SEO Industry Update: AI Impacts, Google Guidelines, and New Features in Search and Local SEO
As the digital landscape continues to evolve at a rapid pace, SEO professionals must stay informed of the latest developments shaping search visibility, user behavior, and platform capabilities. This week’s industry digest highlights significant changes, including the influence of AI on click-through rates, best practices for managing multiple domains, and innovative features enhancing user experience across search and local services.
AI’s Influence on Search Engagement
Recent analysis by Seer Interactive indicates that the integration of AI Overviews within Google Search results can lead to substantial reductions in organic click-through rates (CTR). Specifically, the presence of AI-generated summaries can decrease CTR by up to 61%, as users increasingly receive direct answers, diminishing the likelihood of clicking through to original publisher sites. This shift underscores the importance for content creators and marketers to rethink strategies that prioritize visibility in AI-rich search environments.
Guidance on Managing Multiple Top-Level Domains
Google’s John Mueller provided authoritative advice for businesses operating under multiple TLDs. Key recommendations include:
- Selecting a primary domain and implementing 301 redirects from secondary TLDs to consolidate authority.
- Using the main domain to build a reinforced web presence and clarify indexing intentions.
- Avoiding the use of rel=canonical tags across different domains during migration, as redirects offer a more robust solution.
- Once indexing stabilizes, consider adding canonical tags if both domains remain active, but primarily reserve one URL for branding and marketing purposes.
Adhering to these practices ensures clear SEO signals and maintains site authority across multiple domains.
Emerging Features in Google’s AI and Search Tools
Google continues to enhance its AI-driven capabilities, particularly through Search Labs’ AI Mode. Noteworthy additions include:
- Event ticket and appointment bookings for beauty and wellness services, available to U.S. users enrolled in Search Labs, with higher limits for premium subscribers.
- A new testing interface where the traditional Definition Box is replaced by AI Overviews, providing users with richer summaries and contextual information rather than simple dictionary definitions.
These features aim to enrich user engagement while offering new opportunities for businesses to connect with potential customers.
Changes to Structured Data and SERP Features
Google has announced the deprecation of certain niche structured data types, such as Practice Problem markup, and clarified that Dataset markup is limited to Dataset Search. Starting January 2026, support for these formats will be phased out in Search Console reports, Rich Results testing, and Search
