SEO Tools and Resources

Reddit’s presence in Google Search has surged over the last year, largely thanks to the Google-Reddit content licensing deal. As a result, Reddit threads are claiming prime real estate in search results, often outranking brand websites and even original content sources. While Reddit isn’t new, its growing influence has put it back in the spotlight. Yet many marketers either overlook Reddit entirely or mishandle it – resulting in missed opportunities or even backlash from its notoriously protective community. This guide covers everything you need to know about leveraging Reddit for SEO – finding ranking opportunities, engaging authentically, and boosting …

Reddit is taking four data-scraping companies to court – including AI search engine Perplexity and SEO data firm SerpApi – accusing them of illegally using its content via Google search results. The lawsuit. SerpApi, Oxylabs, AWMProxy, and Perplexity “devised a scheme” to scrape Reddit data indirectly from Google, then resell or reuse it to train AI models. That’s according to Reddit’s lawsuit, filied today in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Reddit alleged the companies hid their identities to bypass technical restrictions and scraped its data “at an industrial scale.” Reddit is seeking financial damages, a permanent injunction,…

Reddit is piloting a new AI-powered shopping experience that transforms its famously trusted community recommendations into shoppable product carousels — a move that could reshape how the platform monetizes its search traffic. What’s happening. A small group of U.S.-based users are seeing interactive product carousels appear in search results when their queries signal purchase intent — think “best noise-canceling headphones” or “top budget laptops.” The carousels sit at the bottom of search results and include pricing, images and direct retailer links. Products are surfaced from items actually mentioned in Reddit posts and comments — not just ad inventory. …

Just like a deep “spring cleaning” clears out the clutter after a long winter or a rejuvenating scalp massage melts away stress after a tough work week, we all need a refresh occasionally. The same goes for your website – which can quickly get cluttered with outdated, unoptimized content. That’s why taking the time to reset, refresh, and re-optimize your content is so important. A content refresh isn’t just about tidying up, though. It’s also about making room for new ideas, renewed value for your readers, and timely relevance in the eyes of search engines. This can improve your website’s speed and rankings and drive new visitors to take action (su…

Regex is a powerful – yet overlooked – tool in search and data analysis. With just a single line, you can automate what would otherwise take dozens of lines of code. Short for “regular expression,” regex is a sequence of characters used to define a pattern for matching text. It’s what allows you to find, extract, or replace specific strings of data with precision. In SEO, regex helps you extract and filter information efficiently – from analyzing keyword variations to cleaning messy query data. But its value extends well beyond SEO. Regex is also fundamental to natural language processing (NLP), offering insight into how machines read, parse, an…

For years, SEO professionals have obsessed over rankings. What position are we in? Did we move up or down? Can we get back to Position 1? But as AI-driven search continues to reshape how information is retrieved and delivered, we need to ask a different question: Are we relevant enough to be included at all? I still remember the first time I dropped from Position 1 to 7 for a major keyword – I literally sat on the floor and sobbed. Back then, rankings weren’t just about traffic – they were validation. If Google said you were the best, it was so. Everyone believed it. Holding that top spot meant everything. Losing it – even by a few places – fel…

There has been a striking drop in remote SEO role listings — down to just 34% — as well as SEO content job listings – down 28%. That’s according to The 2025 Previsible State of SEO Jobs Report, released today. Meanwhile, SEO job listings for leadership positions (e.g., vice president of SEO) grew by 50% in 2024, while SEO manager positions increased 58%. Why we care. It may be too early to know whether this is a blip or a trend, but this data indicates that companies are looking to hire SEOs skilled in strategy, technical, and AI. Although content-focused roles are being squeezed by generative AI, leadership and technical skills remain as valuable as ever. Job…

A company called Clickout Media is being called out for buying trusted news and niche sites, replacing them with AI-generated gambling content, and abandoning them after Google penalties. Some call this “parasite SEO,” but to me it sounds more like large-scale search spam. What’s happening. The company acquired sports, gaming, and tech sites, then rapidly shifted them from editorial coverage to casino and crypto content, PressGazette reported. Sites were stripped of original reporting, filled with AI-written articles, and used to push offshore gambling links, according to former employees. How it works. The strategy relies on buying domains with existing aut…

Google parent Alphabet is expected to face a new EU investigation over claims that it demotes news publishers in search results if they run sponsored or promotional content, a significant revenue source for many media outlets. What’s happening. The European Commission, the EU’s top antitrust enforcer, is expected to announce the probe as soon as Thursday. The case falls under the Digital Markets Act (DMA), a law that bars tech “gatekeepers” from unfairly favoring their own services or penalizing others. Companies that break the rules can be fined up to 10% of their global revenue. Site reputation abuse. Google’s enforcement against publishers is based on a…

