Google’s Results about you tool now monitors Search results for government-issued IDs like passports, driver’s licenses, and Social Security numbers. The post Google Can Now Monitor Search For Your Government IDs appeared first on Search Engine Journal .

This Ask an SEO explains how search, social platforms, and on-site content demand different optimization approaches without fragmenting strategy. The post Should I Optimize My Content Differently For Each Platform? – Ask An SEO appeared first on Search Engine Journal .

A month ago, we reported on a new help document on Google Ads for Performance Max optimization experiments: A/B testing assets beta. Well, now some are seeing this in the wild, where you can set up these A/B tests in a controlled environment.

There are some reports coming out that Grokipedia, the AI-based Wikipedia, is now showing a decline in search visibility in both Google and even ChatGPT. This comes after both an indexing and ranking surge in Google Search.

OpenAI has officially launched ads in ChatGPT yesterday. The company announced, “Today, we’re beginning to test ads in ChatGPT in the U.S. The test will be for logged-in adult users on the Free and Go subscription tiers. Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise, and Education tiers will not have ads.”

Google appears to be testing showing the citation favicon site icons at the bottom of the answer in AI Mode. This is in addition to where it normally shows those icons, at the top right of the card stack, on the side of the answer response.

Microsoft Bing is testing a dynamically loading results count under the search box. So when you enter your search phrase, the results count will dynamically count up from 0 to the number of results found.

Are you copying and pasting prompts from the internet only to get mediocre results? Do you feel like AI tools are powerful but you’re not getting the consistent outputs you need? In this article, you’ll discover a strategic framework for getting reliable results from AI models. You’ll learn why most prompting advice fails, how to […] The post appeared first on Social Media Examiner .

The challenge of the library is the card catalog. If you don’t know what you’re looking for, it’s hard to find much of anything. The challenge of the web is the search box, for the same reason. It’s efficient once you’re on a mission, but it requires you to go first. And the chat interface of Claude and ChatGPT is more of the same. Faced with infinite choice, what we really need is a guide. By re

Welcome to DEV, your fortnightly look at the past, present and future of WordPress. We’ll meet you at Twin Pines Mall at 1:15am to give you the latest developments, smart projects and community updates, to help you speed into your next project with confidence, no flux capacitor required. Stick around to the end to see a grandpa who insists he doesn’t want a kitty hat. In today’s edition: In Patch

New data shows that most web pages fall well below Googlebot’s two-megabyte crawl limit. The post New Data Shows Googlebot’s 2 MB Crawl Limit Is Enough appeared first on Search Engine Journal .

Bing Webmaster Tools now shows publishers how often their content is cited in Copilot and AI-generated answers, with page-level data and grounding queries. The post Bing Webmaster Tools Adds AI Citation Performance Data appeared first on Search Engine Journal .

A couple of decades ago, “voice search optimization” sounded like something out of a science fiction movie. Today, if we need to find the nearest taco stand, check stock numbers — or know how to say “dinosaur” in Spanish right this second like my sweet three-year-old nephew — we don’t think twice about asking Siri or Alexa. From smartphones to smart speakers and smart TVs, conducting web searches

OpenAI is testing ads in ChatGPT for free and Go tiers in the U.S. Ads appear below responses, labeled as sponsored. Paid tiers remain ad-free. The post OpenAI Begins Testing Ads In ChatGPT For Free And Go Users appeared first on Search Engine Journal .

If you were one of the hundreds of millions of people watching Super Bowl LX on Sunday evening, you saw Bad Bunny , all the other Halftime Show celebrities , some viral commercials , and of course the Seahawks beating the Patriots in the football game. One of the commercials that had people talking was for a new website called AI.com . The commercial informed users to go to the website so they ca

The messaging platform Discord announced Monday that all user accounts will default to teen safety settings beginning in March. Discord, which has more than 200 million global monthly active users, will restrict adult content and spaces. In order to access those parts of Discord or change related settings, an individual must verify their age. If the platform has independently assessed an account

Bad Bunny promised good vibes and a whole lot of dancing during his Super Bowl halftime show , and he didn’t disappoint. But beneath the perreo-ready hits and viral clips was something deeper. The performance unfolded as a densely layered visual essay, moving from Puerto Rico’s sugar cane fields to New York bodegas, from reggaetón history to quiet political protest , and packing decades of memory

A thread at Reddit asked if a one-year-old website can beat a four-year-old website in SEO and perform better in Google Search. John Mueller from Google answered with his classic “it depends.”

