SEO Tools and Resources

People are already turning to AI to answer questions, compare products, and make decisions in seconds. That shift exposes a fundamental problem: the web’s underlying structure was never built for machines. As AI agents mature, the way information is delivered – and the need for traditional webpages – could change dramatically. Disruption is normal – even when we don’t see it coming The idea that the web as we know it could end, which I mentioned during a live OXD podcast in Salzburg, drew reactions ranging from thoughtful to angry. Someone even insisted, “The web will always be there.” But anyone paying attention knows that “always” and “never” r…

AI Overviews, ChatGPT, zero-click results, and other recent developments have all triggered the latest wave of goodbyes to SEO. Except SEO isn’t dead. It might even be thriving. Search engines still command approximately 88% of all search traffic. But alongside this, AI usage is almost doubling. So what gives? Well, consumers don’t care about AEO versus GEO versus SEO. Or even necessarily choosing between Google and ChatGPT. They simply use both. Why the either/or narrative is dangerous The marketing world loves a good binary. But opposing search engines and AI search against one another is a false choice. These aren’t competing realities. They’r…

SEO is at an inflection point due to the rise of LLMs as search platforms. This has led to a lot of contradictory information about how we should approach LLMs and whether we should even continue to call their optimization “SEO.” As a consequence, I’ve been dedicating much of my day-to-day as an SEO consultant to clarifying countless questions about AI search, many of them coming directly from decision-makers. I’ve helped them establish AI search optimization roadmaps that make sense, are realistic, and are cost-effective based on each company’s context and current SEO process. My goal: to avoid fundamental AI search optimization mistakes triggered by misinformati…

Google Ads coach Jyll Saskin Gales spent 24 hours testing Google’s new “agentic” Ads Advisor — an experimental AI assistant designed to help advertisers optimize campaigns. Her verdict: promising, but far from perfect. Why we care. The Ads Advisor represents Google’s push toward agentic AI tools — systems that can act autonomously on users’ behalf. This review offers an early, real-world look at how Ads Advisor actually performs — beyond Google’s marketing claims. As AI tools begin playing a bigger role in campaign management, understanding their accuracy, limitations, and decision-making is critical. This feedback helps advertisers know what tasks they can safel…

Google says it’s dramatically cut down on mistaken advertiser suspensions — a long-standing frustration for many legitimate marketers using its platform. By the numbers: Incorrect account suspensions are down over 80%. Suspension appeals are being processed 70% faster. 99% of appeals are now resolved within 24 hours. Why we care. Advertisers depend on uninterrupted access to Google Ads to reach customers and drive revenue. Erroneous suspensions can derail campaigns and business operations, especially for small and mid-size advertisers. How they did it: Clarified policy language to make compliance simpler. Used Google’s Gemini AI to sharpen d…

AI referral traffic accounts for just over 1% of all website visits across 10 major industries, according to a new Conductor AI search benchmark report. AI referral traffic. 1.08% of all web traffic came from AI referrals. Digging deeper: ChatGPT drove 87.4% of all AI referrals across the dataset. IT (2.8%) and Consumer Staples (1.9%) led all industries. Communication Services (0.25%) and Utilities (0.35%) saw the lowest shares. AI referrals increased by ~1% month over month across all industries. AI answer engine market share. ChatGPT overwhelmingly dominated, followed by Perplexity. There were some interesting differences by industry (e.g., G…

Advertisers setting up Performance Max (PMax) campaigns in Google Ads are spotting something unexpected — video assets from their Twitter (X) ad accounts showing up in the “Suggested” section for creatives. How it works: The discovered videos were automatically uploaded to a YouTube channel associated with the advertiser’s account. A transparency message confirmed the data’s origin: “Videos from other ad platforms are sourced by third-party provider @Pathmatics (by Sensor Tower).” Advertisers are prompted to confirm they have the legal rights to use and share the videos for Google Ads. What Google says. Google Ads Liaison Ginny Marvin confirmed the …

Google has released several new AI powered AI shopping search features across AI Mode, the Gemini app and Google Search. “Today we’re introducing a major AI shopping update across Google, just in time for this holiday season,” Google announced. What’s new. Here are quick bullet points on what is new: In AI Mode, you can describe what you’re looking for just as you’d say it to a friend and get an intelligently organized response that brings together visuals and all the details you need (like price, reviews and inventory info), helping you quickly and confidently decide what to buy. Simplify your shopping in the Gemini App . Now Gemini can brainstorm gift ideas,…

