AI Imagery Warnings, AI-Organized Event Results & Optimising Articles for SEO
SEO TL;DR #59 17/02/2025
The Super Bowl led to a bizarre series of events, with a spike in interest for the search term “swastika tshirt”, thanks to the Kanye West controversy, which led to him being kicked off Shopify and dropped by his agent.
Aside from that madness, it was a relatively quiet week for SEO, with some reported ranking volatility a few days after the Super Bowl, but nothing officially confirmed. Here’s what else you might have missed.
Image SEO
Are AI-Generated Images Penalised?
There’s growing speculation that Google may be downranking AI-generated images in Google Image Search. Zack Notes recently shared data on LinkedIn showing a sharp drop in traffic from image search for his AI-generated visuals.
Others have reported similar declines, suggesting Google may have introduced a quality filter that prioritises non-AI images.
💡 Takeaway: If you’ve started relying more on AI-generated images recently, it might be worth keeping an eye on your Google Search Console data. Google may be adjusting its ranking signals for AI content, so consider testing a mix of AI and original images to see if it makes a difference.
Personally, I prefer AI imagery over obvious/free stock photography. Neither of them is a substitute for original photography or graphics however, which add trust. There’s something about the lack of effort needed for stock/AI photography which makes me think if the imagery has been rushed, has the content.
Local SEO
Google Tests AI-Organised Local Events in Search
Google is expanding its AI-powered search results for local events when you search for something like “concerts near me”. This was spotted by Vijay Chauhan and highlighted in Search Engine Roundtable.
💡 Takeaway: If you promote local events or run a venue, structured data is more important than ever. Make sure your event listings are well-optimised and marked up with event schema to increase your chances of appearing in these AI-organised results.
I’m not seeing this type of results when testing, but Schema is important regardless, as it determines if you show up in the traditional events sections:
You can add your own Structured Data by following the Google documentation. Alternatively, if you use WordPress, there are plugins which will automate this all for you based on the fields you fill out when creating an event.
Ecommerce SEO
Google Adds Support for Membership Pricing in Merchant Listings
Google has updated its Merchant Listing structured data to support membership loyalty pricing. This means businesses like Costco can now mark up special member prices. Here’s an example from Google’s documentation:
"offers": {
"@type": "Offer",
"url": "https://www.example.com/trinket_offer",
"price": 10.00,
"priceCurrency": "GBP",
"priceSpecification": {
"@type": "UnitPriceSpecification",
"price": 8.00,
"priceCurrency": "GBP",
"validForMemberTier": {
"@type": "MemberProgramTier",
"@id": "https://www.example.com/com/members#tier_gold"
}
}
}Alongside this, Google has clarified how to handle active and strikethrough prices.
💡 Takeaway: If your business offers member-exclusive discounts, updating your structured data can help display these prices in Google Search. This could improve visibility and click-through rates and help to promote the benefits of loyalty schemes.
Reddit's Google Traffic Took a Hit, But it’s Still Dominating Search
Reddit’s stock dropped 15% after missing user growth expectations, with its CEO blaming Google algorithm changes for “fluctuations in search traffic”. This is baffling me when looking at their organic growth over the last 2 years (Ahrefs):
The “fluctuations” likely refer to a comparatively small dip they saw in January, but with an estimated 663% increase in organic traffic over the last 2 years, they don’t know the meaning of the word fluctuations.
Despite missing growth expectations, Reddit remains a powerhouse in search results - so much so that OpenAI is considering paying Reddit $70M to license its content in a similar move to Google, who pay $60M per year to incorporate Reddit's content more efficiently into their Search results.
💡 Takeaway: SEOs have long been frustrated by Reddit dominating the Google results, often outranking everything else. If Reddit threads consistently rank for your target keywords, competing with them directly might be tough.
Instead of defaulting to publishing content on your own site, consider engaging with Reddit by hosting AMAs, participating in relevant threads, or posting valuable insights to capture visibility where users are already searching.
Aleyda Solis has some great content over here if you want to learn about Reddit for SEO.
Content SEO
How To “Perfectly Optimise” An Article for SEO?
A great article from fellow SEO and Substacker
on optimising your articles. Barry delves into the seven most valuable elements:The Headline
Freshness
Featured Imagery
Prominence
Your intro/summary/subhead/dek sections
The articles copy & structure
Internal linking considerations
Check out Barry’s full article below
Content SEO
How Google Ranks News Sites
From one SEO and Substacker to another,
breaks down a few key Google news patents to help clarify why Google's news ecosystem can often feel like the wild west.The TL;DR from the article on how they rank article is as follows:
Google assigns a source rank to news sites based on multiple weighted metrics.
High-authority news sites have a significant ranking advantage, but smaller publishers can theoretically compete with exclusive, high-quality reporting.
Each article is given a weighted combination of source reputation, past performance, and topical authority.
It prioritises source quality, timeliness, and originality over user interaction behaviours.
Speed and freshness matter. Being first on the scene, advancing the story and prioritising information gain are crucial for publishers.
Check out the full insights below. It’s well worth a read and gives insight into how Google works, even if you’re not specifically a news site.
Are you posting on Reddit?
V good roundup Ian and thanks for the mention!