SEO, AIO, GEO, your site, & third-party support to optimize for LLMs

[music]
Hello and welcome back to a new episode
of Search Off the Record, a podcast
coming to you from the Google Search
team where we talk all about search and
maybe have some fun along the way. My
name is John Mueller. I'm a search
advocate here at Google Switzerland. And
today Danny is joining us again for more
about AEO, AIO,
um, all of these new fancy new terms.
Uh, welcome back, Danny.
>> Thank you, John. Gosh, I can hardly
believe it's been a week. It feels like
it's been only maybe two minutes.
[laughter]
>> [gasps]
>> We we of course are recording this in
one go, but we're splitting it up into
two, so you have it spread out. This is
great.
>> Don't give away our secrets, D.
>> No, no, no. This is being recorded a
complete week afterwards. Um, yeah. No,
this is exciting. I I don't get to talk
that much. So
>> cool.
>> I'm always talking at home. I'm like,
"Oh, I get to talk to this fancy little
mic here now. This is great."
>> Fantastic. Yeah. Like LA last time we
talked a bit about how all of these
fancy new terms basically map back to
SEO and a lot of the advice that we've
given in the past and talked a little
bit about the blog post that we did
about how to optimize for this new world
of AI in search. Um, and one of the
things that one of the questions I guess
that we get from time to time is how do
I find someone who can do all of these
fancy new things with kind of the
assumption that maybe there are fancy
new things that you have to do? Uh, so
what are your thoughts about how you
would choose someone to do SEO in modern
times?
>> That's certainly a question that's not
fraught with any controversy or possible
criticisms. Let's dive right in.
[laughter]
Well, you know, we did um I It's funny.
I I say we because I'm at Google, but
then when I was outside of Google, I
wasn't we, but then I use we now because
we're there. So, we but I wasn't a Wii
at the time came out with our guide,
which was not my guide, but it was our
guide. And we still have it to selecting
an SEO. And at the time, I can remember
it getting announced and everybody went,
"Oh, this is it. What are they going to
say?" And it was and I think anybody can
read fairly straightforward which was
like yeah there are people who provide
services and some are good some not so
good and here's some things to keep in
mind. So um it's been interesting
revisiting all this as we're getting
questions where people are asking us now
well what do we do in this world of AI
and what should we be doing about all
these other new tools that are coming
along. Um and it is going to be very
similar to what we've already been
saying because these things have
happened. But um let me go back to what
we said before in case people just came
in at at part two and they didn't get
the then they then they clipped the skip
recap. Don't clip skip that part like I
do on Netflix or whatever. No, just I'm
going to go right in. I'll remember what
they happened on the season a year ago.
What? Oh, so SEO the practice of
improving content for search engines,
but also is a term that is used to refer
to people or companies who provide such
services. So technically and we haven't
even said what it SEO stands for search
engine optimization
SEO and the people who provide such
services are of course search engine
optimizors
which I never hear anybody say that they
just have an SEO and the tools that are
out there would be search engine
optimization tools but they're just SEO
is this universal thing and you know to
me and and I
more Google might be thinking this way
too but you know this whole AEO geo looo
whatever it is that's people are
thinking about I need to do for AI
format search engines or chat formats or
whatever you want to call it to me I'm
defining those as a subset of SEO
>> like you know those those are things
that people still use to search so if
you're thinking about these specific
things then you that's that falls into
the broad category. I'm trying to be
found on search and this is a particular
format. So when I start saying this is
something that applies to SEO in terms
of the guidance for picking somebody or
two or whatever then um I'm it equally
applies to to the AEO type of stuff and
as always what I'm talking about is
specific to how Google operates. So you
know we don't know how everybody else is
necessarily you know whatever. So
anyway, SEOs and SEO tools can be
helpful, but they are not required and
and we talked about this in part one,
which is why people should go back and
listen to part one if you didn't, but in
short, there are plenty of sites to
succeed in search. They don't even think
about SEO. There's just focus on great
content for people. And that is the
foundation that the bedrock. It is the
frame is everything that you want to be
successful for in search is built on
that great content. So, if you are ever
feeling lost, if you're ever like, "But
I don't know what Google is." Like,
that's what we want. We want you to
focus on people. And for the people out
there who have been going, you know
what? I am just tired of all this SEO
stuff. I don't want to do it anymore.
