SEO Tools and Resources

By now, we’re all familiar with Google AI Overviews. Many queries you search on Google now surface responses through this quick and prominent search feature. But AI Overview results aren’t always reliable or accurate. Google’s algorithms can promote negative or misleading content, making online reputation management (ORM) difficult. Here’s how to stay on top of AI Overviews and your ORM – by removing, mitigating, or addressing negative content. How AI Overviews source information AI Overviews relies on a mix of data sources across Google and the open web, including: Google’s Knowledge Graph: The Knowledge Graph is Google’s structured database of …

For much of its history, marketing thrived on creativity, intuition and an almost magical ability to connect with audiences. Campaigns were conceived in brainstorming sessions, executed over weeks or months and celebrated (or dissected) once the results rolled in. Theodore Levitt’s “The Marketing Imagination” stays on most marketers’ bookcases alongside their team’s awards. Much of the technology we buy inside marketing is mostly isolated and gives fractal views of the customer, never a complete one and never of the customer in motion (with or without us). The one platform to solve it all has been the misnomer we have been hunting for but will never find. The promise…

Brands often invest in influencer and affiliate promotions but stop short of giving the content additional reach, assuming the creator’s audience is enough. Using paid marketing, adding it to your site, and sharing it across your channels isn’t doing their job for them. It’s a way to grow your company by using their brand recognition and strengthening the relationship. Yes, you pay an influencer an upfront fee, a commission, or send them a product in exchange for a promotion, but that doesn’t mean the relationship stops there. And that’s where amplification becomes a real advantage. It unlocks more value from the creator relationships you already have. …

More users are now spotting Google Ads embedded directly in Google’s AI Mode results, a sign that Google’s months-long test is quietly accelerating. What we’re seeing. Google confirmed ad testing in AI Mode on desktop back in May, but sightings have jumped of late: Greg Sterling shared a screenshot of an HVAC repair query and said this was the first AI Mode ad he saw in the wild. Brodie Clark replicated the behavior soon after, noting “the time has come” as he shared multiple screenshots of ads inside generated answers. Barry Schwartz reported ongoing reports of people running into AI Mode ads on Search Engine Roundtable. Why we care. Ads sho…

You’ve probably heard the saying: Fast, cheap, or good – pick two. The concept goes something like this: If you want something fast and cheap, don’t expect it to be good. If you want it good and fast, it’s going to cost more. And if you want it good and affordable, well, you’ll need to give it time. It’s a simple way to explain how tradeoffs work in projects. In SEO, these tradeoffs are especially important to understand because you’re often creating problems that will cost more to fix later. This article looks at variations of this project management concept and how it applies to SEO. Then I’ll explain why a quality-first approach l…

Google Ads appears to be reviving — or reinventing — its old Website Optimizer, after new help docs quietly surfaced detailing a tool that would live directly inside the Google Ads interface. Driving the news. Several new Google support pages were spotted describing Website Optimizer, a tool expected to show up under the Reporting tab. While the name recalls the OG Website Optimizer from 2008 that later became Google Optimize (sunset in 2023), this version appears to be something new. How it works: The tool requires Google Ads access and admin permissions on the linked GA4 property. If an advertiser doesn’t have a GA4 property, Website Optimizer will autom…

Google cites retailers only 4% of the time, while ChatGPT does it 36% of the time. That 9x gap means shoppers on each platform get steered in very different ways, according to new BrightEdge data. Why we care. Millions of shoppers now turn to AI for deals and gift ideas, but product discovery works differently on the two leading AI search platforms. Google leans on what people say, while ChatGPT focuses more on where you can buy it. What each AI prioritizes. Google AI Overviews cite YouTube reviews, Reddit threads, and editorial sites, while ChatGPT cite retail giants like Amazon, Walmart, Target, and Best Buy. Google AI Overviews prioritize: YouTube revi…

One of the major things we talk about with large language models (LLMs) is content creation at scale, and it’s easy for that to become a crutch. We’re all time poor and looking for ways to make our lives easier – so what if you could use tools like Claude and ChatGPT to frame your processes in a way that humanizes your website work and eases your day, rather than taking the creativity out of it? This article tackles how to: Analyze customer feedback and questions at scale. Automate getting detailed and unique information from subject matter experts. Analyze competitors. These are all tasks we could do manually, and sometimes still might, but they’r…