Over the past week or so, Google has been testing a new format for link cards in the AI Overviews within Google Search. When you place your mouse cursor over a link clip icon, a new overlay will show you the page/site cards that line of text is being sourced from.

Understanding answer engine optimization (AEO) vs. traditional SEO has become mission-critical for content managers and marketing leaders as search shifts toward AI-generated responses, voice results, and zero-click experiences. While page ranking on Google is still important (for now), success increasingly depends on whether a brand stays visible when an AI system summarizes an answer. Tradition

Break the habit of reporting easy metrics and adopt KPIs that reflect how growth actually happens today. The post Why Your SEO KPIs Are Failing Your Business (And How To Fix Them) appeared first on Search Engine Journal .

The Google preferred sources deeplink button feature is broken and has been since at least last Wednesday. When you click on a button to make a site a preferred source, such as for this site, it does not pre-fill in the site’s URL in the box, as it should. You can retype it in the box but it does not pre-fill it for you.

Google announced on Friday that there is a delay with the Google Ads team reviewing and thus approving developer token access applications. This is because Google is “seeing significant interest in the developer community for Google Ads API access, and are receiving an increase in developer token access applications,” the company said.

On the Reddit Q4 2025 Earnings Call (see transcript here), Steve Huffman, the CEO of Reddit, was asked about how he feels about how Google and OpenAI link or use citations to link to Reddit’s content. Overall, Steve made it sound like the interfaces are adapting quickly and he is hopeful they will drive traffic to the conversation (within Reddit) in the future.

Writing the perfect email can be one of the most challenging tasks for any marketer or business owner. I used to find myself staring at a blank screen, trying to come up with a catchy subject line or the right words to share my message, only to end up feeling frustrated. Most business owners can’t afford to spend hours on a single email. On the other hand, AI email generators can help you find th

An AI-aligned approach to PPC budget strategy that moves spend toward conversion probability instead of traditional channel-based planning. The post PPC Budget Rebalancing: How AI Changes Where Marketing Budgets Are Spent appeared first on Search Engine Journal .

The Washington Post’s controversial strategy begins with a foundation, then adjusts based on what works. The post 7 Insights From Washington Post’s Strategy To Win Back Traffic appeared first on Search Engine Journal .

Sure, you made it work this time, but will it work next time? Can you teach the method to someone else? Do you have a protocol for what to do when it doesn’t work? How can someone else contribute to your process to make it better?

Depending on who you ask, there’s a narrow and deeply held idea of what it means to be “American.” During his Super Bowl halftime performance , Bad Bunny pushed back on that definition, making it clear that people across both halves of the Americas are American, whether or not they fit into that limited vision. The message was made explicit at the end of the set, when Bad Bunny held up a football

Unrestricted free choice is a myth. There are always boundaries and trade-offs. But being fully stuck is also a myth. We might not like the trade offs, but we also have a choice. Since we always live in between, the work isn’t waiting until we have free agency. The work is deciding and acting when we think that we don’t.

If you’ve been online in the past week, then you’ve probably seen the ChatGPT caricatures trend . We’ve covered a lot of ChatGPT image trends here at Mashable, but nothing that’s gone this viral since the original Studio Ghibli trend . In the latest viral ChatGPT trend, people are going to Chat with a simple prompt: ” Create a caricature of me based on everything you know about me .” You can vary

“May your cup runneth over…” This begs the question: how big a cup? The logistics of vessel size determine how much money we need to raise, how big a team we need, how many customers are necessary to break even. When we’re on the hook to fill an Airbus transatlantic flight with passengers, the business is fundamentally different from a small commuter airline in Rhode Island. And it’s not simply t

As breach costs go up and attackers focus on common web features like dashboards, admin panels, customer portals, and APIs, weak access control quickly leads to lost data, broken trust, and costly incidents. The worst part is that many failures are not rare technical flaws but simple mistakes, such as missing permission checks, roles with too much power, or predictable IDs in URLs. This post aims

Learn how to boost visibility for each location in your network. A practical 90 Day Plan can make your brand AI-ready. The post 90 Days. 1 Plan. Improved Local Search Visibility [Webinar] appeared first on Search Engine Journal .