I'm just going to think about what I
want to write about for people and I'm
going to do that. Hallelujah. Great.
Just do that. That's that's that's what
we want you to do. We really want you to
do that. If writing a blog post is just
giving you joy because you know you're
going to bring joy to somebody, then
find that joy and stick with it. That is
the authentic stuff that if we're doing
our job and we keep trying to do better,
but that's what we want to reward. So
then this goes back to the page. we'll
drop a link to the page and whatever and
what but you know we don't review or
evaluate or recommend any particular SEO
tools or companies except for uh no
[laughter]
um no we don't we [clears throat] don't
it's not a negative thing it's not like
we're saying we don't say they don't
have views it's just that we don't
there's there's so many of them and we
we can't go through and that's just not
our thing to be doing. So, but if you
want to know about SEO, then you can
read our guide and we have our general
guidance and you can make use of our our
our our search console tool set. We have
all this great stuff. Your team has done
all this great stuff out there, John.
Applause to the search central team.
This is like people like will be
sometimes like, well, who's out there
and where where we're supposed to be
getting advised? It's like that is
there's an entire team. Sometimes people
would get confused when I first started.
I'm like, well, he's doing all I'm like,
no, I'm not the the the the the thing
the person who tries to make sure all
the sites know what's going on. There
was an entire thing built up before me.
There was an entire whole system
designed to be there and is still out of
there. So, that's great that you're all
doing that. And, you know, people should
go back to it. And I I I think also this
shout out or whatever you want to go,
but like we're not saying that the
advice that we're offering is all you're
ever necessarily going to need or want
that you you absolutely if you just read
our guide, that's it. You're done. You
have to make your own judgments. You
have to decide what you want to do. But
we do believe that if you're thinking
about being successful with Google
search, you should start and be prepared
by understanding what we ourselves are
already saying
>> and the information we're already
providing to you directly. That that is
a kind of important foundation if you
decide you want to go on and do more
beyond just I'm following my hopes, my
dreams, my passions, and my joy and now
is there other stuff I should be doing
to this content? So understand the stuff
we're already telling you directly and
we think that will prepare you if you
decide then you want to go to a third
party tool or you want to go to other
services and people who might be able to
help you do other things. So
>> I really think at some point you really
need to understand what what the
direction is from Google side with
regards to SEO. Um, and
then it's a lot easier for you to kind
of pick between the different SEO
service providers and also to evaluate a
little bit. Are they actually doing what
goes into the direction that I've
learned that that Google wants or are
they kind of optimizing things that are
not actually on Google's list, but they
say that like there's like some secret
backdoor kind of thing happening here.
um which
generally there there isn't and uh that
I I think making those choices is really
hard for someone who doesn't have any
interest at all in understanding what
SEO is. So some amount of foundational
knowledge I think makes sense. But it's
not that you have to basically do all
the SEO yourself in order to hire
someone to do SEO. you kind of just need
to understand what what the direction
is, what what the guard rails are around
SEO.
>> Yeah. I mean, and we'll get to this, but
there there are definitely times when
you just say, like with anything in
life, I might need some additional help
here. I'm going to move my website from
one thing to another, and it's going to
be dramatic. There are things I should
take into account. So, it's not that
there's there's no value. Um, it's not
that you don't necessarily ever want to
use anything additional, but having
those sort of foundational stuff at
least may help you as you were making
some decisions, especially if you start
hearing some things like, "Well, that
sounds really, really different. These
doorway pages you're talking about that
I need to make." I remember reading
something about that in the the Google
SEO guide. It said like, "Don't do
them." Oh, yeah. You don't need to worry
about that. It's fine.
