SEO Tools and Resources

Marketers have debated SEO versus PPC for years, usually shaped by whatever has worked – or failed – for them in the past. Organic search promises compounding visibility, while paid search delivers immediate control. Most teams ultimately favor one over the other based on experience, budget constraints, or a survival instinct. But in 2026, this old debate no longer fits the reality of search. Why this debate has changed The search landscape has shifted, and the old SEO-or-PPC debate no longer fits. Search behavior has evolved. Search results pages have evolved. The platforms – and the machine learning driving their bidding systems – have e…

OpenAI announced a visual upgrade to ChatGPT, adding more images from the web for answers about people, places, products, and other common topics. How it works. The update takes ChatGPT from simple answers to a more search-like experience: Images will appear when they add clarity. The web-sourced images will appear next to the most relevant text. Clicking an image will let you see it in its original dimensions and the source attribution. Where it’s live. This update is rolling out globally and gradually across all ChatGPT plans: It’s available on web, iOS, and Android. Works only with responses generated by GPT 5.1. Why we care. Search is be…

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…

Black Friday 2025 was a bit of a head-scratcher. Year on year, spend rose, impressions fell, but clicks and engagement stayed strong. The data (so far): Source: Optmyzr-connected Google Ads accounts (5,000+ ecommerce, 16,000 lead gen advertisers active both years). Conversion value and ROAS are still coming in — we’ll update when the full picture is ready. Two big takeaways: Visibility got pricier. Spend up ~17% across ecommerce and lead gen. Impressions fell year over year. Translation: advertisers paid more to reach roughly the same audience. Engagement held steady. Clicks and CTR up across the board. Lead gen saw slightly l…

Google is rolling out a new Performance Max beta that lets advertisers pull video assets directly from Merchant Center — a small tweak with big implications for retail and e-commerce. How it works. Google Ads will now: Auto-surface product-associated videos from Merchant Center during PMax setup Shorten creative workflows for retailers and e-commerce teams Improve product-to-creative alignment, increasing ad relevance Boost performance, especially for large SKU catalogs Why we care. This update removes a friction point in PMax: getting high-quality, product-relevant video into campaigns. By auto-pulling videos from Merchant Center, Google is tigh…

The SEO industry is entering its most turbulent period yet. Traffic is declining. AI is absorbing informational queries. Social platforms now function as search engines. Google is shifting from a gateway to an answer engine. The result is a sector running in circles – unsure what to measure, what to optimize, or even what SEO is meant to do. Yet within this turbulence, something clear has emerged. A single marketing metric that cuts through the noise and signals brand health and future demand. A metric that marketers and SEOs can align around with confidence. That metric is share of search. Discovery is changing, and measurement must chan…

Sergey Brin, Google’s co-founder, admitted that Google “for sure messed up” by underinvesting in AI and failing to seriously pursue the opportunity after releasing the research that led to today’s generative AI era. Driving the news. Google didn’t take it seriously enough and failed to scale fast enough after the Transformer paper, Brin said. Also: Google was “too scared to bring it to people” because chatbots can “say dumb things.” “OpenAI ran with it,” which was “a super smart insight.” The full quote. Brin said: “I guess I would say in some ways we for sure messed up in that we underinvested and sort of didn’t take it as seriously as we should have…

Google Ads is rolling out new location targeting options for Demand Gen campaigns, bringing them in line with controls already available in Search. What’s new. Advertisers can now explicitly choose between Presence or interest and Presence only when setting up Demand Gen campaigns. The option is available directly in the campaign interface, eliminating the need for manual exclusions. Why we care. Until now, advertisers running Demand Gen had limited precision over geo-targeting. By making “presence only” targeting native to the campaign setup, Google removes a common workaround and the risk of accidental geo-leakage. The result is cleaner traffic, more accurat…

Ever clicked a link and landed on a “Page Not Found” error? Redirects prevent that. They send visitors and search engines to the right page automatically. Redirects are crucial for both SEO and user experience. For SEO, they preserve link equity and keep your rankings intact. Additionally, it enhances the user experience, as no one likes dead ends. Table of contents What is a redirect? How redirects work Why redirects matter When to use a redirect Types of redirects How redirects impact SEO Common redirect mistakes How to set up a redirect Troubleshooting redirects Conclusion about redirects Key takeaways A redirect automatically sends users …

Google said today that it is suing SerpApi, accusing the company of bypassing security protections to scrape, harvest, and resell copyrighted content from Google Search results. The allegations: Google said SerpApi: Circumvented Google’s security measures and industry-standard crawling controls. Ignored website directives that specify whether content can be accessed. Used cloaking, rotating bot identities, and large bot networks to scrape content at scale. Took licensed content from Search features, including images and real-time data, and resold it for profit. What Google is saying. “Stealthy scrapers like SerpApi override [crawling] directives and …

Microsoft Advertising rolled out asset-level editorial review, giving advertisers visibility into policy approvals for individual ad components — not just entire ads — and reducing delays caused by single non-compliant elements. What’s new. First announced in June, advertisers can now see headlines, descriptions, and images reviewed separately inside the Microsoft Advertising interface. If one asset violates policy, only that component is blocked, while compliant assets continue to serve. Why we care. This shift minimizes campaign disruption and speeds up approvals. Instead of rebuilding or resubmitting whole ads, advertisers can quickly identify and fix the e…

