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Conservatives accuse Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer of misleading parliamentView the full article

The 2026 MOVE Project aims to turn caregiving challenges into actionable insights for firms. Accounting ARC With Liz Mason, Donny Shimamoto, and Byron Patrick Center for Accounting Transformation Go PRO for members-only access to more Center for Accounting Transformation. View the full article

The 2026 MOVE Project aims to turn caregiving challenges into actionable insights for firms. Accounting ARC With Liz Mason, Donny Shimamoto, and Byron Patrick Center for Accounting Transformation Go PRO for members-only access to more Center for Accounting Transformation. View the full article

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with: I. Nir Eyal on change: “Positive thinking alone so often fails to create lasting transformation. Simply telling yourself you have control isn’t enough. Your brain needs direct evidence that change is possible. Every small victory that proves our actions matter helps build beliefs that override our default passivity.” Source: Beyond Belief: The Science-Backed Way to Stop Limiting Yourself and Achieve Breakthrough Results II. Paul Ingram on values-based leadership: “Individuals are more motivated when they are responding to intrinsic motivations, such as when they are acting in accordance with their values. Leaders who affirm their values tap into this benefit, but they also invite others to think about their own priorities. Good leaders know that it is better to explain your thinking, and let followers reach their own conclusions as to how to behave, than to issue commands. Values-affirmed leaders are more likely to give their followers this opportunity.” Source: What Do You Really Stand For?: The One Question That Will Transform Your Work and Life * * * Look for these ideas every Thursday on the Leading Blog. Find more ideas on the LeadingThoughts index. * * * Follow us on Instagram and X for additional leadership and personal development ideas. View the full article

Google is leaning harder on Gemini to police its ad ecosystem, saying the AI upgrade sharply improved scam detection while reducing false suspensions for legitimate advertisers. The numbers also show how fast ad safety is becoming an AI arms race. Driving the news. In its 2025 Ads Safety Report, Google said it blocked or removed 8.3 billion ads globally and suspended 24.9 million advertiser accounts last year. More than 99% of policy-violating ads were stopped before they were ever shown, according to the company. Google also said Gemini helped: cut incorrect advertiser suspensions by 80%, process 4x more user reports than the prior year, and catch scams faster through better understanding of ad intent. By the numbers: 602 million scam-related ads removed 4 million scam-linked accounts suspended 4.8 billion ads restricted 480 million web pages blocked or restricted 245,000+ publisher sites actioned 35 policy updates made in 2025 In the U.S.: Google said it removed 1.7 billion ads and suspended 3.3 million advertiser accounts in the United States in 2025. The top policy violations included: Abusing the ad network Misrepresentation Sexual content Personalization violations Dating and companionship ads Why we care. Stronger AI-driven enforcement can now directly affect whether your ads run smoothly or get flagged. Google says Gemini is improving accuracy and reducing false suspensions, which could mean fewer unexpected disruptions for legitimate brands. At the same time, tighter automated reviews mean advertisers need to stay on top of policy compliance, since enforcement is becoming faster and more proactive. However, this may mean more work for advertisers as several advertisers in the UK and US reported getting bulk ad disapproval alerts with no actual issues discovered. How Gemini is changing enforcement. Google says Gemini can analyze hundreds of billions of signals — including account age, behavior patterns, and campaign activity — to identify malicious intent earlier than older keyword-based systems. The company said that by the end of 2025, the majority of Responsive Search Ads were being reviewed instantly at submission, with harmful ads blocked before launch. Google plans to expand that capability to more formats this year. Yes, but. More aggressive automated enforcement can be a double-edged sword for advertisers, especially if false positives interrupt campaigns. Google says Gemini’s better understanding of nuance helped reduce mistaken suspensions — a key issue for brands that depend on ad uptime. The bottom line. Google is making Gemini central to ad safety — both to stop increasingly sophisticated scams and to reassure advertisers that tighter enforcement won’t come at the expense of legitimate campaigns. View the full article

When you buy a Samsung Galaxy phone, you're not just getting the standard, stock Android experience as far as software goes: You're also getting One UI, Samsung's own take on Android, complete with its own visual look, AI features, and other tweaks. One UI means you get access to settings on a Galaxy handset that aren't available on other Android phones—you can apply customizations and controls you won't find on a handset from Nothing or Google. Whether you're thinking of buying a Galaxy phone and want to know what the benefits are, or you already own a Samsung handset and want to make sure you're exploring everything it has to offer, here are some of my favorite settings exclusive to One UI: Adjust your Galaxy's color balanceSeveral other Android phones offer some basic tweaks for the color balance of the display, but Samsung goes above and beyond to give you more control. If you tap Display > Screen mode from Settings, you can adjust white balance with a slider, and switch between Vivid and Natural modes. Tap Advanced settings, and you can apply changes that are even more granular. You get separate sliders for the red, green, and blue color channels, and another slider to adjust the vividness of the screen. Keep your eyes on the preview pictures at the top to see the effects of your changes. Customize your Galaxy's side button Side button customization. Credit: Lifehacker The main side or power button on Galaxy phones can be remapped if you don't want to stick with the default configuration, which is a double press to launch the camera and a long press to launch Google Gemini. (Note you can't customize a single press, which will either lock or unlock your handset.) From Settings, choose Advanced features > Side button, then pick either Double press or Long press. You have a lot of options for a double press: everything from the flashlight and magnifier, to the Samsung Voice Recorder or any other app of your choice. For a long press, you can switch to a different digital assistant, or have a long press turn off the phone instead. By default, you need to press and hold both the side button and the volume down button to power off a Samsung Galaxy handset, so switching to a long press can be more convenient. Set up the Edge panel on your GalaxyThe Edge panel that's available on Samsung phones is a real superpower for One UI. It's a pop-up shortcut box that gives you quick access to apps, contacts, and features on your phone, and it can work as well as the Windows taskbar or the macOS dock. You can set up and customize the Edge panel from Settings by heading to Display > Edge panels. The options here let you change the appearance and position of the panel, and switch between the type of panel you want: Choose from Apps, People, Tasks, Weather, Tools, Clipboard, or Reminder. To customize the actual shortcuts on the Edge panel, open it with a swipe from the side of the screen, then tap the pen icon at the bottom. You can make sure your most-used apps and shortcuts are always readily available. Boost your Galaxy's available RAM RAM Plus settings. Credit: Lifehacker Samsung Galaxy phones come with a feature called RAM Plus that borrows part of your handset's storage and uses it as temporary RAM—which should mean launching and switching between apps happens more quickly. You can find the feature and change how much storage it uses by selecting Device care > Memory > RAM Plus from Settings. Use multi window mode on your GalaxyOne UI has a multi-window mode that turns Android into a more desktop-like operating system, and it can be helpful on phones with larger screens when you need to get a couple of apps up side by side. You can configure the feature by opening Settings and picking Advanced features > Multi window. To actually get apps up alongside each other, swipe up from the bottom of the screen into the center of the display to see your recently opened apps. Tap any of the app icons at the top of the carousel, then choose Open in split screen view. You then get to pick a second app to share the display with the first one. Automatically restart your Galaxy Auto restart options. Credit: Lifehacker If you open Settings and select Device care > Auto optimization, you'll see an option labeled Auto restart. If you enable this, your phone will restart when it's not being used to "keep it running in the best condition" (Samsung's words). You can opt to Restart when needed or Restart on a schedule. These regular restarts can help in clearing out the memory and temporary file cache on your phone, which can in turn optimize performance. As the information on screen tells you, restarts will only happen when the screen is off, you're not actively using your phone, the battery level is about 30 percent, and the SIM card lock feature is off. Apply 'Intelligent Wi-Fi' to your GalaxyOne UI on Galaxy phones doesn't just offer wifi—it offers "Intelligent Wi-Fi," which means it uses AI to optimize your connection as much as possible. Tasks where latency is crucial (such as video calls) get prioritized, and if the phone thinks you'll get better performance on a cellular connection, it will automatically switch to this instead. To find the options, open Settings and select Connections > Wi-Fi. Then you need to tap the three dots up in the top right corner, choose Intelligent Wi-Fi from the menu, and you're then able to switch on the features you want to make use of. There's also a secret wifi monitoring tool hidden away here. View the full article