Google updated its “Get on Discover” docs, adding page experience guidance and naming clickbait and sensationalism, alongside the February Discover update. The post Google Revises Discover Guidelines Alongside Core Update appeared first on Search Engine Journal .

January didn’t bring flashy product launches. It brought something more valuable: clarity. Platforms spent the month explaining how their systems actually work. Google detailed JavaScript indexing rules that matter for modern sites. Reddit opened up automation insights most platforms keep hidden. Amazon positioned itself as a legitimate cross-screen player with first-party data advantages traditi

AI hallucinations became a headline story when Google’s AI Overviews told people that cats can teleport and suggested eating rocks for health. Those bizarre moments spread fast because they’re easy to point at and laugh about. But that’s not the kind of AI hallucination most marketers deal with. The tools you probably use, like ChatGPT or Claude, likely won’t produce anything that bizarre. Their

The best marketing isn’t chiseled in stone. Apative marketing is alive, responding to new tools, shifting consumer preferences, trends, and real-time data. Changing with the trends gives brands a competitive edge, if marketing teams handle it correctly. Many traditional marketing tactics (like brochures, billboards, and magazine ads) aren’t adaptable. Digital marketing can always be tweaked and i

The internet loves a comeback tour, but it adores one with puppet fleece and impeccable comedic timing. Case in point: The Muppet Show special, which returned to the Muppet Theatre on Feb. 4 for a one-night event on Disney+ and ABC — and promptly took over everyone’s feeds. Seriously. I didn’t know I needed a Rizzo the Rat cover of The Weeknd’s “Blinding Lights” until I saw it, and now I don’t ev

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web. Google unleashed its first core update of 2026…

This week’s SEO Pulse covers ranking volatility inside Discover, expanding AI ad inventory, and growing scrutiny of bot-facing content practices. The post Discover Core Update, AI Mode Ads & Crawl Policy – SEO Pulse appeared first on Search Engine Journal .

This week, we covered the first core update of 2026, the February 2026 Discover core update. Meanwhile, there is an ongoing super-heated and volatile Google search rankings. Google has nothing to share about the recent unconfirmed ranking updates…

We saw Google test follow up questions below the AI Mode responses back in July. Now Google is testing follow up search suggestions, not necessarily in question format, at the bottom of some AI Mode results.

The Google Ads mixed campaign type experiment beta, which we covered the help document last month, seems to be going live for some advertisers. This feature allows advertisers to test multiple campaign types, budgets, and settings across campaigns in a single experiment.

We covered how horrific the AI-based Frankenstein recipes can be in Google Search, where it mashes up recipe steps from various publishers and acts like it is a real recipe from a source. Well, Bing had something similar but Jordi Ribas from Microsoft said they are “unshipping” the feature after the feedback was received.

Last week, Google updated the design for the Google Partner Portal for advertisers. Google said the new look makes it “simpler to understand your goals and to track all your points activity.”

To fuel the debate in the SEO world of the topic of structured data and LLMs and AI engines, we are hearing that once again, AI engines like ChatGPT and Perplexity are not using structured data in any special way.

This week’s PPC Pulse recaps Microsoft’s push to rethink content compensation and Google’s latest changes to tagging standards and account protections. The post Microsoft’s Publisher Marketplace, Google Tag Update & Multi-Party Approvals – PPC Pulse appeared first on Search Engine Journal .

On our video training site, WP101, our focus is on helping members feel confident with WordPress and grow their websites over time. But we learned that churn (members cancelling their subscriptions) is a common challenge, even when the content is genuinely valuable. In many cases, members don’t cancel because they’re unhappy with the content. They cancel because they get busy, forget to log in, o

Learn how to build AI citations and rank in ChatGPT and Gemini. Charlie Marchant explains how to research prompts, analyze sources, and use proactive outreach to get your brand referenced in AI answers.

The narrative we run in our head is a choice. It might or might not be based on objective reality and verified history. Doesn’t matter, it’s still a choice. There are millions of ways we can remind ourselves about the events of our lives and the systems we live in. But in this moment (and the next) we’ll choose just one or two to rehearse and allow it to alter our decisions,

Google’s John Mueller offered a simple solution to the question of whether a passage is indexed and is ready to rank. The post Google Shows How To Check Passage Indexing appeared first on Search Engine Journal .