Adding fake publication dates to online content can dramatically boost its visibility across leading AI models, a team from Waseda University discovered. This seems to confirm that tools like ChatGPT systematically favor newer content over older, equally relevant material. Why we care. AI models seem to reward timestamps more than quality. That means your older high-quality content could vanish from AI search results unless it’s regularly updated – apparently, regardless of whether those updates are substantial or artificial. How they did it. Researchers added fake publication dates to passages from standardized test collections with no other changes. Then they as…

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg made a bold claim about the future of advertising in a recent interview (emphasis mine): “You’re a business, you come to us, you tell us what your objective is, you connect to your bank account, you don’t need any creative, you don’t need any targeting demographic, you don’t need any measurement, except to be able to read the results that we spit out. I think that’s going to be huge, I think it is a redefinition of the category of advertising.” Zuckerberg paints an interesting future. But it’s not quite reality. Meta Ads’ AI isn’t replacing digital marketers anytime soon. Still, its best practices – from automation to targeting –…

For years, SEO followed a fairly predictable playbook: create valuable content, optimize it for search engines, and compete for rankings on Google. But the way people discover information online is changing quickly. Tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini are introducing a new layer between users and search engines, where answers are generated and synthesized rather than simply retrieved. In a recent episode of the Get Discovered podcast, Joe Walsh, CEO of Prerender.io, sat down with Yoast’s Principal Architect Alain Schlesser to discuss what this shift means for SEO and online discoverability. Their conversation explores how AI answer engines are reshaping the sea…

For a decade, marketing strategy was engineered to master Google’s “messy middle.” Today, the customer’s exploration and evaluation journey has migrated from the open web (PPC, Reddit, YouTube, websites) into closed AI environments (ChatGPT, AI Mode, Perplexity), making direct observation impossible. Your marketing analytics stack faces funnel blindness. You must reconstruct customer journeys from fragmented data offered by LLM visibility tools. Funnel reconstruction relies on two primary data streams The rush to measure LLM performance has vendors promising dashboards to help you “Analyze your AI visibility right now.” This work requires reconciling two f…

You’re tracking the wrong numbers – and so is almost everyone else in SEO right now. We’ve all been there. You present a chart showing organic traffic up 47%, only to get blank stares from the CMO who wants to know why revenue hasn’t budged. Or you celebrate a top-three ranking for a keyword nobody’s actually searching for anymore. The metrics that made you look good in 2019 are actively misleading your decision-making in 2026. With AI Overviews dominating search results, zero-click searches becoming the norm, and personalized SERPs making traditional rankings less meaningful, sticking with outdated measurements puts your strategy and budget at risk. Let’…

The Robots Exclusion Protocol (REP), commonly known as robots.txt, has been a web standard since 1994 and remains a key tool for website optimization today. This simple yet powerful file helps control how search engines and other bots interact with a site. Recent updates have made it important to understand the best ways to use it. Why robots.txt matters Robots.txt is a set of instructions for web crawlers, telling them what they can and can’t do on your site. It helps you keep certain parts of your website private or avoid crawling pages that aren’t important. This way, you can improve your SEO and keep your site running smoothly. Setting up…

Sam Altman’s once said advertising was a “last resort” for ChatGPT. Now he seems to think that “maybe ads don’t always suck.” What Altman is saying. In a new Stratechery interview, Altman admitted Instagram changed his mind about ads: “I love Instagram ads, they’ve added value to me, I found stuff I never would’ve found, I bought a bunch of stuff, I actively like Instagram ads. I think there’s many things I respect about Meta, but getting that so right was a surprisingly cool thing for me. Other than that, I viewed ads on the Internet as sort of like a tax.” “I believe there probably is some cool ad product we can do that is a net win to the user and a sort of…

If the same URL appears in both a Google AI Overview and the classic 10 blue links, Google Search Console counts it as a single impression, not two. That clarification comes directly from Google’s John Mueller. The background. Mark Williams-Cook, director at SEO agency Candour and founder of AlsoAsked, shared it publicly on LinkedIn after a discussion sparked by Jamie Indigo. The question emerged as SEOs try to understand how AI Overviews affect visibility metrics when a page appears multiple times on the same results page. Williams-Cook initially assumed the URL might generate two impressions. That assumption was based on how older SERP features, such as tw…

