Google has posted that it may now use your search spam reports for manual actions and that the text used in those spam reports may be sent along “verbatim” to the site owner being reported. What Google said. Google wrote it has “Clarified that Google may use spam report submissions to take manual action against violations.” The new text says : “Ranking manipulation techniques that attempt to comp

Roll the clock back five, 10, or 15 years, and a PPC practitioner’s value was directly tied to tactical proficiency. Not anymore. Today, Google and Microsoft automate much of the tactical work. Machine learning and AI manage bids, test creatives, and find audiences faster and more efficiently than any human could. Unfortunately, this reality has left many veteran practitioners in a mid-career ide

A bug has triggered scores of emails from Google saying it is collecting impressions on sites long since verified in Search Console. Do not be alarmed, it is a bug.

Microsoft Advertising will be transitioning from its SOAP to REST API and with that, on January 31, 2027, the SOAP API will be fully retired on January 31, 2027.

Attribution gaps, platform silos, privacy changes: Conflicting data is only getting worse. Here’s how to lead with clarity when the numbers don’t match. The post Why Your Search Data Doesn’t Agree (And What To Do About It) appeared first on Search Engine Journal .

At $50+ CPCs, Reddit beats every vendor organically 67.3% of the time across 8,566 keywords. The study from Ross Simmonds and his team focused on B2B SaaS, but the underlying dynamics don’t stop there. The higher the advertising competition on a term, the more likely a Reddit thread sits above every brand in organic results. If you’re in legal, financial services, premium home services, or insura

Pre-orders are an incredibly powerful way for online stores to launch new products, assess demand, and secure sales even before items are in stock. This strategy can bring in revenue earlier and help you manage inventory more effectively. However, finding the right way to set up pre-orders in WooCommerce can get tricky. With various plugins and settings to consider, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed

Google just handed SEOs a new way to hit spammy sites with manual actions and get them deindexed from search results. The post Google Just Made It Easy For SEOs To Kick Out Spammy Sites appeared first on Search Engine Journal .

What does it mean for us to own something? If we own a piece of land and the rain washes the topsoil downstream, do we go and get the topsoil back? Do we own our reputation? We have influence over it, but some of it was gifted to us without our knowledge, and other parts are influenced by forces out of our control. Do we own responsibility? Is it something we take or acquire or accept? We can try

Is your content strategy ready for the newest evolution of search? Learn an easy 5-step workflow to track AI visibility and optimize your content using Moz Pro’s AI Research toolkit.

A Google Search Console glitch resulted in a message to site owners implying that impressions have only just started being reported.

Today, more and more buyers are beginning their journey with an AI-search. They may ask ChatGPT to compare products or use an AI-powered platform like Perplexity. Or, they’re just Googling an offering and reading the AI Overview, all without clicking a link. HubSpot realized that our buyers were moving from search engines to answer engines like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity — but we had no reli

Google is rolling out Skills to Gemini in Chrome on desktop, letting users save prompts as reusable one-click tools and run them across selected tabs. The post Google Chrome Skills Turn Gemini Prompts Into Reusable Workflows appeared first on Search Engine Journal .

A major shift is underway in digital advertising: Meta Platforms is projected to generate more ad revenue than Google in 2026, signaling how marketers are increasingly favoring automated, performance-driven platforms. Driving the news . According to Emarketer, Meta is expected to bring in $243.46 billion in global ad revenue this year, narrowly topping Google’s projected $239.54 billion. Meta is

A growing number of advertisers say their Google Ads campaigns were suddenly hit with mass disapprovals tied to DNS and 500 server errors — even when their sites appeared to be working normally. The issue is raising fresh concerns about platform reliability and the risk of sudden performance disruptions. Driving the news . PPC advertisers began flagging widespread problems this week across Google

5 years ago, I stepped into the role of webinar ringmaster. I said yes to moderating, but it was all the background work that gave me butterflies. I’d second and third guess everything. Is the title right? What if it flops? Is the content level right for the attendees? Will the right attendees sign up? Is my hair ok?! But the program grew, and you all were so welcoming. Through the years we’ve te

If you’re asking yourself, “How can I measure AEO success?”, AEO rank trackers should be your next investment. They gauge your brand visibility in AI-generated answers, considering metrics like citations, mentions, share of voice, and sentiment. Sifting through the noise is frustrating, though, because AEO ( answer engine optimization ) and AEO rank trackers are relatively new categories. In this

