I've always found the best debates/reasoning in u/grumpyseoguy's sub!!!

You can hide anything in anecdotal evidence. And on the few occasions (maybe 10%) where someone slipped me the evidence in a DM - I can find 100 better, more rational answers based in basic PageRank SEO and repeat them - because I've seen them 100 times that require a tin foil hat explanation.

It just seems to go hand in hand with "every scenario in SEO is super unique" - like it only happens in the finance or crypto "niche".

Like - I have this perfect scenario that you can't see but I can keep adjusting and changing the goal posts around - and you have no idea if this is even true or not, let alone a bad or miss observation.

But OMG - if you challenge anecdotal evidence - you might as well walk into an Italian restaurant and just hurl insults at everyone's Mom.... (not that anyone would want to or should do that)

Anecdotal evidence is no different from holding an opinion.

From u/lilray on X (via GlennGabe) - thanks for sharing

As of May 7, 2026, FAQ rich results are no longer appearing in Google Search. We will be dropping the FAQ search appearance, rich result report, and support in the Rich results test in June 2026. To allow time for adjusting your API calls, support for the FAQ rich result in the Search Console API will be removed in August 2026.

As this sub and many of our related experts that we share, like u/jakehundley - Mod of r/agency - a great sister sub to r/SEO and r/SEO_Digital_Marketing - this isn't surprising.

As we said - Google doesnt actually read FAQ Schema anyway - because less than 0.001% of site qualify

Right now we're seeing large scale de-ranking and de-indexing as well as a challenge to getting content indexing.

My bet: the "technical" solutions will wear thin quickly - mainly because if the page is crawled, there literally cannot be a technical impediment to crawling - Google has the document - it needs nothing else - except to calculate its authority score.

The web is getting bigger and at a faster pace.

New indices are being created but old ones are disappearing

Also - LLM QFO indices are getting more competitive as SEO expands.

Will Good SEO Strategies beat out ones based on popular myths?

Will the great "de-indexing" play out and will it separate the wheat from the chaff

What SEO tactics will people need to adopt?

Will the belief in uni-strategies fade? Like "good content" or "great tech stack" or "just buy backlinks"

Seeing a lot of posts and comments around X and especially for diagnosing crawled and Discovered, Not Indexed. I have seen some slight references to Google saying that its related to content quality but then Google's content quality has always been measured by authority

Sources

Seems to be stemming from this Google Product Support by a support volunteer - which looks like an AI answer itself:

https://support.google.com/webmasters/thread/412290169/lots-of-pages-crawled-but-not-indexed-can-we-get-any-solid-reason-for-these?hl=en

Google Official Docs

The SEO starter Guide is pretty clear - you may want at least one word in your page but there's no minimum word count

This is gaining more and more concensus among SEOs - that SEO (and PPC) doesnt need multi-channel marketing. This is more a demand-gen campaign to make people think they "need" social mentions for Google and AI.

If you're only getting to "ranking' on Google for citations now - chances are you've missed the boat. Only one page from each search index from Reddit and Youtube can really rank. If you want it to be your post - then standard SEO applies.

Parasitic SEO is not free SEO rankings because LinkedIn as high DA - most topics are already covered: LinkedIn gets over 1 billion clicks from Google.

Datos published a study showing that AI is not outpacing search in growth or usage.

On an absolute basis, traditional search is outpacing AI tool growth.

https://preview.redd.it/xk9c8civ0qzg1.jpg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e4ba0db876c487965f3b4892fb893847e50aa6c6

Despite the "disruption", people are searching Google as much as ever...

https://preview.redd.it/t0ubt6o01qzg1.jpg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7173829912119a492cf098dde0ac35e1634cb5c6

Now, before you attack this thread, I am not claiming this should convince anyone to forget about LLM optimization. I believe SEO and GEO are inseparable.

If there's one thing that is actually disrupting SEO (or else its traditional metrics and KPIs), it is the AI Overviews as they are the biggest drivers of 0-click marketing at this point.

Source: LinkedIn / u/randfish

We're halfway through 2026 and the SEO industry is… exactly as messy as it feels.

We have a small group of thought leaders who are far more cliquey than data-driven. It's mates-for-mates networking dressed up as expertise. They're all roughly heading in the same direction ("be helpful," "build authority," etc.), but there's zero shared vision beyond "we're definitely not doing GEO." Real reproducible research? Rare.

Meanwhile, we've got a bunch of competing ideologies that are fundamentally incompatible, yet everyone pretends they play nicely together. EEAT and full Content Agnosticism cannot coexist. You can't worship firsthand experience and author authority while simultaneously claiming content is dead and AI can generate everything. That cognitive dissonance is everywhere, and confirmation bias is having a field day.

A huge chunk of SEOs are desperately looking to the "leadership" for direction after every Google update. The irony is brutal — those same thought leaders are usually scrambling and backpedaling just as hard as everyone else.