Join Jeff Hirz as he unveils key insights on growth and efficiency based on data from 1,000 businesses planning for 2026. The post What 1,000 Businesses Reveal About Growth in 2026 [Webinar] appeared first on Search Engine Journal .

Google has released its first core update of 2026, which is focused on just Google Discover. Google named it the February 2026 Discover core update. This one is rolling over the next two weeks or so just English language users in the US and at some point will roll out beyond that to all countries and languages.

Google has started a Discover core update. The rollout may take up to two weeks, with expansion to more countries and languages later. The post Google Releases Core Update Targeting Discover Feed appeared first on Search Engine Journal .

AI Mode personal search points to a future where decisions happen inside the answer layer, and this article explains how to prepare. The post The Shift From Search Sessions To Decision Sessions appeared first on Search Engine Journal .

An analysis of recent Google ranking volatility shows how self-serving listicles may be undermining trust, reviews quality signals, and long-term SEO performance. The post Is Google Finally Cracking Down On Self-Promotional Listicles? appeared first on Search Engine Journal .

Google has launched what it calls Multi-party approval for Google Ads. “Multi-party approval (MPA) is a security feature for Google Ads designed to protect your account from unauthorized activity by requiring a second account administrator to verify high-risk changes,” Google wrote.

Google is testing labeling some photos in the local hotel listings with “Good to Know” AI-generated descriptions of some of those photos. These labels seem to summarize what the photo and reviews say about the specific area of that hotel.

Google AdSense seems to be rolling out new metrics for the AdSense reports in the console. These include Browser breakdown, Hosting App breakdown and Operating system breakdown metrics.

Did you know that when Google AI Mode uses Personal Intelligence, Google will add icons of the various connected Google apps used to tailor your message. So you might see a Gmail icon, or Google Photos icon or Search or something else show up as a citation or source near the responses.

Learn how to evaluate internal linking structures to ensure they reinforce topical authority instead of weakening page relevance and intent. The post Is Your Internal Linking Helping Or Hurting Topical Authority? Ask An SEO appeared first on Search Engine Journal .

Microsoft Advertising is testing a new ad format within its newish Answer Card format called a magazine layout. These load ads in the card formats you see at the top of some of the Bing search results.

Are you frustrated that your Facebook posts with links barely get any reach? Wondering how Meta’s latest changes will affect your ability to drive traffic to your website? In this article, you’ll discover what Facebook’s new link posting limits mean for your strategy, how Meta’s $2 billion AI acquisition will impact your marketing, and why […] The post appeared first on Social Media Examiner .

Integrity is the act of being in and of itself, from every angle. As we see the bait-and-switch of the online networks and monopolists, it’s easy to imagine that nothing with integrity stays that way very long. The systems we support almost always end up trading a straightforward clarity about what they do for a facade that’s easy to fall into and hard to get out of. Big businesses usually succum

Explore off-page SEO strategies to boost your rankings and enhance brand visibility in AI-driven search results. The post Why Off-Page SEO Still Shapes Visibility In 2026 [Webinar] appeared first on Search Engine Journal .

Google is testing ads in AI Mode as Search revenue grew 17% to $63 billion. AI Mode queries run 3x longer than traditional searches. The post Google Search Hits $63B, Details AI Mode Ad Tests appeared first on Search Engine Journal .

Most people won’t land on your website first anymore. They’ll land on an AI summary. It might be a Google AI Overview, a ChatGPT answer, a Perplexity summary, a Copilot snippet, or some embedded assistant inside a browser, phone, or app. Either way, the first “page” a potential customer sees […] The post appeared first on .

Traditional SEO plugins optimize for Google, but AI search engines work in different ways. My Prime SEO review examines whether this plugin can help your content get discovered by ChatGPT, Perplexity, and other AI systems without sacrificing conventional optimization. The post ” ” first appeared on WP Mayor .

Google confirmed there is a bug with AI Overviews not showing links for some responses. The bug was spotted by Lily Ray, who posted some examples several hours ago. Rajan Patel, Google’s VP, Engineering for Search, replied saying it is a bug and Google is working on fixing it.

Google reported its earnings today, its Q4 2025 earnings report showed ad revenues up by 14% at $82.3 billion and overall revenue was up 17% at $113.8 billion. I specifically like to dig in as best as I can on the ad revenue side to see how Google Ads have performed.