>> Yeah, you probably want to worry about
that. [laughter]
So um so some of these tools the
companies that people are thinking about
um they do or recommend things that keep
with our guidance right you know that
that and and they can help you with
especially I think sometimes technical
aspects of SEO um maybe they'll give you
some thoughts on content maybe they're
going to give you some other kind of
advice along the way um again we're not
going to evaluate them or whatever but
absolutely because this always you know
what will get said is you know you take
the one thing like they said they don't
evaluate tools therefore they're not
useful at all. It's like we didn't
actually say that but you know you took
that one little sentence and but anyway
so
we're not saying you can't use these
third party tools you can't take SEO
advice that there's something wrong with
it necessarily. Um, we're saying that it
actually can be helpful and our page
externally says that they can be helpful
for some people in some circumstances,
but we're saying think critically about
what's being recommended and see how
that matches against our own guidance.
And if you're being told, oh yeah,
Google says this, Google says this, what
you should be doing. Then maybe ask to
see like where we say that directly.
>> Mh.
>> Because I've seen innumerable times
where people say Google says to do this
and I'm like, we don't say to do that.
And it's not that we actually said it.
It's that someone has interpreted
something we've said to be what it is
that they want to say. And that's fine.
You want to make your interpretations or
whatever. Just should just be clear that
this is how I interpret it and this is
why I think it's perfectly fine. Um but
if you're hearing that from someone, you
should be able to ask like, well, show
me. It doesn't seem to be controversial
at all. And that's the other thing. This
is always my favorite is that you'll get
some tools or companies or people who
will offer to generate content or
provide advice that they claim will
perform better. Right? It's it's rare
that you'll encounter something that
says uh try our service and it might be
all right. We'll see how it goes and I
get that, right? [laughter]
Probably not a good marketing thing. But
um claims as with anything not just in
the SEO space and remembering again SEO
contains the subset of AEO or GEO or
whatever but claims are simply claims.
Nobody can guarantee something until you
actually see it happen. So
you'll see these claims, but they can't
guarantee it's going to improve, it's
going to make you rank for anything,
you're going to get any particular kind
of traffic, it's going to last for any
period of time to the end of time. It
will last until the end of time. Um, you
know, typically uh what when you do see
actual guarantees, it's like, well, if
we don't do X thing, you'll get X thing
back or whatever. So um you know
just evaluate and understand those are
claims. Now John I know this may
surprise you but there are some SEO
tools and companies that recommend
things that would be against our
guidance and you know
>> what
>> that it is it shocking.
>> Um I don't I don't know what to say.
[laughter]
>> I am flabbergasted. What's the word for
flabbergasted in German?
>> Oh gosh, I have no idea. [laughter]
[gasps]
>> Flabbergast.
That would be like flabbergasted
yesterday or something. I don't know.
[laughter]
Anyway, it's um so we'll work things
against our guidance and and you know,
you do things against our guidance,
potentially you could get a spam action.
So uh you you again kind of want to ask
questions and you want to understand you
should not be afraid to say so is this
going to cause me any spam problems and
>> why and that sort of thing and so
understand anything that's being
recommended to you is it with our
guidance not against our spam policies.
And I think lastly, I think this really
gets into sort of the a eio stuff,
whatever we have going on now, all the
vowels. But um I think sometimes tools
and companies can focus too much on
changes that they think are primarily
for ranking and not necessarily for
being useful to humans and it gets you
away from that bigger picture. And and I
get it.
I wrote this thing in like 1997. It was
called like the quest for the perfect
page or perfect page tools. What was
happening is we're getting all these
tools that were purported that you'd
give them your content and they would go
through and they'd say ah okay you know
what we have looked for what ranks for
this particular term
and um all the things that are ranking
are between on average 285 characters
long whatever right and all their
headlines are on average 57 words long.
So, we've graded your content and you
might want to trim your headline to this
and you're
the average isn't actually the average.
The average is that everything was
unique.
>> Mhm.
>> And you can see this repeatedly that you
go through a search and you click to
each result and each result will be
different. It's one of the joys of the
web that everything can be different.