Open ChatGPT, then search for a local business you know has a strong online presence. Ask for a recommendation in that category. Chances are, it comes up. If you check what the AI cites as sources, you’ll almost certainly find the business’s own website in the mix. That tells you something important: AI doesn’t conjure answers out of thin air. It pulls from whatever it can find. If your website isn’t the best, most complete, most authoritative source of information about your business, the AI will assemble its answer from scraps. You lose control of your own narrative. That’s what’s driving a growing question among business owners and marketers: “Do I even need a website anymore? If AI answers everything, why does it matter?” Your website isn’t just a marketing tool anymore. It’s a source document. AI treats it as an authoritative input. The real question is who gets to define your business: you or someone else. Here’s what’s changing, where conventional wisdom falls short, and what to do about it. Zero-click doesn’t mean zero opportunity A lot of marketers are seeing the same thing right now: impressions holding steady or rising, but clicks dropping. People get what they need without ever landing on a page, leading some to declare websites obsolete. That’s the wrong read. Fewer clicks don’t mean less importance. They mean the nature of the click has changed. Look at where AI Overviews actually appear. According to our analysis of Ahrefs data, of the 46 million+ keywords that trigger an AI Overview, nearly 99% are informational. Navigational keywords account for just 0.13%. Someone wanted a quick fact, got it, and moved on. Those were never high-intent visits anyway. The clicks that drive revenue, the ones tied to bookings, calls, purchases, and consultations, still happen. Commercial and transactional keywords make up just 12.5% and 3.5% of AI Overview triggers, respectively. (Note: These percentages exceed 100% in total because keywords can carry multiple intent classifications, a single keyword can be both informational and commercial, for example.) Those are exactly the queries where people are closest to a decision. They just happen further down the funnel, after a recommendation has already been made. When someone is ready to decide, they validate and check the website. Dig deeper: Your homepage matters again for SEO — here’s why Your customers search everywhere. Make sure your brand shows up. The SEO toolkit you know, plus the AI visibility data you need. Start Free Trial Get started with AI recommends, your customer decides. Know the difference. When someone asks an AI assistant, “Who’s the best plumber near me?”, the AI might surface a few names. It’s pattern-matching based on reviews, location signals, website content, and business profile data. It’s offering a starting point, not a final verdict. The AI isn’t picking up the phone or handing over a credit card. Especially for high-stakes local decisions, a contractor in your home, a doctor for your kid, a mechanic for your car, most people aren’t going to act on an algorithm’s suggestion without doing their own digging first. What actually happens after the AI recommends? The customer: Googles the business. Reads the reviews. Looks at photos. Checks the website to see if you offer exactly what they need, and at a price they can stomach. That validation phase is where decisions are made. And your website is at the center of it. AI might have gotten you in the door, but your website is what closes it. Dig deeper: If you can’t say what problem your brand solves, AI won’t either AI is actually making your website more valuable AI systems are reading your content to determine what you do, who you serve, and how you help. They’re cross-referencing your site with your Google Business Profile, directory listings, and reviews to ensure consistency. When everything lines up, they gain confidence recommending you. When it doesn’t, you get skipped. This means your website is now effectively a source document for AI. Either it provides clear, structured information, or AI fills the gaps with third-party content — a stale Yelp review from 2019, an outdated directory listing with the wrong hours, or a competitor’s blog post that happens to rank well. I know which one I’d rather have the AI pulling from. Dig deeper: Why local SEO is thriving in the AI-first search era Get the newsletter search marketers rely on. See terms. The visibility gap between traditional search and AI is enormous If you want a sense of how selective AI is compared to traditional search, SOCi’s 2026 Local Visibility Index, which analyzed nearly 350,000 locations across 2,751 multi-location brands, puts it starkly: Only 1.2% of locations were recommended by ChatGPT. 11% by Gemini. 7.4% by Perplexity. 35.9% appeared in Google’s traditional local 3-pack. AI is up to 30 times more selective than traditional local search. Here’s the kicker: strong performance in the local pack doesn’t guarantee AI visibility. SOCi found that in retail, only 45% of brands leading in traditional local search also appeared in AI recommendations. More than half were invisible to AI entirely. The brands making it into AI recommendations? The ones with accurate, consistent information across platforms, strong review volume and sentiment, and well-structured website content. That last one is where most local businesses are leaving the most value on the table. Your website is the only place you control the narrative Everywhere else — Google, Yelp, review sites, social media, and AI summaries — you’re at the mercy of other people’s opinions and platform algorithms. You don’t get to decide what gets shown or how it’s framed. Your website is different. You decide what to highlight, the story to tell, and the objections to address. You can showcase what makes you different and guide visitors exactly where you want them to go. More importantly, you can feed AI the narrative you want it to use. If your site has well-structured service pages, detailed FAQs, and content that answers real questions your customers ask, AI can pull directly from that when generating responses. You’re essentially writing your own introduction. On the flip side, if your site is thin or generic, AI fills in the blanks with whatever else it can find. You lose the ability to define yourself. Dig deeper: Your website still matters in the age of AI What to actually do about it This doesn’t require a rebuild, just more intentional structure and content. Here’s where to focus. Treat your website as a source of truth Stop writing vague claims like “we’re the best in the business.” AI doesn’t know what to do with that. Write specific, factual, helpful content about what you do, who you serve, and what results you deliver. Every piece of information on your website — your services, hours, location, and pricing approach — should align with what’s on your Google Business Profile and across your directory listings. As Search Engine Land contributor Will Scott notes: “Disambiguation through context is critical. When they’re building their ontologies, their map of relationships of knowledge, consistency matters a lot.” Structure your content so AI can actually read it AI reads for structure, not just keywords. An AirOps analysis of 217,508 retrieved pages found that only 15% of the pages ChatGPT retrieves actually earn a citation in the response. Being crawled isn’t enough. How your content is organized determines whether it gets used. That means: Schema markup: Specifically LocalBusiness, FAQPage, and Service schemas. This cheat sheet tells AI and search engines exactly what your business is, what it offers, and where it’s located. Clear headings and short sentences: Use H2s and H3s to break content into scannable sections, and keep your sentences tight. The AirOps research found that pages averaging 11 to 14 words per sentence had roughly a 7% higher likelihood of being cited, likely because shorter sentences are easier for AI to parse and extract cleanly. Don’t bury critical information in long paragraphs. An FAQ section: Built around the actual questions you hear in emails, calls, and consultations. Write answers in natural language. This directly mirrors how people search conversationally, and AI loves it. The same research found that pages with 7 to 26 list sections were 6% to 15% more likely to earn a citation. Individual service pages: Not one catch-all “Services” page. Separate pages for each service with details about what’s included, who it’s for, and what to expect. Pages with 5 to 7 statistics supporting their claims had a 20% higher likelihood of being cited, so don’t just describe your services, back them up with specific, concrete details AI can confidently pull from. Write for your customer’s questions Most business websites are written for the business, not the customer. Corporate speak, vague value propositions, and industry jargon nobody searched for. Customers don’t search for buzzwords. They search for questions: “Do you take my insurance?” “How long does the repair take?” “What’s the difference between [service A] and [service B]?” “Can you help with [specific problem]?” If your website answers those questions directly and clearly, you become the best answer AI can find when someone asks. Not sure what questions your customers are actually asking? Check your Google Business Profile Q&A section, your customer service emails, transcripts of your calls or meetings, and your reviews. The questions are already in front of you. Dig deeper: How to apply ‘They Ask, You Answer’ to SEO and AI visibility Do an AI audit of your own business right now Here’s an exercise worth doing today: open ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Mode, and ask each one about your business. Ask contextual questions a real customer might ask, such as: “What do people say about [your business]?” “Is [your business] good for [specific service]?” This is actually the first thing we do when onboarding a new client. We build a brand interpretation document. It’s a snapshot of what AI systems currently know about a brand, pulled from the most important third-party sources in that industry. It tells us whether what’s being said about the brand is accurate, current, and coming from the right places, or whether it’s outdated, wrong, and sourced from somewhere you’d never choose yourself. Ask your preferred AI what it knows about your business, then have it summarize consensus from key industry sources. Pay close attention to what comes back and where it came from. Is it citing your website? Your Google Business Profile? A review platform? A third-party directory? Is any of it inaccurate or out of date? That audit tells you exactly where your information gaps are and how to fix them. See the complete picture of your search visibility. Track, optimize, and win in Google and AI search from one platform. Start Free Trial Get started with What’s at stake if you let your site go stale If your website is thin, outdated, or poorly structured, AI fills the gaps with whatever it can find. That content may be inaccurate, negative, or just plain wrong. Maybe an old review mentions a service you no longer offer, or a directory has the wrong phone number. AI doesn’t fact-check. It aggregates. Beyond accuracy, there’s the positioning problem. Without a strong website, what you’re known for and what makes you different gets shaped by third-party sources. Your expertise gets undersold. Your unique value gets lost in the noise. AI might surface your name, but your website builds the trust that turns a recommendation into a call, a booking, or a sale. That’s where the decision happens. Dig deeper: How AI is reshaping local search and what enterprises must do now View the full article

According to Wells Fargo’s recent Money Study, 64% of parents with Gen Z children say their 18- to 28-year-old kids still rely on them for financial support—whether it’s for housing or other expenses. Of the 3,773 U.S. adults surveyed at the end of last year, more than half who are parents (56%) said the monetary support they’re extending to their adult children adds a strain on their own finances. “It’s not surprising that young adults are leaning on both family and nontraditional sources for support, but these dynamics are also putting pressure on parents,” Emily Irwin, Wells Fargo’s head of private wealth planning, said in a press release. “Open communication, clear expectations, and shared planning can help families navigate this stage together.” Nearly half of the study’s Gen Z respondents described their financial lives as “messy.” Considering the shrinking pool of entry-level jobs, mounting living costs, and high rates of career-related anxiety, “messy” might be a mild descriptor. On the one hand, parents lending a financial hand to young adults (if they have the means to do so) isn’t new. Many millennials received similar help as they struggled to find entry-level jobs while saddled with student debt during the Great Recession; in fact, many lived at home with their parents for years. With the rise of AI and a radically shifting professional landscape, Gen Zers are now struggling to launch their careers. Young adults still have a desire to make a future for themselves—they’re just approaching career-building through more nontraditional methods. A third of respondents in the Wells Fargo study said they took on side hustles and extra jobs to earn more income last year. A Harris Poll survey published in September revealed that more than half (57%) of Gen Z respondents had a side gig, compared to just 21% of baby boomers. Some young adults might prefer the freedom and flexibility that comes with having multiple gigs—but for many it’s not a way of life they necessarily want, but one they need to stay afloat. Meanwhile, the Wells Fargo study’s findings seem to be resonating with people of all ages. “As a Gen X mom of Gen Z kids, I watch them navigate a world where the basics cost more than the math ever adds up to,” one consulting professional wrote on LinkedIn. “As one such ‘Gen Z adult dependent,’ I could easily assure anyone that many of us in this situation are not doing so willingly, and would be happy to work at a steel mill or an entry-level job, if only they still paid for a life, rewarded loyalty, and actually hired,” one recent college grad commented. “To blame the young worker, or their suffering parents, is to ignore the greed that birthed the crisis in question.” “The system doesn’t work anymore. [Gen Z] can’t move away and live comfortably/normally like previous generations could,” a Reddit user said. “Just like in many other countries, intergenerational homes are going to become the new normal.” It’s not just Gen Z feeling the weight of economic turbulence and job insecurity, either. “I’m Gen X, married with a child, and my parents still help us out with big purchases,” a consulting professional wrote on LinkedIn. “Because as multiple layoffs, historic inflation, and an affordability crisis has battered my earning power, my parents’ wealth has grown.” View the full article

Madonna announced her new album Confessions on a Dance Floor II with sans-serif typography from the same creative agency behind Charli XCX’s brat. On wheat paste posters and short-form video posted to social media, Madonna teased her forthcoming album, out July 3, and its first song, “I Feel So Free,” in words. “Madonna Confessions II” is written on the album cover in Helvetica, a workhorse sans-serif font that’s one of the most popular fonts in the world because its minimalist form looks simple and perpetually modern. Typography was used throughout Madonna’s announcement to spell out “Confessions II,” “COADF 2,” and other promotional copy in all-caps, sans-serif typefaces, and some of the text is vertically stretched or outlined. The singer isn’t using a single font for this album launch; she’s using a whole font book. In an Instagram Stories video, text flashes and repeats vertically on screen, along with a strobe warning. It’s loud, fast, and eye-catching. A new, provocative M logo for the album shows the singer’s legs in high-heeled silver boots making the shape of the letter out from behind a speaker. For a sequel to Madonna’s beloved 2005 dance-pop album, Madonna reunited with producer Stuart Price who recorded, co-produced, and co-wrote the original Confessions on a Dance Floor. The snippet for the first track Madonna teased sounds squarely within the dance pop universe that the first album introduced. For the album’s graphic design, though, Madonna turned to a new creative partner that’s taking a type-first approach. Special Offer, Inc., had previously worked with artists like Haim and Miley Cyrus, but it was its art direction for 2024’s brat that put it on the map. Charli’s breakthrough album, known for its neon green color scheme and out-of-focus Arial Narrow font, won the Best Recording Package at the 2025 Grammys. After its launch, brat-style typography appeared just about everywhere: as murals, in an unofficial album cover generator, on merch (both official and unofficial), and on deluxe edition of the album. The brand also extended to flashing typography for Charli’s Sweat Tour with Troye Sivan and the video titles for her “360” and “Guess” music videos. Special Offer, Inc., which is credited for art direction for Madonna’s new album, did not respond to a request for comment. Madonna once promoted her music through platforms like MTV, but today it’s short-form video where music gets traction, and the strobing, type-first approach Special Offer, Inc., is taking works well on smartphones where short, bold, visually arresting text stops you mid-scroll. “The typography for an artist like Madonna is interesting,” says designer Nolan Strals, who’s made album artwork for artists including Titus Andronicus, Beach House, and John Legend and the Roots. “She’s always been played in clubs, but this feels like a bid at relevancy for a new generation… It’s typography not aimed to get the attention of her old fans, but to feel relevant to people who get their culture from TikTok.” The typography used for the original Confessions album included a Madonna logo that turned the O into a disco ball. The handwritten album title, track listing, and liner notes recalled the look of disco-era album art lettering from artists like Michael Jackson and Grace Jones. Photographer Steven Klein shot the artwork that showed Madonna in red hair, a pink leotard, and sparkling heels, and designer Giovanni Biano did the art direction and graphic design. The color scheme for the album, which spun off hits like the ABBA-sampling “Hung Up” and “Sorry,” was pink and purple while the lighting was dark and moody. A bright pink, red, and purple color scheme for the new album packs a Bratty, high-contrast visual punch, but echoes the colors of the original album art. Then there’s the photography for Confessions II, which this time around is more high fashion with a magazine-quality editorial look showing Madonna with fabric over her head wearing a floral pattern top and fishnet stockings. Her shoes this time aren’t sparkly, they’re all black. Using Helvetica on the album cover is a simple but smart play, because while the font is widely used, such as across New York City’s subway system and in logos like Target and Jeep, it also appears across art and fashion. Special Offer, Inc., has used the closely related font Arial in its work for Charli and Addison Rae, and before his death, Virgil Abloh used Helvetica to write words out on his designs. More than 20 years after the original album’s debut, the COADF visual identity has grown an extended universe that appeared on tour, a subsequent live CD-DVD, and an anniversary edition of the album. For the sequel, Madonna’s designers are building on what came before. The look of the new album is elevated, like Confessions on a Dance Floor all grown up. View the full article