We’ve established the AI resume as the new C-suite-level asset that defines your brand at the bottom of the funnel, and we’ve mapped the strategic landscape that shows how it operates across explicit, implicit, and ambient research modes. So, how do you build this asset to thrive in a three-part environment? The answer is shifting from ranking in search results to the discipline of brand-focused algorithmic education – a multi-speed strategy aligned with the trio of technologies powering all modern recommendation engines. The digital marketing ecosystem has been reshaped by AI assistive engines – platforms like Google AI, ChatGPT, and Microsoft Copilot that no…

Google updated its JavaScript SEO best practices document, for the second time this week, this time to clarify canonicalization best practices for JavaScript. In short, Google said “setting the canonical URL to the same URL as in the original HTML or if that isn’t possible, to leave the canonical URL out of the original HTML.” What Google added. Google added a new section over here and it reads: “The rel=”canonical” link tag helps Google find the canonical version of a page. You can use JavaScript to set the canonical URL, but keep in mind that you shouldn’t use JavaScript to change the canonical URL to something else than the URL you specified as the canonical U…

LinkedIn is making Reserved Ads generally available to all managed accounts, giving marketers the ability to lock in the first ad slot in the feed for premium visibility. What’s new. Reserved Ads let advertisers secure top-of-feed placement at a fixed rate, providing predictable delivery, consistent reach, and greater share of voice. Early results show the format drives up to 75% higher dwell time, 88% higher view-through rates, and delivers 99% of forecasted impressions, according to LinkedIn. How it works. Reserved Ads appear in the most visible ad slot on LinkedIn’s feed and support most Sponsored Content formats, including Video, Single Image, Carousel, Do…

In this new era of generative AI technology, searchers have begun to swap keywords with prompts. Shorter and long-tail queries are being replaced by more conversational prompts, which tend to be longer and more in-depth. These days, searchers are expecting more complete answers than a paginated list of results. Until we get an AI-specific equivalent of Google Search Console or Bing Webmaster Tools, we can’t really see for certain what or how our audience is behaving on AI search platforms as they look for our content, brands or products. However, we can still look for proxies to emulate how this journey works. Here are multiple ways to use other data points as pro…

For the past decade, image SEO was largely a matter of technical hygiene: Compressing JPEGs to appease impatient visitors. Writing alt text for accessibility. Implementing lazy loading to keep LCP scores in the green. While these practices remain foundational to a healthy site, the rise of large, multimodal models such as ChatGPT and Gemini has introduced new possibilities and challenges. Multimodal search embeds content types into a shared vector space. We are now optimizing for the “machine gaze.” Generative search makes most content machine-readable by segmenting media into chunks and extracting text from visuals through optical character …

Brand-agency partnerships look very different today than they did even a few years ago, and by 2026 that gap will only widen. Internal marketing teams are more sophisticated, digital channels are more specialized, and the role agencies play is no longer one-size-fits-all. As a result, the companies that get the most value from agency relationships aren’t always the biggest spenders. They’re the ones that are clear about what they need and what they don’t. That clarity starts with understanding the true role an agency should play inside your organization. Too many partnerships struggle because expectations and responsibilities were never properly al…

Generative AI has become a practical tool in search, content, and analytical workflows. But, as adoption increases, so does a familiar and costly problem: confidently incorrect outputs. Also called “hallucinations,” the term implies that an AI model is malfunctioning. But here’s the truth: This behavior is often predictable and results from unclear instructions. Or, more accurately, unclear prompts. For example, prompt AI for a “cookie recipe,” and nothing more. Don’t offer details about allergies, preferences, or constraints. The result might be Christmas cookies in July, a peanut-packed option, or a recipe so bland and basic as to be unworthy of t…

