Your SEO cliff notes from Adaptify (3 stories, 3 minutes)
Hansjan Kamerling
Feb 25
Hello there,
In our last newsletter we teased that we’d be switching things up a bit. The goal is to keep things fresh while making sure you, as an agency, stay plugged into the most important SEO updates.
This week, we’re testing out a quick highlights edition, three bite-sized stories you might find especially relevant or interesting.
So lets jump into these quick snippets of SEO news.
🍂 Ready to watch your SEO Fall into place? Start a 7-day free trial, or book a demo to discover how easy it is to wow your clients and close more deals—faster! Get started today! 🍂
⭐ Adaptify Weekly Highlights ⭐
Login Pages Can Tank Your SEO
Google’s John Mueller and Martin Splitt reminded everyone this week that bare login screens confuse crawlers. If every private URL redirects to the same generic login, Google folds them together and your login page might outrank your actual content.
What to do instead:
Use noindex on private endpoints or redirect users to a marketing/landing page.
Avoid relying only on robots.txt (Google still sees the URLs).
Consider paywall markup if you want restricted pages indexed.
Add a short description or context on login screens so they’re not just blank walls.
Quick test: log out, search your brand in incognito, and see where you land. If you hit a dead login, time for an update.
AI Search & The Rise of 404s
A new Ahrefs study across 16M URLs shows AI assistants are much more likely to send users to dead links compared to Google.
ChatGPT: 1% of clicked URLs = 404s
Google: 0.15%
Claude, Copilot, Perplexity, Gemini: all somewhere in the middle
Mistral: lowest rate (0.12%) but least traffic
Most sites won’t feel the sting (AI assistants only bring ~0.25% of traffic right now), but as usage grows, having a user-friendly 404 page is more important than ever. Set up redirects only if fake URLs get real traffic, don’t waste energy chasing ghosts.
💡 Agency SEO Tip of the Week: Run a “login page crawl test” in incognito. If you’re seeing bare logins indexed, patch it now with noindex or redirects before it costs your clients branded search visibility.
Google Dodges a Breakup (For Now)
The U.S. antitrust ruling has landed: Google won’t be forced to split Chrome or Android, but it can’t lock in exclusive default search deals anymore.
Phone makers and carriers must renegotiate contracts.
Google may have to share certain search data with rivals (under safeguards).
Changes kick in ~60 days after final judgment (expected this fall).
Big picture: this isn’t the end of Google’s dominance, but it cracks open the door for competitors to gain visibility. Agencies should watch how new distribution rules shape search defaults on devices over the next six years.
Training Corner: What To Do If Your Articles Aren’t Indexing
Not seeing new articles show up in Adaptify? Here’s how to troubleshoot:
- Check Google Search Console (GSC) First Head to your GSC account and confirm whether the articles appear there. If they’re showing in GSC, the issue is likely with the connection inside Adaptify. Try resetting the GSC connection and double-check you’re logged in with the correct credentials.
- If They’re Missing in GSC Too First, double-check that you’re logged into the correct property and have the right permissions in Google Search Console. If the articles still don’t appear, it usually points to a broader indexing issue with the site itself. Common culprits include technical barriers like robots.txt rules, noindex tags, or sitemap delays. At this stage, it’s a good time to run a site audit or review your sitemap submission.
- Articles in GSC But Not Indexed Sometimes Google crawls but doesn’t index right away. If you see the articles listed but unindexed, reach out to us! We can trigger manual indexing requests based on your site’s technical health to help speed things along.
Staying on top of GSC is the fastest way to diagnose where the breakdown is happening and make sure your content starts showing up in search results.
It's Time to Fall Into SEO 🍂
That’s it for this week’s highlight reel.
As we head into fall, we’re trying out new ways to keep you in the loop with quick hits, easy to scan, no fluff. If you’re enjoying this shorter format (or missing the deep dives), let us know. Either way, Adaptify will keep bringing you the SEO updates that matter most, season after season.
Want to see how Adaptify can help? Schedule a demo or visit Adaptify.ai.
See you in another two weeks,
Best,
Dominic, Hans, Bethany
Automate your Agency (by Adaptify SEO)
