Today, at its MozCon 2024 conference, Moz announced a range of AI-driven features and product updates. The announcements focused on modernizing tools to address the changing needs of SEO professionals.
Ethan Hays, Moz’s General Manager, acknowledges that “the search landscape has seen more turbulence this last year than at almost any point in Moz’s 20-year history. Our goal is to help our customers face that head-on.”
Modern Tools For The Future Of SEO
Moz showcased a revamped version of STAT, its enterprise SERP tracking solution, and several usability improvements to the Moz Pro interface.
Willow Mack, SVP of Moz Enterprise, People Operations and Transformation, explains in an interview with Search Engine Journal:
“When looking at our user interfaces, we wanted to be very thoughtful in what we’re doing and not just make it prettier. This isn’t just about making things look better, but about increasing the usability.”
Mack emphasized that the goal is to make the products more future-forward and enable users to get insights faster and more efficiently.
“Our intention is to decrease the time and effort it takes to become an expert in the tool,” she added.
Moz AI
The company introduced Moz AI, a suite of tools designed to streamline workflows and enhance enterprise-grade data. Moz AI is a collection of three features integrated into Moz Pro:
- Search Intent in Keyword Suggestions
- Domain Search Theme
- Domain Keyword Topics in Domain Overview
Moz is focused on “Augmented Intelligence” – using AI to enable and enhance human intelligence and insights rather than replace them.
The new Search Intent feature in Keyword Explorer uses a two-layer process with an ML classification model and a rules-based model to help understand where a searcher is in their journey and how to target content effectively.
The Domain Overview tool now includes Domain Search Theme, which uses language models across a site’s Google rankings to provide a dynamically generated sense of how Google views the site, and Domain Keyword Topics, which buckets a site’s ranking keywords into up to five topics for quick competitive insights.
“We’re looking at AI by taking a thoughtful approach to it. We’re learning what this will look like for us in the industry and for SEOs,” Mack explained.
She continues:
“When we look at AI features within Moz Pro, our intention is to decrease the time it takes to get to insights and enable people to take back time, basically. Get to insights faster and move through their workday more efficiently.”
Accessible & Affordable Data
Moz announced the launch of new Moz API plans, making enterprise-quality data more accessible and affordable. Starting at $5 per month, customers can now access an expanded set of Beta endpoints.
“We’re super excited about being able to go to market with an affordable API plan because we know that data is the core of what we do.” Mack said.
She continues:
“We have businesses now that are using our Links API to power their tools, and so we have use cases already in play at the moment, and we’re seeing people do really interesting things with our data through the API.”
20 Years Of Moz
As Moz celebrates its 20th anniversary, we asked Mack what she believes is the company’s most significant contribution to SEO.
“The thing for me that resonates the most is the commitment to community and education, and that is at the core of what Moz has always done,” she said.
Mack emphasized that Moz’s product development is inspired by feedback from SEO professionals.
She adds:
“Our product roadmap and vision are very much informed by our customer base, so much so that the whole STAT user rewrite or the user interface rewrite has been driven off of our client feedback, and we’ve done the same with Pro.”
She notes that MozCon is another example of the company’s community-building efforts:
“MozCon is a great example of that… it truly is about bringing together SEO professionals and bringing together this community. I think for me, providing this safe space to come and learn every year is one of the most prominent things that Moz has done is creating a space to come and learn from one another.”
AI Ethics & Risks
Moz takes the ethical challenges of AI, and large language models in particular, seriously. The company is mindful of the explosion of AI-driven content and of being responsible citizens of both the internet and the Google ecosystem.
Moz aims to help SEOs create useful, impactful content that serves searchers and meets them along their journey while staying aware of Google’s evolving policies around AI-generated content and the potential risks of scaled content abuse.
MozCon 2024
MozCon 2024, currently underway, will feature live demonstrations of these product enhancements. Attendees will experience the new features firsthand and interact with Moz experts.
In Summary
As Moz marks its 20th anniversary, it continues to focus on providing SEO professionals with advanced tools, educational resources, and community support to navigate the constantly changing search environment. The company’s goal with AI is to make SEOs more effective and impactful.
Mack summarized:
“The key message for us is we know that SEO and the industry are ever-evolving, right? Moz is a pioneer in this space and continues to evolve with the industry, and we’re committed to community education and best-in-class tools.”
Featured Image: Taken by author, June 2024.
