SEO Tools and Resources

Google confirmed an ongoing issue with serving search results in Google Search. This is impacting some locales, Google added. Google said this is an “ongoing issue” and will update us again “witin 24 hours” with more details. What Google said. Google wrote: There’s an ongoing data center issue that may impact serving of some pages in some locales. We’re working on identifying the root cause. The next update will be within 24 hours. When? This was posted at 5:21 pm ET. What is a serving issue. A serving issue is when Google Search has issues showing some or all search results to the searcher. This is when Google is unable to show some or all search res…

The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) formally designated Google with strategic market status (SMS) in general search and search advertising — giving regulators new powers to shape how Google operates in these sectors. What’s included. The designation covers Google’s general search and search advertising services — including AI-powered features such as AI Overviews and AI Mode — but excludes the Gemini AI assistant and certain news and syndication products. The CMA emphasized that the designation is not a finding of wrongdoing but enables “proportionate, targeted interventions” to ensure fair treatment for consumers and competitors. Why we care. Th…

Google is globally launching a new “Sponsored results” label across desktop and mobile, grouping text and Shopping ads under a clearer header. The update marks one of Google’s most visible ad labeling changes in years. It allows users to hide groups of ads directly on the search results page. How it works. Text ads will now appear under a larger Sponsored results header. The same label will apply to other formats, like Shopping ads. Users can choose to hide entire groups of sponsored results for a more personalized browsing experience. Why we care. Clearer ad labeling and the option for users to hide sponsored results could influence ad visibil…

ChatGPT performs a search in nearly one-third of prompts and averages more than two searches per query, each about 5.5 words long (roughly 60% longer than the typical Google search), according to a new study from marketing agency Nectiv. Why it matters: ChatGPT isn’t just answering questions – it’s searching like a power user. The model relies on longer, more specific, and more commercial-style queries than Google’s average searcher. That means SEOs could have more influence over ChatGPT’s answers, especially for local, product, and buying-intent searches where the model leans most heavily on external data. By the numbers. Some key findings from the report: S…

A BrightEdge study found that 68% of brands across industries are changing their search strategies to catch the GEO wave. That’s a big number, but hardly surprising – you’d have to have lived under a rock for about three years (since ChatGPT launched in late 2022) to miss the current. Still, many B2B marketing leaders I speak with haven’t fully grasped the shape of the opportunity – what GEO can do for their brands and where it falls short. There’s no question that AI search/GEO/LLMO – whatever you call it (there’s no consensus yet) – is critical to a holistic organic strategy. But leaning on them too heavily exposes gaps competitors can exploit. Thi…

Recently, there’s been discussion – and some frustration – on social media about what’s being said (and who’s saying it) about SEO, GEO, and whatever comes next. Some of that criticism has been directed at Search Engine Land, and that’s fair game. We’ve always encouraged open debate and multiple viewpoints about where search marketing is headed. But I want to take a moment to clarify what we believe, what we don’t, and why our editorial approach may not always align with everyone’s worldview – especially in this unprecedented, transitional moment for our industry. 1. SEO is not dead. Period. Search Engine Land believes SEO is very much still a thing. As Lil…

Google today celebrated the 25th anniversary of its ad platform, first launched as AdWords in 2000. Now known as Google Ads, the platform remains the backbone of the company’s revenue engine. Over two and a half decades, Google Ads has evolved from a manually managed system to a sophisticated AI-driven advertising platform spanning Search, YouTube, Play, and the wider web. What Google is saying. Google is celebrating, with Vidhya Srinivasan, VP/GM of Ads & Commerce, sharing how AI is empowering us to rethink what’s possible’ and create a future of smarter, more helpful advertising. “Generative AI is transforming digital marketing, and I am so proud to see…

