degree in communications, Matt specializes in gathering details, checking facts, and making complex subjects easy to understand. In addition to writing articles, Matt oversees strategy development for SEJ’s news department.
Articles
SEO Pulse: ChatGPT Gets Shopping & What Drives AI Citations
This week’s SEO Pulse examines new data what drives AI citations, plus ChatGPT launches shopping research. Your quick catch-up on what practitioners need to know.
Mueller: Background Video Loading Unlikely To Affect SEO
Google’s John Mueller says he doesn’t expect a noticeable SEO impact from a 100MB video that loads in the background after page content and images.
New Data Reveals The Top 20 Factors Influencing ChatGPT Citations
SE Ranking analyzed 129,000 domains to identify the top 20 factors driving ChatGPT citations. Backlinks, traffic, and trust scores ranked highest.
ChatGPT Adds Shopping Research For Product Discovery
OpenAI launched shopping research in ChatGPT, a tool that creates personalized buyer’s guides. Available to all logged-in users.
Google’s Mueller Questions Need For LLM-Only Markdown Pages
Google’s John Mueller pushes back on building LLM-only Markdown or JSON pages for LLMs, saying clean HTML and structured data should come first.
EU Plan To Simplify GDPR Targets AI Training And Cookie Consent
The EU’s Digital Omnibus proposal would relax parts of GDPR and the AI Act. Here’s what to watch.
Why Web Hosting Is A Critical Factor To Maximize SEO Results
Treat hosting as strategic SEO infrastructure, not a cost line, because no optimization can outrun a slow or unstable server.
Pew: 84% Of Adults Use YouTube As Platform Growth Continues
Pew’s data shows YouTube and Facebook lead U.S. social media use, while TikTok, Instagram, WhatsApp and Reddit grow and newer platforms remain niche.
Google CTR Trends In Q3: Branded Clicks Fan Out, Longer Queries Hold
Advanced Web Ranking’s Q3 2025 CTR report shows branded desktop clicks spreading across more results, while commercial and local SERPs keep tightening.
SEO Pulse: Gemini 3 Arrives & Adobe Buys Semrush
This week’s SEO Pulse examines the updates influencing how brands monitor demand, attribute growth, and navigate evolving AI-driven SERP experiences.
WordPress SEO Checklist: Get Ready For (Site) Launch
Learn the WordPress SEO fundamentals that separate high-performing sites from those buried in search results.
LLMs.txt Shows No Clear Effect On AI Citations, Based On 300k Domains
An analysis of 300k domains found LLMs.txt file adoption is low and has no measurable link to AI citation frequency.
New Data Finds Gap Between Google Rankings And LLM Citations
A new report compares Google rankings with citations from ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity, showing different overlap patterns.
Adobe To Acquire Semrush In $1.9 Billion Cash Deal
Adobe is buying Semrush in a $1.9 billion all-cash deal and adding the platform to Adobe Experience Cloud and its AI marketing stack.
Google Brings Gemini 3 To Search’s AI Mode
Google’s Gemini 3 Pro powers AI Mode with deeper reasoning, upgraded query fan-out, and new generative layouts.
Cloudflare Outage Triggers 5xx Spikes: What It Means For SEO
A Cloudflare outage is causing 5xx errors for many sites. Here’s how Google handles short server spikes and what to watch in SEO reports.
Google Search Console Adds Custom Annotations To Reports
Google Search Console now lets you add custom annotations to performance charts, making it easier to track when changes or external events occurred.
Google Extends AI Travel Planning And Agentic Booking In Search
Google is expanding AI Mode with Canvas travel planning, global Flight Deals rollout, and agentic booking for restaurants, events, and local appointments.
LLMs Are Changing Search & Breaking It: What SEOs Must Understand About AI’s Blind Spots
Real-world cases reveal how failures in LLM systems spread harm and misattribute sources. Here are concrete actions SEOs can take now.
SEO Pulse: AI Shopping, GPT-5.1 & EU Pressure On Google
The Pulse covers the latest from Google and Open AI and the EU investigation into Google’s site reputation abuse enforcement
Google Reminds Websites To Use One Review Target
Google updated its review snippet documentation to clarify that each review or rating in structured data should point to one clear target, reducing ambiguity.
Google Defends Parasite SEO Crackdown As EU Opens Investigation
Google responds to EU investigation into its site reputation abuse policy, defending enforcement against parasite SEO as essential for protecting search quality.
Google Adds AI Shopping Tools Across Search, Gemini
Google is rolling out AI shopping updates across Search and Gemini, including conversational queries, agentic checkout, and AI-powered local business calling.
OpenAI Releases GPT-5.1 With Improved Instruction Following
OpenAI released GPT-5.1 Instant and Thinking models with improved instruction following and adaptive reasoning.
Google Launches Ads Advisor & Analytics Advisor Globally
Google announced Ads Advisor and Analytics Advisor, built on Gemini, rolling out to all English-language Google Ads and Google Analytics accounts in early December.
Google Launches Structured Data For Merchant Shipping Policies
Google Search supports sitewide shipping policy markup, letting you surface delivery costs and transit times in results without relying on Merchant Center.
YouTube Debunks 24-48 Hour Upload Delay Recommendation
YouTube’s Rene Ritchie says the recommendation system relies on audience behavior that only begins once a video is public. Waiting 24–48 hours offers no benefit.
Report Links Original Research to Higher B2B ROI
A survey of B2B leaders finds 97% view thought leadership as critical, with original research outperforming AI content for building trust.
Google AI Overviews Appear On 21% Of Searches: New Data
New Ahrefs analysis shows where AI Overviews show up in Google: more often on questions and longer queries, less on time-sensitive news and local searches.