SEO Tools and Resources

OpenAI is reportedly nearing the launch of ads in the ChatGPT Android app, according to recent code findings. Meanwhile, one user says an ad has already appeared in the wild. What’s new. Early references to an ad system were found in the latest ChatGPT Android beta (v1.2025.329). Inside the APK, TestingCatalog spotted strings such as: “ads feature” “bazaar content” “search ad” “search ads carousel” These entries may suggest an ad framework under active development, likely focused on search, shopping, and product recommendation requests rather than disruptive display ads in every chat. Zoom out. ChatGPT ads will help OpenAI offset the cost of serv…

Google has changed its search bar on the Google home page by adding the ability to upload a file or an image, and then the user experience takes you directly to AI Mode. This is different from uploading an image and Google taking you to Google Search with image results and Google Lens features. Instead, this upload feature takes you into the AI Mode experience. What it looks like. Here is a video I made of the searcher’s flow: More AI Mode. Google continues to push searchers away from Google Search’s traditional search results, including AI Overviews, and directly into AI Mode. This includes Google most recently pushing searchers from AI Overviews into A…

AI is changing how people discover and understand brands. It’s also reshaping how they search, with users turning to tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google’s AI Overviews for answers instead of clicking through pages. They interact with synthesized summaries, not traditional results. That shift forces marketers to rethink how visibility is built. SEO still matters, but it now extends beyond on-page content or rankings. Visibility depends on how often a brand is cited, referenced, and discussed across the digital ecosystem, and how those signals are interpreted by large language models. Enter the PESO model. Long used to balance paid, e…

Google announced new “AI-powered configuration” within the Search Console Performance report that lets you ask Search Console to show you a specific report, and Google will “instantly” configure a report for you. This feature is “experimental” and won’t show up for everyone today. This is a lot like AI-powered advisors in Google Ads and Google Analytics but for Search Console. AI-powered configuration. Google said AI-powered configuration “lets you describe the analysis you want to see in natural language. Your inputs are then transformed into the appropriate filters and settings, instantly configuring the report for you.” What it looks like. Here is a GIF of…

Long sales cycles, low conversion volume, and multi-stage purchase journeys make measurement and attribution harder, creating real obstacles to campaign optimization. For B2Bs and brands selling high-ticket items, this is the reality. A campaign launched today may take weeks or even months to show revenue, retention, or lifetime value – delaying your ability to use those measurements to refine bidding and targeting. That’s where proxy metrics – also known as soft metrics, or micro-conversions – can come into play. Let’s dig into proxy metrics. What are proxy metrics? Proxy metrics are early indicators of future outcomes. They give you a way to …

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…

Most AI chats have no commercial intent, users usually ask short questions, and most conversations end after just two turns. Those findings come from a recent analysis by Dan Petrovic, director of AI SEO agency Dejan, who examined millions of conversational turns to show how people actually use AI assistants. Why we care. As SEOs and marketers race to “optimize for AI,” Petrovic’s analysis suggests the industry is misreading how people actually use AI assistants. Most chats function as multi-step tasks, not keyword-style queries. And users aren’t flooding AI with “buy” queries – they’re exploring problems and comparing options. By the numbers. Petrovic analyzed 4.…

Google today began rolling out Gemini 3 Flash as the default model powering AI Mode in Search worldwide. The upgrade brings faster performance and stronger reasoning to AI-generated search responses, Google said. Why we care. With AI Mode, Google continues to transition toward an AI-first search approach. More queries could be answered directly in AI Mode, reducing reliance on traditional organic listings. Improved reasoning allows AI Mode to handle comparison and planning tasks, multi-intent searches, and research-style queries. What’s changing. Gemini 3 Flash now powers AI Mode in Search globally. It replaces earlier Flash-class models previously used in AI…

