SEO Tools and Resources

Google search impressions are up 49% year-over-year, but click-through rates (CTR) are down 30%, according to new data from BrightEdge. For that, all credit goes to AI Overviews, Google’s AI-generated summaries that launched one year ago. Why we care. Google’s AI Overviews have impacted SEO in a big way. For so long, the focus has been on rankings, which generally tended to drive traffic that could then be monetized. Today, we’re forced to focus on reach – visibility in AI Overviews – even though there is no guarantee you’ll get a click or that your content will be properly credited if you get cited by AI. By the numbers. Here are some additional findings about ho…

Four new AI-powered updates aimed at supercharging how brands create content, capture attention, and convert clicks to customers, all through smarter automation and immersive visuals, were unveiled at Google Marketing Live 2025. 1. Next-gen creatives: Lights, camera, Veo Google is upgrading its creative suite with cinematic AI tools: Image-to-video transformation, now powered by the company’s Veo model (recently demoed at I/O), lets advertisers convert still product shots into motion-driven visuals. It’s live in Merchant Center and coming soon to Google Ads. AI outpainting, the same tech used to expand “The Wizard of Oz” visuals at Las Vegas’ Sphere, now al…

Google Ads is launching a new video enhancement feature for Demand Gen campaigns. The update automatically creates shorter versions of existing video ads to better engage diverse audiences. Details: The enhancement will automatically generate condensed versions of existing video ads. The feature will be enabled by default across all Google Demand Gen ad campaigns. Advertisers have until March 10 to opt out of the automatic enhancement. Why we care. Short-form content consistently captures higher engagement, especially on mobile and social platforms. By automatically generating shorter video versions, this could aid in reaching diverse audiences without …

Today, we’re rolling out an improvement to Yoast AI Brand Insights, part of the Yoast SEO AI+ package. You can now scan how your brand appears in answers generated by Perplexity, in addition to ChatGPT at no extra cost. This builds on our mission to help marketers, bloggers, and business owners understand how their brand is represented across major AI platforms. AI powered answers are fast becoming a new gateway for discovery. People increasingly turn to AI tools to research, compare, and choose products or services. Those answers often mention brands as recommendations or sources. When someone asks a question in your niche, you should be able to see if your brand i…

In recent years, the open web has felt like the Wild West. Creators have seen their work scraped, processed, and fed into large language models – mostly without their consent. It became a data free-for-all, with almost no way for site owners to opt out or protect their work. There have been efforts, like llms.txt initiative from Jeremy Howard. Like robots.txt, which lets site owners allow or block site crawlers, llms.txt offers rules that do the same for AI companies’ crawling bots. But there’s no clear evidence that AI companies follow llms.txt or honor its rules. Plus, Google explicitly said it doesn’t support llms.txt. However, a new protocol is now emergi…

YouTube today introduced a new Brand Pulse report that gives advertisers a real-time snapshot of their brand’s total presence across YouTube — from paid ads, to creator collaborations, to user-generated videos. A holistic view of brand presence. The new report taps multimodal AI to spot every brand mention on YouTube – from logos and product shots to shoutouts in audio or titles. Even a quick name-drop by a creator gets tracked to show your brand’s real reach. Metrics that connect paid and organic performance. Advertisers can now see how they stack up with metrics like Total Unique Viewers and Share of Watch Time — plus how paid ads boost organic buzz when viewers…

Today, we’re excited to welcome Yoast AI Summarize to our growing family of AI features. Just like our other AI tools, this new feature is designed to make your publishing process faster and easier by putting powerful, practical AI right where you work, in the WordPress Block Editor. Yoast AI Summarize is perfect for bloggers, content teams, agencies, and publishers who want to give readers instant value while also making sure their posts clearly communicate the intended message. What does Yoast AI Summarize do? You’ve finished drafting your post, great! But before you hit “Publish,” wouldn’t it be helpful to instantly see the core points your content is ac…

Yoast AI Brand Insights now lets you track how your brand appears in Google’s Gemini. You can see your Gemini data alongside ChatGPT and Perplexity, all in one dashboard. With a single analysis, you can see how different AI platforms describe your brand with the Yoast SEO AI+ plan. You’ll see which sources they use and how sentiment compares across the tools your customers use most. Why this matters AI platforms use different methods to answer questions about your brand, often leading to different results. Seeing these results side-by-side helps you spot gaps or missed opportunities in your brand’s AI presence. ChatGPT is designed as a conversational a…