SEO is, for a large part, all about getting the right content in front of the right audience. When you’ve been doing that for a while, there comes a time when you want to scale content production. Scaling content creation means you aim to make more content to reach new targets. While that’s a good idea, you need to find a way to scale while keeping the same level of quality you’ve always had. Let’s go over how to scale your content production step by step, showing common problems and solutions. Table of contents What is content scaling? Why scaling content matters The biggest challenges in scaling content Building a repeatable content creation process Strategies to …

Imagine a web ecosystem where not just humans but AI agents communicate with websites, going beyond traditional browsing. Unlike conventional web experiences, where people click, scroll, and search, AI agents can navigate, interpret, and even perform tasks autonomously on your site. This is not a futuristic concept. It is already unfolding. This is the emergence of the agentic web. Table of contents The big shift: From web for users to a web for users and agents Protocol thinking and the infrastructure of agentic web communication What does this mean for SEO professionals? Yoast’s collaboration with NLweb and what it means for WordPress users Key takeaways …

The holiday season saw a significant increase in digital ad spending across retail media, paid search, and paid social channels according to the Q4 2024 Digital Marketing Quarterly Trends Report by omnichannel advertising platform for commerce media, Skai. Despite concerns over a shorter shopping season and ongoing economic pressures, advertisers doubled down on digital campaigns, driving a 20% quarter-over-quarter (QoQ) increase in ad spend across all channels. Retail media emerged as the biggest winner, with remarkable year-over-year (YoY) growth. By the numbers: Paid search. While spending increased 20% QoQ, YoY spending dipped by 2%, with a decline in sta…

When we talk about search, we usually focus on what people are looking for – keywords, queries, and intent. But in 2025, there’s a more powerful question to ask: “Where are they searching – and why that platform, in that moment?” The search landscape is evolving fast. AI tools like ChatGPT are gaining traction. Social platforms like TikTok and Instagram are doubling as discovery engines. Yet, Google remains the top choice – the default, the go-to for most people right now. But platform preference isn’t just about functionality. It’s rooted in human behavior. How we think, feel, and choose depends on the journey we’re on. Behavior takes t…

Every year, Search Engine Land is delighted to celebrate the best of search marketing by rewarding the agencies, in-house teams, and individuals worldwide for delivering exceptional results. Today, I’m excited to announce all 18 winners of the 11th annual Search Engine Land Awards. The 2025 Search Engine Land Awards winners Best Use Of AI Technology In Search Marketing 15x ROAS with AI: How CAMP Digital Redefined Paid Search for Home Services Best Overall PPC Initiative – Small Business Anchor Rides – Post-Hurricane PPC Comeback (AIMCLEAR) Best Overall PPC Initiative – Enterprise ATRA & Jason Stone Injury Lawyers – Leveraging CRM Data to…

Adviso once again is leading the way in the 11th annual Search Engine Land Awards. The Canadian agency is a finalist in six categories in 2025. This is the second year in a row that Adviso has topped our list of finalists. In 2024, the Canadian agency was a finalist in five Search Engine Land categories and won two Search Engine Land Awards. Two other agencies earning finalist status five times are: Razorfish LocalIQ Meanwhile, four agencies earned finalist status three times in the 2025 Search Engine Land Awards: Amsive. ATRA Bloom Digital. Digital Hitmen. The competition was once again stiff in nearly all of our categories. A…

Search Engine Land turns 19 today. Nineteen years. Almost two decades of analyzing, explaining, questioning, challenging, obsessing over, and occasionally shaking our heads at whatever Google and the search industry throw our way. And this past year? The pace of change has made it one of the most transformative since we launched in 2006. Through all of it, our mission is the same as Day 1: help you make sense of search with clear news, smart analysis, and practical guidance. Before we look ahead, I want to say thank you — and take a moment to reflect on the past year at Search Engine Land. Thank you for reading Seriously, thank you. Every day, w…

If you want the lowdown on Google’s I/O hoedown, look no further than… 2013. Or maybe 2014. 2016 works too. Honestly, take your pick because it barely matters. Most of the coverage I’ve seen this year reads like AI-generated summaries written by folks with more letters after their names than a prescription bottle. Bless their hearts. But remember—Google’s founders didn’t show up with alphabet soup credentials. They showed up to solve a problem. A big, fascinating one that demanded thinking, tinkering, troubleshooting, and a lot of stops and starts. It wasn’t about polish; it was about the ridiculous drive to solve a problem. And have your own personal 767, but l…