It's one of the downsides to the web
because then people encounter all sorts
of things and sometimes they might be
thinking, "Oh, I just prefer that nice
straightforward give me a feed where
everything looks the same." But it is I
think one of the joys of web
everything's different. So the exception
is the rule, but they would produce
these averages cuz people like, I think,
to have tools that tell them this is
what you should do and that this is the
formula and you do the numbers or
whatever. So they would kind of go to
that thing and then they were actually
not producing anything that was actually
matching the perfect thing. It didn't
actually exist. So you know the tools
have continued to evolve and it really
is well have you done this thing? Have
you done that thing? Have you done this
thing? And then you start getting
focused on the individual things and it
can cause you to get away from that
bigger picture. I see that also a lot
when it comes to metrics from some of
these tools where it's like you you get
something like a spam grade or domain
grade and then you kind of get I I I get
it. I mean it's almost like this
gamification aspect where it's like oh I
my domain grade is 52. I'm going to
improve that to 59 and then Google's
going to like me a lot better. and that
you spend a lot of time focusing on this
one particular metric and maybe you can
work out like which factors are actually
involved there. Um but you have to keep
in mind this is a metric that was
created by this one specific tool and
maybe it was based on some average or
kind of its own ideal page or ideal
website. uh but that's not necessarily
what Google thinks and Google doesn't
essentially diminish your website into
one particular number that you can
optimize but rather it tries to figure
out like what do people actually want to
find in search. Uh so by just focusing
on one metric that you see and maybe
that metric is useful for some aspects
but blindly focusing on it you end up
going down a path that doesn't really
get you closer to what is actually
useful for users. Yeah, I one of my
favorite things would always be it's not
really favorite, it's just kind of sad,
but something like I don't understand. I
have domain score 89. How am I not doing
better? And it's like, I have Google
domain score 89. Like, well, it's not
our domain score. We don't have that.
And that doesn't like Yeah. No, it's not
even a thing. But, okay. to go to one of
the the things, you know, I talked about
the the specific things people like,
what is the thing I need to to improve.
[gasps]
One of the things I keep seeing over and
over in some of the advice and guidance
and people are trying to figure out what
do we do with the LLMs or whatever is
that turn your content into bite-sized
chunks because LLMs like things that are
really bite-size, right? So, we don't
want you to do that. I've been talking
to some engineers about them like we
don't want you to do that. We really
don't like that's we don't want people
to have to be crafting anything for
search specifically. That's never been
where we've been at and we still
continue to be that way. We really don't
want you to think you need to be doing
that or produce two versions of your
content. One for the LLM and one for the
[gasps] but let's go ahead. I can
already hear you saying, "But Danny, it
works. That's why we're going to be
doing it. How dare you say we don't want
you to do it when it works." Like, all
right. All right. Let's go. Let's go
down. Let's assume that in some edge
cases, let's even assume maybe in more
than some edge cases, you're finding
you're getting some advantage here. Tiny
maybe tiny degree measure. No, this is
my secret weapon. It's doing it. Great.
That's what's happening now, but
[snorts] tomorrow the systems may
change.
Like, so you've gone through all this
effort. You've made all these things
that you did specifically for a ranking
system, not for a human being because
you were trying to be more successful in
the ranking system, not staying focused
on the human being. And then the systems
improve probably the way the systems
always try to improve to reward content
written for humans. So all that stuff
that you did to please this LLM system
that may or may not have worked may not
carry through for the long term. So, was
that the best use of your your time and
your energy? Was that the best use of
putting turmoil into your marketing
department, your content department, all
your other stuff so that you could say,
"Aha, I've got the new thing that you
wanted. I brought it down from the
mountain, and here it is. Do these sorts
of things." Again, you have to make your
own decisions. But I think that what you
tend to see is over time, the very
little specific things are not the
things that carry you through. So, but
you know, you make your own decisions.
But I think also that many people who
have been in the SEO space for a very
long time, um,
we'll see this. We'll we'll recognize
that, you know, focusing on these these
these foundational goals, that's what
carries you through. What's interesting
is we've had a lot of information about
our ranking systems come to light over
time. Some of it is actually about our
ranking system. Some of it it's just
not. But people make the wrong guesses,
whatever. But as people have looked at
all this data and like now I can see I
it it kind of heartens me that a lot of
them come back and go, gosh, you know
what? Uh it looks like uh trying to
figure out all this advice, the best
thing to do is focus on having really
good content. that like it feels like
the the whole time I've been involved
with regards to SEO, it's always like
these small technical things that you
can do uh versus almost like the bigger
picture. And I I get there are some SEOs
who have infinite time and uh spin up a
site to just focus on that one small
technical thing and it goes away after a
year or so. Um, but especially for small
businesses, normal businesses, that's
not something that they can do where
they say like, "Oh, it's like John's
plumber. Well, I guess I'll set up a new
domain next week because some technical
thing changed." Like, that's just not
something that works for a normal
business.