Did you know that duplicate content can hurt your visibility within AI Search? Fabrice Canel and Krishna Madhavan from Microsoft explained that with AI Search, having duplicate content makes it harder for the systems to understand signals which reduces “the likelihood that the correct version will be selected or summarized.” This is not too different from how duplicate content or very similar content can cause issues for ranking in traditional search. That is, because AI Search, on Bing and Google, are grounded by the same signals that are used in traditional search – having duplicate content can potentially cause confusion and blur intent signals. The issue with …

Google introduced Creator Search, which allows advertisers to discover YouTube creators using keywords or channel handles, then narrow results by subscriber count, average views, location, and contact availability. The update significantly reduces the manual work involved in creator research and outreach. Alongside search, Google added a new Management section that centralizes creator communications. Advertisers can now see creator names, inquiry status, subjects, latest updates, and respond-by dates in one place, with direct email access built in. Why we care. As creator-led campaigns become more central to media strategies, advertisers need better tools to f…

Limited search volume doesn’t mean limited opportunity. Your entire target market might only search for your solution a few hundred times per month. High-volume advertisers can test 50 headline variations in a week, while you’re still waiting for your tenth conversion of the quarter. Most niche advertisers try to use the same strategies that work for high-volume accounts. That’s a mistake. Google’s automation needs data, and niche markets don’t generate enough searches to feed it. This mismatch either kills performance or prevents results altogether. This guide shows what actually works when search volume is low and conversion timelines stretch acros…

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 Danny Sullivan, the former Search Liaison, said not to create bite-sized chunks of your content because you think Google’s AI results and other LLMs like that type of content. He said, “we don’t want you to do that” and that he spoke with Google engineers about it and they said the same thing – don’t do it for LLMs. More details. Danny Sullivan said on the Search Off the Record podcast that was published yesterday: “One of the things I keep seeing over and over in some of the advice and guidance and people are trying to figure out what do we do with the LLMs or whatever, is that turn your content into bite-sized chunks, because LLMs like things that are …

Google today unveiled the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), an open standard that lets AI agents work across the entire shopping journey, from discovery to purchase to post-sale support. Additionally, Google is introducing new AI tools for retailers, including branded shopping agents and ad formats optimized for AI-driven discovery. About UCP. UCP establishes a shared language between AI agents and commerce systems, removing the need for custom integrations across agents or platforms. UCP works with existing standards (e.g., Agent2Agent, Agent Payments Protocol, and Model Context Protocol). Google co-developed it with partners including Shopify, Etsy, W…

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…

Over the last 12-18 months, the rhetoric across Search Engine Land has shifted. There’s now broad agreement that people don’t just “Google” to discover brands anymore. Audiences are finding brands on TikTok, researching on Reddit, watching YouTube, and increasingly asking AI to summarize everything for them – determining whether a brand is found or ignored. Discoverability is no longer about ranking first on a single platform. It’s about showing up consistently across the touchpoints that make up your audience’s search universe, wherever decisions are actually being made. In this new landscape, two tactics are quietly doing much of the heavy lifting…

The SEO versus GEO debate has dominated industry discourse over the past year. New acronyms appear weekly, sentiment swings quickly, and even trusted voices often contradict positions they held just months earlier. That volatility isn’t happening at the edges of the industry. It’s coming from a small group of highly visible SEO influencers whose framing of AI-era search shifts in response to news cycles, platform announcements, and branding pressure. To understand how widespread – and how unstable – this discourse has become, we analyzed how 75 leading SEO influencers discuss AI-driven search on LinkedIn. The goal wasn’t to decide which acronym woul…

Google is pushing more Demand Gen features (boosting shoppable and travel ads) into general availability, expanding its role as a full-funnel performance channel that blends discovery, video, and commerce across YouTube and Google surfaces. What’s new: Shoppable CTV via Demand Gen is now live, letting viewers browse and buy products directly from YouTube ads on connected TVs. Attributed Branded Searches are available for Demand Gen, giving advertisers visibility into how campaigns drive brand search activity across Google and YouTube (activation required via a Google rep). Travel Feeds allow advertisers to connect Hotel Center feeds to create dyna…