Court filings in Google’s antitrust case revealed FastSearch, a proprietary system few search marketers have heard of. It sits at the core of how Google grounds its AI Overviews, prioritizing speed over the deeper analysis behind traditional search results. That distinction raises an important question: what exactly does FastSearch prioritize? What is Google FastSearch? FastSearch is Google’s internal technology for grounding Gemini models and generating AI Overviews. While traditional Google Search analyzes massive amounts of web data using hundreds of ranking signals, FastSearch takes a more targeted approach. The antitrust case filing explains: …

As generative AI becomes more embedded in search and content experiences, it’s also emerging as a new source of misinformation and reputational harm. False or misleading statements generated by AI chatbots are already prompting legal disputes – and raising fresh questions about liability, accuracy, and online reputation management. When AI becomes the source of defamation It’s unsurprising that AI has become a new source of defamation and online reputation damage. As an SEO and reputation expert witness, I’ve already been approached by litigants involved in cases where AI systems produced libelous statements. This is uncharted territory – and while so…

Did you know that even a one-second delay in page loading speed can cause up to 11% fewer page views? That’s right, you might have the best content strategy and a solid plan to drive traffic, but visitors won’t stay long if your site lags. Page speed is one of the biggest factors in keeping users engaged and converting. In this guide, we’ll uncover the most common causes of slow websites and explore proven ways to boost website performance. Whether your site feels sluggish or you simply want to make it faster, these insights will help you identify what’s holding it back and how to fix it. Table of contents What do we mean by ‘website performance’ and why is it i…

As AI transforms how users search for information online, we all face a new challenge: ensuring our content is visible and impactful within emerging AI platforms. While traditional SEO tactics remain crucial, brands must also embrace AI SEO to truly excel. By optimizing content for AI systems, brands can ensure they stand out in AI-generated responses and large language models (LLMs) like Google’s Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, and ChatGPT. Ninety percent of businesses are concerned about losing SEO visibility as AI reshapes search, according to a recent survey. The same report also found that 61.2% of businesses plan to increase their SEO budgets due to the growing …

Link building is an essential part of SEO. It helps search engines find, understand, and rank your pages. You can write the perfect post, but if search engines cannot follow at least one link to it, your content may stay hidden from view. Table of Contents What is link building? What is a link? Internal and external links Anchor text and why it matters Why we build links Link building as digital PR Link quality over quantity Avoid shady link-building tactics How to earn high-quality links Link building in the era of AI and LLM search Examples of effective link building In conclusion TL;DR For Google to discover your pages, you need links from other websites. T…

Google parent Alphabet is expected to face a new EU investigation over claims that it demotes news publishers in search results if they run sponsored or promotional content, a significant revenue source for many media outlets. What’s happening. The European Commission, the EU’s top antitrust enforcer, is expected to announce the probe as soon as Thursday. The case falls under the Digital Markets Act (DMA), a law that bars tech “gatekeepers” from unfairly favoring their own services or penalizing others. Companies that break the rules can be fined up to 10% of their global revenue. Site reputation abuse. Google’s enforcement against publishers is based on a…

Google is working to fix the Google Discover feed by removing the fake AI spam that has been creeping in over the past several weeks. “We’re actively working on a fix,” Google told the Press Gazette after the magazine documented many cases of the Google Discover feed being polluted with this AI spam. Google’s statement. Here is the full statement Google provided: “We keep the vast majority of spam out of Discover through robust spam-fighting systems and clear policies against new and emerging forms of low quality, manipulative content. We’re actively working on a fix that will better address the specific type of spam that’s being referenced here, maintaining our …

Google rolled out brand inclusion controls for Standard Shopping campaigns, a long-requested feature that gives advertisers direct control over which brands appear in their Shopping ads — without the need for complex workarounds. How it works: The new feature lets advertisers add or remove brand lists directly within the ad group targeting section of both Performance Max and Standard Shopping campaigns. Marketers can now define exactly which brands to include or exclude, preview the setup, and apply changes — all within the Google Ads interface. Why we care. Until now, brand targeting tools were only available in Performance Max and AI Max, leaving Standard Sh…

Google is expanding access to incrementality testing, rolling out major updates designed to help advertisers of all sizes measure the true, causal impact of their ads — what’s driving results and what’s not. Driving accessibility and accuracy. Google has slashed the minimum spend for incrementality tests from around $100,000 to just $5,000, dramatically lowering the barrier for smaller advertisers to measure ROI with scientific precision. Marketers can now run controlled experiments to isolate the lift generated by their campaigns and optimize budgets accordingly. At the same time, Google says it has improved the methodology behind incrementality testing through n…

