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A veteran jazz ensemble announced on Monday it was canceling its New Year’s Eve performances at the Kennedy Center, the latest group to withdraw from the Washington arts institution after it was renamed to include U.S. President Donald The President. “Jazz was born from struggle and from a relentless insistence on freedom: freedom of thought, of expression, and of the full human voice. Some of us have been making this music for many decades, and that history still shapes us,” the Cookers jazz ensemble said in a statement. The Kennedy Center had promoted two New Year’s Eve performances by the Cookers as an “all-star jazz septet that will ignite the Terrace Theater stage with fire and soul.” Richard Grenell, a longtime ally of the U.S. president whom The President named as the center’s president, said on Monday that such boycotts are a “form of derangement syndrome” and the cancelations are coming from artists booked by the institution’s previous leadership. He has previously termed cancelations a “political stunt.” The withdrawal adds to a growing list of cancellations since the name change was announced this month by the Center’s board, which the Republican president filled with allies during a broad takeover earlier this year. A Christmas Eve jazz concert was canceled last week, with the host of the show, musician Chuck Redd, attributing it to the name change. The New York Times reported that Doug Varone and Dancers, a New York dance company, has pulled out of two April performances. Democrats have called the decision by the board of the Kennedy Center to add The President’s name to the institution illegal, while John F. Kennedy’s family denounced the move as undermining the slain president’s legacy. The board voted to rename the arts venue The Donald J. The President and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, or The President Kennedy Center for short. The President has been eager to put his stamp on Washington and his name on buildings in his second term. His critics say he has compromised institutions by installing loyalists and making funding threats. The President says he is tackling what he calls those institutions’ liberal bias. —Kanishka Singh, Reuters View the full article

Salesforce, recognized as the world’s leading AI CRM provider, has announced its intent to acquire Qualified, a prominent name in agentic AI marketing solutions. This strategic move is set to enhance Salesforce’s offerings, particularly for small businesses eager to optimize their marketing and sales processes. Qualified specializes in transforming digital experiences through its “always-on” AI workers, which engage and convert inbound buyers. Their flagship product ushers in a new era of lead management by creating dynamic conversations on websites, effectively qualifying and nurturing leads without requiring continuous human oversight. For small businesses, this means a more efficient approach to cultivating potential customers, driving pipeline generation while minimizing manual effort. “By integrating Qualified’s agentic marketing expertise into Agentforce, we will enhance our ability to offer autonomous pipeline generation,” stated Steve Fisher, Salesforce’s President and Chief Product Officer. This integration promises to arm small business owners with quick-deployment capabilities to enhance marketing strategies, which can lead to revenue growth without the need to significantly expand sales teams. Qualified is already an established Salesforce AppExchange partner and a member of the Salesforce Ventures portfolio, boasting features like intent data, conversational AI, and meeting scheduling tools. This technical synergy augments the robustness of Salesforce’s platforms and aligns perfectly with current trends in B2B marketing, particularly the growing reliance on AI solutions. As marketing and sales teams pivot towards automated strategies, Salesforce’s investment in agentic marketing underscores a key shift in how businesses approach customer interactions. By enabling AI to handle initial customer engagement, sales professionals can allocate their time to closing deals rather than focusing on lead generation. For small business owners, this means that an expanded reach is possible without compromising personalized customer service or straining resources. However, while the acquisition heralds potential benefits, small business owners should consider possible challenges as well. The transition to integrating new technology often comes with initial costs and learning curves. Ensuring employees are trained to effectively utilize new systems can take time, and any disruption to existing workflows must be managed carefully. Moreover, the deal is subject to regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions, which means that the full benefits of the integration will not be realized until early 2027, at the latest. Until then, small businesses will need to assess their immediate operational needs against the anticipated advantages of these emerging tools. Kraig Swensrud, CEO of Qualified, emphasized the alignment between both companies’ missions: “As Salesforce alumni, my co-founders and I have always built our products to deeply integrate with Salesforce. Joining forces with Salesforce