By now, you know that everyone’s buzzing over answer engine optimization (AEO). So, just what is AEO in marketing? It’s a new way of ensuring your brand shows up in the places your prospects are using more and more: AI tools like Gemini, Perplexity, and ChatGPT. These AEO insights will catch you up on the most crucial information to get started now. Table of Contents What is AEO and how is it dif

Google’s legal troubles over its search and ad tech businesses are entering a new phase — one that could expose the company to billions in payouts from advertisers seeking damages after U.S. courts found it illegally monopolized key digital ad markets. Driving the news . A growing group of advertisers is preparing to file mass arbitration claims against Google, according to attorney Ashley Keller

There’s a lot of conjecture out there about how to show up in ChatGPT results, but if you want advice from a practitioner who’s actually done it , keep reading. As a professional blogger, I’ve been snagging top positions in Google for well over a decade, but when answer engine optimization (AEO) started taking off last year, I dove in headfirst. Since then, I’ve gotten posts to show up in ChatGPT

Topical authority is a key concept in SEO , but it doesn’t account for how search and AI systems choose between competing sources. The missing layer isn’t in content or structure. It’s in the signals that determine selection once a topic is understood — the difference between being eligible and being chosen. Topical authority explains content, not selection Topical authority is foundational for S

Most marketing teams I talk to are doing genuinely good SEO, and yet when they open ChatGPT or Perplexity and type in the prompts their buyers are actually using, their brand is nowhere to be found. This is the exact problem the FSA Framework was built to solve. For the last decade, conventional wisdom has been, “Do good SEO, and the rest takes care of itself.” That assumption was safe, and many

Despite all the shiny new capabilities at our disposal, many professionals seem stuck in a cycle of “AI Groundhog Day.” You open a chat window, carefully craft a prompt, paste in your context, and get a great result. An hour later, you do it all over again. If this is how you use AI to automate, you’re still doing manual work — you’re just doing it in a chat box. To move from using AI to building

Learn why covering fewer subtopics can outperform exhaustive guides in ChatGPT citations, backed by large-scale data. The post Shorter, Focused Content Wins In ChatGPT appeared first on Search Engine Journal .

Google’s Ask Maps feature does more than help users find nearby businesses. Based on hands-on testing of local service queries for plumbers, electricians, and HVAC companies, Ask Maps often narrows the field, interprets user intent, and frames businesses around qualities such as responsiveness, specialization, honesty, and repair-first thinking. In more complex prompts, it sometimes provides guid

At midnight on Jan. 5, hackers took over our Google Ads Manager Account (MCC). We weren’t alone. While it’s hard to get an exact count, hundreds, if not thousands, of agencies have been affected by the hacks, in turn affecting tens of thousands of accounts . While I wouldn’t wish this experience on our worst enemy, having been through it, I have some insights that I hope can help you prevent the

It’s been a while since Google has come out with a new search spam policy and penalty to accompany it with and now we have a new one, “back button hijacking.” Back button hijacking is something many of us were surprised Google didn’t specifically disallow but now, Google said it is on the rise and it is adding it to the list – officially.

Google’s John Mueller said on Reddit that Google can handle and deal with having multiple URLs for a single web page, but it is not a good practice. He said it makes it harder for Google and Google will just pick one URL anyway.

Google has made some changes to the Google Business Profile policy document, specifically the identity change section. It is now much more descriptive than before.

As part of an article from The Verge taking aim at SEOs, Google says that they are aware of self-serving listicles and work to prevent this abuse from impacting results.

Google posted an update for the Google Ads and Google Analytics data controls yesterday where changes will be coming to the sources of the data. Google said this is to “simplify data controls and remove redundant settings between Google Analytics and Ads, we are planning to consolidate controls based on where the data is used.”

Get actionable ways to break affiliate plateaus using data, audience research, and new content distribution channels. The post How To Break Through An Affiliate Site Plateau & Find New Growth – Ask An SEO appeared first on Search Engine Journal .

Google’s John Mueller lists nine scenarios that lead Google to choose one URL as the canonical over another. The post Google Lists 9 Scenarios That Explain How It Picks Canonical URLs appeared first on Search Engine Journal .

