SEO This Week: Google Updates AI Overviews, Canonical, Indexing

Bài viết do Ban Biên Tập Marketing365 thực hiện, biên tập theo Chính sách biên tập của Marketing365. Cập nhật lần cuối 17/07/2026.

Nội dung

Google brings image generation into AI Overviews, and Google Images gets a refresh
Google revisits canonical: fix it properly, but don’t expect instant results
What did Mueller say about hidden links and A/B testing?
Google explains why site quality is tied to non-indexed pages
Avinash Kaushik: it may be time to renegotiate agency fees now
Don’t forget post-click: landing pages still decide ROI
Where is martech headed as AI takes over so much of the conversation?
Content is no longer a default competitive advantage
Weekly roundup from the search community: many small changes, big impact
Smart bidding and budget pressure: Google says there’s no broader change
Google Maps and OpenTable: a reminder about control over distribution channels
What this means for the Vietnamese market
References

This week’s SEO and martech landscape points to one clear trend: Google and search platforms are pushing more “no-click” experiences, while marketers must optimize more deeply for quality, structure, and post-click performance. For Vietnamese businesses, SEO is no longer just about rankings, but about visibility across AI, search, and conversion ecosystems.

Key points:
Google continues expanding AI Overviews with direct image generation, while also refreshing Google Images.
John Mueller and Martin Splitt emphasize the connection between site quality and non-indexed states, not just on-page content.
Avinash Kaushik argues that many agency fees may be inflated, creating pressure to renegotiate services in the AI era.
This week’s martech articles all circle back to one message: content, media, and the martech stack all need to be re-optimized for real efficiency.

Google brings image generation into AI Overviews, and Google Images gets a refresh

Google is adding the ability to generate images directly within AI Overviews, while also redesigning the Google Images homepage. According to Search Engine Journal, both changes are being rolled out to mark the 25th anniversary of Google Images and will launch over the next few weeks.

What matters for SEO is that AI Overviews already tend to fully answer many queries without sending users away from the results page. When AI can generate additional images within that same experience, Google further increases the number of “touchpoints” that keep users inside its ecosystem longer. This forces marketers to think beyond optimizing articles alone: content needs to be clear enough, differentiated enough, and valuable enough to still deserve citations or direct visits. Source: Search Engine Journal.

Google revisits canonical: fix it properly, but don’t expect instant results

In SEO Pulse, Google once again highlighted the importance of using canonical correctly and noted that a content-based canonical fix may take some time before it fully takes effect. It’s a familiar but important signal: canonical is not a “fix it and it’s done” button overnight.

For technical SEO teams, the message here is to check both canonical logic and the entire page-version architecture: which URL is the canonical one, which pages self-reference, and whether there are duplicate or conflicting signals. When rolling out changes, don’t rely on intuition alone when tracking indexing; combine Search Console, logs, and crawl status to confirm the system has received the new signals. Source: Search Engine Journal.

What did Mueller say about hidden links and A/B testing?

John Mueller also came up this week in a discussion about a plan to hide a link to the homepage and the topic of A/B testing. The focus of the exchange was not on a technical “trick,” but on how Google views link signals and its ability to detect hidden elements.

For marketers, the lesson is transparency in experimentation. A/B testing is a useful tool for optimizing conversions, but hiding or manipulating important links can create unnecessary SEO and user experience risks. In other words, testing should support business decisions, not trade away core search signals. Source: Search Engine Journal.

Google explains why site quality is tied to non-indexed pages

Martin Splitt and John Mueller also discussed the Page Indexing Report and how to use it to identify indexing issues. One notable point was their link between site quality and the indexing process, and their insistence that “quality” is not limited to the text on a single page.

This is especially important for new websites or sites expanding quickly. A page may sit in a “discovered, currently not indexed” state or get stuck at different stages before being fully indexed. In practical terms, technical SEO is not just about optimizing individual URLs; it also has to ensure the entire site has a consistent structure, stable crawlability, and strong enough quality signals for Google to trust it. Source: Search Engine Journal.

Avinash Kaushik: it may be time to renegotiate agency fees now

Avinash Kaushik, who spent many years at Google and is now chief strategy officer at Human Made Machine, believes many brands should revisit their agency contracts as AI reshapes cost structures. In comments quoted by Search Engine Journal, he said the savings could range from 25% to 75%, depending on the case.

