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Digital news to watch: AI boosts Search Console insights

5 min read
Decembers digital digest

In this month’s digital news, Google Search Central has rolled out a new AI-powered configuration feature within Search Console, aimed at streamlining data analysis for webmasters and SEO professionals. Google Maps now lets users leave business reviews under a custom nickname instead of their real name.

SE Ranking analysed 129,000 domains to identify the top 20 factors driving ChatGPT citations. Backlinks, traffic, and trust scores ranked highest. Google’s John Mueller said that rewriting AI content by a human won’t change the site’s ranking in Google by default.

New AI-powered configuration streamlines Search Console analysis

Google Search Central has rolled out a new AI-powered configuration feature within Search Console, aimed at streamlining data analysis for webmasters and SEO professionals. The update allows site owners to more efficiently interpret complex performance reports, moving beyond manual data sorting to accelerate the identification of key trends, issues, and opportunities.
 
The immediate SEO impact is not on ranking signals themselves, but rather on the speed and accuracy of diagnostics. This improvement in the core SEO toolset is expected to help technical teams and content managers prioritise technical and content fixes faster. By making high-quality data analysis more accessible, the configuration is designed to improve the overall workflow, ultimately optimising sites for better long-term search performance outcomes.
 
Read more here.

Google Maps introduces nicknames for reviews

Google Maps is rolling out a significant global update, allowing users to post business reviews using a custom nickname and profile picture rather than their official Google identity. This move has created a double-edged sword for Local SEO. On the positive side, the privacy shield is expected to boost legitimate review volume in sensitive sectors, such as healthcare and finance, where clients were previously hesitant to post under their real names.
 
However, the anonymity provided by the nickname feature lowers accountability, making it easier for competitors or bad actors to engage in review bombing, flooding a profile with fake, damaging reviews. Although Google maintains that its spam filters are in place, businesses must now intensify their monitoring efforts to defend against these potentially more frequent, malicious attacks that directly threaten their local search rankings and overall profile integrity.
 
Read more here.

New data reveals top factors driving AI citations

Fresh research into the elements influencing ChatGPT citations has confirmed that while AI search is advancing, the core tenets of SEO remain paramount. The study, which analysed over 129,000 domains, found that established authority metrics are the single strongest indicator of whether a site earns a citation from the AI model. Specifically, a high number of referring domains (backlinks) and substantial organic traffic figures, particularly once they surpass a threshold of roughly 190,000 monthly visitors, show a strong correlation with citation frequency.
 
For SEO strategists, this highlights two crucial factors: firstly, investing in building high-level domain authority and securing quality links is still absolutely essential for achieving ‘AI visibility.’ Secondly, the depth and structure of content are key, with longer articles (over 2,900 words) and clear organisation being preferred. Interestingly, brand mentions on community platforms such as Reddit and Quora also correlated strongly, suggesting that AI models are using social signals and third-party validation as a form of trust marker, adding a vital new layer to brand-building within the AI search ecosystem.
 
Read more here.

Rewriting AI content will not ensure recovery

Google Search Advocate John Mueller has issued a warning to website owners whose domains have suffered damage due to the publication of low-quality, AI-generated material. Mueller cautioned that merely manually rewriting that content will not automatically lead to recovery or restore the site’s standing in Google Search. He underlined that the core problem is not the tool used (AI or human), but the site’s failure to add genuine, authentic value to the wider web.
 
For sites currently in a “bad state,” Mueller suggested treating a complete content overhaul as “essentially starting over with no content,”. Rather than approaching it as a standard page-by-page editing job. He warned that trying to recover an impaired domain will be “harder than starting with a new domain” and could take “much longer,”. Implying that in some situations, accepting the loss and launching a fresh, truly valuable website on a new domain may be the quicker route to re-establishing trust and rankings.
 
Read more here.
 

Is Meta expanding creative testing to 10 ads? 

 

Meta has quietly expanded its Creative Testing tool to support up to 10 ad variations in a single ad set, doubling the previous limit of five. This change benefits companies with ample creative resources, allowing broader testing within Meta’s structured environment. However, the tool still requires new ad creation for testing, which can slow workflows.

Read more here.

Spotify Wrapped 2025 turns listening into a competition

2025’s Spotify Wrapped has been released. This year, Spotify added a new feature called Wrapped Party, which pits listeners against their friends to see who is the bigger music fan. Users can receive awards for listening to certain genres, and the feature judges the entire group’s music tastes. Spotify has brought back its interactive song quiz and top artist sprint this year. This year’s Wrapped also highlights top audiobook genres for the first time.

Read more here.

For more information on any of these stories, or for support with ASK BOSCO®, please get in contact with our team, team@askbosco.com. 

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