When a client calls about a damaging search result, you might typically default to one of two responses: “we can suppress it” or “there’s nothing we can do.” Both skip the middle ground — where Google’s removal tools live. Google provides tools to remove or deindex content from search results. They’re underused, frequently misunderstood, and often conflated. This guide breaks down what each tool

Are you spending days trying to keep up with everything happening in your industry? Wondering how to make faster, better-informed decisions without drowning in research? In this article, you’ll discover how to use AI deep research to compress days of analysis into hours, which tools work best, and a proven framework for crafting prompts that […] The post appeared first on Social Media Examiner .

Pricing is an exchange of value. This for that. But price is also a story. When you have competition, your story doesn’t have to justify the absolute price, simply the difference between you and the next-best option. Price is based on value, not on the cost of production. Thanks to Baumol’s cost disease, productivity doesn’t always correlate with the price of labor. Luxury goods are worth more

Google is changing how Google Analytics and Google Ads share consent signals — a shift that could have major implications for marketers’ tracking setups starting this summer. What’s happening . Beginning June 15th, Google Ads data collection will rely solely on the ad_storage consent setting, removing a layer of complexity that previously came from linked Google Analytics configurations. Until no

Today, we are expanding our spam policies to address a deceptive practice known as “back button hijacking”, which will become an explicit violation of the “malicious practices” of spam policies, leading to potential spam actions.

Google added back button hijacking to its malicious practices spam policy. Enforcement starts June 15, 2026. Sites have two months to remove offending code. The post New Google Spam Policy Targets Back Button Hijacking appeared first on Search Engine Journal .

In an AI-driven economy, companies have more data than ever but still struggle to turn it into useful daily decisions. Google is betting that a revamped Data Studio can become the place where users quickly explore, organize and act on data across its ecosystem. Why the switch back. Google says the new Data Studio will serve as a central hub for a range of assets, from traditional reports and dash

Google has issued a new warning to sites using back button hijacking techniques, saying those sites have two months to remove or disable those techniques. If they do not, they will be subject to both subject to manual spam actions or automated demotions within Google Search. Back button hijacking. Google explained that “when a user clicks the “back” button in the browser, they have a clear expect

Over the past year, a new feature has started appearing across food, lifestyle, and travel blogs: AI buttons. You’ve probably seen them already. Buttons labeled things like: “Summarize with AI” “Save this recipe to ChatGPT” “Remember this site” “Ask AI about this recipe” Plugins from Feast, Hubbub, Shareaholic, and others now make these buttons easy to deploy, and hundreds of bloggers have starte

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. Catching up on the newsletter…

Everyone is talking about AI search as if it’s already universal — as if we’ve collectively moved on, users have shifted and discovery has changed for everyone. But the reality is far less straightforward. While AI search is growing fast, it isn’t being adopted evenly . The gap is increasingly shaped by something we don’t often discuss in search: household income. AI adoption isn’t equal — and th

News publishers chasing SEO-driven clicks often sacrifice audience trust, and pay the price when rankings collapse. The post appeared first on Search Engine Journal .

Measure PPC performance in 2026 with AI-driven auctions, smarter attribution, profit-based metrics, and reporting frameworks built for Google Ads automation and AI search. The post How To Measure PPC Performance When AI Controls The Auction appeared first on Search Engine Journal .

A recent announcement by Google signals the start of a massive change in how the internet and search work. The post Google’s Task-Based Agentic Search Is Disrupting SEO Today, Not Tomorrow appeared first on Search Engine Journal .

As an SEO professional, you’re often asked to solve what appears to be a technical problem: organic traffic is declining . Standard procedure is a deep dive into technical performance, algorithm updates , technical debt, or content gaps . You review logs, crawl the site, and check Google Search Console . But what happens when the data reveals that the root cause isn’t found in the sitemap, the co

Research on language models reveals how brands win or lose in AI-generated recommendations based on association strength. The post How AI Chooses Which Brands To Recommend: From Relational Knowledge To Topical Presence appeared first on Search Engine Journal .

Google announced that on August 20, 2026 it will experiment with an updated set of commonly used ad technology partners. If the experiments go well, Google will switch it “on or after June 5, 2026.”

It looks like Google is testing a new report within Google Search Console named AI contribution. I have no clue what it looks like but I suspect it is a lot like the Bing Webmaster Tools AI performance reports.

Google was asked if it is possible to add a new status to the XML sitemap statuses for “still processing.” John Mueller from Google responded on Blueshy saying, “I’ve chatted with the teams involved about this on & off, I’ve seen that it can be annoying.” But he added he has nothing to announce.