is a natural evolution that will allow us to bring the power of agentic marketing to the enterprise.” This vision points to a commitment that will likely extend significant value to small businesses looking to harness the efficiency of AI for growth. In a landscape where agility is paramount, Salesforce’s move to acquire Qualified may pave the way for small businesses to streamline their customer engagement processes while still focusing on the personalized touch that is crucial for customer relationships. By adopting these advanced capabilities, small business owners can better compete in an increasingly automated market. The combination of Salesforce’s vast resources and Qualified’s innovative tools positions the newly integrated offering as a compelling solution in the realm of marketing automation. For more detailed information about the acquisition, you can read the full press release on Salesforce’s website here. Image via Google Gemini This article, "Salesforce Acquires Qualified to Enhance AI Marketing Solutions" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

Salesforce, recognized as the world’s leading AI CRM provider, has announced its intent to acquire Qualified, a prominent name in agentic AI marketing solutions. This strategic move is set to enhance Salesforce’s offerings, particularly for small businesses eager to optimize their marketing and sales processes. Qualified specializes in transforming digital experiences through its “always-on” AI workers, which engage and convert inbound buyers. Their flagship product ushers in a new era of lead management by creating dynamic conversations on websites, effectively qualifying and nurturing leads without requiring continuous human oversight. For small businesses, this means a more efficient approach to cultivating potential customers, driving pipeline generation while minimizing manual effort. “By integrating Qualified’s agentic marketing expertise into Agentforce, we will enhance our ability to offer autonomous pipeline generation,” stated Steve Fisher, Salesforce’s President and Chief Product Officer. This integration promises to arm small business owners with quick-deployment capabilities to enhance marketing strategies, which can lead to revenue growth without the need to significantly expand sales teams. Qualified is already an established Salesforce AppExchange partner and a member of the Salesforce Ventures portfolio, boasting features like intent data, conversational AI, and meeting scheduling tools. This technical synergy augments the robustness of Salesforce’s platforms and aligns perfectly with current trends in B2B marketing, particularly the growing reliance on AI solutions. As marketing and sales teams pivot towards automated strategies, Salesforce’s investment in agentic marketing underscores a key shift in how businesses approach customer interactions. By enabling AI to handle initial customer engagement, sales professionals can allocate their time to closing deals rather than focusing on lead generation. For small business owners, this means that an expanded reach is possible without compromising personalized customer service or straining resources. However, while the acquisition heralds potential benefits, small business owners should consider possible challenges as well. The transition to integrating new technology often comes with initial costs and learning curves. Ensuring employees are trained to effectively utilize new systems can take time, and any disruption to existing workflows must be managed carefully. Moreover, the deal is subject to regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions, which means that the full benefits of the integration will not be realized until early 2027, at the latest. Until then, small businesses will need to assess their immediate operational needs against the anticipated advantages of these emerging tools. Kraig Swensrud, CEO of Qualified, emphasized the alignment between both companies’ missions: “As Salesforce alumni, my co-founders and I have always built our products to deeply integrate with Salesforce. Joining forces with Salesforce is a natural evolution that will allow us to bring the power of agentic marketing to the enterprise.” This vision points to a commitment that will likely extend significant value to small businesses looking to harness the efficiency of AI for growth. In a landscape where agility is paramount, Salesforce’s move to acquire Qualified may pave the way for small businesses to streamline their customer engagement processes while still focusing on the personalized touch that is crucial for customer relationships. By adopting these advanced capabilities, small business owners can better compete in an increasingly automated market. The combination of Salesforce’s vast resources and Qualified’s innovative tools positions the newly integrated offering as a compelling solution in the realm of marketing automation. For more detailed information about the acquisition, you can read the full press release on Salesforce’s website here. Image via Google Gemini This article, "Salesforce Acquires Qualified to Enhance AI Marketing Solutions" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