Next Wednesday is Administrative Professionals Day, so let’s talk about the weirdest or most ridiculous requests you’ve ever seen made of assistants. To start us off, here are a few that have been shared here in the past: • “In my first job out of college, my boss asked me to dry his shoes, which got wet in the rain. He plunked them down on my desk and said he needed them dry for a meeting in 15 minutes. I’m still not sure what he expected me to do because at a certain point, only time can dry things. The hard -unabsorbent paper towels from the bathroom weren’t going to cut it. I was a receptionist but in no way a personal assistant.” • “I once had an office-assistant-type job at a wedding and event venue. Turns out, my MOST ESSENTIAL duty, which was not listed in the job description and did not come up in the interviews, was to make the GM’s meal-replacement shake at lunch and then check on him every half hour to see if he finished it, remind him to finish it if he hadn’t yet, then wash the shake container and return it exactly to the correct spot in the cabinet. Other work needed doing? If it was in the afternoon, it wasn’t getting done.” • “We had a new associate one year who, come to find out, had grown up very well-off and was accustomed to being waited on, and then expected the support staff at the firm to take up where their household staff left off. I don’t even think they were a month in when their practice group chair came and had a chat with them about the fact that their administrative assistant was, in fact, not their personal assistant. For example, the AA would not be picking up any coffee order on her way in (much less the ridiculous one the new associated wanted), nor would she be getting their lunch every day. We also don’t ask our assistant, who sits further from the supply closet than they did, to get up and get them a single pen or two file folders, especially when the AA is working on a deadline filings or client billing. First year associates were generally expected to walk themselves the 10 feet to the supply closet and get their own stuff. The AA would also not be placing all of the first year’s calls, picking up their dry cleaning, nor getting their personal credit card billing issue straightened out.” Please share your own in the comments. View the full article

Gen Z workers surveyed by Gallup said they would trust work done without AI over AI-assisted output by more than 2-to-1, with the gap widening. The post Gen Z Workers Pick Human-Only Output Over AI-Assisted appeared first on Search Engine Journal. View the full article

AI is changing search and rewriting the rules. If your brand isn’t visible in AI-generated answers, you have a bigger problem than just traffic. You’re missing out on trust, credibility, and customers who now expect AI to recommend the best options everywhere. Table of contents Why modern SEO is about AI visibility AI search is a blind spot for most Controlling the narrative of your brand Yoast AI Brand Insights is here to help Understanding the AI visibility metrics 5 Ways to improve your AI brand visibility How to influence LLMs to mention your brand The future of brand visibility is AI-driven Ready to take control of your AI brand visibility? We see that traditional SEO isn’t enough anymore. Today, it’s possible to rank #1 on Google and still be invisible in the AI responses people now often turn to for recommendations. Yoast AI Brand Insights is a great tool that shows you exactly how your brand appears in AI-generated answers from ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Google Gemini. It tracks sentiments and benchmarks against competitors. What’s more, it doesn’t just help build your AI visibility, but also helps control your brand’s narrative. Key takeaways AI visibility matters; brands absent in AI responses lose trust and customers. Yoast AI Brand Insights helps track brand mentions, sentiment, and credibility across AI platforms. Modern SEO now focuses on AI visibility, moving beyond traditional search engines. To improve AI brand visibility, brands should publish authoritative content and optimize for AI citations. Active participation in online communities enhances brand visibility on AI platforms. Why modern SEO is about AI visibility People are no longer just searching on Google. Every day, more people are asking AI tools and Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity for recommendations. Unlike classic search engines, these tools don’t just list links; they curate answers by combining trained knowledge with information they’ve learned from the web. AI platforms combine information from multiple sources to provide a single, context-aware, and custom answer. People even start treating these AI answers as personal advice, not just generic search results. This will happen more and more as search engines like Google increasingly integrate AI into their search results. As a result, the boundaries between traditional search and AI-generated answers are blurring. AI search is a blind spot for most Classic SEO tools track rankings, but they don’t track how your brand appears in AI answers. This leads to blind spots where your competitors might be all over the AI recommendations in your market without you realizing it. What’s more, you might rank well on Google, but you could be invisible to a growing audience if AI systems ignore your brand. Your competitors can appear more often or more positively in AI recommendations. Or there’s negative sentiment in AI responses that can harm your reputation without you even knowing. Controlling the narrative of your brand AI platforms like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini piece together your brand’s story from scattered sources, like reviews, news articles, social media, and your own content. If these send mixed signals, the answers an AI gives will too. That’s why you need to send a unified, consistent message. This is one of the most effective ways to reinforce your narrative across every platform. Repeat your main message, whether that’s “affordable luxury” or “sustainable innovation,” everywhere, from your site content to press releases and from social media to external interviews. Quickly address misinformation and respond to inaccurate reviews by publishing clarifications online. By doing this, you prevent the AI from amplifying outdated or incorrect details. Support your brand’s most important attributes with structured data. Add the awards your brand won, or its unique selling points, so you can give the AI platform an all-encompassing framework to reference. Remember, consistency is about repeating your most important brand aspects everywhere. Shape the narrative in such a way that the AI has no choice but to reflect the brand the way you want it to project. Yoast AI Brand Insights is here to help Yoast AI Brand Insights is a helpful tool that tracks how your brand appears in AI answers. It provides a clear, actionable view of your brand’s visibility, sentiment, and credibility across major AI platforms. Yoast AI Brand Insights helps you: Understand if and how your brand is mentioned in AI responses Track sentiment and see if AI platforms describe your brand positively or negatively Identify the sources to see what AI references when mentioning your brand Benchmark against competitors to see how you stack up We didn’t build this to get you some data, but to turn that AI black box into actionable insights. Understanding the AI visibility metrics Using the Yoast AI Brand Insights metrics helps you measure and improve your brand’s visibility in AI platforms. To make the most of it, you have to understand what metrics mean and why they matter. AI Visibility Index (AIVI) The AI Visibility Index (AIVI) scores (on a scale of 100) how visible your brand is on AI platforms such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini. It consists of the following metrics: Mentions, or how often your brand is cited in AI answers Citations, or the number of authoritative sources referencing your brand Sentiment, or the rate of positive vs. negative keywords associated with your brand Rankings, or the relative position of your brand mentions compared to your competitors The higher the AIVI score (on a scale of 0-100), the more visible your brand is in AI search results for the tracked terms. If you find that your score is low, you should focus on getting more mentions and citations. You should also work on positive sentiment around your business. You build your relevance by publishing authoritative content. Try to get featured on relevant sites and monitor and improve negative sentiment around your brand. Learn more about how AI shapes brand perception. Mentions The Mentions section tracks the specific queries for which your brand appears in AI responses. So, if someone asks, “What is the best low-cost CRM system for small businesses?” and your brand is in the results, that is a mention. It’s not hard to understand why this is important. More mentions generally lead to greater visibility. If you don’t show up for the terms and queries relevant to your brand, you need to start improving your content. Use the built-in AI-generated brand queries to find high-intent questions and write content that answers those questions thoroughly. These could be blog posts or FAQ pages, or whatever makes sense. Also optimize for conversational queries, such as “Is brand X good for startups?” Sentiment Sentiment measures the percentage of negative vs. positive words in the query results associated with your brand. So, if the AI describes your brand as “innovative” or “reliable”, that counts as positive sentiment. However, if they use terms like “overpriced” or “unreliable”, that’s negative sentiment. Positive sentiment helps build trust, while negative sentiment can drive potential customers away. That’s why you should always actively address negative sentiments online. Don’t leave those bad online reviews unresponded to. You can also publish testimonials on your site to amplify positive voices, and you can do the same in your marketing messaging by talking about “a brand loved by thousands” or “award-winning” products. Keep an eye on trends in your online sentiment and catch and fix issues early. Citations Citations refer to the sources that AI platforms explicitly reference when generating an answer, not the brands mentioned within those sources. For example, if Gemini answers a query about “the best credit cards” and cites a New York Times article about best credit cards, that New York Times page is the citation. Even if the article includes brands like American Express or Chase, the citation is attributed to the publisher, not to the individual brands. That said, appearing in those cited sources still matters a great deal. If your brand is consistently featured in relevant, high-authority publications like The New York Times, it increases the likelihood that AI systems will surface your brand in their responses over time. In other words, you may not receive a direct citation, but you benefit from being part of the content that AI platforms trust and rely on. Over time, your brand (say, American Express or Chase) becomes more likely to be included in AI responses to queries like “best credit cards,” especially if it consistently appears in trusted sources. AI platforms use citations to validate their answers. Citations from top sources, such as industry publications, enhance credibility. Find where there’s a natural match between your customers and their audience, and publish the type of content people will want to link to. 5 Ways to improve your AI brand visibility Now that you understand the metrics, here’s how to use insights from Yoast AI Brand Insights to improve your AI visibility. Optimize for AI citations AI platforms like Gemini, Perplexity, and ChatGPT use citations to validate their responses. So, citations increase the likelihood of your brand being included and trusted in AI-generated answers Try to get featured on relevant, authoritative sites and publish guest posts on industry sites, news sites, or educational domains. Get mentioned in roundup articles, like “Top 10 tools for doing X”. Ask customers to write reviews on platforms like Capterra, G2, and Trustpilot. All of these tactics can act as proof that your brand is a well-trusted source. Remember, it must be relevant citations. Make sure your content is structured so the AI can read it easily. Use clear, hierarchical headings and bullet points to make the content easy to scan. Add FAQs and publish direct answers to common questions. It is also a good idea to add schema markup to help the AI crawlers understand your content. Don’t forget to update old content regularly. The AI platforms prioritize fresh, up-to-date information when retrieving sources, so refresh your content regularly to stay relevant. Monitor and improve brand sentiment By mentioning your brand, the AI platforms also shape how people see it. If those sentiments in the AI’s answers are negative, it can hurt your trustworthiness and cost conversions. This could signal the need for a broader reconsideration of business strategy priorities. Once you find AI platforms associate your brand with negative terms (like “slow customer service”), respond to this issue publicly. For instance, you could contact customers on review sites to resolve complaints. You can also publish case studies and testimonials to steer the AI towards positive perceptions. In your monitoring, you’ll also find the positive terms AI platforms associate with your brand, such as “trusted” or “innovative”. Use these terms in your marketing, in your site content, and on social media. The weekly scans in Yoast AI Brand Insights track sentiment shifts for your queries over time. If sentiment drops, investigate the cause, like a recent PR issue or a product recall. Benchmark against competitors AI visibility is also about how you compare to the competition. If they are mentioned more often or in a better light than you, they will appear more often in recommendations made by AI platforms. See how your brand stacks up against competitors. Use Yoast’s Competitor ranking tab to see which brands show up a lot in AI answers. Analyze their content strategy. Do they publish more case studies? Are they active on review sites? This tool shows how AI describes your brand compared to others in your market. For example, if you’re a coffee company like Taylor’s of Harrogate, you might find that Lavazza is consistently labeled as “the Italian espresso expert.” Now you know exactly what to highlight, whether it’s your heritage, roasting process, or sustainability, to stand out. Use these insights to sharpen your messaging and compete more effectively. Don’t forget to check your weekly competitor analyses to see if your AI visibility is improving. Double down on the strategy that works for you. The tool also includes an historical view. This lets you look back at earlier analyses by selecting a past date, helping you compare visibility and sentiment across different points in time. Answer brand-specific questions AI platforms are very good at answering specific questions, such as “Is brand X reliable?” or “What’s the best tool to do Y?” You’re missing out on a lot of potential customers when your brand isn’t in these answers. Yoast AI Brand Insights suggests queries you should monitor based on your input, such as “Is [Your Brand] good for small businesses?” In addition, do deep research into the common questions asked in your industry using tools like AnswerThePublic, AlsoAsked, or simply by checking Google’s People Also Ask section. With the insights gathered, publish blog posts, FAQs, or landing pages and directly answer those brand-related queries. Support the content with properly structured data, such as FAQ and how-to schema, to give AI platforms more tools to understand your content. In Yoast AI Brand Insights, track which questions get the most mentions from AI platforms. Don’t forget to keep your content up to date to keep it accurate and relevant. Track progress with the AI Visibility Index Improving the AI visibility of your brand isn’t a one-time task, but a recurring effort. Luckily, Yoast’s AI Visibility Index gives you an easy-to-understand metric that you can use to track your progress over time. Run your first scan to establish the starting point for your AI Visibility Index. Note which areas, like citations or sentiment, are strongest and weakest. Yoast AI Brand Insights runs weekly scans. Please review them to track progress. Check the historical view, but remember these cannot be viewed together. Select the week before and then reselect this week to spot changes. Look for trends, such as improvements in sentiment or a sudden increase in citations. If your score doesn’t improve, revisit the strategies above, such as optimizing for citations and improving sentiment. Be sure to experiment with new tactics and publish original research to secure more earned media. How to influence LLMs to mention your brand Imagine this: A potential customer asks ChatGPT, “What’s the best CRM for small businesses?” If your brand isn’t mentioned in the answer, you’ve lost a customer before they even knew you existed. LLMs like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity don’t just pull answers out of thin air. They rely on data, citations, and patterns to generate responses. If your brand isn’t part of those patterns, it’s far less likely to be mentioned, no matter how well you rank on Google. Publish authoritative content LLMs are looking for well-structured, factually accurate content. These AI platforms love sources that provide unique insights or expert opinions, so be sure to focus on that. Start with original research. Publish surveys, case studies, or industry reports with unique data. For example, “2026 State of [Your Industry] Report: Key Trends and Insights” positions your brand as an authority and gives AI platforms a reason to cite you. Use the proven inverted pyramid structure in your content. Start with the most important information, like key findings and conclusions, follow with supporting details, and end with background information. This makes it easier for AI to extract, digest, and use your content. Don’t forget to optimize for facts. Include statistics, quotes from experts, and actionable insights. For example, instead of “Our tool is great for marketers,” say “Our tool increased conversion rates by 30% for 500+ marketers in 2025, according to our latest case study.” For example, HubSpot built its authority by publishing ultimate guides, like “The Ultimate Guide to Inbound Marketing.” These guides became go-to resources for marketers, earning backlinks from industry blogs, news sites, and even competitors. As a result, HubSpot is now frequently cited in AI responses about marketing tools. Get mentioned on relevant, high-authority sites LLMs trust reputable sources like industry publications, news sites, and review platforms. The more your brand is mentioned on these sites, the more likely it is to appear in AI responses. Please keep in mind that relevance is key here. For instance, if Yoast gets mentioned in Gardeners’ World or Home and Garden, it will do little to nothing for our brand. Find the most important and relevant sources and focus on those. Pitch stories to journalists or industry blogs. For example, try to get featured in “Top 10 [Your Industry] Tools in 2026” lists. Encourage customers to leave reviews on G2, Capterra, Trustpilot, or Google Reviews. Don’t forget to respond to (negative) reviews to show engagement and transparency. If possible, try to reach out to sites like HubSpot, Search Engine Journal, or industry-specific blogs and ask to write for them. Be sure to include a bio with your brand name to reinforce recognition. Optimize for conversational queries LLMs are designed to answer natural language questions. This means you have to optimize your content for conversational queries. Conversational queries are things like “What’s the best CRM for startups?” rather than “best CRM”. In your content, you should use question-focused headings. For example, answer the question “Is [Your Brand] good for small businesses?” directly in the first paragraph to make it clear and easy to understand. LLMs often answer long-tail questions, so you should target long-tail keywords. For example, instead of “project management tool,” target “best project management tool for remote teams in 2026.” In support of all of this, create FAQ pages with schema markup to help AI better understand your content. Build citations Build up a network of high-quality mentions that reinforce your brand’s authority. The more high-quality, relevant citations you have, the more likely LLMs are to mention your brand. Publish assets like ultimate guides, templates, or tools that others want to reference and link to. For example, “The Ultimate Guide to [Your Industry] in 2026.” Reach out to bloggers, journalists, and influencers to reference your content. For example, “We noticed you mentioned [Competitor] in your article. Here’s why [Your Brand] might be a better fit.” Get featured in press releases, podcasts, or webinars. For example, “[Your Brand] Announces Groundbreaking Feature for [Industry].” Make sure AI crawlers can reach your site It’s important to ensure that AI crawlers can discover and index your content. If your site is invisible to them for whatever reason, your brand won’t appear in AI responses. Your site should be technically sound, but you can also help LLMs in other ways. Make sure your site loads fast and is mobile-friendly. Use clean URLs, good meta tags and descriptions, and alt text for images. Also, use schema on your site to help AI crawlers understand what your site is about and how it all ties together. In Yoast SEO, you can activate an llms.txt file. This proposed standard helps point AI crawlers to your most important content. Also, check whether your robots.txt file inadvertently blocks AI crawlers from accessing your content. Be active in online communities LLMs are trained on and can retrieve information from forums, social media, and community platforms such as Reddit, Quora, and LinkedIn. It can improve your brand’s visibility on AI platforms if you participate there. Answer questions on Quora and Reddit. Provide valuable, non-promotional answers that naturally mention your brand. For example, “As a [Your Industry] expert, I recommend [Your Brand] because…” Join discussions on Slack, Discord, or niche forums. Share insights and link to your content when relevant. Post thought leadership content on LinkedIn, Twitter, or Facebook. For example, “Here’s why [Your Industry] is changing in 2026, and how [Your Brand] is leading the way.” The future of brand visibility is AI-driven We’ve seen that AI is changing how people discover brands. There’s a simple rule: if your brand isn’t visible in AI responses, you are missing out on an ever-growing audience. Luckily, Yoast AI Brand Insights gives you the tools to: Track mentions, sentiment, and citations across AI platforms Benchmark against competitors to identify gaps Optimize for high-intent queries to capture more attention Monitor progress with the AI Visibility Index Plus, we have more tips to help you optimize your content for AI LLM comprehension using Yoast’s tools. Ready to take control of your AI brand visibility? AI is the future of search, and brands that adapt early will win the race for AI visibility. Don’t wait for your competitors to take the lead. Start by running your first scan in Yoast AI Brand Insights. Identify your weak spots, implement these strategies, and watch your AI visibility grow. The time to act is now, so start your brand’s future in AI today. The post 5 ways to improve your AI brand visibility (Using Yoast AI Brand Insights) appeared first on Yoast. View the full article

