SEO Tools and Resources

In the early days of SEO, ranking algorithms were easy to game with simple tactics that became known as “black hat” SEO – white text on a white background, hidden links, keyword stuffing, and paid link farms. Early algorithms weren’t sophisticated enough to detect these schemes, and sites that used them often ranked higher. Today, large language models power the next generation of search, and a new wave of black hat techniques are emerging to manipulate rankings and prompt results for advantage. The AI content boom – and the temptation to cut corners Up to 21% of U.S. users access AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Copilot, Perplexity, and DeepSeek mo…

For years, I told bloggers the same thing: make your content easy enough for toddlers and drunk adults to understand. That was my rule of thumb. If a five-year-old can follow what you’ve written and someone paying half-attention can still find what they need on your site, you’re doing something right. But the game has changed. It’s no longer just about toddlers and drunk adults. You’re now writing for large language models (LLMs) quietly scanning, interpreting, and summarizing your work inside AI search results. I used to believe that great writing and solid SEO were all it took to succeed. What I see now: Clarity beats everything. The blog…

Bluesky is quickly gaining attention as a growing social media platform – but what does that mean for the PPC community? Here’s what you need to know and how to prepare for potential ad opportunities What is Bluesky? Bluesky is a social media platform that was originally founded as a research initiative at Twitter in 2019. After becoming an independent company in 2021, it launched its invite-only beta in 2023 before opening to the public in February 2024. As of writing, Bluesky has a total of 33.1 million registered users, and its growth shows no signs of slowing down. How does Bluesky differ from other social media platforms? The platform, whi…

In digital marketing, a common belief is that everything can be measured – clicks, conversions, and ROI. Many advertisers assume that brand awareness is unnecessary and that performance marketing alone is enough to drive sales. After all, brand awareness campaigns don’t always generate immediate traffic or conversions visible in analytics. Their effects unfold over time, making them harder to measure than performance-driven campaigns. However, this overlooks a critical factor: brand strength acts as a multiplier for performance marketing effectiveness. A well-known brand increases ad click-through rates (CTR), lowers cost-per-click (CPC), improves con…

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…

The search landscape is changing. With the rapid evolution of AI, the Google SERP is no longer a predictable grid of 10 blue links. This shift presents new opportunities for businesses, but it also creates new risks for your brand. Competitors, affiliates, and bad actors can now use sophisticated tactics to hijack your presence, mislead customers, and drain your budget. Your brand’s visibility is never fully secure, and these hidden threats don’t just waste money – they suppress your growth and limit your ability to acquire new customers. Protecting your brand isn’t a defensive chore; it’s a proactive strategy for unlocking budget and fueling your growth. …

Branded search refers to the results that Google or an LLM (like ChatGPT) shows when someone searches for your brand name. Whether you’re a small company or a large, established brand, ranking highly for these queries is essential – but it’s not always easy. If your brand is new or shares its name with other entities (such as a town, a film, or another company), search engines may prioritize other meanings. Even if your brand name is unique, it takes time for search engines and users to associate it with your business. Optimizing for branded search helps ensure your brand appears prominently and accurately in search results. What are branded keywords…

A great piece of content doesn’t just rank—it drives the right traffic, at the right time, with the right message. In Your Content Marketing Blueprint from MoreVisibility, you’ll get a practical blueprint for building a smarter content strategy rooted in search behavior. What’s inside: A framework to align your content with real search intent A method for using keyword data to uncover content gaps A Help / Hub / Hero structure to serve every stage of the funnel Tips for using AI to streamline content creation—without losing quality Whether you’re auditing existing pages or planning net-new content, this guide helps you focus on what actually wo…

Google made a handful of tweaks to its Channel Performance and Asset reports this week – including long-awaited ROI metrics like ROAS and CPA. But the most revealing update wasn’t in the announcement at all. A new, currently non-functional attribute called Campaign Type appeared in the Channel Performance report. Why we care. This addition — though inactive — signals that Google may soon expand the Channel Performance report beyond Performance Max (PMax) campaigns. The intrigue. For weeks, a tooltip in the interface has read: “Channel performance data is only available for Performance Max campaigns at this time.” That phrasing hinted expansion was coming. …