Some Grubhub users have received a tempting email offer from the food delivery service: Send $1,000 in bitcoin to a specified wallet, and get 10 times that amount back. Unfortunately, this is very much a scam. As BleepingComputer reports, these promo emails were sent from addresses on b.grubhub.com, a legitimate Grubhub subdomain, so they appear verified in recipients' inboxes. Two examples of senders include merry-christmast@b.grubhub.com and crypto-promotion@b.grubhub.com. Beyond that, there are some pretty clear red flags. The subject line reads "30 minutes left - We'll 10x your Bitcoin!" to promote a sense of urgency and an offer too good to be true (but also too good to ignore). The body includes the recipient's name and instructions on how to participate in Grubhub's "Holiday Crypto Promotion" with a bitcoin wallet address. While Grubhub has acknowledged the problem, they haven't released any details as to what facilitated attackers sending emails using a company address. The company did suffer a major security breach earlier this year, resulting in the leak of some user data (including names and email addresses). There are several varieties of the crypto reward scamThe Grubhub email promotion is a pretty typical example of a cryptocurrency scam. The Federal Trade Commission outlines several variants, including get-rich-quick schemes guaranteeing big returns on your investment and celebrity-promoted "giveaways" that claim to multiply any funds you send. If you fall for crypto fraud, there's no way to track or get your money back, and even if victims are few and far between, scammers can score big paydays. That's why you should be especially wary of anything and everything requiring a crypto transaction, especially if the offer sounds urgent or provokes a sense of either excitement or fear. And remember that no legitimate organization—government agency, law enforcement official, utility company, or prize promoter—will ever ask for payments in cryptocurrency. View the full article

When internet services platform Cloudflare suffered an outage in November, it took a big chunk of the online world down with it. Major platforms like ChatGPT, X, and Canva became unreachable. So did digital services offered by countless banks, retailers, and many other businesses. During the six-hour meltdown, as many as 2.4 billion users could have felt the impact. Software outages like this have always been and always will be part of online life. But today our systems are more interconnected than ever, so a single failure can ripple outward. AI only amplifies that risk. Yet, too many companies still lack protection against such disasters. In an era when outages are inevitable, they’re effectively operating without a safety net. The fundamental missing ingredient is something simple but easily overlooked: resilience testing. In a nutshell, resilience testing is all about pressure testing your software, before issues happen. It ensures that systems keep working—or quickly bounce back—when things go wrong. Think of resilience testing as a small safety step to prevent big problems. The annual median cost of a high-impact IT outage is about $76 million. Businesses can also suffer reputational damage, lose customers, and get hit with regulatory penalties. Cloudflare is only one recent example. In the past year alone, AWS, Microsoft 365, and Starlink all went down, to name just a few. So why aren’t more businesses stress-testing their software for inevitable failure? Here’s why, and what companies can do about it. MOST COMPANIES DON’T BOTHER WITH RESILIENCE TESTING As high as the stakes are, businesses have reasons to avoid software resilience testing. The process is technical, and it can get messy. Modern resilience testing, also called chaos engineering, was put in the spotlight 15 years ago by Netflix software developers. Realizing that the only way to test for resilience is to simulate problems “in the wild” or in production, they created a suite of tools that replicated network crashes, cloud services meltdowns, and other real-world failures. Netflix might have been able to roll with the punches, but few other companies have the expertise or the stomach to compromise their systems like this. It’s the equivalent of starting a controlled fire to ensure you have the resources to put it out. Resilience testing requires the technical acumen to know what failures to simulate for and responses to take. Putting these drills into action also entails risk, like triggering your home’s fire sprinkler system which could ruin the furniture. Most importantly, developers need to know what to do when tests reveal weaknesses. Because the threshold for resilience testing is so high, it isn’t integrated into most companies’ software development processes. There’s rarely a dedicated team, and often no one except maybe the CTO is clearly in charge. As a result, resilience testing becomes a bottleneck, so companies don’t bother with it. A BETTER WAY FORWARD: HELP FROM AI The good news: It no longer has to be this way. For companies that want to adopt resilience testing, new platforms and tools—powered by AI—are making the process safer and easier. Specialized resilience testing agents now enable companies to automate and optimize testing, without needing dedicated experts or teams. First, the AI agent identifies likely edge cases—unusual or unexpected scenarios that could