Site Reputation Abuse hammer & 2025 predictions

Pro Snippet "Whether you love or loathe affiliates, Google's recent moves have felt incredibly arbitrary and heavy handed. At the same time, Google's decision to insert their own links in publisher articles via the Google App will be raising many eyebrows." - Tom Capper, Senior Search Scientist, Moz What We're Reading:   Google's Reimagining of Site Reputation Abuse Is Wreaking Havoc Among Publishers Whilst the November core update grabbed the headlines, the manual purge of publisher affiliates was the real story of the last month. Whether or not you sympathize with these sites, Barry masterfully highlights the hypocrisy of Google's actions. 2025 SEO Trends: Top Predictions From 23 Industry Experts Chima has rounded up 23 predictions from various industry experts exclusively for the Moz Blog. The overarching theme is diversification away from Google. 13 Best AI Automation Tools to Increase Productivity & Efficiency Automating everything from Excel formulas to Looker Studio templates to inbox management with AI - Mike King lists his favorite 13 AI productivity tools. How Google Uses Engagement Metrics for Search Rankings Whilst typical SEO practice for nearly a decade has taken into account speculation on engagement-based ranking signals, this area has more recently come out of speculation and into detailed understanding. This article is a great recap of everything we know to date. SEO for Brand Visibility in LLMs Optimizing your brand for LLM visibility doesn't (yet?) offer the same rewards as traditional SEO, but there are many eyes on these tools and their outputs. Crystal Carter has a thorough exploration of tactics. Page Annotation In Google iOS App Browser We strongly suspect that the Google app represents a pretty large share of search traffic these days. As such, this could be a very impactful change - although it's not currently clear what publishers stand to lose by opting out. Send App Data To Server-side Google Tag Manager Until now, this represented a missing piece of the puzzle for many businesses that might have otherwise benefited from server-side GTM, and as usual, Simo has the comprehensive guide. Buying Google Reviews? Think Twice Before Google Puts You in Review Jail At least some kinds of blackhat local SEO do have negative consequences. Google Maps Adds Report Business Conduct To Report Review Manipulation On which note, Google has added an official form to report such behavior. Google Tests More DMA Changes In Europe Including Dropping Maps For Hotel Results Lastly, in another twist of Google's ongoing battle with competition regulators, this test in Germany, Belgium, and Estonia essentially involves reverting to 10 blue links.         Products  |   Learn  |   Community  |   Blog  |   About . Moz, 720 Robson St, 400  Vancouver, BC V6Z 1A1 Canada You received this email because you are subscribed to The Moz Top 10 newsletter from Moz. Update your email preferences.  Unsubscribe from all future emails.