Sixty years after it invented sports drinks, Gatorade is making a surprising pivot: It’s no longer focusing primarily on athletes. PepsiCo, Gatorade’s parent company, said Thursday that the brand wants to broaden its reach to non-athletes who are looking for ways to hydrate, whether they’re on a long flight, going for a walk or nursing a hangover. New packaging highlights the specific ways Gatorade’s various drinks and powders work and the research behind them. The change reflects U.S. consumers’ booming interest in beverages with perceived health benefits. Jack Doggett, a food and drink analyst with the consulting firm Mintel, said his research indicates 60% of consumers who buy sports drinks aren’t athletes but want the functional ingredients those drinks provide, like electrolytes for hydration and carbohydrates for energy. “People are using these drinks more for wellness and daily maintenance,” Doggett said. “It’s easy to say that the wellness consumer is the young consumer, but older generations are also drinking these drinks for hydration.” Unit sales of sports drink mixes, like powders from Liquid I.V., Skratch Labs and Gatorade, rose nearly 20% in the year ending March 22, according to Circana, a market research company. Bottled water sales were flat in the same period. Crowded shelves Sensing that growth potential, new sports and hydration brands are crowding store shelves. Mike Del Pozzo, president of U.S. beverages at PepsiCo, said 150 new brands have entered the space in the last few years. “That puts a lot of risk on the category and pressure from a credibility perspective,” Del Pozzo said. “Some that are coming in are building on the science that we created. And we’re like, ‘Well, geez, we should be doing that. We should be talking more overtly about the science and the business and why we believe we’re future-forward.” Del Pozzo said Gatorade will now clearly label products that it says can hydrate better or faster than water. A new drink, Gatorade Longer Lasting, which will go on sale next year, blends glycerin and electrolytes to help the body stay hydrated for longer than water alone. PepsiCo’s approach with Gatorade echoes moves made by some of its rivals. Powerade, a sports drink owned by Coca-Cola Co., received brighter, clearer packaging in 2023 that promoted an increase in electrolytes. Last fall, Powerade began selling Power Water, a zero-sugar, electrolyte-enhanced drink aimed at non-athletes. Liquid I.V., which was founded as a sports drink mix in 2012, was acquired by Unilever in 2020 and has remade itself into a wellness and hydration brand. LMNT also had non-athletes in mind last fall when it introduced a smaller, 12-ounce version of its sparkling electrolyte drink. Sean Harapko, a beverage sector leader with Ernst & Young Americas, said consumers have so many beverage choices that companies must clearly define their products and explain why people should choose one over another. Americans are trying to live healthier lives, he said, but they’re collecting information from many different sources and defining for themselves what that looks like. Gatorade’s origins Gatorade was born in 1965, when the football coach at the University of Florida asked Dr. Robert Cade, a physician and professor at the school, why his players were losing so much weight during games but not urinating. Cade realized the players were sweating out electrolytes – another word for minerals like sodium, potassium and magnesium – and upsetting the body’s chemical balance. Cade came up with Gatorade, a drink containing salt to replace electrolytes, sugar to improve energy and lemon juice for flavor. Quaker Oats acquired Gatorade’s parent company in 1983 and established the Gatorade Sports Science Institute two years later. PepsiCo became Gatorade’s owner when it bought Quaker Oats in 2000. Del Pozzo said Gatorade will continue to meet athletes’ needs. Gatorade Thirst Quencher, for example, has 48 grams of sugar and 18% of the recommended daily amount of carbohydrates, which athletes need to maintain energy. But Del Pozzo notes that Gatorade Lower Sugar, which went on sale last month and has 75% less sugar, is one of the company’s biggest sellers in recent history. Del Pozzo said lower-sugar versions aimed at non-athletes, as well as the removal of artificial colors from Gatorade’s lineup, is bringing customers into the brand. “I think there were people that said, ‘I didn’t exercise or I’m not out in the heat or I am not sweating.’ The reality is, everybody is sweating and dehydrated from the moment they wake up and many just don’t know it,” he said. But Travis Masterson, an assistant professor at Pennsylvania State University’s College of Health and Human Development, said the average non-athlete gets the sodium they need from their diet. Athletes sometimes need a reminder to drink, he said, because their bodies are under stress. But for average people, the thirst signal is a good indicator. “Gatorade 100% has a place, but is it going to be necessary for everybody? Do you need to hydrate faster or longer?” he said. “The average person doesn’t need all the extra stuff.” —Dee-Ann Durbin, AP Business Writer View the full article

