SEO Tools and Resources

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…

Google Ads can now surface a recommendation to link your unlinked Google Analytics account to your Google Ads account. The neat part is that the linking of your Google Ads and analytics account can be done with a single click. How it works. Google will show this as a recommendation in the Recommendations section of the Campaigns page in the Google Ads console for eligible users. All you need to do is review the recommendation and click “Apply.” What it looks like. Here is a screenshot of the recommendation: Why we care. Google said advertisers “who link their Google Ads or Google Marketing Platform accounts to a Google Analytics property are correlated …

AI search evolves every month. This constant flux is reshaping which brands get visibility and which sources AI models trust most. We now have three months of data in the AI Visibility Index, tracking ChatGPT and Google AI Mode. The key takeaway: AI search is volatile. This is likely to be normal for the immediate future. The brands that win are monitoring and adapting to these changes in real-time. The research tracks 2,500 real-world prompts across five key verticals: Business & Professional Services, Digital Technology & Software, Consumer Electronics, Fashion & Apparel, and Finance. revealing seismic shifts in source diversity, brand mentio…

Google has confirmed that the Search Console index coverage report, also the page indexing report, are now delayed about two weeks. Google confirmed the issue and is working to resolve the issue, but said this only impacts reporting and that crawling; indexing and ranking of websites are not impacted. Page indexing report. The page indexing report shows you which pages Google can find and index on your site, and learn about any indexing problems encountered. You can also submit “fixes” to that report to see if Google confirms your fix actually worked. But since that report is now two weeks delayed, you won’t be able to confirm your fix worked until the report update…

PPC advertising for medical and mental health services comes with many restrictions, but it remains an effective way for practices to maintain a steady flow of new patients and clients. Whether you manage ads for clients, run them for your own practice, or are just getting started, these tips will help you launch or improve your campaigns. Choosing keywords for medical and mental health advertising Consider the three main ways potential patients tend to search on Google. Symptoms and treatments Many people search for symptoms or treatment options without naming the professional they need, such as “treatment options for depression” or “why does my ankle h…

Shopify is experiencing a major login outage on one of the peak shopping days of the holiday season, leaving merchants unable to access their dashboards, POS systems, mobile apps, or even contact Shopify Support. What’s happening. Shopify’s status page shows a series of escalating alerts beginning at 14:54 UTC, warning that merchants “may experience issues when trying to login.” Minutes later, the platform confirmed the outage affects POS, mobile logins, and support access. By 15:26 UTC, Shopify urged merchants to stay logged in on any devices that are currently active to avoid further complications. Why we care. A login outage during a top-tier sale…

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 …

Google today released its 2025 Year in Search list, but don’t mistake it for a ranking of the “top searches” or the “most searched” terms. This year’s recap focused on trending queries – the topics that grew the fastest compared with 2024. That shift reveals a lot about where Google Search is heading, and how it’s been evolving for years. Why we care. Google chose to spotlight fast-rising, emerging queries. Freshness has long mattered in search, but the 2025 top trending queries list underscores an accelerating shift: the biggest AI search and SEO opportunities will come from new, developing topics – not evergreen informational ones. Your strongest wins may hinge on q…

Google announced new weekly and monthly views within the Google Search Console performance reports adds weekly and monthly views. This gives you more granular data and analysis of your reports over a longer period of time, and not just the 24-hour view. What it looks like. Here are photos I took from the announcement which took place at the Google Search Central event in Zurich this morning: Why we care. This is a small update but it gives SEOs, publishers and site owners access to more granular data. It may help you dive in and see why you saw a change in your performance data on a specific month, week or day. View the full article

In 2026 and well beyond, a core part of the performance marketer’s charter is learning to leverage AI to drive growth and efficiency. Anyone who isn’t actively evaluating new AI tools to improve or streamline their PPC work is doing their brand or clients a disservice. The challenge is that keeping up with these tools has become almost a full-time job, which is why my agency has made AI a priority in our structured knowledge-sharing. As a team, we’ve honed in on favorites across creative, campaign management, and AI search measurement. This article breaks down key options in each category, with brief reviews and a callout of my current pick. One ove…

Google is updating the links within AI Mode to encourage searchers to click on those links. Google also expanded its Web Guides labs test to the all tab, you still need to opt-in to the experiment. Links in AI Mode. Robby Stein, VP of Product, Google Search, wrote, “We’re increasing the number of inline links in AI Mode, and updating the design of those links to make them more useful.” We’ve seen Google testing variations of inline links and contextual links in AI Mode and Google is now releasing some of those user experiences. Robby Stein told us in August Google would be releasing some of these features and here they are. Google is also adding contextual introdu…

Most brands don’t realize how much traffic they lose each day to unauthorized bidding, affiliate violations, and ad hijacking. Industry data shows ad fraud reached an estimated $84 billion of global digital ad spend in 2023. If your branded CPCs keep rising or competitors keep appearing above you in searches for your own name, this PPC brand protection guide can help you understand why – and what to do next. What is brand protection in PPC? Brand protection is the practice of defending your brand from unauthorized use of your branded search terms in PPC and from deceptive or fraudulent ad placements. The goal: make sure people searching for your bran…

Ginny Marvin, Google’s Ads Liaison, is clarifying how keyword match types interact with AI Overviews (AIO) and AI Mode ad placements — addressing ongoing confusion among advertisers testing AI Max and mixed match-type setups. Why we care. As ads expand into AI-powered placements, advertisers need to understand which keywords are eligible to serve — and when — to avoid unintentionally blocking reach or misreading performance. Back in May. Responding to questions from Marketing Director Yoav Eitani, Marvin confirmed that an ad can serve either above or below an AI Overview or within the AI Overview — but not both in the same auction: “Your ad could trigger to s…