Google is rolling out Campaign Mix Experiments (beta), a new testing framework that lets advertisers experiment across multiple campaign types, budgets, and settings within a single, unified experiment. How it works: Advertisers can create up to five experiment arms, each containing a different mix of campaigns. Campaigns can appear in multiple arms, with traffic split between them. Experiments support Search, Performance Max, Shopping, Demand Gen, Video, and App campaigns (excluding Hotels). Traffic splits can be customized (minimum 1%), with results normalized to the lowest split for fair comparison. What you can test: Budget allocation across…

Marketers are spoiled for choice when it comes to great sources of content. We now have more tools (hello, ChatGPT!) and job boards than ever, making it even easier to find writers and create content. But abundance comes with a downside: a race to the bottom, where speed and cost often take priority over quality. If you’re aiming for great (not just “good”) content, some sources are better than others. This guide breaks down where to find top-tier writers and how to build a content process that doesn’t sacrifice quality for speed. Struggle 1: What qualifies as a ‘great’ content writer? Qualifying a good writer can feel a lot like qualifying a new …

Microsoft has rolled out multi-turn search globally within Bing search results. Microsoft will add a Copilot search box to the bottom of the Bing search results, as you scroll down the search results page, this feature will dynamically appear. What is multi-turn search. This is when a searcher goes from the Bing search results, types in a follow up query into the Copilot search box at the bottom of the search results. Here is a screenshot of this feature: Here is a video of it in action: What Microsoft said. Jordi Ribas, CVP, Head of Search at Microsoft, posted this news on X – he said, “After shipping in the US last year, multi-turn search in Bing i…

Picture a chocolate company with an elaborate recipe, generations old. They ask an AI system to identify which ingredients they could remove to cut costs. The AI suggests one. They remove it. Sales hold steady. They ask again. The AI suggests another. This continues through four or five iterations until they’ve created the cheapest possible version of their product. Fantastic margins, terrible sales. When someone finally tastes it, the verdict is immediate: “This isn’t even chocolate anymore.” Aly Blawat, senior director of customer strategy at Blain’s Farm & Fleet, shared this story during a recent MarTech webinar to illustrate why 82% of marketing teams are fail…

Google’s AI Overviews have reshaped search almost overnight. For paid search marketers, the fight for above-the-fold visibility is no longer just about ad rank – it’s now a push to appear above the AI result itself. This shift follows the rapid surge in AI Overviews that Adthena highlighted in our previous study. That analysis showed AI Overviews quickly moving beyond informational queries and into shorter, high-volume commercial searches. The mechanism behind this decline is clear: AI Overviews intercept attention, cut click-through rates (CTRs), and push both organic and paid listings lower on the page. The result: fewer clicks and less revenue. Adthena’s ne…

Generative systems like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and Perplexity are quietly taking over the early parts of discovery – the “what should I know?” stage that once sent millions of people to your website. Visibility now isn’t just about who ranks. It’s about who gets referenced inside the models that guide those decisions. The metrics we’ve lived by – impressions, sessions, CTR – still matter, but they no longer tell the full story. Mentions, citations, and structured visibility signals are becoming the new levers of trust and the path to revenue. This article pulls together data from Siege Media’s two-year content performance study, Grow and Convert’s conv…

Google Search Console seems to have fixed the weeks long delay with the search performance reports. For the past few weeks, we had 50+ hour delays for these reports, but as of the past several hours, the reports seem to be up-to-date. Now up-to-date. If you go to the search performance report, you should just see anywhere between about 2 – 6 hours of delay, which is typically normal. At some point over the past few weeks, the delays were over 70 hours. This is what I see: The delays started a few weeks ago and it took about three weeks to clear the delay and backlog of data. Page indexing report. Meanwhile, the page indexing report delay we reported ma…