Google adds guidance on third-party SEO tools, services, advice and reviews hiring SEO doc

Google has added a new help document to its search developer documentation called Google Search’s guide to using third-party SEO tools, services, and advice and updated old Do you need SEO? document on Friday. Google has added a lot to the topics related to AI optimization and more guidance on trusting third-party tools and other SEO advice.

Why. Google said it posted these updates and text changes because it wanted to “highlight important things when evaluating third-party SEO tools and advice, simplify some sections and remove outdated examples from existing documents.”

Third party SEO tools, services and advice. Google’s new help document called Google Search’s guidance on using third-party SEO tools, services, and advice goes into advice from Google on how to consider third-party advice and use of third-party SEO tools and services.

This includes how to:

• Measure and validate external SEO advice against official Google guidelines
• Think seriously about using third-party SEO tools and services
  • Assist in site mapping
  • Establishing index guidelines
  • It offers to create “SEO optimized” content for you.
  • Giving advice that they say will improve the quality of your existing content
  • Promising improvements to the AI ​​experience and search formats (also known as “AEO” or “GEO” tools)

Google added that it does not endorse any third-party tool and warns against tools that claim to do so. It also warns of tools or services that say “using the service or tool does not guarantee the success of the ranking.” Google added, “Third-party tools don’t have access to our internal ranking data. They can’t guarantee performance.”

Google recommends that you use the Google Search Console, which provides you with “important information and data directly from Google Search itself,” Google writes.

Hiring an SEO document review. Google is also making updates to the Do you need SEO? help document. Google has added to the topics about Preparing for productive AI, where Google refers to a new help document on that topic.

Google also posted in this article new content about SEO tools including:

• “If your SEO uses a third-party tool, remember that Google does not review or recommend third-party SEO tools, and these tools do not have access to Google’s internal ranking data. Be aware of tools that say they are “accepted” or “approved” by Google Search.”
• “If your SEO offers to do an SEO test for you, make sure you carefully consider what’s involved and only grant read access to the Search Console (yet, don’t give them write access). The SEO test should be about giving you realistic measurements of progress, and a measure of the work involved. If they can confirm that their changes will give you first place in search results, find someone else.”
• “Evaluate your SEO recommendations and the tools they use. Before making significant changes to your site based on a third-party tool’s testing, be sure to check their recommendations against the official guidelines from Google Search, think carefully about any claims or recommendations you hear, and make an informed decision.”

The document has also been cleaned up and made shorter and more concise.

Why do we care. Reviewing Google’s official documentation is always something an SEO should be doing. The new documentation posted by Google is useful to read and understand. Understanding the changes made to older help documents is also important.