It seems that change and volatility are the only things that are certain when it comes to the labor market. Jobs and professions that once seemed ‘stable’ are not immune to the forces of artificial intelligence and other technological advancements. At the very least, AI is changing the nature of what jobs look like and will likely continue to do so at a fast rate. All of this can make it difficult to know what to do to foolproof your career. Liz Tran is a leadership coach to CEOs and founders and the author of AQ: A New Kind of Intelligence for a World That’s Always Changing. After two years of conversations with founders, CEOs, and leaders, Tran found that those who are most successful and fulfilled have one thing in common—they are comfortable adapting to change and uncertainty. This is what she calls the Agility Quotient (AQ), a type of intelligence that she believes will continue to be a key differentiator as AI and technology continue to change how we live and work. Part of increasing your AQ is improving your tolerance to risks and failure. Below are some of the habits and mindset shifts that can strengthen your resilience to both. 1. Assess your relationship with risk and failure The first step is to identify where you’re currently at. Are you someone that’s comfortable with risks and failure, or do the thought of both make you want to throw up? If you’re not sure, Tran has a framework that she sets out in her book. First, she says, “Bring to mind a stressful or intense situation that you’ve been in recently…and think about the way you’ve approached it.” If you find yourself avoiding the problem, distracting yourself, or telling yourself that it’s not going to be a big deal (without actually acknowledging the problem), that indicates a low level of AQ. This means that risk and failure aren’t something that you’re comfortable with. The middle level, Tran says, is when you acknowledge the change and “you do try to improve your situation in some way.” However, you’re still fighting the situation. “There’s a sense that you’re feeling like, ‘why is this happening to me?’ What did I do to deserve this? Why do I have to deal with this? There’s a resentment and maybe even an anger about what your situation is.” This indicates that while you have some level of tolerance to risk and failure, you’re still resistant to it when it happens. The top level is when you’ve decided to embrace whatever change comes your way, failure included. It doesn’t mean you like your circumstances, Tran says, “but it does mean that you’re seeing it as an opportunity...rather than just something you resent.” And when you have this mindset, Tran says, “not only are you setting yourself up to best tackle the change that is in front of you, but it also helps people from getting burnt out.” 2. Strive to be a ‘learn-it-all’ instead of a ‘know-it-all’ Improving your risk-taking muscle requires a change in mindset. Tran references Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, who transformed Microsoft’s culture from being “know-it-alls” to “learn-it-alls.” IQ, Tran explains, is about being a “know-it-all,” about having the right information and knowing how to process it quickly. AI and technology have made that less important. The new world of work where everything is changing so quickly, Tran says, “rewards people who move fast.” That means letting go of your ego and being “willing to experiment, pivot, and reinvent yourself.” It also means accepting that sometimes, those experiments can lead to public failures. 3. Find an anchor that grounds you and gives you the stability to take risks While it might sound counterintuitive, Tran says that “agility requires stability.” She continues, “In order to feel psychologically grounded and stable enough to go out there and take risks, you actually need a cushion of comfort and security.” That anchor might be a strong relationship with family and friends, or habits and routines like healthy eating and exercise that make you feel good about yourself. It might also be a physical place that gives you a sense of peace, like your home, a park, or a place of worship. Tran says that anyone who wants to take risks should take the time to invest and build these anchors and routines if they don’t already have them in place. “If we push ourselves too far out of our comfort zones too quickly, then that can actually lead us to impaired cognitive functioning. You actually just want to hit that sweet spot where you’re pushing yourself out of your comfort zone, but it’s not so much that you’re tipping into fight or flight.” Creating a sense of security in areas of life that are in our control, she says, gives you the freedom to take risks in areas where the outcome is uncertain. 4. Practice discomfort on a daily basis Tran is also a believer in exposure therapy, and believes that regularly doing uncomfortable things in a low-risk environment can condition us to do the same in a high-risk environment. Tran likes to frame it as a ‘bet’ rather than a ‘risk’. A risk suggests that there’s a downside to it, whereas with a bet, you can frame it as taking action where you don’t know the outcome, while setting yourself up for the possibility of winning, she explains. This can look like something as small as trying out a new coffee shop or reaching out to someone who’s not in your network that you’d love to meet. “You start with risks that are tolerable, ” she says, and as you build resilience to taking those risks, you become more comfortable doing things that you might have once considered “anxiety-inducing.” 5. Work on improving your ‘recovery rate’ from failure For Tran, a practice that has served her well during periods of setbacks has been tracking “recovery rate” rather than outcomes. Say you set out to make seven “bets” during the week, and none of them worked out in the way that you wanted. If you focus on the outcome, you’re going to feel pretty bad, “even though that’s to be expected when you’re putting yourself out there for risk-taking and failure all the time.” “What you actually want to do is to track your recovery rate,” she says. Notice how quickly you bounced back from this, and how strong, resilient, or courageous you were in the process. Hopefully, the time it takes for you to bounce back becomes shorter and shorter, and that’s a good indication that you’re strengthening your risk and failure tolerance. 6. See failure and setbacks as open doors to new opportunities Tran continually stresses the importance of seeing AQ (and tolerance to risk and failure) as a skill to develop, no matter where your comfort level with change might currently be. If you find yourself resistant to change, for example, it’s probably because it’s something that you haven’t prioritized, or you’ve operated in an environment that doesn’t encourage it, she explains. High achievers, for example, can often struggle with risks because they’re used to doing something that they know will reward them in the end—like a pay rise or a promotion. But if we’re optimizing for outcomes all the time, Tran says, “we’re actually missing the broader target, which is to learn and become agile enough to succeed. “No matter how smart you are, we do not know what the future is going to bring for us, especially with the way that the world is operating now.” The key is to be open, Tran says, to new possibilities. It’s also reframing failure and risk-taking as a pathway to opportunities you didn’t know existed. This is something that Tran, whose own career has been full of pivots, has done personally. “In my career, I have failed so spectacularly,” she says. But looking back, she realizes that the setbacks ended up creating openings to the work that she is doing now. “What I had planned didn’t work out,” she says, “but actually, it helped open my eyes to a different path that I never would have mapped out for myself.” View the full article

Dark Matter's parent said the decision to promote its chief technology officer aligns the company to the direction of the market, with further changes to come. View the full article

Listing for world’s largest car glass repair group would boost Europe’s lagging market View the full article

It’s never been so expensive for Americans to buy a steak or hamburger, but cutting those costs requires ranchers like Stephanie Hatzenbuhler to raise more cattle — and that’s not an easy ask. For a host of reasons, Hatzenbuhler and other ranchers across the country are reluctant to grow the national herd — now its smallest in more than 75 years — and until they do so, demand will outweigh supply, and beef prices will likely remain high. Adding cattle makes sense for some ranchers, but others are struggling to stay afloat with the cattle they have, Hatzenbuhler said. “They’re good times, and they’re bad times,” she said. “It’s a combination of both.” Why is the beef herd so small? Hatzenbuhler will make her choices as cows give birth to about 700 calves this spring on her family’s Diamond J Angus ranch on more than 2,000 wind-swept acres near Mandan, North Dakota. Does she opt to increase her herd, or does she offset the new arrivals by selling an equal number of cattle to be slaughtered? The national herd size isn’t the only factor that determines what beef costs at the grocery store. Still, the dwindling number of cattle is a key reason the average price of all uncooked ground beef in the U.S. was $6.86 per pound in March, 3 cents off the record high set in February, according to federal statistics. That price in March is up nearly 48% from March 2021. The U.S. cattle herd reached a high of 132 million head in 1975, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and that figure has gradually fallen to 86 million this year. Thanks to changes in cattle genetics and feeding techniques, ranchers now produce far more meat from each animal, so despite the much smaller herd, the country’s beef production hit a record 28.4 billion pounds in 2022, said Tim Petry, a North Dakota State University livestock marketing specialist. About 26 billion pounds of beef are expected in 2026. About 2.5 billion pounds of beef were exported to other countries in 2025, and the tight remaining supply, along with the high demand, has caused record prices. Ranchers acknowledge the higher prices, but they face plenty of challenges weighing against growing herds, especially from drought. Drought limits land for grazing Dry conditions have persisted across much of cattle country, with about 63% of the U.S. cattle herd in drought areas, according to the USDA. Some areas have also seen giant wildfires that left no grass for grazing. “You’ve got to have rain. You’ve got to have grass to keep cows on because they’re out on pastures for over half the year, and so that’s been the dilemma, is we had forced liquidation of cows,” Petry said. This time of year, as calves arrive, ranchers decide whether to retain young cows called heifers and calves for breeding herds, and a big factor is pasture conditions, said Bernt Nelson, an American Farm Bureau Federation economist. Feed is the highest cost for ranchers, and due to drought in spots like Texas and Oklahoma, they have had to truck in supplies from elsewhere. Those extra costs make it hard to increase a herd. “When these pasture conditions deteriorate, and water becomes an issue, some of these states have to go as far as to haul hay, haul water from other regions of the country that have grass and easy access to water, and that adds a significant cost to operations,” Nelson said. Even if ranchers opted to raise more cattle, it takes 15 to 24 months for a calf to mature before it can be slaughtered. Role of meat processors in beef prices Ranchers often blame the concentrated meat processing systems — primarily driven by four companies — for high beef prices, but the picture is complicated. In a statement and market updates, the Meat Institute, a meat processors trade group, noted that retailers and food service companies, not packers, set prices for consumers. And the organization said livestock producers were “earning record profits” while packers were losing money. The Meat Institute also argued that the concentration ratio hasn’t “changed appreciably” over the past 30 years. “Rhetoric about beef industry concentration implies that consolidation in the beef packing sector is ongoing and that market power is becoming increasingly concentrated. That is not the case,” the group said. John Robinson, a spokesman for the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, said he sees many reasons for high prices, and in some cases, meat processors are responsible, but that “it’s far more complicated than most people will give it credit for.” A pest forces border closure Another driver of high prices is the closure of the U.S.-Mexico border to livestock imports to slow the spread of a flesh-eating parasite called the New World screwworm. The closures that began in late 2024 have stopped about 1 million cattle from being hauled from Mexico into the U.S., said Warren Rusche, an extension feedlot specialist at South Dakota State University. The border closure particularly affects cattle feedlots and ranchers who graze cattle in the southern plains. President Donald The President has called for increased beef imports from Argentina, but the country’s expanded quota would be only a tiny percentage of U.S. beef production, Rusche said. Are ranchers getting rich? Hatzenbuhler, the North Dakota rancher, isn’t getting rich, but for ranchers who own their land and equipment, she said it’s a good time to raise cattle. It’s not as good for people looking to break into the business, given the high cost of everything from equipment to fertilizer and the difficulty of finding workers. “If you’re a young guy and want to get in, it’s probably not the time to do it, but if you’re kind of established and been doing this for a while, you’re doing good,” she said. California rancher Mike Williams said he wouldn’t discourage someone from getting into ranching but would caution them, “don’t get too far upside down.” “I would say that we’re finally maybe getting a fair price,” Williams said. “I think people are starting to realize the value of beef, and they’re finding that they’re willing to pay maybe a little more than they have in the past for the quality of the product that they’re getting.” —Jack Dura, Associated Press View the full article