PPC didn’t stand still in 2025. It adjusted. These articles resonated because they answered the real questions advertisers are asking: how to stay competitive, cut wasted spend, work with automation instead of against it, and prepare for what’s next. Below are links to the 10 most-read Search Engine Land PPC columns of 2025, written by our exceptional subject matter experts. 10. Can small businesses compete on Google Ads anymore? With the right strategy, even the smallest business can stand out, win customers, and make a lasting impact. Here’s how. (By Sophie Logan. Published Sept. 16.) 9. Google Ads optimization: What to stop, start, and continue in 2025 …

The PPC landscape in 2025 shifted faster than ever, with updates arriving at a pace unmatched in the industry’s 20-year history. At SMX Next, a panel of industry experts broke down what’s working, what’s failing, and what advertisers should prepare for in 2026 and beyond. The state of PPC The panelists agreed that 2025 marked a major shift, especially in how quickly Google responded to advertiser feedback. Ameet Khabra, founder of Hop Skip Media, called the year “interesting” and said he was genuinely surprised by Google’s willingness to listen to advertisers, especially on channel reporting for Performance Max. “It was really cool to see the people wh…

Fair warning: This article may make some people who’ve been hyping AI visibility tools uncomfortable. After 18 years in the search industry, however, my professional integrity doesn’t allow me to stay quiet. I have zero agenda here. Many of the misconceptions discussed below actually benefit me, both as the co-founder of an AI visibility tool and as someone who offers GEO services. Over the past few months, many claims have been shared as facts that simply aren’t accurate. Let’s clear things up. 1. AI search didn’t kill Google search Quite the opposite. It doesn’t matter how many news sites publish clickbait headlines for traffic, how many VCs hype…

Google’s AI Max for Search campaigns is changing how we run search ads. Launched in private beta as Search Max, the feature began rolling out globally in late May, with full availability expected by early Q3 2025. But will AI Max actually drive incremental growth or simply take credit for conversions your existing setup would have captured anyway? This article: Breaks down the key metrics to track in AI Max. Shares early results from travel, fashion, and B2B accounts. Includes a Google Ads script to make analysis faster and easier. Understanding AI Max Think of AI Max as Google combining the best parts of Dynamic Search Ads and Performance…

New asset and channel reporting improvements are rolling out to Google Ads Performance Max. This update should make it easier to optimize budgets, identify underperforming elements, and maximize ROI across Google’s full network – Search, Display, Discover, Gmail, YouTube, and Maps. Why we care. These updates make Performance Max feel a lot less like a black box. You should get a clearer view of what’s actually driving results. With new segmentation options and ROI metrics, it’s easier to see how different assets and channels impact conversions, costs, and returns. Asset reporting segmentation. You can now break down asset performance by device, time, conversions, …

Brand performance in generative search relies on measurable reputation and entity signals. But those signals are only as good as the infrastructure machines can fetch, parse, and trust. Treat the website, feeds, and APIs as brand training data. Pair technical governance with brand strategy to stop narrative drift and preserve brand equity. Search and brand are one system now, bridging the gap between intent and machine narration. “Google doesn’t just index your pages – it indexes your reputation.” – Jono Alderson That only happens when the site’s performance, semantics, and integrity make the brand easy to select. Machines prefer brands they can read c…

AI Overviews are changing what it means to “search.” The web remains central, but AI and shifting user habits are creating new winners and losers – with forums, videos, and creators gaining ground on traditional publishers, said Google’s Search Head Liz Reid in a new interview. Search shake-up. Every ranking update creates “winners and losers,” Reid acknowledged. But she said user behavior – not just algorithms – is driving the shift, with younger audiences favoring forums, short-form video, and creator content over traditional publishers. “One of the things that’s always true about Google Search is that you make changes and there are winners and losers. That’s t…

Google’s AI Overviews continue to disrupt search as we know it. For advertisers, the landscape is shifting fast, with AI-generated answers now appearing on more queries and across more industries. Early Adthena data shows Paid Search click-through rates could decline by 8–12 percentage points (roughly a 20–40% relative drop) as AI-generated answers take up more space on the SERP. To understand the real impact of Google’s AI Overviews, Adthena’s data science team analyzed over 21 million indexes across two four-week periods (April – May and August – September) spanning five key industries: Retail, Travel, Finance, Healthcare, and Automotive. Our goal was to uncover…

As SEO grows more collaborative and data-driven, more teams are operating remotely – sometimes by choice, sometimes by necessity. But managing SEO remotely brings its own challenges. Drawing on eight years of leading fully remote SEO teams, here are 10 key aspects of your workflow, setup, and strategy to get right for long-term success. 1. Culture First, consider if you’re working with just a remote team or a fully remote company. An SEO consulting firm could easily decide to go fully remote. But if you’re leading an in-house SEO team working for a larger company, you may not have that option. Second, consider whether your team culture is remote-first …

Google Business Profiles has a form where you can report negative review extortion scams, the form launched a month ago. You can find access to the form in this help document and I believe you need to be logged into your Google account with access to the Business Profile you want to report. Review extortion scams. This negative review extortion scams are on the rise and a huge concern for local SEOs and businesses. A scammer will message you, likely over WhatsApp or email, and tell you that they left a one-star negative review and the only way to remove it is to pay them. Google wrote in its help document, “These scams may involve a sudden increase in 1-star and …

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…

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…

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 …

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…