Mats Tolander

It is what it is.

[Mats Tolander @mtolander]

Earnings Before Costs is Silicon Valley accounting.

Hollywood operates on There Are No Earnings After Costs.

[Jason Shuman @JasonrShuman]

Everyone’s talking about Anthropic and OpenAI

My wife wants to know why we missed backing Obsession a couple of years ago

[Mats Tolander @mtolander]

It was so fun to watch the movie with a real pre-Covid style crowd. Watching movies at the theater is the real deal.

[Mats Tolander @mtolander]

I saw Backrooms last Friday. The large theater was almost packed, the only available seats were in the two rows closest to the screen along with a small handful of single seats. It was like going to the movies in the old days!

[Mats Tolander @mtolander]

The audience seemed a bit split . At the end three waves of smattering applause rolled through the crowd.

I didn’t join the applause but I liked the movie and how it approached the canon - the only thing I accept as Backrooms canon is the original post.

[Mats Tolander @mtolander]

Google promised more outbound links in AIO/AI Mode and all the blue links in this screengrab point to other websites (news sites). In addition there’s a slider at the bottom with links to additional sites.

[Mats Tolander @mtolander]

Top Stories inside an AI Overview.

[Mats Tolander @mtolander]

A new exciting way to output a dollar sign.

The schystem is schtruggling.

[Mats Tolander @mtolander]

Yeah, let’s go Google AI, the more dollar signs that precede the amount the more valuable the money becomes.

[Mats Tolander @mtolander]

@helloiamleonie I’m workshopping “wondersnatched” as a name for the phenomenon of initially being impressed or emotionally moved by an object only to realize - disappointingly - it was just an AI generation.

[Mats Tolander @mtolander]

I saw data indicating that Google has pulled back on showing AI Overview outside of position #1 starting on May 14. This may coincide with a reduction in how often or how many citations are shown in AIO.

The query set is industry specific so the data may not reflect a broader change (the data could also be flat out inaccurate - that can happen).

[Mats Tolander @mtolander]

Demand making prices “artificially high” is an unexpected talking point.

[Mats Tolander @mtolander]

…the blatant misuse of it (maybe I’m overly literal in my thinking but a statement is not a question)

3. It all reminds me of the skepticism Gary Illyes expressed at Next10X almost a decade ago over trusting what publishers put in SD

[Mats Tolander @mtolander]

1. Ray could be right but I’m not convinced it will change market behavior. I at times feel like the constable in George Orwell’s Shooting an Elephant. The mob demands structured data.
2. My misgivings with FAQPage was the undeserved SERP space it received and…

[Lily Ray 😏 @lilyraynyc]

Interesting timing: Google is dropping rich results support for *all* FAQ Schema as of yesterday, and is removing FAQ structured data reporting from GSC. (Link in comments)

I wonder why they decided to do this *right now* in May 2026? Google had already deprecated FAQ rich results for most sites several years back, but had kept eligibility available for various high-authority sites, like .gov and health sites (they made this change during the pandemic).

So, why deprecate FAQ rich results now?

Putting on my tin foil hat - my theories on this:

I wonder if this has anything to do with the influx of new articles (168k in the below screenshot) claiming that "FAQ schema is critical for GEO?" This guidance is spreading like rapid fire.

Why does my mind immediately go here? Because we have already lived through this before.

When FAQ Schema was first launched in 2019, it was an *incredible* SEO opportunity. Site owners were even able to add internal links to other pages on their site within FAQ answers, which showed up directly in the SERP. One of those rare "too good to be true" opportunities in SEO.

I wrote about this on Moz in 2019 (link in comments), because our SEO team at Amsive was seeing great results using for this with our clients - especially in the form of lots of new impressions & clicks to the different links included in FAQ answers.

In this Moz article, I also included a section called "Risks involved with implementing Schema," (also linked in comments) and described some potential misuses of FAQ schema for SEO purposes. I stated: "Avoid misusing Schema, or it’s possible Google might take away these fantastic opportunities to enhance our organic listings in the future."

Unfortunately, that's exactly what Google ended up doing. (As I often say: anything that can be spammed in SEO, will be spammed.) There was so much FAQ Schema SEO spam in the search results, that we *all* lost the opportunity to continue earning rich results through FAQ Schema. I also eventually noticed that aggressively scaling FAQ questions/Schema was a common pattern among sites impacted by the Helpful Content Update.

So, this wouldn't be the first time that Google is playing the cat and mouse game when they see too many sites using the same exact techniques "for SEO/GEO."

Just an idea.

(Sidenote: I am NOT saying not to use FAQs where it makes sense to, and the associated Schema can be helpful for reasons other than rich results on Google. I'm just commenting on why they might have made this change at this time)

h/t @glenngabe @rustybrick

[Mats Tolander @mtolander]

@CyrusShepard Tremendous work!

How come you gave #1. 9.5 and not 10? Just wondering.

Do you see 4. strictly as an exclusion mechanism or something that can be used to increase chances of citation, perhaps by focusing attention on specific sections?

[Mats Tolander @mtolander]

@CyrusShepard 😂

[Mats Tolander @mtolander]

Yeah, let’s go Google AI, the more dollar signs that precede the amount the more valuable the money becomes.

[Mats Tolander @mtolander]

Google’s source selection - which may well be different for Web Guides than normal search - is surprising. Here’s Google using social media slop accounts as sources for dubious and unsubstantiated claims. AI Mode got it right.

[Mats Tolander @mtolander]

@wilreynolds I’m increasingly seeing AIO in second or third place. Is that something you saw in the analysis and do you think that could have impacted the CTR for SERP with AIO?

[Mats Tolander @mtolander]

@CyrusShepard Nice work!

I was going to argue over Owned Audience as content type but you do that yourself.

[Mats Tolander @mtolander]

@rustybrick @MordyOberstein Plot twist: it was Mordy who deleted it. =)

[Mats Tolander @mtolander]

PBN for social media.

As I allegedly once said:

“Talk to the machines
in a way they have been told
to understand things.”

The machines have been told to amplify stuff people watch and discuss.

[Rachel Karten @milkkarten]

this is how marketing works now! all of your favorite brands, bands, movies, and tv shows are doing this.