News executives expect search referrals to drop by more than 40% over the next three years, as search engines continue evolving into AI-driven answer engines, according to a new Reuters Institute report. That shift is squeezing publisher traffic and accelerating a move away from classic SEO toward AEO and GEO. Why we care. Google’s AI Overviews and chatbot-style search are changing how people get information, often without clicking through. SEO visibility, attribution, and ROI models built on old playbooks are breaking fast. What’s happening. Publishers expect search traffic to nearly halve. Survey respondents forecast search engine traffic down 43% within three y…

On episode 333 of PPC Live The Podcast, I speak to Nils Rooijmans, a renowned Google Ads script expert and top 10 PPC influencer, where she shares the experience of a costly error that serves as a valuable lesson for anyone managing paid search campaigns. The Setup: A quick account onboarding gone wrong The trouble began when one of Rooijmans’ existing clients acquired another company in the airport parking services industry. The acquired company was already running a small Google Ads account, and the client wanted Rooijmans to manage it without paying additional fees for proper onboarding. Against his better judgment, Rooijmans agreed to a compromise: they wou…

Marketing mix modeling (MMM) has shifted from an enterprise luxury to an essential measurement tool. Tech giants like Google, Meta, and Uber have released powerful open-source MMM frameworks that anyone can use for free. The challenge is understanding which tool actually solves your problem and which require a PhD in statistics to implement. Open-source MMM tools are often grouped together but solve different problems The landscape can be confusing because these tools serve fundamentally different purposes despite being mentioned together. Google’s Meridian and Meta’s Robyn are complete, production-ready MMM frameworks that take your marketing data a…

Webpages are significantly harmed when excluded from Google’s AI Overviews, but benefit when included in AI Overviews. That’s according to a new study by Terakeet, a company that focuses on brand management for global brands. AI Overviews benefits. Webpages featured in Google’s AI Overviews benefit from increased traffic, regardless of their original ranking. Of note: Top-ranked (transactional queries): Webpages included in AI Overview had 3.2x as many clicks as pages that were excluded. Lower-ranked (informational queries): Webpages appearing in AI Overviews had 2x as many clicks compared to webpages that appeared on a SERP with no AI Overviews. Lower-rank…

OpenAI is rolling out shopping features within ChatGPT Search, starting with fashion, beauty, home goods, and electronics categories. The shopping features will guide users to find the right product for their query or questions. What is shopping in ChatGPT. ChatGPT will offer recommendations for products, show product images and product reviews that it thinks you might be interested in. Plus, ChatGPT will link directly to webpages where users can buy the products. These shopping results are not paid ads, nor does OpenAI make a commission on any sales. The data comes from structured metadata from third-party websites and data feeds. What it looks like. Here is…

OpenAI will begin testing ads in ChatGPT in the U.S. in the coming weeks. Ads will appear at the bottom of chatbot responses, be clearly labeled, and will only show when there’s a relevant sponsored product or service tied to the conversation. Who will see ads: Logged-in adult users on the free tier Users on ChatGPT Go, OpenAI’s $8/month low-cost subscription Pro, Business, and Enterprise plans will remain ad-free Users under 18 will not see ads Why we care. Ads inside ChatGPT open a new, high-intent placement where users are actively asking questions and making decisions. Unlike traditional search or social ads, these placements appear directly with…

OpenAI is laying the groundwork for an advertising business, signaling a potential shift in how ChatGPT and other products could be monetized beyond subscriptions and enterprise deals. What’s happening. According to reporting from The Information, OpenAI has begun exploring ad formats and partnerships, with early discussions pointing toward ads that could appear within or alongside AI-generated responses. The effort is still in its early stages, but internal conversations suggest ads are becoming a more serious part of OpenAI’s long-term revenue strategy. Why we care. OpenAI is exploring ads inside AI-generated responses, creating a new, highly contextual channel …

You no longer need to login or create an account to use ChatGPT Search from OpenAI. You can now just use ChatGPT without an account. The announcement. OpenAI announced this on X, saying: ChatGPT search is now available to everyone on http://chatgpt.com — no sign up required. ChatGPT search is now available to everyone on https://t.co/nYW5KO1aIg — no sign up required. pic.twitter.com/VElT7cxxjZ — OpenAI (@OpenAI) February 5, 2025 More details. OpenAI launched ChatGPT Search in October 2024 and then made it free for all users in mid-December. Now, you don’t even need an account to use ChatGPT Search. How it works. According to OpenAI: “The search …