Google’s John Mueller reconfirmed that Google Search may simply ignore outbound links from sites that violate its search spam policies. This is not new, Google has been doing this manually and algorithmically for years now but he reiterated this on Bluesky.

Every year, Duane Brown’s PPC Salary Survey gives our industry one of the few honest looks at what practitioners are actually earning. The 2026 edition, with 445 responses across 50+ countries, is no different. This year, one pattern stands out above the rest: the middle of the salary curve is getting squeezed from both ends. PPC salaries aren’t falling, at least not uniformly. The gap between pr

I was looking for a fresh way to grow my email list in WordPress, and personality quizzes caught my attention right away. They’re engaging, fun to take, and feel personal to each visitor. The challenge is that many quiz tools can feel complicated or require extra platforms to set up. Since I already use WPForms for forms across my websites, I decided to try its Quiz Mode. After turning it on, I w

Justin Bieber did not spend his Coachella headlining set pretending the past was behind him. Instead, he opened a laptop, pulled up YouTube , and sang directly to it. Midway through his 90-minute set on Saturday, the Day Two headliner began streaming old clips of himself performing snippets of songs like “Baby,” “Favorite Girl,” “Never Say Never,” and “Beauty and a Beat,” duetting with the floppy

Some vegans don’t eat avocados. They’re concerned that the bees that are trucked in to pollinate the trees are mistreated, and so they choose to not support this practice. But we live in community, and someone running a vegan restaurant or serving a meal to vegan friends, concerned that they might offend, doesn’t serve avocado. A few strong opinions change the culture. And so the cycle continues.

În lumea ?????ului online, promo?iile cu rotiri gratuite f?r? depunere sunt printre cele mai tentante oferte pentru juc?tori. Acestea permit experien?? gratuit? ?i ?anse de câ?tig f?r? a fi nevoie de investi?ie ini?ial?, fiind ideale pentru încep?tori sau pentru cei care doresc s? testeze diferite cazinouri. Este esen?ial îns? s? fii alert atunci când alegi o promo?ie de acest tip.

Many years ago one of our community members mentioned they were at an SEO conference where a speaker from Distilled mentioned that SEOmoz had hired them to try to outrank us for seo tools , though they were unable to. At the time I think Moz had around 200 employees, while I had around 2. How was I able to outcompete at like a 100:1 ratio? At the time I chalked it up to love for SEO. However, if

Websites built with semantic HTML, accessible patterns, and visible server-rendered content are better positioned for the agentic web.

Sometimes it pays to accept and celebrate what we get. And sometimes, we only get something because we settled for it. It helps to be able to discern the difference between the two.

WordCamp Asia 2026 brought the global WordPress community to Mumbai, India, from April 9–11, gathering contributors, organizers, sponsors, speakers, and attendees at the Jio World Convention Centre for three days of learning, collaboration, and community. With 2,281 attendees, the event reflected the scale of the WordPress community and the strong turnout throughout the event. The event unfolded

Sundar Pichai outlines search as an “agent manager,” signaling a shift from link-based results to task completion and multi-step workflows. The post What Pichai’s Interview Reveals About Google’s Search Direction appeared first on Search Engine Journal .

There’s a difference between telling someone their work can become better and saying it can become even better. When we say even better , we lock in a foundation — we’re affirming that something good already exists — at the same time we create the conditions for improvement. Ennui and disappointment, on the other hand, are multiplied when we promise things are going to get even worse instead of m

Prepare your travel brand for AI search in 2026. Chloe Osunsami shares how to use digital PR, human-first narratives, and tailored outreach to boost visibility.

Watch this video on YouTube Maddie Lightening, head of paid media at Hallam, joined me to talk through the mistakes, lessons and mindset shifts that have shaped her career in PPC. With more than a decade of experience across search, social, programmatic, digital out of home and ABM, she shared a candid look at the realities of leading paid media in a fast-moving industry.