compromise reliability. It examines system behavior in production, how services interact, and where similar systems have previously failed. For example, the agent might highlight a scenario where a service slows, rather than fails outright. Another edge case: A code deployment updates only half the company’s servers, leading to inconsistent user experiences. The agent then generates and prioritizes the test cases most likely to reveal resilience issues, explaining why each one matters. It can also set up and run those tests. After problems are identified, the AI agent suggests targeted fixes, making the software more resilient. With the heavy lifting completed, developers can review and apply those insights. WHY RESILIENCE TESTING NEEDS TO SHIFT LEFT Having the right tools is one thing, but effective resilience testing requires more than just software. Creating a culture of resilience is part of the solution. Software teams need to include testing in their routine. Ultimately, the only way to strengthen yourself against failures is to practice for them. If you never run those drills, you never know how bad things can get until it’s too late. Developers should also remember that resilience testing isn’t just about full-scale, five-alarm outages. It’s also about small, partial failures that create a poor user experience for customers, without necessarily taking the whole system down. Let’s say a platform like Cloudflare has an issue affecting a major bank’s consumer app, leaving millions unable to check their balances. Resilience testing should anticipate this problem and provide a viable workaround. But the best way to encourage a culture of resilience is to “shift left”—moving resilience testing to the software development preproduction phase, before code ever goes live. Shifting left helps teams catch weaknesses long before customers feel them. That’s crucial with today’s complex, interconnected software systems, where seemingly minor issues can rapidly spiral into major outages. Rather than scramble to diagnose problems during live incidents, developers can uncover and fix them in a safe environment. Shifting left can save money and stress, too. Fixing resilience issues in production is costly and disruptive, often pulling team members away from other vital tasks. By taking a proactive approach, developers and business leaders can be more confident in the product they deliver to customers. Ultimately, resilience testing isn’t rocket science. Companies that run fire drills for their software and embrace a culture of resilience testing will find themselves in a stronger position when the next disruption strikes. And in an increasingly interconnected world, where AI tools and features depend on more underlying services than ever, it’s safe to say that might be sooner rather than later. Jyoti Bansal is CEO of Harness. View the full article

Artificial intelligence is reshaping the global workforce and rapidly expanding the expectations placed on today’s learners. The World Economic Forum predicts that technological advancements like AI, alongside economic and demographic factors, will lead to a net increase of 78 million global jobs this decade. Educational institutions now face a pivotal moment. They must evolve how students learn, how instructors teach, and how technology supports each step of that journey. For decades, the education sector adopted new technologies cautiously. However, the profound impact of AI on the workforce has accelerated interest and experimentation. Our latest research at Cengage Group shows that both positive perceptions of AI and classroom usage are rising. While this enthusiasm is a promising step toward ensuring learners are prepared for an AI-forward future, it’s critical that institutions approach AI responsibly. With new AI tools launching at unprecedented speeds, it can be difficult to determine which will truly enhance learning outcomes. In some cases, rapid launches have created more friction for educators and confusion for students. To ensure responsible deployment, the conversation must shift from racing to market and instead toward measured, purposeful development aligned with how learning actually occurs. WELL-INTENTIONED, BUT MISSING THE MARK Many big tech companies have rushed to develop AI-based educational tools. But while tech innovators have made strides in exploring AI to enhance the educator and student experience, the critical reality is that education is an incredibly complex ecosystem. Education is simply not fit for plug-and-play solutions. Google’s recent “homework help” feature is one example. Designed to give students an AI overview of what appeared on the screen including assessment answers, the tool inadvertently made it harder for instructors to validate work and accurately gauge understanding. Instead of reducing friction, it increased workload for both educators and students, ultimately leading to a pause in deployment. A similar challenge emerged this past summer with OpenAI’s Study Mode. While designed to guide students and ask questions rather than provide answers, it is just one click away from ChatGPT, where answers are readily available. Without a deep understanding of teaching fundamentals, and how and when real learning happens, technological developments can lead to unintended