For marketers and business owners, the key point is not the headline-grabbing number, but the question: which parts of the service are creating real value, and which are just maintenance costs? As AI supports research, analysis, content variations, and reporting, the way budgets are allocated across SEO, content, and consulting services may need to be redesigned. Source: Search Engine Journal.

Don’t forget post-click: landing pages still decide ROI

MarTech cites research from Unbounce and Ascend2 showing that many marketers believe landing page optimization is one of the most effective ways to improve ROI, yet actual investment remains below that level. It’s a familiar warning, but still a very true one: not every media dollar will perform if the landing page is weak.

As SEO and paid media increasingly overlap, a good landing page not only improves ad conversions but also enhances the experience for users coming from organic search. If a business is increasing spending on content and traffic but conversion rates are not improving, the issue may lie in the post-click experience rather than the traffic channel itself. Source: MarTech.

Where is martech headed as AI takes over so much of the conversation?

In another article, MarTech argues that the martech industry is being dominated by AI to such an extent that many other important discussions are being overshadowed. The author emphasizes foundational shifts such as stack rationalization and core tool governance—unflashy topics, but ones that determine long-term operational efficiency.

This is a valuable reminder for in-house SEO teams: don’t let the rush toward AI features obscure the systems problem. Which tools are actually being used? Is the data consistent? Are workflows overlapping? If the foundation is not addressed, AI will only make complexity more expensive. Source: MarTech.

Content is no longer a default competitive advantage

MarTech also offers a thought-provoking view: content alone is no longer the competitive advantage it once was, especially when users can ask AI to pull together all the information they need about a category in just a few seconds. The question is no longer whether information is published, but whether the brand gets chosen.

This message has a direct impact on modern SEO. Keyword-optimized articles that stop at providing aggregated information are easily replaced by AI and answer engines. Businesses need to build brand identity, a distinct point of view, hands-on experience, and emotional reasons that make users choose them over another result. Source: MarTech.

Weekly roundup from the search community: many small changes, big impact

This week, Search Engine Roundtable reported a number of shifts and experiments around Google Search, Google Images, AI Overviews, and topics such as canonical, lastmod, and ad-related updates. While each item differs in scale, the common thread is that Google continues to fine-tune the search experience across many layers.

For SEO professionals, this kind of weekly roundup is useful because it shows the bigger picture: a change in AI Overviews can shift user expectations; an update to canonical or lastmod can affect how Google understands a site. Following the search community helps teams spot trends early, before they become the new standard. Source: Search Engine Roundtable.

Smart bidding and budget pressure: Google says there’s no broader change

Search Engine Roundtable also reported that the PPC community is paying close attention to Google Ads changes for campaigns limited by budget, but Google says this is not a broad smart bidding update as some had speculated.

Even though this is not directly SEO, it is still worth watching because paid search and organic search are becoming increasingly interconnected in growth strategy. If ad budgets are tightened or distribution changes, pressure on SEO will rise. In that case, optimizing content, site structure, and organic conversion becomes even more important. Source: Search Engine Roundtable.

Google Maps and OpenTable: a reminder about control over distribution channels

Search Engine Roundtable also asked whether Google Maps had stopped showing or integrating OpenTable reservations. While this is a specific detail, it reflects a larger reality: intermediary platforms can always change how traffic and user behavior are distributed.

For local businesses, the lesson is not to rely entirely on a single integration or one traffic source. Local SEO, business profiles, consistent data, and a proprietary booking system remain assets that should be actively controlled. Source: Search Engine Roundtable.

What this means for the Vietnamese market

For Vietnamese marketers, this week’s news shows that SEO is shifting from a game of “getting articles to the top” to a game of “optimizing presence in AI environments and post-click experiences.” As Google increases its ability to answer directly with AI, websites that are only strong on basic information will see their advantage shrink.

On the other hand, this is an opportunity for Vietnamese businesses to invest more seriously in hard-to-copy assets: real-world expertise, original data, content with a distinct point of view, clean technical structure, and landing pages that convert well. Brands that do SEO well in this period will not only win traffic, but also trust and the ability to be chosen by both AI and users.

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This article focuses on SEO news with a perspective for the Vietnamese market.