Google is pushing advertisers toward a more modern, scalable infrastructure for Shopping integrations—bringing new capabilities (including AI tools) directly into scripting workflows. What’s happening . Google Ads scripts will begin supporting the Merchant API starting April 22nd, as Google prepares to retire the Content API for Shopping on August 18th. The new API will be available as an Advance

Google is removing complexity from one of its most important measurement tools. By merging enhanced conversions for web and leads—and allowing multiple data inputs at once—advertisers get more accurate tracking with less setup friction. What’s happening . Google Ads is consolidating its enhanced conversions features into a unified system with a single on/off toggle. At the same time, it’s elimina

There’s a broad consensus that online reviews — especially Google reviews — should be a top priority for businesses that rely on local customers. Four of the top 15 ranking factors in Google Maps were related to reviews (quantity, quality, recency, and consistency), according to a recent Whitespark survey. Other surveys report that more than 80% of consumers use Google reviews to evaluate local b

LLMs have become a starting point for nearly everything — work, play, consumerism, health, and more. But one thing gets overlooked: how they finish answering prompts. They don’t — and that matters. They operate in a “no, you hang up first” mentality. The prompts we enter don’t just end. LLMs “nudge” us to continue the conversation, offering to take the next step. “Would you like me to create that

Explore key takeaways from Sundar Pichai on agentic systems, robotics, and the future of AI-driven search and productivity. The post What I Learned About The Future Of Search And AI From Sundar Pichai’s Latest Interview appeared first on Search Engine Journal .

We’re being pushed harder than ever — expected to hit bigger revenue targets with the same or smaller PPC budgets. Even with flat budgets, rising platform costs mean we’re effectively facing a budget cut. Average CPCs have risen by as much as 40% , with an average of 3.74%, per Wordstream. Certain periods, such as Black Friday, see much higher increases. Teams are experiencing budget cuts, with a

Google’s March core update finished rolling out. A Search Console bug inflated impressions for nearly a year. Pichai warns AI will break software security. The post Core Update Done, GSC Bug Fixed, Mueller On Gurus – SEO Pulse appeared first on Search Engine Journal .

On the latest Search Off The Record Podcast, Martin Split and Gary Illyes discussed the growing page weight issue and how that impacts users and Googlebot crawling. This follows Google updating its documentation to clarify file size limits for Googlebot (and various versions of Googlebot).

Measurement is the foundation for everything we do in performance marketing. Without accurate measurement, what we recommend, implement, and optimize is, at best, guesswork. Maintaining accurate measurement is more challenging than ever — and getting harder. Regulatory crackdowns and increased privacy concerns, alongside longer multi-touch journeys, are compounding to create a measurement crisis.

It’s frustrating when customers place orders in your online store that are too small to be profitable, or so large that they deplete your stock and create shipping nightmares. Setting minimum and maximum order limits in WooCommerce solves this problem. It can help you keep your inventory under control, prevent overselling, and grow your business more effectively. In this guide, I’ll show you thre

Google is doubling down on Data Strength as conversion signals become more critical to bidding, performance, and how campaigns are optimized. The post Google’s Push For Data Strength Is Really A Push For Better Bidding appeared first on Search Engine Journal .

Google’s Mueller answers whether links pass negative signals and says unhelpful links may be ignored. The post Google Answers If Outbound Links Pass “Poor Signals” appeared first on Search Engine Journal .

If you’re hoping for this meeting or this performance or this engagement to produce something extraordinary, why are you setting it up as if it’s ordinary? The hard work of a brainstorming session, a pitch collaboration or a negotiation happens long before most people begin. We hire architects to design expensive buildings, but we design expensive human interactions as an afterthought. If it does

Managing customer support through a shared inbox is hard with multiple team members. Awedesk brings ticket-based support directly into WordPress complete with flat plugin pricing that doesn’t scale by agent count. In this Awedesk review, I’ll look at whether it fits a support team that wants a WordPress-based workflow. The post ” ” first appeared on WP Mayor .

SISTRIX analyzed German search results after the March core update and found uneven visibility shifts across categories, with some site types hit harder than others. The post Google March Core Update Left 4 Losers For Every Winner In Germany appeared first on Search Engine Journal .

An analysis of 400+ websites found five characteristics associated with estimated organic traffic gains. The post What 400 Sites Reveal About Organic Traffic Gains appeared first on Search Engine Journal .

Discover the essential questions to consider before investing in AI visibility over traditional SEO in our informative webinar. The post Don’t Go Chasing AI Yet: A Framework for Prioritizing SEO vs. AI Search appeared first on Search Engine Journal .

Every company I talk to right now is convinced they have an AI problem. Their AI writes emails nobody responds to. It researches accounts and surfaces leads the sales team already closed six