Nearly 90% of businesses are worried about losing organic visibility as AI transforms how people find information, according to a new survey by Ann Smarty. Why we care. The shift from search results to AI-generated answers seems to be happening faster than many expected, threatening the foundation of how companies are found online and drive sales. AI is changing the customer journey and forcing an SEO evolution. By the numbers. Most prefer to keep the “SEO” label – with “SEO for AI” (49%) and “GEO” (41%) emerging as leading terms for this new discipline. 87.8% of businesses said they’re worried about their online findability in the AI era. 85.7% are alread…

The web’s purpose is shifting. Once a link graph – a network of pages for users and crawlers to navigate – it’s rapidly becoming a queryable knowledge graph. For technical SEOs, that means the goal has evolved from optimizing for clicks to optimizing for visibility and even direct machine interaction. Enter NLWeb – Microsoft’s open-source bridge to the agentic web At the forefront of this evolution is NLWeb (Natural Language Web), an open-source project developed by Microsoft. NLWeb simplifies the creation of natural language interfaces for any website, allowing publishers to transform existing sites into AI-powered applications where users and intelligen…

Structured data helps search engines, Large Language Models (LLMs), AI assistants, and other tools understand your website. Using Schema.org and JSON-LD, you make your content clearer and easier to use across platforms. This guide explains what structured data is, why it matters today, and how you can set it up the right way. Table of contents What is structured data? A simple example of structured data Why do you need structured data? Is structured data important for SEO? Structured data can lead to rich results Different kinds of structured data Which structured data types matter most? Structured data for voice assistants The technical details Structured data shou…

AI tools can help teams move faster than ever – but speed alone isn’t a strategy. As more marketers rely on LLMs to help create and optimize content, credibility becomes the true differentiator. And as AI systems decide which information to trust, quality signals like accuracy, expertise, and authority matter more than ever. It’s not just what you write but how you structure it. AI-driven search rewards clear answers, strong organization, and content it can easily interpret. This article highlights key strategies for smarter AI workflows – from governance and training to editorial oversight – so your content remains accurate, authoritative, and unmistakab…

John Mueller from Google posted an SEO tip and reminder for those who use cloud services, such as AWS, Azure, Google Cloud or others, to host images, videos or other content. John explained that you should probably verify those within Google Search Console. This will give you the ability to track the performance of those files in Google Search, including any debugging information when necessary. Of course, in order to do this, you need to be able to control the DNS and most give you the option to do that through DNS CNAME. So you can set up your DNS to control those files in that cloud environment. For examples, it can be images.domain.com or videos.domain.com and …

Generative engine optimization (GEO) platform Lorelight, is shutting it down – not because it failed, but because the problem it solved didn’t need solving, according to its founder Benjamin Houy. “Customers were churning because the product didn’t change what they needed to do. They would pursue the same brand-building fundamentals whether they had the data or not,” Houy wrote in a blog post. The big idea. Launched in April, Lorelight pitched itself as a “proactive AI brand monitoring” tool. Lorelight promised real-time alerts when large language models, such as ChatGPT or Claude, misrepresented a brand. The goal: To help marketers control their brand narra…

Google has introduced a “Creative Content” section in Merchant Center, giving brands the ability to manage video assets directly alongside product listings. The feature enhances both paid and organic visibility across Google surfaces. Why we care. Videos uploaded here automatically sync with the Google Ads asset library for linked accounts — streamlining creative management and strengthening brand storytelling across campaigns. Where to find it. If available in your account, look under Creative content → Video assets, just below Product Studio. Video sources: Social channels (including TikTok) Your website Google’s Product Studio The cool par…

A year and a half ago, I wrote “The rise of forums: Why Google prefers them and how to adapt,” arguing that brands should build their own online forums and communities. Let’s look at what’s happened since. As of this writing, Reddit’s stock price has risen 177.6%. If you’d bought 100 shares of RDDT then, you’d be $13,113 richer today. In a June 2025 analysis of 150,000 AI citations, Semrush found that Reddit was the top source, appearing in more than 40% of LLM responses. So what happened? It comes down to the law of supply and demand. The supply-and-demand crisis of online answers The demand for answers has skyrocketed as people increasing…