Google Search Advocate John Mueller is pushing back on the idea of serving Markdown files to LLM crawlers. The post Google’s Mueller Calls Markdown-For-Bots Idea ‘A Stupid Idea’ appeared first on Search Engine Journal .

Madonna’s iconic hit “Vogue” is all over the new trailer for The Devil Wears Prada 2 , but a much more obscure song of hers is currently en vogue on social media: 1992’s “Thief of Hearts.” The house-inflected diss track from Madonna’s divisive Erotica album is making the rounds via user dances and posts on TikTok and Instagram — and the star herself acknowledged the tune’s virality. Wearing sungl

Today, we are happy to announce our first WordPress-focused micro-credential, designed to help students build practical AI skills, earn a recognized credential, and connect more directly to job opportunities. The program, AI Leaders , is a workforce-oriented credential rooted in WordPress and open source contributions. Students are paid for their time, work on real WordPress projects, and gain ha

SAVE $33.01: The Insta360 Flow 2 Pro foldable gimbal is on sale at Amazon for $126.98, down from the list price of $159.99. That’s a 21% discount that matches the record low at Amazon. Opens in a new window Credit: Insta360 Insta360 Flow 2 Pro foldable gimbal $126.98 at Amazon $159.99 Save $33.01 These days, you don’t have to be a professional content creator to share great clips on socials. We h

Here’s a (maybe) mildly spicy hot take: Email marketing reporting is the backbone of any performance-focused email strategy. Without it, you’re sending campaigns into a void, unable to see what’s working, what’s falling flat, and most importantly, what’s driving revenue. The top reporting features in email marketing software go far beyond open rates and click-throughs. Today’s email reporting too

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web. Google’s search rankings are highly volatile…

Bill Hunt shows how disciplined reasoning transforms SEO escalations into resolvable system behaviors rather than endless debates. The post The Real SEO Skill No One Teaches: Problem Deduction appeared first on Search Engine Journal .

Navigate the complexities of information retrieval and find out how to get into model training data for AI success. The post appeared first on Search Engine Journal .

Top PPC specialists create outsized impact by combining paid media expertise with business strategy, profit modeling, and cross-channel insight. The post appeared first on Search Engine Journal .

I was hoping, well, not really, that Google would calm down a bit since we had such a volatile January. But the Google Search results volatility is still very volatile, and the shuffling in those results is still shaking up.

Microsoft announced the expansion of the Microsoft Publisher Content Marketplace. This marketplace is designed to give publishers a new revenue stream, provides AI systems with scaled access to premium content, and deliver better responses for consumers. In short, it will pay for using your content in its AI.

Google may have hit those self-promotional and self-serving listicle articles in one of the more recent unconfirmed Google search ranking updates. Lily Ray dug into a pattern she spotted with these types of pieces of content, mostly in the SaaS space, being hit hard with the January Google updates.

Google’s John Mueller responded to a question on the pros and cons of serving raw markdown pages to LLM crawlers and bots. John didn’t say much but he did list a number of concerns and things you should be on top of, if you do go down that avenue.

Mike Ryan posted data on the percentage of invalid clicks on the Google Ad Network, broken down by fraudulent clicks or likely accidental clicks. It shows the Google Display Network has the most invalid clicks, but search partners have the most fraudulent invalid clicks.

We have known for a long time that Google can crawl web pages up to the first 15MB but now Google updated some of its help documentation to clarify that it will crawl the first 64MB of a PDF file and the first 2MB of other supported file types.

Google posted its first Winter Olympics Doodle, special logo, for the 2026 Winter Olympics. The first sport Google covered is curling. The Doodle is an animated GIF of an Olympian pushing the curling stone down the ice.

A surprising amount of our time is spent sorting things to create value. They sort the rotten cranberries from the good ones to ensure that the bag at the market is worth buying. And we sort the movies worth watching, the bargains worth pursuing and the news worth reading. Editors, gold miners and detectives are mostly in the sorting business. Organized education uses sorting both as a motivation

This post was sponsored by Ahrefs. The opinions expressed in this article are the sponsor’s own. If you’ve ever run into the limits of solo AI or manual SEO tools, this article is for you. AI on its own can write and suggest ideas, but without reliable data to anchor those