It was long assumed that boys were more likely to have attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). But recent research suggests girls have been widely underdiagnosed—with sometimes devastating consequences. Now, many women who have long suffered from mental health conditions and everyday challenges are identifying ADHD as the underlying cause. “Women are much more likely to have what’s called ‘inattentive ADHD,’ versus ‘hyperactive ADHD,’” says Dr. Sarah Greenberg, a licensed psychotherapist and the vice president of expertise and strategic design for neurodivergence nonprofit Understood.org. “The hyperactivity is really visible to others in the room, whereas for inattentive ADHD that hyperactivity is internal. It might look like daydreaming or staring into space. But I can assure you, there’s a lot happening in the brain.” Dr. Greenberg says that undiagnosed ADHD can create challenges in childhood, from social to academic, leading to lots of self-doubt. Coupled with the over-thinking tendencies of those with inattentive ADHD, many are instead diagnosed with anxiety or depression. That misdiagnosis can have serious consequences, as untreated ADHD has been associated with everything from higher rates of substance abuse to divorce, car accidents, even suicide attempts. Women with ADHD are Often Misdiagnosed According to a study conducted by Understood.org, 72% of women with ADHD have at least two other mental health conditions, like anxiety or depression, and 44% were diagnosed with anxiety, depression or another mental health condition first. Furthermore, 89% say they originally attributed ADHD symptoms—like disorganization, overthinking and chronic lateness—to personal character flaws. “’Hysteria’ was a label given to women for a range of things, from insomnia to anxiety, and the theory rested on uterine imbalance,” explains Dr. Greenberg. “We don’t use that label anymore, but what has persisted is women are more likely to get diagnosed with an emotional disorder rather than ADHD, which is a brain difference.” According to a 2022 study conducted by the American Centers for Disease Control, boys are twice as likely to be diagnosed with ADHD. However, a 2022 study by medical research provider Epic Research found that women aged 23 to 49 were diagnosed twice as frequently as men that year compared to 2020. Males were also diagnosed with ADHD at 28% higher rates than females in 2022, down from 133% in 2010. In the Canadian province of Ontario, prescriptions for stimulant medications—often used to treat ADHD—were more prevalent among adult women aged 18 to 64 than men in 2023. “We’re getting closer to gender parity in adulthood, so that is very much a silver lining,” says Dr. Greenberg. “We’re also getting closer to gender parity in childhood. Whereas we used to see three boys diagnosed for every girl, we’re now seeing two, so that ratio is getting better.” Women with ADHD are Often Treating the Wrong Condition Misdiagnosis is common among women with ADHD, both because of longstanding misconceptions and because many of the diagnostic tools that test for ADHD are based on the hyperactive presentation more common in boys. As a result, women tend to suffer with ADHD well into adulthood before understanding the cause of some of their neurological differences, and the likely culprit behind other lifelong challenges. “It’s really important to get that ADHD diagnosis right, because while anxiety and depression are treatable and can be short term, ADHD is a lifelong difference,” says Dr. Greenberg. “Sometimes depression or anxiety speaks more to symptoms one has experienced, but it’s much more efficient to address ADHD as the primary condition.” There is yet to be a formal study into the relative effectiveness of anxiety and depression treatment on those with undiagnosed ADHD. However, a 2024 study of healthcare records in Wales found that women are more likely to be prescribed antidepressant medication prior to being diagnosed with ADHD, and are more likely to stop using the medication afterwards. “Anecdotally, it’s what we hear from patients all the time,” says Dr. Julia Schechter, a clinical psychologist at the Duke University School of Medicine and co-director of the Duke Center for Girls and Women with ADHD. “We hear that story so often.” “’For years, I was told I was anxious. For years, I was on medication that was not effective. Then I found out I had ADHD, and getting on ADHD medication really reduced the symptoms’.” The Dangers of Living with Untreated ADHD Research shows that those with untreated ADHD are more likely to struggle in school and to maintain employment, have financial challenges, get divorced, get into car accidents and struggle with substance abuse at higher rates. In women, untreated ADHD has also been linked to higher rates of unplanned pregnancy,eating disorders and suicide attempts. According to the Understood.org study, 23.5% of women diagnosed with ADHD report a history of suicide attempts, compared with 8.5% of men with ADHD. “We know that untreated ADHD is linked to so many negative outcomes for everyone,” says Dr. Schechter. “But for women and girls in particular, not treating this condition really can be a matter of life and death.” Awareness and Diagnoses Have Been Skyrocketing Since COVID Longstanding assumptions about ADHD primarily affecting young boys started to change during the pandemic, for many reasons. For one, those with undiagnosed ADHD often learn to cope with the disorder over time, such as by using timers, to-do lists and reminders, sticking to routines and by optimizing their workspace—much of which was disrupted by the pandemic. As a result, adults with undiagnosed ADHD felt the symptoms more acutely. “It was also becoming part of the conversation, and a big part of that was social media,” says Dr. Schechter. “People were turning to social media for medical questions and there was a lot of information out there around ADHD, especially ADHD in females.” Mothers Often Identify Symptoms in Their Children Many parents were also overseeing their children’s remote education, exposing some to signs and symptoms they might have otherwise missed. “They saw more of the challenges they had and started to look for reasons,” says Dr. Emma Climie, an associate professor at the school of applied psychology and director of The Strengths in ADHD Lab at the University of Calgary. “Parents were saying, ‘I’ve had similar challenges, what kind of support is there for my kids, and would that help me as an adult as well?” Dr. Climie explains that ADHD has “a strong hereditary component,” and during the pandemic, parents were more attuned to their children’s learning challenges, prompting more to seek diagnoses for their kids. As they learned more about the disorder, many parents—and especially mothers —identified similar symptoms in themselves. “ADHD apples don’t fall far from ADHD trees,” she says. As a result, the pandemic could go down as a turning point in our cultural perception of ADHD in women and girls, raising awareness of some of the common symptoms and helping those who have long suffered because of the disorder without understanding why. “There’s always been a smaller, vocal group saying, ‘what about women and girls with ADHD?’ but I don’t think they had really found their voice,” Dr. Climie says. “In the last few years, there’s been more people joining that conversation. We’re starting to develop new tools and assessments. And we’re starting to identify that ADHD looks a little bit different in girls and women.” View the full article

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today...View the full article

