Intl. Search Summit Barcelona 24 was amazing!

A must go conference for SEOs with i18n challenges

The conference format is dedicated to the challenges of internationalization in SEO (and a paid track). We had, as usual, 3 tracks split into content, i18n, and paid track. All talks are somehow connected to solving problems you challenge as an SEO/marketeer in a multilanguage environment.

My recap

I mean recaps are usually very subjective therefore I can just share my opinion and impressions.

Pre-Party: It is a pretty nice location sponsored by Semrush - nice conversations and a good networking opportunity, especially if you are not from Barcelona.

Conference talks:

Nitin Manchanda talked about his framework and workflows for generating high quality content with blending programmatic SEO with language models. He shared some cases and useful tools for scaling content efforts for global brands. Even when you don't like AI generated content, I must admit that he has valid points and a legit workflow to at least avoiding crappy content. He also highlighted the risks and in which cases its not a good solution.
Julie Franck and Mario Lenoci made an absolute masterpiece of a presentation. For me, it was the most insightful presentation, maybe because I'm currently working on the same topics. Before the conference, I had the opportunity to talk a bit deeper with Mario about the capabilities and limitations of LLMs. He is absolutely brilliant and they together showcased how you can use custom LLMs to solve specific problems with connecting and retrieving data from external APIs.
Kerry Campion's talk was focussed on brands and what you need to ask yourself as a brand when you want to communicate about it. She showed how brands can develop a unique tone of voice and gave the right questions you should definitely ask yourself as a brand.
James Brockbank delivered great insights about SEO forecasting and how SEOs can get the commitment of C-Level decisions makers with business metrics. Especially helpful for agencies as he relies in his approach on third-party metrics as in many cases you don't have access to first party data or you don't have any historic data available as you want to expand into a new market.
Dani Leitner held a brilliant talk about challenges for SEOs in Switzerland as they use four different languages within one country. If you are a SEO in Switzerland or planning to be active there, you should definitely get in touch with her. She pointed out the pitfalls and the small nuances you need to know if you wanna avoid making your swiss customers angry with you
Aleyda Solis gave a good summary of how eCommerce changed in the SERPs this year. There were comparisons about the difference between different markets and how Google is playing out SERP features.
Martin Splitt: like last year(Gary), Martin answered questions from the Audience from Google's perspective. Questions were about AI Overviews, smaller problems around SERP features and also some insights about upcoming changes - where he shortly said no as he can't talk about it. The most important answer was to a question about key facts for identifying high-quality content - it's all about helping web users accomplish their goals instead of our goals.

Conclusion

If you want to visit the beautiful city of Barcelona, enjoy great food, and run away from rainy Germany like me for a few days. Besides that, you get a lot of valuable insights around content and technical struggles in an international context. TL;DR: you have to attend the conference next year on the 13th of November 2025.

There is a pre-launch price until end of year: https://webcertain.com/international-search-summit/barcelona/

See you next year