If there’s one area of Google Ads that often baffles even seasoned practitioners, it’s audience targeting. Within audience targeting, there’s a special option called custom segments that allows us to build our own audiences using Google’s proprietary data. While custom segments can be immensely powerful, they are also immensely confusing. What is a custom segment in Google Ads? A custom segment lets you build a targeted audience based on the content a user has recently interacted with. Think of it this way: instead of saying, “I want to show an ad on a website about running shoes,” you’re saying, “I want to show an ad to a person who has recently shown in…

Google is rolling out two new AI-powered assistants — Ads Advisor and Analytics Advisor — built on its latest Gemini models to help advertisers manage campaigns and uncover insights faster. The tools, which begin rolling out to all English-language Google Ads and Google Analytics accounts in early December, are designed to turn complex campaign management and data analysis into simple, conversational experiences. Ads Advisor: optimization and automation in one place. Ads Advisor serves as an in-platform AI partner that helps advertisers manage, troubleshoot, and scale their campaigns. It learns from user interactions to deliver increasingly personalized …

The Alpha Beta account structure was the gold standard of paid search. Over the past several years, PPC marketers have adapted to Google’s push into automation and AI by first tweaking Alpha Beta – built on single keyword ad groups (SKAGs) – and eventually moving away from it altogether. SKAG maintenance and buildout are no longer ideal for paid search in 2026 and beyond – but that transition isn’t as simple as flipping a switch. Existing SKAGs still hold valuable data and insights you can carry into a more consolidated setup. This article covers the benefits of SKAG consolidation and best practices for building a structure that sets your campaigns up fo…

Brand visibility is replacing rankings as the most important metric in SEO. AI search engines now answer questions directly – often without a single click to a website. If your brand isn’t mentioned in those AI answers, you’re invisible where it matters most. This isn’t about being No. 1 in blue links anymore. It’s about being the brand ChatGPT recommends, the company Perplexity cites, and the solution featured in Google’s AI Overview. So how do you measure and track that presence? Here’s a simple three-step framework to help – starting with your brand visibility score. (Copy this free spreadsheet to benchmark your current visibility.) …

Google now lets merchants add their shipping and return policies to Google Search without having a Google Merchant Center account. You can do this within Google Search Console and/or by using new structured data. Google wrote: “We’re excited to announce that we’re now expanding the options for merchants to provide shipping and returns information, even if they don’t have a Merchant Center account. Merchants can now tell Google about their shipping and returns policies in two distinct ways: by configuring them directly in Search Console or by using new organization-level structured data.” Search Console. If Google determines that your site makes sense to add …

Microsoft is tightening its advertising standards. The company announced that all third-party publishers must now implement Microsoft Clarity — its free behavioral analytics tool — to remain eligible for paid impressions and clicks in Microsoft Advertising. The details: What’s required: Publishers must install Microsoft Clarity and enable Consent Mode to track and analyze user interactions while complying with privacy standards. What it does: Clarity helps publishers and advertisers visualize user behavior — including clicks, scrolls, and engagement patterns — to make data-driven CRO (conversion rate optimization) decisions. What changes: Only ad traffic fr…

Google Ads Editor just got a major upgrade. The 2025 release of version 2.11 introduces smarter automation, better visibility, and tighter controls for advertisers managing large-scale accounts. The update focuses on control and transparency — giving advertisers more say in how Performance Max, Search, and account-wide settings behave. Campaign-level negative keywords for Performance Max. Advertisers can now add negative keyword lists directly to Performance Max campaigns, giving finer control over where ads appear. It’s a long-awaited feature that prevents wasted spend on irrelevant searches — a crucial step toward performance parity with Search and Shopping campai…

Look, I get it. Every time a new search technology appears, we try to map it to what we already know. When mobile search exploded, we called it “mobile SEO.” When voice assistants arrived, we coined “voice search optimization” and told everyone this would be the new hype. I’ve been doing SEO for years. I know how Google works – or at least I thought I did. Then I started digging into how ChatGPT picks citations, how Perplexity ranks sources, and how Google’s AI Overviews select content. I’m not here to declare that SEO is dead or to state that everything has changed. I’m here to share the questions that keep me up at night – questions that sugg…