consequences that disrupt rather than improve learning. These examples highlight an important truth. Innovation alone is not enough. Educational impact requires domain expertise, intentional design, and clear boundaries that promote understanding rather than shortcuts. BALANCE MEANINGFUL INNOVATION AND REINFORCE LEARNING To deliver educational support that blends innovation with learning outcomes, AI product development must balance the needs of both educators and students. Faculty are increasingly being asked to do more with less. AI should lighten that load, not add to it. For example, AI can surface classroom trends, flag areas where students are struggling, and help educators personalize instruction. Students, meanwhile, need support tools that build understanding, and don’t just provide answers. Success in student deployment lies in cultivating curiosity and critical thinking. For example, AI can provide study support outside of classroom hours, deliver personalized feedback, and encourage further exploration to strengthen learning. This balanced approach requires maintaining human oversight. Collaboration with institutions and faculty ensures AI experiences align with course objectives and reinforce, rather than disrupt, proven teaching practices. THE PATH FORWARD: PRIORITIZE PEDAGOGY As AI continues to evolve, pedagogy must be at the core of all innovation, ensuring academic integrity and quality content that builds trust and drives meaningful student outcomes. Through controlled, confined subject knowledge and consistent training to ensure accuracy and academic integrity, AI tools can prioritize pedagogy and remain narrowly focused on driving specific student learning outcomes. AI should act as a supporting coach who helps break down problems, prompts curiosity, and encourages persistent learning so students can confidently reach the correct answer on their own. This purpose-built approach to AI complements the human teacher and enhances instruction by confirming student understanding and pinpointing knowledge gaps to support educators in delivering more personalized learning. The key to unlocking AI’s potential in education goes beyond speed to market, and lies in thoughtful development rooted in intentional and responsible design. With pedagogy at the core, AI becomes more than a tool. It becomes a partner in improving learning outcomes for students and reducing the educators’ load. Darren Person is EVP and chief digital officer of Cengage Group. View the full article

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web. The Google December 2025 core update is done rolling out...View the full article

If you’re a millennial or simply a fan of sci-fi, you likely remember 2010’s smash hit Inception, written and directed by Christopher Nolan. The story follows Dom Cobb (played by Leonardo DiCaprio), a professional thief who specializes in stealing privileged secrets from people’s minds while they dream. He uses advanced technology to enter another person’s subconscious while they’re asleep and take whatever information he wants. The problem DiCaprio’s character faces is that the line between reality and dreams become blurred, making it increasingly difficult to tell what’s real. In many ways, especially for retail investors, that’s a picture of the modern market. A place where rumor, rhetoric, and anticipation can impact price action in unpredictable ways. When you add the ever-changing realities of our current political and macro-economic environment, the average Joe trader can feel like the odds are stacked against him. But there is one set of data that more often than not, cuts through the noise. And that’s the options market. OPTIONS PROVIDE ACCURATE VIEWS Options give us a more accurate picture of what the people who move the markets are actually thinking. Institutions and hedge funds make their living on positive returns. And while stocks can often be manipulated, options have a shorter shelf-life and are way less forgiving. And it’s there, in the nuances of the “put to call ratios” of the options market, that AI is quietly giving retail traders a helping hand. Let me give you an example. OnOctober 9th, our Prospero.ai AI-driven Net Options Sentiment (a gauge of real-time, market options data and positioning), plunged from a bullish 33 to an ominously bearish zero in a matter of minutes. No headline. No Fed speech. No earnings shock. Just a massive bearish shift, seemingly out of nowhere. We saw the shift and sent an alert to our followers on X. At 10:30 a.m. the next morning, the numbers were still sitting at zero. We issued another alert warning that a possible market reversal might be brewing. Thirty minutes later, without any warning, President The President posted on social media about a looming trade war with China. The market fell off a cliff. Several fintech influencers noticed our early warnings and brought positive attention to it on X. Some were skeptical. @cyberdaddy mused, “Today’s selloff was 100% correlated to the China tariff threats, which were impossible for any person or algo to forsee….this was 100% random luck.” But the reality is that this wasn’t the first time our signals picked up on a major market move before it happened. The same pattern appeared in February when we saw SPY Net Options Sentiment