Google has unique policies for Google Shopping that are stricter than its general advertising policies. If Google thinks you’ve violated any of them, it can suspend your Merchant Center. That cuts off access to Google Shopping, Local Inventory Ads, product feeds in Performance Max and dynamic remarketing, and free listings for products. That means losing your highest-ROI channel overnight. Here’s how Google’s system works — and what you can do to fix suspensions and get back online. Case study: How we reinstated a suspended Merchant Center A UK-based ecommerce retailer came to us after their Google Merchant Center account was suspended for “Misrepresentation,” cutting off their Shopping ads entirely. Like many legitimate merchants, they were blindsided. Their store was real, their products were accurate, and they had no idea what Google’s specific objection was. We started with a full compliance audit of their website and Merchant Center account, working through every area Google scrutinizes. What we found wasn’t one big violation. It was a long list of smaller gaps that, in combination, signaled untrustworthiness to Google’s systems. The website’s Contact Us page lacked a physical address, a domain-based email address, and clear customer service hours, all of which Google expects from a legitimate business. Their policy pages (shipping, returns, refunds, and payment) either didn’t exist or lacked the specific detail Google looks for. Missing elements included cancellation windows, defective item procedures, and accepted payment methods. Beyond policies, their site lacked an order tracking feature and a cookie consent mechanism (required under UK law). A bot blocker was preventing Google’s automated crawlers from crawling the site. Inside Google Merchant Center itself, Shopify’s automatic shipping sync was creating conflicting data. We documented every required change in detail and handed the client a clear, prioritized action list. Once they made all the changes, we requested a review from Google. Google approved the appeal and reinstated the account. Key takeaway: Google evaluates the totality of your website and feed, not just individual policy pages. A successful reinstatement almost always requires fixing multiple issues across your site before submitting an appeal. Dig deeper: Google Ads account suspensions: What advertisers need to know Your customers search everywhere. Make sure your brand shows up. The SEO toolkit you know, plus the AI visibility data you need. Start Free Trial Get started with Step 1: Identify the type of suspension Google will email you the policy they believe you’ve violated. You can also find this information on the Needs attention tab in your Merchant Center. Read the suspension notice carefully because Google’s description, vague as it often is, will be your starting point for the following audit steps. Misrepresentation Misrepresentation is the most common policy we see cited for Google Merchant Center suspensions. This policy covers a wide range of problems, from inaccurate information in Merchant Center, to missing policy pages on your website, to bad reviews about your business on third-party websites. Follow the steps outlined in this guide to focus on improving four key areas: Your Merchant Center settings. Your product feed. Your website. Your online reputation. Counterfeit products You’re most likely to see this suspension reason if you’re reselling products from other brands (such as Pokémon cards, Prada bags, or Nike sneakers). Helpful actions to take: Say on your website whether you have a relationship with the manufacturer. Are you an authorized reseller? Do you purchase directly from the manufacturer? Do you purchase from third parties? Explain your authentication process. Don’t list prices significantly lower than the manufacturer’s suggested retail price (MSRP). Website needs improvement Rather than citing a specific policy violation, Google is flagging that your website doesn’t appear sufficiently complete or functional. Use incognito mode and multiple devices to check your website for: Placeholder images or text. Missing policy pages. Problems adding products to cart or finishing the checkout process. Unsupported shopping content Google has a list of things that can be advertised via “regular” Google ads, but not via Google Shopping. Services as a whole may not be advertised, which is why you won’t see ads for lawyers, doctors, or consultants on Google Shopping. It gets tricky when services are bundled with products (you can advertise car tires, but you can’t advertise the labor to replace the tires on your car). Google tends to aggressively flag things as services, or unsupported digital goods, that don’t actually fall within those policies. What to do: Separate services from physical products on your website. Add explanation text to product pages clearly stating that what you’re selling is a physical good and not a service. Avoid keywords like ebook and PDF that could trigger Google to think you’re selling disallowed digital goods. Healthcare and medicines Google restricts advertising healthcare-related products. The policies are country-specific, so be sure to carefully read the policy for the country, or countries, you’re targeting. To sell prescription and over-the-counter drugs in the U.S., advertisers must undergo third-party certification through a company such as LegitScript and a separate certification process with Google. Google explicitly lists pharmaceuticals and supplements that aren’t allowed to be advertised. Unfortunately, this list is not comprehensive. We’ve had cases where Google support informed us that products not on this list are not allowed to be advertised. What to do: Get certified (if you meet the certification requirements). Avoid making claims about the benefits of what you sell that can’t be directly verified by linking to studies from your product pages. Add appropriate disclaimers to your product pages and customer testimonials. Dig deeper: A guide to Google Ads for regulated and sensitive categories DMCA violation If someone reports your website for content that violates the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), Google will suspend your Merchant Center. These reports are filed in the Lumen database, where you can see what content has been flagged and when the report was made. What to do: If you’re violating copyright, remove the content from your website. If you’re not violating copyright, document how this content is original to your website and why you believe the report was wrong. After requesting a review of your suspension, you will probably have to engage in back-and-forth with Google support to argue why you should be allowed back on their platform. Step 2: Audit your Merchant Center settings Merchant Center settings are misconfigured in almost every suspension case we work on. Go through every single page in your Merchant Center to make sure you’ve entered as much information as possible and that everything you’ve entered is accurate and matches what’s on your website. Business info Your store name must comply with Google’s policies. Your physical address needs to be exactly right (no misplaced words or numbers) and should match the physical address on your website’s Contact page. You should have accurate contact information, and a link to your Contact page, and relevant social media profiles. Shipping and returns Every product in your feed needs to be covered by at least one shipping rule and a return policy. The shipping methods, handling and shipping times, cost structure, return timeline, refund process, exceptions, and restocking fees need to exactly match the information on the Shipping and Returns policy pages on your website. Step 3: Audit your product feed data quality Think of your product feed as your ads. Just as saying inaccurate things in your ads can lead to disapprovals, providing inaccurate or insufficient product data to Google can result in item disapprovals and account suspensions. Item disapprovals In addition to account-level suspensions, Google often disapproves specific products for product-level violations. There are many things that can cause item disapprovals. Top issues include: Links or images that don’t load. Mismatches between pricing or availability. Missing weight or shipping information. Invalid GTINs. Unsupported product categories like weapons, digital goods, or services. These problems don’t necessarily cause account suspensions, but you should fix as many as possible before requesting a review. You want Google to see you as committed to sending high-quality data and not violating any of their policies. Wrong prices and URLs The price in your product feed must match the price shown when someone lands on that product’s page. Two common mistakes: Using a parent product URL with a product variant’s price, which causes a mismatch between the price in the ad and the price on the product page. Putting a sale price in the feed that is not on the product page, or vice versa. GTINs Global Trade Identification Numbers (GTINs) are the numbers, such as UPCs and ISBNs, that manufacturers assign to their products. If your products don’t have GTINs, you can set the value of the field identifier_exists in your feed to FALSE. If your products have GTINs and you have access to them, send those numbers to Google in your feed. You don’t have to send a GTIN, but if you do, it must be accurate. We’ve seen cases where advertisers created fake GTINs, thinking it would help their products perform better. Instead, Google suspended the entire account. Copied product photos and descriptions Resellers who copy product images and descriptions from manufacturers may run into problems, especially if you don’t provide the product GTINs in the feed. Ideally, you should take your own product images and write your own product descriptions, so that everything on your website is original. Dig deeper: Google Ads’ three-strikes system: Managing warnings, strikes, and suspension Get the newsletter search marketers rely on. See terms. Step 4: Audit your website Even if your Merchant Center settings and product feed are clean, your website itself can be the reason you’re suspended. Crawl issues Google will suspend your account if they’re not able to crawl your website. For example, we’ve seen clients block visits from countries from which a high volume of spam traffic was originating. This accidentally blocked Google’s robots from accessing the website and caused a suspension. We’ve also seen mistakes with the robots.txt file accidentally excluding Google’s bots from accessing key pages, which looks to Google like you’re trying to hide something. Missing information You need clear and distinct policy pages on your website, including: Privacy. Shipping. Refund and return. Terms of service. Order tracking. Payment. You also need accurate contact information on your Contact page and a comprehensive About page. Inaccurate or inconsistent information Any claims you make on your website must be true. For example, if you say you offer free shipping on orders over $25, then you have to actually give free shipping when a cart value is greater than $25. We often see inconsistencies on websites, such as: Different return windows mentioned on the Return policy page than in the Return policy pop-up on the Shopify checkout page. Old phone numbers that no longer work and haven’t been removed. Template language referencing other businesses or products you don’t sell that you never removed from policy pages. Badges and awards Adding badges and awards (such as the Better Business Bureau badge and Trustpilot review widgets) to your website is a way to demonstrate credibility. When you add badges, awards, or “As seen on” logos to your website, make sure to hyperlink them to supporting pages, or else Google may think you’re making unsupported claims. Step 5: Audit your digital footprint Google wants only trusted businesses to run Google Shopping ads, so they look beyond your website and Merchant Center at your digital footprint as a whole. Reviews If you don’t have reviews on third-party websites like Trustpilot and BBB, or worse, if there are many negative reviews about your business, Google will view you with more suspicion. Make a focused effort to ask your customers for reviews and respond professionally to all reviews (positive or negative), so that Google sees you’re an active, engaged business. Social media Google expects websites to have profiles on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram. There is even a place in your Merchant Center where you can directly link to your social profiles. It can be helpful to claim profiles for your business and make sure that your business info in those profiles (domain, phone number, physical and email addresses) match what’s on your website. Authorized resellers If you’re an authorized reseller for another brand, establish as much of a connection to that brand online as possible. For example: Ask the brand to link to your website from their social media profiles and website. Post any information you’re legally allowed to share about your contract on your website so that Google sees you’re being transparent. Create an authentication guide that details how you authenticate the products you sell. Step 6: Request a review After you have followed steps 1-5 to identify and fix as many potential problems as possible, you are ready to ask Google to review your suspension. To request a review: Log in to your Google Merchant Center account. Click Products & store. Click Products. Click Needs attention. In the box that says “Suspended account for policy violation,” click Fix. Click the button labeled “I disagree with the issue.” Google sometimes makes the button unclickable until you go through identity verification, and in some cases, it also requires a video verification process. Google doesn’t let you write any context when you request a review. Clicking the button is your only option. Google limits how many reviews you may request. The limit varies per account, but often is three or less. Once you’ve reached that limit, Google will tell you that it will no longer accept additional review requests, and the button will no longer be clickable. Google will not review your appeal unless there is at least one product in your Merchant Center. What if I’m suspended for multiple things? Google sometimes flags Merchant Centers with multiple policy violations at the same time. Fix everything possible on your website and in your account, and then appeal the suspensions one at a time. Start with the suspension that looks the most comprehensive. For example, misrepresentation is a more “egregious” suspension in Google’s eyes than sale of service, so start by appealing the former. If one policy issue is a suspension and another is a warning (suspended for misrepresentation and warned for website needs improvement), appeal the warning first. Common questions about Google Merchant Center suspensions Why is my Google Merchant Center suspended? Google will tell you what policy it believes you’ve violated via email, and in a notification in the “Needs Attention” tab in your Merchant Center. These policies are usually quite broad, and narrowing down exactly why you were suspended can be difficult, which is why it’s vital that you fix as many potential problems as possible before appealing your suspension. How long does a Google Merchant Center suspension last? In most cases, it lasts forever unless you successfully appeal the suspension. That said, we’ve seen cases where Google re-crawled a website after changes were made and automatically reinstated an account prior to the advertiser requesting a review (but don’t count on this happening). Can Google Merchant Center support help me? Sometimes, if you know how to ask the right questions, Google Merchant Center support will provide some ideas about what went wrong, or will point to specific data issues with your products. What happens if Google rejects my appeal? Typically, Google will put your Merchant Center into a cool-down period during which you can’t request another review. The first cool-down period is usually seven days, and the timeline gets longer with subsequent rejections. How many times can I appeal a Google Merchant Center suspension? Google typically limits appeals to between one and three attempts, though exceptions exist. Why does Google keep suspending my Merchant Center account? It’s not uncommon for Google to accept an appeal of a Merchant Center suspension and then suspend that account again for the same policy. This could be due to Google’s automated systems re-flagging you for something that its manual reviewers decided was not a violation. It could also be because Google is unfortunately inconsistent with how it flags policy violations and enforces its policies. Can I ask customers to write reviews of my business online? You can. If you’re sending product reviews to Merchant Center, you must disclose to Google if you incentivize customers to leave reviews. Dig deeper: Dealing with Google Ads frustrations: Poor support, suspensions, rising costs See the complete picture of your search visibility. Track, optimize, and win in Google and AI search from one platform. Start Free Trial Get started with Preventing Google Merchant Center suspensions All of the steps outlined in this guide to fix suspensions are things you should proactively do to help prevent suspensions from happening. Doing these things before you’re suspended can potentially save you tremendous time, frustration, and opportunity cost. Here are a few more ideas to help stop suspensions: Check your website weekly via incognito mode on mobile and desktop devices to make sure your website functions properly. Get a real physical business address, and feature that address on your Contact page and in your website footer. Regularly ask your clients to write reviews about you, and respond professionally to every single review. Consistently read the policies on your website to make sure they are still accurate, and update them immediately if you change your processes. Monitor your Merchant Center daily for disapprovals, and quickly fix anything that Google says needs attention. Google has policies in place because it wants to protect consumers. By following Google’s policies and showing that you’re a legitimate advertiser, you can protect your ability to use one of the most important channels available for growing an ecommerce brand. View the full article

Investors Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz gave $25mn to pro-AI Super Pac in first quarter of yearView the full article

If you've had trouble accessing Bluesky this morning, you're not alone. The social media platform has been experiencing intermittent interruptions to service on Thursday. That's obvious from a glance at Downdetector, which shows thousands of user reports of issues with Bluesky starting at about 1:51 a.m. ET, and really kicking off at 2:21 a.m. ET. (Disclosure: Downdetector is owned by Lifehacker parent company Ziff Davis.) While my Bluesky feed does seem to be working at this time, there are still issues causing downtime for users and parts of the platform, including loading notifications. As of this article, Bluesky's status page reads "We are investigating an incident with service in one of our [regions]," and "We are experiencing further issues. We appreciate your continued patience." Bluesky had previously stated that the issue had been fixed, so the platform may be having trouble isolating the root cause of the problem. To that point, it isn't clear what exactly is causing this downtime across Bluesky. That said, this will likely be resolved in due time. Websites occasionally go down for one reason or another, and apart from an attack or catastrophic issue, the source is usually discovered relatively quickly, and a fix implemented shortly after. My guess is by some point today—perhaps by the time you read this article—Bluesky will be back up and running as usual. View the full article