Imagine telling someone that www.mysite.com/blog/myarticle and www.mysite.com/myarticle are actually the same page. To you, they’re the same, but to Google, even a small difference in the URL makes them separate pages. That is where the canonical tag steps in. In this guide, we will walk you through what a canonical URL is, how URL canonicalization works, when to use it, and which mistakes to avoid so that search engines always understand your preferred page version. Table of contents What is a canonical URL? How does URL canonicalization work? Why do canonical tags matter for SEO? When to use canonical tags? Implementing canonical URLs and canonical tags Implementi…

Canonicalization has long been a core SEO practice, yet it’s still one of the easiest to overlook. At its simplest, canonicalization helps search engines identify the original source of content and prevents duplicate versions from competing with each other. Large sites rely on solid canonical structures to stay organized, and small sites benefit by avoiding duplicates that can dilute rankings and visibility. As we move into 2026, canonicalization is becoming even more important as generative engine optimization (GEO) rises alongside traditional SEO. With AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity, and other generative systems shaping how content is selected, summa…

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…

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said ChatGPT will likely try ads “at some point” but he still has “no idea” what ads will look like. Altman also doesn’t see ads as OpenAI’s “biggest revenue opportunity.” In an interview on Conversations with Tyler, Altman also took another direct shot at Google’s ad model: “Ads on a Google search are dependent on Google doing badly. If it was giving you the best answer, there’d be no reason ever to buy an ad above it. “So you’re like – that thing is not quite aligned with me. ChatGPT, maybe it gives you the best answer, maybe it doesn’t, but you’re paying it, or hopefully all are paying it, and it’s at least trying to give you the best…

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…

Following OpenAI’s launch of ChatGPT Atlas, software company Search Atlas flagged a major issue: the AI-powered browser can interact with websites in a way that looks indistinguishable from real human users, including clicking on paid advertisements. Why we care. Businesses running digital ad campaigns could unknowingly pay for clicks generated by AI agents, not real prospects. The technology also threatens to corrupt analytics data, making it harder to measure genuine traffic and user behavior. The problem. ChatGPT Atlas is built on Google Chrome, so ad networks and websites perceive its activity as a legitimate user. Every AI click on sponsored posts can tr…

OpenAI is turning ChatGPT into more than a chatbot. The company’s latest update lets users access third-party apps (e.g., Spotify, Canva, Zillow, Expedia) directly inside conversations. Why we care. This shift could make ChatGPT a high-intent marketing channel, reaching 800 million users where they’re already engaging – in chat. How it works. Users can call apps by name (“Figma, turn this sketch into a diagram”) or ChatGPT can suggest them automatically based on context – like surfacing Booking.com when discussing travel. Apps act like actions, not separate tools, within ChatGPT’s conversational flow. OpenAI calls this a step toward a “conversational opera…

ChatGPT started mentioning more brands and websites over the past three months, while Google’s AI Mode narrowed its focus, according to new data from Semrush’s AI Visibility Index. Reddit, in particular, stood out: it dropped sharply as a source in ChatGPT but became one of the most frequently used sources in Google’s AI Mode. The big picture. ChatGPT and Google’s AI Mode are changing in different ways. ChatGPT is experimenting more while Google’s AI Mode seems more stable: ChatGPT mentioned about 12% more brands in September, then dropped back in October, suggesting it’s experimenting with answers. Google’s mentions fell 4% over the same period, suggesti…

Education, technology, and software development websites have gotten a referral traffic boost from ChatGPT search – and ChatGPT sent more traffic to more than 30,000 unique domains by November. That’s according to new Semrush (disclosure: Search Engine Land is owned by Semrush) analysis of 80 million lines of global clickstream data from the second half of 2024. Search behavior changes. ChatGPT answered about 54% of queries with search turned off, with the remaining 46% of queries using search. The average ChatGPT prompt length was 23 words, with a high of 2,712 words. The average ChatGPT search length was much lower – just 4.2 words, with a high of 301 w…