lead the market down. We warned about it (“Don’t Trim the Hedges”) on March 3rd, just a few days before a historic market correction on “Liberation Day.” Twice now, the data revealed massive bearish options positioning before a drop in price. WHAT’S REALLY HAPPENING? That brings us to an important question. If the data is picking up on signals before they’re public, what’s really happening? Is AI becoming smart enough to sense fear before humans can express it? Or is information, intentional or not, pulsing through back channels in a way once thought unimaginable 20 years ago? In earlier eras, Wall Street’s most valuable information moved in whispers and was confined to smoke-filled rooms and the back nine of golf courses. Today, that same information moves with lightning speed through social media threads, encrypted group chats, and algorithmic pattern recognition. One whisper in the right chat room can ripple through a thousand terminals before the SEC finishes its coffee. A policymaker’s assistant, a janitor overhearing a senator’s conversation as he informs a colleague of a military contract, or heightened tensions in the White House can all lead to that same outcome. The lines between what’s public, private, and privileged are dissolving. So maybe the question isn’t whether AI is getting smarter or if those in the know are getting bolder. Maybe it’s that AI is hearing the market’s whispers more clearly than ever before. Cyberdaddy backed off his protest of the validity of our system: “After doing some more research, I found that the de-risking and drop in options sentiment likely occurred for logical reasons that your model picked up on. The China export-control announcement on October 8th probably drove much of that defensive positioning among people paying attention to geopolitics (which major firms obviously do). My apologies for jumping the gun, I was wrong.” THE CRUX OF THE ISSUE This is the crux of the matter. Did a shift in the perception of risk regarding the situation with China lead to a massive hedge or bet against the QQQ (an index including 100 of the largest non-financial companies listed on the Nasdaq exchange, heavily weighted toward technology and growth)? Or were some more “in the know” about the political winds changing? How could we even begin to differentiate between the two? By the way, the word inceptionisn’t just a movie title, it’s a word that means the beginning, or start of something brand new. And maybe we are at a point of inception. Because for the first time, AI isn’t just leveling the playing field; it’s changing who gets to play on that field in the first place. George Kailas is CEO of Prospero.ai. View the full article

India, Pakistan and UAE join The President in condemning what Kyiv says are false allegations of assault on Russian president’s residenceView the full article

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. If exercising more is part of your New Year’s resolution and you need earbuds that won’t slip out or die mid-session, the JBL Endurance Race 2 are worth a look at their current $49.95 price. They launched at $89.95, and online price trackers confirm this is the lowest price they’ve hit so far. JBL Endurance Race 2 ANC Sports Wireless Earbuds (Black) $49.95 at Amazon $89.95 Save $40.00 Get Deal Get Deal $49.95 at Amazon $89.95 Save $40.00 These are unapologetically sports earbuds. The buds are large and stick out more than most, but the silicone wing design makes a real difference. You twist them into place, and they stay put through runs, weight training, and sweaty HIIT workouts. Durability and battery life are where these earn their keep. The earbuds are rated IP68, meaning they’re dustproof and can handle heavy sweat and rain without worry. They’re not for swimming, but they’re tougher than most earbuds anywhere near this price. The case is a different story. It’s lightweight at 1.4 ounces but bulky, and the IPX2 rating means it’s fine for gym bags, not great for wet runs. Battery life, though, is excellent. You get up to 12 hours with noise cancelling off, about 10 hours with it on, and up to 48 hours total with the case. That’s enough to get through a full week of workouts without thinking about charging. The trade-offs show up in sound and noise control. The sound quality is decent for workouts but lacks detail in the higher ranges, especially compared to more expensive earbuds. Active noise cancelling helps indoors, but it struggles outdoors, where footfalls and traffic still come through. Ambient mode also underperforms. It doesn’t let in enough sound for confident awareness near busy roads, and wind noise can overwhelm it. Touch controls are customizable but grouped in a way that forces compromises, and they’re unreliable with sweaty fingers or gloves. Still, for anyone sticking to a fitness resolution and wanting secure, durable earbuds with long battery life at a low price, the Endurance Race 2 makes sense, as long as top-tier sound and ANC aren’t the priority. Our Best Editor-Vetted Tech Deals Right Now Apple AirPods 4 Active Noise Cancelling Wireless Earbuds — $148.99 (List Price $179.00) Sony WH-1000XM5 — $248.00 (List Price $399.99) Samsung Galaxy Tab A9+ 10.9" 64GB Wi-Fi Tablet (Graphite) — $149.99 (List Price $219.99) Apple Watch Series 11 [GPS 46mm] Smartwatch with Jet Black Aluminum Case with Black Sport Band - M/L. Sleep Score, Fitness Tracker, Health Monitoring, Always-On Display, Water Resistant — $329.00 (List Price $429.00) Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Plus — $29.99 (List Price $49.99) Deals are selected by our commerce team View the full article