>> It is that measuring up of how much time
you're going to want to invest in
different sorts of things and what makes
sense for you to be doing. And John's
plumber probably doesn't need to break
up their site into discrete bite-sized
chunks for LLMs. Probably need to spend
more time on ensuring that their
customers are happy to begin with. Maybe
encouraging them to leave reviews into
the various review things where you can
review for local stuff. [gasps]
and, you know, I don't know, focusing on
things that make sense for the kind of
customers they're trying to get and the
and and what's valuable to them. Um,
that's useful. If you're in an area that
has specific plumbing needs or specific
waters, whatever the things are, then
writing about those sorts of things
might be helpful as opposed to I don't
know if you feel like you need to write
about anything at all, you know, then
here's the history of plumbing as
written by John's plumbers because
someone told me that plumbing is the
number, you know, exterm on Google. So,
I'll write a bunch of stuff about
plumbing. And then most of those people
who come to my site, if I am successful,
aren't even possible prospects for me.
>> Gary's got a nephew [laughter]
who said this will do it. [gasps] How
dare he say that all SEOs are simply the
nephews of Gary. [laughter] Didn't say
that. By the way, that Gary refers to
nobody in particular. It's just a random
name. There's no single Gary's nephew
out there.
>> What more should we add? I I think I
think that covers a lot of ground
already.
>> Yeah. I think to re-emphasize, we are
not saying that tools or people don't
have value and that they can be of
assistance to you. Um we just are saying
that you don't feel like you need to go
out and necessarily get one to begin
with. You should understand that just
because you engage in in any kind of
tool or or service or whatever, it's not
going to be a guarantee. People are
successful without them. But some people
will find them helpful. Just like some
people might say, "Yeah, I could do my
own public relations, but I want to hire
a public relations firm, and it's not
guaranteed that it's going to do
anything for me, but it might be useful
to me." or [sighs] yeah, I could build a
network cabinet myself, but I'd rather
have somebody else pull the cable
because that just a better use of the
time, whatever. I know I need to have
that. So, it's not it's not saying that
they're not there, but we are in a time
of change. And in a time of change,
people start hearing all sorts of new
things, new acronyms, new claims, and
can just be very, very confusing. And
it's understandable to feel unsettled
and like, what do I reach for? What
should I be doing? Oh, the train's
going. I didn't get on the train. I'm
missing it. And it's like, you are not
going to be missing the train if you
continue to be focused on where the
train is heading to those human beings
out there who want the train car full of
your great content that was written for
them and not for the logo of motive
pulling it. I'm trying making the
metaphor up on the fly [laughter] or
simile or whatever you want to call it.
My head's spinning. Stop. Stop. You
don't know where this train's going.
[laughter]
I can make it work.
[sighs] Yeah. It's like you don't want
to optimize a train while you're on it.
[laughter]
>> Cool. Well, thanks a lot, Danny. It's
It's been really insightful and fun to
kind of talk about all of these
different things that play a role in the
modern world of SEO. I don't know if
we'll have another episode. I guess at
some point. Uh but uh you're welcome to
join us again at any point.
>> Yeah, it'd be great. I'll have to come
out to uh Switzerland for the next one.
I'm running low on chocolate.
>> Oh yeah, we have lots of chocolate. You
can optimize for chocolate. I think
that's okay.
>> Suitcase is always packed full when I'm
going there. I [laughter] have optimized
my chocolate purchasing.
>> Well, thank you all folks for listening
in and goodbye.
>> Goodbye everybody. Thanks for listening
to us and thanks for John for indulging
me going so long in my my spiel.
We've been having fun with these podcast
episodes. I hope you, the listener, have
found them both entertaining and
insightful, too. Feel free to drop us a
note on LinkedIn or chat with us at one
of the next events that we go to if you
have any thoughts. And of course, don't
forget to like and subscribe. Thank you
and goodbye.
>> [music]