ChatGPT is currently down for many users of the popular OpenAI service. When you try to ask ChatGPT a question, you likely won’t get a response. OpenAI confirmed the issue on its status page saying, “We’re currently experiencing issues.” OpenAI added, “We have identified that users are experiencing elevated errors for the impacted services. We are working on implementing a mitigation.” What it looks like. Many are seeing just a black dot as a response to their questions within the ChatGPT interface: Offline for many. The OpenAI status screen shows the uptime by service: Downdetector shows the service has been reported as offline by thousands o…

ChatGPT performs a search in nearly one-third of prompts and averages more than two searches per query, each about 5.5 words long (roughly 60% longer than the typical Google search), according to a new study from marketing agency Nectiv. Why it matters: ChatGPT isn’t just answering questions – it’s searching like a power user. The model relies on longer, more specific, and more commercial-style queries than Google’s average searcher. That means SEOs could have more influence over ChatGPT’s answers, especially for local, product, and buying-intent searches where the model leans most heavily on external data. By the numbers. Some key findings from the report: S…

ChatGPT can now personalize searches using your memories. Memory with Search is a new addition to ChatGPT search, and was quietly added as an update in its changelog. What is Memory with Search. ChatGPT said it can “use memories to inform search queries when ChatGPT searches the web using their-party search providers.” Not a lot of detail there. But OpenAI’s ChatGPT search page offers more information: ‘If you have ‘Memory’ enabled, when ChatGPT search rewrites your prompt into a search query it may also leverage relevant information from memories to make the query better and more useful. For example, if the user has ‘Memory’ turned on and asks ChatGPT …

OpenAI’s ChatGPT search had 41.3 million average monthly users across the EU between October and March. That’s nearly 4x growth from the prior six-month stretch, when it reported having 11.2 million users. Why we care. Brands and businesses need to understand how (or whether) their content is being surfaced in AI-generated responses. ChatGPT search is nowhere near replacing Google Search, but it is an emerging channel for visibility and discoverability. What ChatGPT reported. According to OpenAI’s EU Digital Services Act (DSA) page: “For the six-month period ending 31 March 2025, ChatGPT search had in combination approximately 41.3 million average monthly act…

AI-powered search is moving fast. The latest shift? ChatGPT Shopping. Since April, OpenAI has been rolling out a shopping experience that surfaces product cards directly inside ChatGPT. Instead of sending users to a long list of search results, the interface now provides curated recommendations with images, labels, and “buy” links. For ecommerce SEOs, this is a new channel with very different rules. Placement isn’t driven by ads or bids, at least not yet. Instead, visibility depends on the quality of product data, structured markup, and external signals like reviews and mentions. The implications are significant. Results are condensed to just a handf…

Could ChatGPT launch an advertising product within the next year? The answer seems to be yes, based on internal OpenAI documents. OpenAI appears to forecast a billion dollars in new revenue from “free user monetization” in 2026. That figure is forecast to grow to nearly $25 billion by 2029 of OpenAI’s total $125 billion projection. The chart. Here’s a chart (shared by Juan González Villa on X) of OpenAI’s projection of rising revenues that includes “new products (including free user monetization).” Yes, that means ads: Why we care. ChatGPT has an estimated 600 million monthly users. The ability for advertisers to reach ChatGPT’s users represents a signif…

ChatGPT referral traffic converts worse than Google search, email and affiliate links, trailing on both conversion rate and revenue per session, according to a new analysis of 973 ecommerce sites. Why we care. AI search platforms are starting to refer meaningful traffic to retailers – but not yet sales. For now, Google (paid organic) search still wins on conversion and revenue per session. By the numbers. The dataset consisted of 12 months (Augusut 2024 to July 2025), 973 ecommerce sites, and $20 billion combined revenue. ChatGPT referral traffic was ~0.2% of total sessions – ~200× smaller than Google organic. >90% of LLM-originating ecommerce traffic …