Microsoft Copilot is transforming search advertising by turning everyday conversations into intent-rich signals advertisers can act on. ROAS increases 13-fold when users engage with Copilot before performing a search, according to Microsoft. Drawing from billions of first-party audience insights across Microsoft’s consumer ecosystem – including Bing, Edge, Xbox, LinkedIn, and Activision – Copilot identifies high-value audiences using deterministic data built from search intent, web activity, and profile information. This allows advertisers to reduce wasted impressions and stretch budgets further. The mechanics of intent-rich search The core propositi…

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 …

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…

Google is updating its advertising policies to allow ads for Prediction Markets in the U.S. starting January 21st — but only for federally regulated entities. Who qualifies. Eligibility is limited to entities authorized by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) as Designated Contract Markets (DCMs) whose primary business is listing exchange-listed event contracts, or brokerages registered with the National Futures Association (NFA) that offer access to products listed by qualifying DCMs. Advertisers must also apply for Google certification to run ads in the U.S. Why we care. Prediction markets have long been restricted on Google Ads. This change opens a n…

Google launched a beta integration for Google Tag Gateway that lets advertisers deploy it through Google Cloud Platform (GCP) using a new one-click workflow inside Google Tag Manager and Google tag settings. What’s new. The GCP integration uses Google Cloud’s Global external Application Load Balancer to route tag traffic through an advertiser’s own first-party domain before sending it to Google. The goal is to streamline deployment while improving data signal quality and resilience against ad blockers and technologies like Apple’s Intelligent Tracking Prevention. Why we care. As browsers and platforms continue to limit third-party tracking, advertisers are loo…

If there’s one takeaway as we look toward SEO in 2026, it’s that visibility is no longer just about ranking pages, but about being understood by increasingly selective AI-driven systems. In 2025, SEO proved it was not disappearing, but evolving, as search engines leaned more heavily on structure, authority, and trust to interpret content beyond the click. In this article, we share SEO predictions for 2026 from Yoast SEO experts, Alex Moss and Carolyn Shelby, highlighting the shifts that will shape how brands earn visibility across search and AI-powered discovery experiences. Key takeaways In 2026, SEO focuses on visibility defined by clarity, authority, and trust rat…

Google Ads is adding account-level placement exclusions, letting advertisers block unwanted inventory across all campaigns from a single setting. What’s new. Advertisers can now apply one exclusion list at the account level. Exclusions apply across Performance Max, Demand Gen, YouTube, and Display campaigns. Previously, blocks had to be set at the ad group or campaign level. How it works. Once a placement is excluded at the account level, Google Ads automatically prevents spend on those websites, apps, or YouTube placements across all eligible campaigns. Why we care. Placement controls have long been fragmented. Managing exclusions campaign by campaign was…

Key Takeaways Choosing an SEO plugin like Yoast SEO impacts your online presence and future growth. Yoast offers reliability with over 15 years of experience and millions of active installations, unlike newer competitors. Innovations such as AI integration and a unified schema graph set Yoast apart from other plugins. Yoast provides comprehensive support, education, and a multi-platform ecosystem tailored for long-term success. Trust industry leaders like Microsoft and Spotify who use Yoast SEO to enhance their online visibility. Estimated reading time: 11 minutes Table of contents What really matters when choosing an SEO plugin Why legacy and pr…

If you’ve spent any time in PPC communities, Reddit threads, Slack groups, or conference Q&As, you’ve probably noticed a recurring frustration: “Google Ads isn’t scaling. It’s not working, and we’re stuck.” On the surface, everything looks fine. The campaigns are running, impression share is high, shopping feeds are clean, and budgets are flowing. But growth isn’t materializing. This isn’t usually about “broken campaigns” – it’s about the limits of demand. In niche markets or categories shaped by seasonality, growth is naturally capped. Yes, running broad match or AI Max can expand your reach to adjacent queries, so impression share might not literal…

Meta tests paid subscriptions across Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp to unlock premium features and AI across its apps. What is happening. Meta is testing new subscriptions that unlock exclusive features across Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp, while keeping the core experiences free. Rather than a single bundle, Meta plans to experiment with different subscription models and feature sets tailored to each app, spanning productivity, creativity and expanded AI capabilities. Subscriptions will introduce premium controls and tools for everyday users, creators and businesses — separate from Meta Verified. On Instagram, early tests could include unlimited audience …

The January 2026 SEO Update by Yoast is part of our monthly webinar series covering the latest developments in search and AI. In each session, we review the most important news from the past month and explore what it means for your search strategy. Hosted by Carolyn Shelby and Alex Moss, this month’s update looks at key industry shifts and practical takeaways for staying competitive. Below is a recap of the topics discussed and what they mean for your strategy. Here’s the recap video on YouTube Watch the full recap on YouTube to hear Carolyn and Alex dive deeper into these topics, answer audience questions, and provide additional examples of how these changes could…

On episode 339 of PPC Live The Podcast, I speak to Kirk Williams, a long-time PPC professional who’s been in the industry since 2009. Kirk is the founder of Zato, a specialist PPC micro-agency, and the author of Ponderings of a PPC Professional and Stop the Scale. He’s also a familiar face on the global conference circuit, speaking at events like BrightonSEO, SMX, HeroConf, and more. The big f-Up: Taking on the wrong clients Kirk’s biggest mistake wasn’t a platform error or a bad bid — it was taking on clients who weren’t a good fit. He explains that these decisions often came during moments of pressure: wanting to grow quickly, dealing with client churn, or na…