Our SEO expert, Emilie Amaral, shares the latest news and updates across SEO:
Google’s June 2025 Core Update Completes Roll-Out 🔄
On June 30th, Google announced the rollout of the June 2025 Google Core Update, driven by advancements like MUVERA (on June 25th) and the Graph Foundation Model, has caused notable SERP volatility with a stronger focus on entity-based relevance, content authenticity, and off-site authority signals. Brands relying on outdated content strategies, shallow topical coverage, or link schemes saw the biggest hits. Partial recoveries from earlier updates hint at Google’s ongoing fine-tuning. For forward-looking SEO strategies, brands should now more than ever prioritise strong E-E-A-T signals, invest in original, expert content, and optimise for entity understanding and semantic relationships to stay competitive.
Why we care: This update is important for brands because it shifts SEO success even further from previously emphasizing keyword targeting to strategically building deeper topical authority and trust. Google is rewarding content that’s clearly authored, well-connected across the web, and semantically rich – meaning brands must focus on quality, expertise, and reputation.
OpenAI ChatGPT Agent Marks A Turning Point For Businesses & SEO 🤖
OpenAI’s new ChatGPT Agent represents a major shift by combining autonomous AI capabilities with conversational chat to perform complex, multi-step online tasks automatically. Using tools like a visual browser, text-based interface, terminal, and API connectors, the agent can navigate websites, fill forms, gather data, and generate reports without manual input.
Why we care: This development means that websites must present clear, structured, and well-labelled content—such as forms, tables, headings, and metadata—to ensure the AI can accurately interpret and interact with their pages. Brands can do this by using structured content, clear meta data, and semantic markup ensures accurate information retrieval and smooth agent interactions that enable them to gain premium visibility in emerging AI-driven search experiences, giving them a first-mover advantage.
OpenAI Quietly Adds Shopify As A Shopping Search Partner 🛍️
OpenAI has quietly partnered with Shopify to power its new AI-driven shopping search in ChatGPT, allowing Shopify product listings to appear alongside rich results from platforms like Amazon and Turbify. Once this rolls out soon, it will give Shopify brands a valuable opportunity to gain visibility beyond traditional search engines like Google or Bing, directly within ChatGPT’s interface—complete with images, prices, and reviews.
Why we care: In preparation for this, brands can sign up to get notified when their product feed can be submitted to ChatGPT. In the meantime, brands should continue to optimise their website to ensure that product pages are accessible to web crawlers and enhance them with structured schema data to provide additional context to search engines.role, so eCommerce brands should focus on building authoritative, well-cited content to maintain strong rankings in this evolving search environment.
Google releases AI Mode in the UK 🌐
On July 28th 2025, Google launched its AI Mode in the UK, offering users a conversational search experience powered by Gemini 2.5. Already available in the US and India, the feature appears as a new tab in Search results or within the Google app. While traditional search remains available, AI Mode prioritises summarised responses, prompting brands and publishers to adapt their SEO strategies to remain visible in this evolving AI-first environment. Google’s AI Mode changes how search results are displayed by prioritising AI-generated, personalised, and location-aware responses across various search intents.
Commercial and informational queries now trigger longer, blog-style AI responses with citations—more prominent on desktop than mobile. Thumbnails and images are more visible and tailored to keywords, influencing click-through potential.
Why we care: This development is significant for UK eCommerce brands, as Google’s AI Mode alters how search results are presented. AI-generated answers are now prioritised over the traditional list of blue links. To remain visible, brands need to optimise for local relevance and personalised results, particularly for region-specific products. With images and thumbnails gaining greater visibility, ensuring high-quality, optimised product visuals is essential for capturing user attention. Furthermore, citations have become more influential, making it vital for eCommerce brands to produce authoritative, well-referenced content to maintain strong performance in this changing search landscape.
Core Web Vitals Reporting Glitch in Google Search Console ⚠️
Around the 10th of July 2025, a glitch in Google Search Console caused a widespread drop in Core Web Vitals reporting for mobile. Google confirmed that the issue originated from a disruption in the Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX) data pipeline, affecting real-world user experience metrics. While desktop CWV data remained unaffected, the mobile data reporting was temporarily halted. Google confirmed the outage and has since implemented a fix, assuring site owners that no action was needed as normal reporting has resumed.
Why we care: Regular monitoring using multiple tools enables brands to maintain a big-picture view even when temporary glitches like this arise.