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…

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: …

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…

A new column called “Original Conversion Value” has started appearing inside Google Ads, giving advertisers a long-requested way to see the true, unadjusted value of their conversions. How it works. Google’s new formula strips everything back: Conversion Value – Rule Adjustments (value rules) – Lifecycle Goal Adjustments (e.g., NCA bonuses) = Original Conversion Value Why we care. For years, marketers have struggled to isolate real conversion value from Google’s layers of adjustments — including Conversion Value Rules and Lifecycle Goals (like New Customer Acquisition goals). Original Conversion value makes it easier to diagnose performance, compare data a…

Every few years, SEO gets a shiny new acronym. Voice search. AMP. E-A-T. Each promised to rewrite the rules, and each eventually found its way into the same corporate graveyard of experiments and half-baked roadmaps. I know, because I bought in. For a year and a half, I buried myself in schema markup—building page-level knowledge graphs, connecting entities, mapping relationships until entire sites resembled semantic webs. It was meticulous, elegant, even beautiful in its own way. And it delivered nothing. Not because technical work doesn’t matter—SEO is inherently technical. The issue in enterprise is that Google is a black box. You can pour months into structured da…

Affiliate marketing drives billions in sales – and billions more in hidden losses. Brand bidding, ad hijacking, coupon abuse, and more subtle forms of affiliate fraud can quietly drain ROI and distort attribution. For performance leaders, the question isn’t if this happens, but how much you’re already losing. This article breaks down the most common types of affiliate marketing fraud and shows how modern monitoring tools like Bluepear help brands protect growth, reputation, and spend through smarter affiliate fraud detection strategies. Why affiliate programs are under threat Not all affiliate programs are created equal – and neither are their incentive…

Today’s consumers get pulled in a thousand different directions online: Scrolling YouTube Shorts. Tracking TikTok influencer content. Browsing Gmail promotions. Deciding whether the latest viral Facebook video is real or AI. And that’s all before lunch. Once, the path between intent and conversion was nearly a straight line. Now, in our new attention economy, constant advertising noise makes buying decisions much more complex. Most advertisers, however, have not adjusted to this new dynamic. They’re only focused on showing up when intent is obvious in search, missing entire audiences who never reach the search bar. Google’s Deman…

Google Ads expanded its “Political content” declaration, allowing advertisers to set a default political-ads preference at the account level — not just within individual campaigns. The feature quietly rolled out after Google introduced the campaign-level setting in August 2025. Why we care. The shift gives advertisers a simpler, more consistent way to comply with political-ad regulations, especially as new transparency requirements — including the EU’s TTPA rules that took effect in October 2025 — continue to ramp up. Instead of updating each campaign manually, advertisers can now define their political-ad intent once and apply it across the entire account. Ho…

The narrative in SEO right now is simple: Google’s AI Mode doesn’t send traffic. If it becomes the default Google Search experience, your website will starve for clicks. There’s one problem, though: the studies claiming “AI doesn’t send traffic” focus almost entirely on informational queries. Yes, if someone wants to know what a basal cell carcinoma looks like, AI will kill that click. But what happens when someone wants to find a dermatologist to check that mole? No one has shared a study like that yet. So we decided to fix that. We ran the first UX study focused specifically on transactional intent in AI mode. We watched 52 participants across the U.…

Pinterest attracts users who want inspiration and solutions, not passive browsing. The platform now reaches 600 million monthly active users, many of whom arrive with clear intent to research, plan, or purchase. That makes its ad formats especially valuable for marketers who want to appear in moments when people are actively looking for ideas and products. Here’s how each format works and when to consider it. Ad formats explained Pinterest Ads offers a variety of ad formats, many of which aren’t available on other social media platforms. Let’s take a look at what formats they offer and when you might want to consider using them. Carousel ads …