Google has updated two of its help documents to explain the limits of Googlebot when it crawls. Specifically, how much Googlebot can consume by filetype and format. The limits. The limits, some of which were documented already and are not new, include: 15MB for web pages: Google wrote, “By default, Google’s crawlers and fetchers only crawl the first 15MB of a file.” 64MB for PDF files: Google wrote, “When crawling for Google Search, Googlebot crawls the first 2MB of a supported file type, and the first 64MB of a PDF file.” 2MB for supported files types: Google wrote, “When crawling for Google Search, Googlebot crawls the first 2MB of a supported file type,…

Google Search Labs has a new experiment you can opt into that turns on some Agentic capabilities within AI Mode. This allows Google to help you make a reservation at a restaurant and will soon give you the ability to book local service appointments and event tickets. Agentic capabilities in AI Mode. The new labs feature works for users in the US who are signed into their Google account. You can opt in and review the features over here. AI Mode in Google Search now has agentic capabilities to help with your everyday local needs. “We’re starting with restaurant reservations, and expanding soon to local service appointments and event tickets,” Google wrote. This…

In episode 325 of PPC Live The Podcast, I sat down with Inderpaul “Indi” Rai, Group Account Director at WeDiscover, to explore the lessons learned from mistakes, team dynamics, and the evolving role of automation and AI in paid search. Indi, a veteran with over a decade of experience in AdTech, MarTech, SEO, analytics, and multilingual paid search, shared candid insights on how errors can shape careers and client relationships. Embracing Mistakes to Grow Indi opened up about one of the most significant mistakes in his career: an automated budget feature in Search Ads 360 went unchecked during his holiday, resulting in the US account overspending by a substantial am…

Google is enhancing Meridian, its open-source Marketing Mix Model (MMM), to help marketers make smarter, more precise budget decisions. Why we care. Understanding ROI across channels is increasingly critical. These new Meridian updates allow for a more precise understanding of what drives sales, factoring in both media spend and non-media variables like pricing and promotions. The big picture. Here’s what’s new: Non-media variables: Marketers can now include pricing, promotions, and other business levers to measure their impact on sales more accurately. Channel-level contribution priors: New features let you guide the MMM with your own business knowledge,…

Most marketing teams still treat SEO and PPC as budget rivals, not as complementary systems facing the same performance challenges. In practice, these relationships fall into three types: Parasitism: One benefits at the other’s expense. Commensalism: One benefits while the other remains unaffected. Mutualism: Both thrive through shared optimization and accountability. Only mutualism creates sustainable performance gains – and it’s the shift marketing teams need to make next. Mutualism: Solving joint problems One glaring problem unites online marketers: we’re getting less traffic for the same budget. Navigating the coming years requires more t…

Black Friday is three weeks away, so it’s time to finalize the last adjustments. Here’s what to focus on now, based on two Yoast Black Friday coffee chats with our own principal SEOs, Carolyn Shelby and Alex Moss. Alex states, “Black Friday isn’t one day anymore, but a season. If you’re not visible to AI now, you won’t be in the results when shoppers ask for recommendations.” Table of contents 1. Stop breaking things (seriously) 2. Fix these right now (or regret it later) 3. Optimize for AI and search (quick wins) 4. Last-minute hacks (do these soon) 5. What not to do before Black Friday Your Black Friday success starts now 1. Stop breaking things (seriously…

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 …

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…

Most of what people are calling “AI SEO” right now is just legacy SEO with new buzzwords. AI SEO is different. When you look at how AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity, and AI Mode actually source and compress information, there are things you can do that literally did not exist in the Google 10-blue-links world. This article walks through those AI SEO-only tactics, backed with real data, not wishful thinking. The context: clicks are collapsing, but answers are not You already feel this in your numbers. A few facts to anchor the conversation: Studies on Google’s AI Overviews showed click-through rates to top organic results drop by roughly 30 to …

For much of its history, marketing thrived on creativity, intuition and an almost magical ability to connect with audiences. Campaigns were conceived in brainstorming sessions, executed over weeks or months and celebrated (or dissected) once the results rolled in. Theodore Levitt’s “The Marketing Imagination” stays on most marketers’ bookcases alongside their team’s awards. Much of the technology we buy inside marketing is mostly isolated and gives fractal views of the customer, never a complete one and never of the customer in motion (with or without us). The one platform to solve it all has been the misnomer we have been hunting for but will never find. The promise…