Google is experiencing ongoing rank tracking data issues, updating its PageSpeed Insights scores, and collaborating with Microsoft and OpenAI on a shared protocol for opting out of AI training, according to recent industry reports.
SE Ranking reviewed 10,000 keywords and found that 84 percent of flagged cases in rank tracking data were unrelated listings, typically appearing at position nine or below and often about a single word from the original query, the company reported.
Google is also reportedly throttling ‘goto’ links, affecting data providers such as DataForSEO, Serper, and SerpApi by limiting URL resolution and impacting rank tracking data accuracy, industry experts said.
PageSpeed Insights updated its core engine to Lighthouse 13.6.0, which includes modifications to its loading simulation that can change page performance scores even if the webpage has not been altered, according to Barry Pollard.
Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI plan to honor a shared robots.txt control using a specific policy token, ‘__usage_ai-training’, to allow website owners to specify preferences for AI training data usage, David Iwanow stated.
Google’s John Mueller commented that AI systems are expected to ‘build on SEO’ and anticipated the continued relevance of technical SEO, describing AI crawling as ‘another flavor of technical SEO’.
Kevin Kelley of Nozzle previously highlighted inconsistencies in Google’s rank tracking data, noting instances where Google provided different results for the same query, which can complicate efforts to accurately monitor search engine performance.
This collective effort by major tech companies to establish a unified AI training opt-out mechanism aims to provide content creators and website owners with more granular control over how their data is utilized by large language models and other AI systems.
Source: Search Engine Journal