When starting a business, comprehension vital registration requirements is critical. First, you’ll need to choose a business structure and file formation documents with the Texas Secretary of State. Next, check your desired business name for uniqueness and file a DBA if necessary. Tax registration with the Texas Comptroller may likewise be required. Compliance with local regulations and obtaining industry-specific licenses can’t be overlooked. Let’s explore these steps in detail to guarantee you’re set up for success. Key Takeaways Choose a suitable business structure, such as an LLC or corporation, to ensure limited liability protection and comply with formation requirements. Register your business name with the Texas Secretary of State and verify its availability through their database. File a DBA certificate with the county clerk if operating under a name different from your legal business name. Obtain necessary licenses and permits based on your industry, including local zoning and health permits where applicable. Apply for an Employer Identification Number (EIN) and register for relevant taxes, including the Texas Franchise Tax and Sales Tax Permit. Choosing the Right Business Structure When you’re deciding on the right business structure, it’s essential to understand the implications of each option available to you. In Texas, the choices include sole proprietorships, partnerships, LLCs, and corporations. A sole proprietorship is simple, requiring minimal paperwork, but you take on personal liability for debts. Partnerships can be general or limited, and you might need a DBA if your name doesn’t include all partners’ surnames. LLCs and corporations require filing a certificate of formation and offer limited liability protection. When considering a Los Angeles County business name search to verify your desired name is available. Familiarizing yourself with these business registration requirements will help you make informed decisions. Registering Your Business in Texas Registering your business in Texas involves several important steps to guarantee compliance with state regulations. First, you must register with the Texas Secretary of State by filing formation documents, such as the Certificate of Formation for LLCs or corporations, or the Partnership Registration for LLPs. Choose a unique business name and verify its availability using the Texas Secretary of State’s database. If you’ll operate under a different name, file a DBA (Doing Business As) Certificate with the county clerk where your business resides. Furthermore, registration with the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts may be necessary for tax purposes, especially if you’re selling taxable goods or services. Obtaining Necessary Licenses and Permits Maneuvering the terrain of licenses and permits can feel overwhelming, but it’s vital for your Texas business to operate legally. Here’s what you need to take into account: Industry-Specific Licenses: Depending on your business type, you may need licenses like the Texas Sales Tax Permit for selling taxable goods or services. Professional Licenses: If you’re in a regulated field, such as healthcare or construction, make sure you obtain the necessary professional licenses to comply with state regulations. Local Permits: Check your municipality for local permits and zoning compliance, which can include health permits for food service operations. Failure to secure the right licenses can lead to fines and operational delays, so thorough research is important for compliance. Tax Requirements for Texas Start-Ups Understanding the tax requirements for your Texas start-up is crucial, especially since these obligations can significantly affect your business’s financial health. First, you’ll need an Employer Identification Number (EIN) if you hire employees or operate as an LLC or corporation. Most businesses, except sole proprietorships and certain partnerships, must pay the Texas Franchise Tax, which necessitates annual reporting based on revenue. If you sell taxable goods or services, registering for a Texas Sales and Use Tax Permit is required to collect and remit sales tax. Furthermore, you must withhold payroll taxes from employees’ wages. Consulting a business attorney or tax professional is fundamental for guaranteeing compliance with all relevant tax laws. Requirement Description Notes EIN Required for hiring and IRS operations Apply through the IRS Texas Franchise Tax Applies to most businesses, annual reporting needed Exemptions for sole proprietorships Sales and Use Tax Permit Needed for selling taxable goods/services Mandatory for tax collection Payroll Taxes Must be withheld and reported Compliance with state and federal Professional Consultation Crucial for managing tax obligations Helps guarantee compliance Business Banking and Financial Setup Setting up a solid financial foundation for your business in Texas is just as important as grasping your tax obligations. Opening a business bank account is crucial for managing your finances effectively. Here are three key steps to evaluate: Gather Required Documents: You’ll need your Employer Identification Number (EIN), business formation documents, and an operating agreement if you’re an LLC. Protect Personal Assets: Maintaining a separate business account safeguards your personal finances and simplifies tracking expenses and income. Build Business Credit: A dedicated account helps establish business credit, opening doors for future financing options. Many banks offer specialized services, such as merchant accounts and business credit cards, to support your growing business’s financial needs. Frequently Asked Questions What Is Typically Required When Registering a New Business? When you register a new business, you’ll typically need to file formation documents with the state, such as a Certificate of Formation for an LLC or corporation. You’ll likewise obtain an Employer Identification Number (EIN) from the IRS for tax purposes. If you’re using a different name, you must file an Assumed Name Certificate (DBA). Moreover, depending on your business type, you may need specific licenses or permits to operate legally. What Are the 5 SBA Requirements of a Small Business? To qualify as a small business under the SBA, you need to meet five key requirements. First, your business must operate for profit. Second, it must be independently owned and operated. Third, it should adhere to specific size standards, like having fewer than 500 employees or less than $7.5 million in receipts. Fourth, it must be legally organized in the U.S. Finally, your principal office should be located and primarily operate within the country. What Are the Three Essentials Needed to Operate a Business? To operate a business, you’ll need three fundamentals: a solid business plan, adequate funding, and a legal structure. A business plan outlines your objectives and strategies, guiding your operations. Securing adequate funding guarantees you can cover startup costs and sustain operations. Finally, choosing a legal structure—like an LLC or corporation—determines your liability and tax obligations. Each of these elements plays a vital role in establishing a successful and compliant business. Do I Need to Register My Small Business in California? Yes, you need to register your small business in California if you’re forming an LLC or corporation. If you plan to operate under a name different from your legal name, you’ll require a DBA (Doing Business As) certificate. Meanwhile, sole proprietorships don’t need formal registration; filing a DBA is necessary for a fictitious name. Furthermore, check for local business licenses and permits, as requirements vary by industry and location. Conclusion In conclusion, maneuvering the vital business registration requirements in Texas involves selecting the right structure, filing necessary documents, and obtaining relevant licenses and permits. Don’t overlook tax obligations, which may require registration with the Texas Comptroller. Establishing a solid banking and financial setup is additionally important for managing your business effectively. By following these steps, you’ll guarantee compliance and lay a strong foundation for your venture’s success. Taking these actions can help you operate legally and efficiently. Image via Google Gemini This article, "Essential Business Registration Requirements" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

When starting a business, comprehension vital registration requirements is critical. First, you’ll need to choose a business structure and file formation documents with the Texas Secretary of State. Next, check your desired business name for uniqueness and file a DBA if necessary. Tax registration with the Texas Comptroller may likewise be required. Compliance with local regulations and obtaining industry-specific licenses can’t be overlooked. Let’s explore these steps in detail to guarantee you’re set up for success. Key Takeaways Choose a suitable business structure, such as an LLC or corporation, to ensure limited liability protection and comply with formation requirements. Register your business name with the Texas Secretary of State and verify its availability through their database. File a DBA certificate with the county clerk if operating under a name different from your legal business name. Obtain necessary licenses and permits based on your industry, including local zoning and health permits where applicable. Apply for an Employer Identification Number (EIN) and register for relevant taxes, including the Texas Franchise Tax and Sales Tax Permit. Choosing the Right Business Structure When you’re deciding on the right business structure, it’s essential to understand the implications of each option available to you. In Texas, the choices include sole proprietorships, partnerships, LLCs, and corporations. A sole proprietorship is simple, requiring minimal paperwork, but you take on personal liability for debts. Partnerships can be general or limited, and you might need a DBA if your name doesn’t include all partners’ surnames. LLCs and corporations require filing a certificate of formation and offer limited liability protection. When considering a Los Angeles County business name search to verify your desired name is available. Familiarizing yourself with these business registration requirements will help you make informed decisions. Registering Your Business in Texas Registering your business in Texas involves several important steps to guarantee compliance with state regulations. First, you must register with the Texas Secretary of State by filing formation documents, such as the Certificate of Formation for LLCs or corporations, or the Partnership Registration for LLPs. Choose a unique business name and verify its availability using the Texas Secretary of State’s database. If you’ll operate under a different name, file a DBA (Doing Business As) Certificate with the county clerk where your business resides. Furthermore, registration with the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts may be necessary for tax purposes, especially if you’re selling taxable goods or services. Obtaining Necessary Licenses and Permits Maneuvering the terrain of licenses and permits can feel overwhelming, but it’s vital for your Texas business to operate legally. Here’s what you need to take into account: Industry-Specific Licenses: Depending on your business type, you may need licenses like the Texas Sales Tax Permit for selling taxable goods or services. Professional Licenses: If you’re in a regulated field, such as healthcare or construction, make sure you obtain the necessary professional licenses to comply with state regulations. Local Permits: Check your municipality for local permits and zoning compliance, which can include health permits for food service operations. Failure to secure the right licenses can lead to fines and operational delays, so thorough research is important for compliance. Tax Requirements for Texas Start-Ups Understanding the tax requirements for your Texas start-up is crucial, especially since these obligations can significantly affect your business’s financial health. First, you’ll need an Employer Identification Number (EIN) if you hire employees or operate as an LLC or corporation. Most businesses, except sole proprietorships and certain partnerships, must pay the Texas Franchise Tax, which necessitates annual reporting based on revenue. If you sell taxable goods or services, registering for a Texas Sales and Use Tax Permit is required to collect and remit sales tax. Furthermore, you must withhold payroll taxes from employees’ wages. Consulting a business attorney or tax professional is fundamental for guaranteeing compliance with all relevant tax laws. Requirement Description Notes EIN Required for hiring and IRS operations Apply through the IRS Texas Franchise Tax Applies to most businesses, annual reporting needed Exemptions for sole proprietorships Sales and Use Tax Permit Needed for selling taxable goods/services Mandatory for tax collection Payroll Taxes Must be withheld and reported Compliance with state and federal Professional Consultation Crucial for managing tax obligations Helps guarantee compliance Business Banking and Financial Setup Setting up a solid financial foundation for your business in Texas is just as important as grasping your tax obligations. Opening a business bank account is crucial for managing your finances effectively. Here are three key steps to evaluate: Gather Required Documents: You’ll need your Employer Identification Number (EIN), business formation documents, and an operating agreement if you’re an LLC. Protect Personal Assets: Maintaining a separate business account safeguards your personal finances and simplifies tracking expenses and income. Build Business Credit: A dedicated account helps establish business credit, opening doors for future financing options. Many banks offer specialized services, such as merchant accounts and business credit cards, to support your growing business’s financial needs. Frequently Asked Questions What Is Typically Required When Registering a New Business? When you register a new business, you’ll typically need to file formation documents with the state, such as a Certificate of Formation for an LLC or corporation. You’ll likewise obtain an Employer Identification Number (EIN) from the IRS for tax purposes. If you’re using a different name, you must file an Assumed Name Certificate (DBA). Moreover, depending on your business type, you may need specific licenses or permits to operate legally. What Are the 5 SBA Requirements of a Small Business? To qualify as a small business under the SBA, you need to meet five key requirements. First, your business must operate for profit. Second, it must be independently owned and operated. Third, it should adhere to specific size standards, like having fewer than 500 employees or less than $7.5 million in receipts. Fourth, it must be legally organized in the U.S. Finally, your principal office should be located and primarily operate within the country. What Are the Three Essentials Needed to Operate a Business? To operate a business, you’ll need three fundamentals: a solid business plan, adequate funding, and a legal structure. A business plan outlines your objectives and strategies, guiding your operations. Securing adequate funding guarantees you can cover startup costs and sustain operations. Finally, choosing a legal structure—like an LLC or corporation—determines your liability and tax obligations. Each of these elements plays a vital role in establishing a successful and compliant business. Do I Need to Register My Small Business in California? Yes, you need to register your small business in California if you’re forming an LLC or corporation. If you plan to operate under a name different from your legal name, you’ll require a DBA (Doing Business As) certificate. Meanwhile, sole proprietorships don’t need formal registration; filing a DBA is necessary for a fictitious name. Furthermore, check for local business licenses and permits, as requirements vary by industry and location. Conclusion In conclusion, maneuvering the vital business registration requirements in Texas involves selecting the right structure, filing necessary documents, and obtaining relevant licenses and permits. Don’t overlook tax obligations, which may require registration with the Texas Comptroller. Establishing a solid banking and financial setup is additionally important for managing your business effectively. By following these steps, you’ll guarantee compliance and lay a strong foundation for your venture’s success. Taking these actions can help you operate legally and efficiently. Image via Google Gemini This article, "Essential Business Registration Requirements" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

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