Our strategists stay across the month's most pivotal algorithm adjustments so you don’t have to. The following is a brief overview of changes to New Zealand’s SEO landscape in May.
Decoding the Latest Google Leaks
In May, a leaked Google document revealed thousands of ranking factors, far surpassing the ~200 factors commonly known to, and utilised by, SEO specialists.
Highlights of these leaks include:
Click Data Usage: Google utilises systems like Navboost and Glue to rank search results based on user click metrics, including goodClicks, badClicks, and lastLongestClicks.
Navboost Algorithm: This algorithm adjusts search rankings by analysing navigational queries, predicting user intent to improve the accuracy of search results.
Importance of Links: Despite recent communication from Google suggesting that links are less critical for website optimisation, leaked documentation reveals that they still hold significance, with backlinks remaining especially important.
EEAT: In recent years, Google has also emphasised the importance of EEAT (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) for website ranking. However, the latest round of leaks implies that the impact of EEAT might not be as substantial as previously indicated.
Key Takeaways
> Websites should continue to prioritise high-quality, up-to-date content that effectively addresses user search queries. We encourage optimising content with multimedia elements such as videos and images.
> Website cleanliness and keeping on top of technical issues is also imperative to enhancing user experience and search performance.
Regarding Google AI Overviews
Google AI Overviews, which aim to give responses generated by Google’s AI on search results pages, has been experiencing technical glitches, causing inaccuracies in recent weeks. Google is currently working on fixing these issues to enhance the reliability and precision of AI-generated overviews.