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman issued an all-hands “code red” to improve ChatGPT – a move that could delay the company’s advertising plans – according to an internal memo obtained by The Wall Street Journal. Driving the news. Altman told employees the company must urgently improve ChatGPT’s personalization, speed, reliability, and ability to handle a wider range of questions. Daily calls, temporary team reassignments, and a companywide push now center on one priority: make ChatGPT better, fast. Nick Turley, who leads ChatGPT, said the team is focused on growing the assistant and making it feel “more intuitive and personal.” Why now? Competition is catching up. The …

OpenAI is trying to reassure paying users after ChatGPT surfaced what looked like ads from brands like Target and Peloton – and said those prompts weren’t ads at all. What happened. Paying ChatGPT users shared screenshots of promotional-style prompts, including a message urging them to “Shop for home and groceries. Connect Target.” In response, OpenAI said those prompts were recommendations for apps built on the ChatGPT platform, with “no financial component.” Users saw a brand logo and a call to action – and drew the obvious conclusion: these were ads. Users were not pleased. One response: “Bruhhh… Don’t insult your paying users.” What OpenAI is sayi…

OpenAI is hiring a Growth Paid Marketing Platform Engineer to help develop tools for ad platform integration, campaign management, and real-time attribution. The role is part of a new ChatGPT growth team tasked with building the backbone of OpenAI’s in-house paid marketing platform. Why we care. OpenAI wants to monetize free users via ChatGPT ads by 2026, according to reports. It seems that OpenAI is now starting to build that ad-buying infrastructure so brands can run campaigns on ChatGPT. That would give advertisers access to a new platform with massive reach (700 million weekly users as of August). The details. The listing calls for building APIs, data pi…

OpenAI announced the launch of its first web browser, which they named ChatGPT Atlas. Atlas is currently available on Mac only right now and has all the features you would expect from an AI browser. But the most surprising part is that its built-in search features seem to be powered by Google and not Microsoft Bing, its early partner and one of its largest investors. How to download Atlas. If you are on a Mac, you can download ChatGPT Atlas at chatgpt.com/atlas. From there, the web browser will download to your computer, you double click on the installer and then drag the application to your application folder. What Atlas does. It is a web browser, first and forem…

Reddit reported its earnings last night, and while it underperformed in terms of user growth (thanks to Google), the earnings report seemed to highlight how much OpenAI is paying Reddit to license its content. As per Adweek, between Google and OpenAI, its AI licensing deal brings in about 10% of its revenue. 10% of its revenue is about $130 million. We know Google paid about $60 million to Reddit for its content deal, and the only other known company to have a deal with Reddit for its content is OpenAI. That leaves OpenAI paying $70 million to Reddit for its licensing deal. More details. I spotted this via Glenn Gabe who posted about this on X and wrote: Ro…

OpenAI is launching Instant Checkout inside ChatGPT to Plus, Pro, and Free users in the U.S. Users will be able to buy products from Etsy sellers. Purchases are powered by the new Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP), co-developed with Stripe. How it works. Users search in plain language (e.g., “gifts for a ceramics lover”). Then: ChatGPT returns product recommendations ranked by relevance, not payment. If an item supports Instant Checkout, users tap “Buy,” confirm shipping and payment details, and complete the order without leaving chat. Orders, payments, and fulfillment run through the merchant’s existing systems; ChatGPT just passes information secure…

Search behavior keeps tilting toward AI answers. People still click classic results, but more are starting with AI summaries and only clicking when they want depth, proof, or tools. Your job as an SEO is now twofold: Rank in traditional search. Get your pages cited or summarized inside AI experiences. How do you do both without doubling your workload? How AI-powered search surfaces and cites content Before diving into tactics, it’s worth grounding in what’s actually confirmed about how AI search experiences pull and cite results. AI-powered search engines ground their answers in indexed, high-quality pages Google AI Overviews and AI M…

Table of contents What are product variations in ecommerce? Why do product variations matter for customers? How do product variations support your ecommerce SEO strategies? Increase in keyword targeting Richer content for search engines and AI engines Improved user engagement and longer sessions Better structured data for enhanced search results Blueprint for optimizing your product variations Technical implementation of product variations Media content optimization for ecommerce product variations SEO tips for product variations Common product variation ecommerce errors to avoid Ready to unfold all variations? Product variations are more than just an ecomm…

Change is the only constant – a truth marketers, especially those in SEO, know all too well. The search landscape is shifting faster than ever, with AI-powered tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Gemini reshaping how people find and interact with information. Yet, despite all the innovation, the core principles of SEO remain as relevant as ever. While AI-enhanced search engines may seem like a revolutionary leap, they still rely on the foundational elements that have driven search success for years. This article explores how time-tested SEO strategies – like site structure, indexing, and keyword optimization – still play a crucial role in an AI-d…