We hope you are in good health. Here are some of the major SEO news updates of the week that you need to know:
Search Related News and Updates from Major Search Engine
Google Rolls Out “Preferred Sources” for Top Stories
Google has introduced a new “Preferred Sources” feature in Search, allowing users to prioritize specific publishers in the Top Stories carousel. By selecting their favorite outlets, users gain more control over which news sources appear first, creating a more personalized and consistent news experience across devices.
Google Explains Why They Must Control Ranking Signals
Google’s Gary Illyes clearly stated that social media shares or views are not ranking signals and likely never will be, because they are outside Google’s control and prone to manipulation—even inflation that Google cannot verify Instead, Google emphasizes the need to rely solely on internally controlled signals, ensuring greater reliability and integrity in its ranking systems
Googlebot Crawl Slump? Mueller Points to Server-Side Errors
John Mueller from Google responded to a Reddit thread reporting a roughly 90% drop in Googlebot crawl activity within 24 hours after deploying broken hreflang URLs that returned 404s. Mueller suggested that such a swift decline is more typically caused by server errors like 429, 500, 503, or timeouts—not 404s—and recommended inspecting server logs, CDN/WAF configurations, and Search Console for evidence of these signals.
Google: AI Content Must Be Reviewed by Humans
Google’s Search Advocate Gary Illyes clarified that AI-generated content is acceptable as long as it is factually accurate, original, and subjected to human editorial review—what he aptly refers to as “human curated,” rather than “human created”. The emphasis is on ensuring high quality and avoiding issues like content that’s too similar to existing material or contains inaccuracies, without requiring publishers to label their content as human-reviewed.
Google: AI-Generated Images Don’t Negatively Impact SEO
Google’s Gary Illyes confirmed that using AI‑generated images alongside legitimate content does not result in ranking penalties or directly affect SEO performance. In fact, such images might even drive additional visibility through Google Image Search—though publishers should still optimize them for performance to avoid speed-related penalties.
Google Tests an AI-Powered Finance Page
Google is experimenting with a new Google Finance page that integrates AI features like a conversational chatbot for finance queries, advanced charting tools (candlesticks, technical indicators), and a real-time news feed to support better market analysis. U.S. users are seeing the test first, with the option to switch back to the classic interface.
