Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
The big SGE announcement is tomorrow, here's what you need to know:
* Based on everything I have heard, there will be a launch announcement of some type. Watch the stock price to understand how exciting whatever they launch is perceived to be by Wall St.
* A launch announcement doesn't necessarily mean that SGE goes live to 100% of logged-in and logged-out users globally. Given litigation concerns, Google may hold back SGE from many countries (the whole EU), account types (school/workplace), and even logged-in states.
*Regardless, even the most minimal launch on just 25% of search queries, as the current rumors say, and on logged-in users -only has the potential to substantially impact the traffic of the affected verticals.
*If you work on an informational content site not in a sensitive vertical like finance, you can expect to see deep impacts on traffic. This may not have a downstream revenue impact, but if leadership is paying attention to traffic, they will have some questions. You should have been communicating this already, but if you haven't start NOW.
* Most importantly, most tools including Google Search Console will not be immediately ready to report on the changes in search. We don't yet know how clicks and impressions will be calculated and reported on, so expect to lack some visibility going forward. Communicate about this too.
* Google has spent the last year, since IO of 2023, building SGE, and they aren't going to give up on it quickly, even if everyone hates it. This is the new reality, embrace it.
As I wrote in multiple newsletters, the new SEO is mid-funnel, so start paying attention to buyers' journeys and not just keywords. The value of keywords will be significantly diminished in the zero-click environment we are about to meet.
When SGE launches, the last 25 years of SEO will be reset in many verticals. May the most creative SEOs win.
hmmm..... well it wasn't that big after all.