Google? Not exactly a beacon of honesty. They spent years downplaying how sophisticated their systems are, over-simplified PageRank in public, then basically pretended it vanished. They pushed EEAT hard… only to start quietly distancing themselves from the term. Perfect breeding ground for confusion and guruism.

And the actual workforce? Split between:

• Highly specialized operators (some legit, some blackhat — link building, review selling, negative SEO, etc.)
• Broad-skilled generalists who only really win when the site already has authority

In competitive or technical niches, it's brutal. Maybe 1-5% of SEOs are truly strong technically, but good luck getting the industry to agree on who those people actually are.

Otherwise, everything's just dandy.

I think we need a new leadership in SEO - and seeing how popular u/grumpseoguy is on X (where unfortunately he's absent) - I still want to nominate him

Hey! I just got an interview for an SEO job, and they wanted me to do a case to show my competencies, but I feel like it's too much work for a job interview.

The job posting said they wanted someone with 2-5 years of experience at an agency or in-house. I have about 1 year at an agency.

Here is the full case they asked me to do (in 3 days). Let me know what you all think about the amount. I personally think it's too much.

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Scenario Training

Here you will receive a number of scenarios where we want you to reason through and describe your approach to solving the problem/optimizing the website based on the situation described.

Assume that you have access to all tools needed to make well-informed decisions.
(Analytics, Search Console, Ahrefs, etc.) and if you would use any of these tools, describe what you would use them for.

We evaluate your logic and reasoning in these scenarios, and we recommend that you do not use ChatGPT for convenience, as it can often be wrong. If you are knowledgeable within these areas, your competence will be demonstrated more clearly if you complete the assignment yourself.

Scenario 1

Background:

We have a client who has historically ranked very strongly in positions 1–2 for their primary keyword, but recently they have dropped and are now fluctuating between positions 3–5.

Task:

How would you troubleshoot the issue, and what implementations would you carry out in order to regain the previous rankings?

Scenario 2

Background:

We have an e-commerce client with a large product catalog. All category pages and product pages are already created and well optimized content-wise for their respective primary keywords (e.g. “mailboxes”).

The client now wants to take the next step and capture even more relevant organic traffic with strong purchase intent, but they do not know where to begin.

Task:

How would you identify the most effective ways to increase traffic and sales at this stage? Describe specifically how you would identify low-hanging fruit and give examples of actual implementations you would carry out on the website.

Scenario 3

Background:

We have just onboarded a new e-commerce client within the outdoor apparel niche who previously worked with another SEO agency. During an initial review of their website, we discover problems involving two of their key categories: “Shell Jackets” and “Rain Jackets”.

Both categories must remain live for business reasons, since they are two completely separate product groups in the warehouse inventory.

When reviewing Google Search Console, we notice clear keyword cannibalization. Google constantly alternates which of the two URLs ranks for several important search terms (so-called URL flipping), and neither page ranks higher than position 8.

Task:

1. What are common reasons why keyword cannibalization occurs on e-commerce websites in general?
2. Based on the client’s specific situation with “Shell Jackets” and “Rain Jackets”, why do you think this issue has occurred here? What could the previous agency have done wrong in their optimization work?
3. Practically speaking, how would you separate these pages in Google’s eyes and get both pages to rank highly for their respective relevant search queries?

Scenario 4

Background:

One of our largest clients, a B2B software company, has just informed us that they are planning to migrate to a new CMS and redesign the entire website. They plan to launch the new website in six weeks.

They have renamed several of their main categories and merged some old service pages together. In addition, they have decided to change the URL structure across their entire high-traffic blog because they thought the old URLs were “too long and ugly”.

They are now asking you for SEO approval before launch.

Task:

1. What are the biggest SEO risks with what the client is planning to do?
2. Describe your process for handling this migration during the next six weeks. Which key implementations would you present to the client?
3. Strategically and technically, how would you handle changing the URL structure for all blog posts in the best possible way?

Scenario 5

Background:

We have a new client that is an established veterinary clinic chain with 8 different clinics in southern Sweden (e.g. Malmö, Lund, Helsingborg).

Despite having a generally strong brand, they perform very poorly in local searches and in the “Map Pack” (map results) when people search for terms such as “Veterinarian + [City Name]” or “Emergency veterinarian near me”.

They are constantly outranked by small local clinics that only have a single location and a much weaker domain overall.

The client does not understand why their size and national authority are not helping them locally.

Task:

1. What are the very first things you would review (both on-site and off-site) to diagnose why they are underperforming locally?
2. Based on your experience, what are the most common mistakes businesses with multiple physical locations make when it comes to local SEO?
3. Present a high-level strategy for how you would reverse this trend and help them dominate the map results across all 8 locations.

On-page Optimization

In this example, we have received a local plumbing company.

They want to improve their rankings for their primary keyword: “Plumber in town”.

Please list the on-page optimizations you believe we can implement in order to improve their rankings for this keyword.

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I appreciate all constructive input.