A wild winter storm was expected to bring strong winds, heavy snow and frigid temperatures to the Great Lakes and Northeast on Tuesday, a day after a bomb cyclone barreled across the northern U.S. and left tens thousands of customers without power. The storm that hit parts of the Plains and Great Lakes on Monday brought sharply colder air, strong winds and a mix of snow, ice and rain that led to treacherous travel. Forecasters said it intensified quickly enough to meet the criteria of a bomb cyclone, a system that strengthens rapidly as pressure drops. Nationwide, more than 153,000 customers were without power early Tuesday, more than a third of them in Michigan, according to Poweroutage.us. As Monday’s storm moved into Canada, the National Weather Service predicted more inclement weather conditions for the Eastern U.S, including quick bursts of heavy snow and gusty winds known as snow squalls. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul warned that whiteout conditions were expected Tuesday in parts of the state, including the Syracuse-metro area. “If you’re in an impacted area, please avoid all unnecessary travel,” she said in a post on the social media platform X. Snow piled up quickly in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula on Monday, where as much as 2 feet (60 centimeters) fell in some areas, according to the National Weather Service. Meteorologist Ryan Metzger said additional snow was expected in the coming days, although totals would be far lighter. Waves on Lake Superior that were expected to reach 20 feet (6 meters) Monday sent all but one cargo ship into harbors for shelter, according to MarineTraffic.com. Weather forecasting on the lakes has improved greatly since the Edmund Fitzgerald sank in 1975 after waves were predicted at up to 16 feet (4.8 meters). The fierce winds on Lake Erie sent water surging toward the basin’s eastern end near Buffalo, New York, while lowering water on the western side in Michigan to expose normally submerged lakebed — even the wreck of a car and a snowmobile. Kevin Aldrich, 33, a maintenance worker from Monroe, Michigan, said he has never seen the lake recede so much and was surprised on Monday to spot the remnants of old piers dating back to the 1830s. He posted photos on social media of wooden pilings sticking up several feet from the muck. “Where those are at would typically be probably 12 feet deep,” he said. “We can usually drive our boat over them.” Dangerous wind chills plunged as low as minus 30 F (minus 34 C) across parts of North Dakota and Minnesota on Monday. And in northeast West Virginia, rare, nearly hurricane-force winds were recorded on a mountain near Dolly Sods, according to the National Weather Service. In Iowa, after blizzard conditions eased by Monday morning, high winds continued blowing fallen snow across roadways, keeping more than 200 miles (320 kilometers) of Interstate 35 closed. State troopers reported dozens of crashes during the storm, including one that killed a person. On the West Coast, the National Weather Service warned that moderate to strong Santa Ana winds were expected in parts of Southern California through Tuesday, raising concerns about downed trees in areas where soils have been saturated by recent storms. Two more storms were forecast later this week, with rain on New Year’s Day potentially soaking the Rose Parade in Pasadena for the first time in about two decades. Associated Press writers Julie Walker in New York; Corey Williams in Detroit; Margery Beck in Omaha, Nebraska; Susan Haigh in Norwich, Connecticut; and Becky Bohrer in Juneau, Alaska, contributed. —Leah Willingham and Jeff Martin, Associated Press View the full article

The examples in this article prove the opposite: AI’s value is removing grunt work and constraints, not replacing the humans who understand your market, your brand, and your customers. A $100 denim dog harness brand struggled with low ad engagement.…Read more ›View the full article

Shares opened mixed in Europe on Tuesday after slipping in Asia as some regional markets wrapped up trading for the year. Crude oil prices edged higher and gold and silver resumed their ascent. U.S. futures were flat. In Tokyo, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi rang out the final session for 2025 in a traditional year-end ceremony. “By realizing a Japanese economy that earns the trust of investors around the world, we will create a virtuous cycle in which global capital flows into Japan,” Takaichi said. The benchmark Nikkei 225 shed 0.4% to 50,339.48, its first year-end close above 50,000. It ended 2025 up nearly 25%. With just two trading days left before the year ends, most big investors have closed out their positions and volume has been thin. Most global markets will be closed Thursday, New Year’s day, and some will also be closed Wednesday and Friday. In early European trading, Germany’s DAX was nearly unchanged at 24,348.38. Britain’s FTSE 100 edged up 0.1% to 9.876.73, while the CAC 40 in Paris had barely budged at 8,112.37. Elsewhere in Asia, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index climbed 0.9% to 25,854.60, while the Shanghai Composite index was virtually unchanged at 3,965.51. In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 edged 0.1% lower to 8,717.10. South Korea’s Kospi fell 0.2% to 4,214.17, while Taiwan’s Taiex lost 0.4%. India’s Sensex was down less than 0.1%. On Monday, stocks slipped in quiet trading on Wall Street. The S&P 500 fell 0.3%. It’s still up more than 17% for the year and it remains on track for its eighth monthly gain in a row. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.5%, while the Nasdaq composite fell 0.5%. Big technology stocks with outsized valuations were among the heaviest weights on the market. Nvidia and several other companies focusing on AI or benefiting heavily from the developing technology have become some of the most valuable in the world. Nvidia fell 1.2% and Broadcom fell 0.8%. Tech shares have wobbled recently as investors have grown skeptical over the whether the eventual payoff will justify hefty investments in artificial intelligence. The price of gold gained 0.7% early Tuesday after falling 4.6% the day before. It’s up about 64% for the year. Silver prices gained 4.4% after slumping 8.7% on Monday. They have more than doubled in 2025. The precious metals fell back on Monday when the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, one of the largest trading floors for commodities, asked traders to put up more cash to make bets on precious metals. Treasury yields fell in the bond market. The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.11% from 4.13% late Friday. Treasury yields have fallen significantly from the start of the year, after the Federal Reserve cut its benchmark rate to help counter a slowing jobs market. That risks heating up inflation that is already stubbornly above the central bank’s target rate of 2%. Interest rate cuts could boost the economy by making loans less expensive, but that benefit could be nullified by rising inflation stunting economic growth. In other dealings early Tuesday, U.S. crude oil gained 14 cents to $58.22 per barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, picked up 12 cents to $61.61 per barrel. The U.S. dollar slipped to 156.00 Japanese yen from 156.05 yen. The euro fell to $1.1769 from $1.1774. AP video journalist Mayuko Ono in Tokyo contributed to this report. —Elaine Kurtenbach, AP Business Writer View the full article

Your engineer just shipped a Slack app that surfaces ServiceNow tickets in relevant channels. It took three days to build. Six months later, ServiceNow changed their API versioning structure, your Slack workspace reorganized, and the engineer who built it is on a different team. The integration still works, mostly, but no one’s entirely sure how the error handling works, and there’s a growing list of edge cases in a Notion doc somewhere. This is the moment you start looking at integration platforms. Not because you can’t build integrations, but because you’re already supporting too many of them. The conversation that follows usually splits along predictable lines. Developers argue that platforms add unnecessary cost for problems they can solve directly. Finance wants to know why you’re spending money on tools when you have a perfectly good engineering team. And you’re stuck trying to explain that the question isn’t about capability—it’s about what happens after the integration ships. The maintenance burden nobody tracked Custom integrations feel cheap when you’re measuring build time. Three days of engineering work. A week, maybe two for something complex. Approved in a sprint, shipped the next week, solves an immediate problem. The cost seems contained. Then you start tracking what happens over the next twelve months. The integration breaks when ServiceNow updates their API. Someone needs to figure out why tickets stopped syncing. The engineer who built it is heads-down on a priority project, so someone else investigates. They spend two hours understanding the code, another hour reading API documentation, and thirty minutes making a fix. The integration works again. This happens quarterly. A new team member joins and asks how the Slack integration works because they need to troubleshoot a ticket that didn’t surface properly. Nobody remembers the details. Someone digs through the code repository, finds the README that’s six months out of date, and explains it in a Slack thread that immediately gets buried. Three weeks later, a different new team member asks the same question. Your service desk manager mentions that tickets sometimes don’t sync from Zendesk to Jira, but nobody’s sure why. Could be timing, could be field validation, could be the rate limiting logic. The engineer who would know is on vacation. Someone else tries to debug it, discovers the logging isn’t detailed enough to diagnose the issue, and adds “improve logging” to the backlog. The ticket sync continues failing intermittently. This is the maintenance burden: not the three days to build, but the accumulated cost of keeping it running, transferring knowledge, debugging issues, and handling edge cases that emerge slowly over time. Most teams don’t track this cost because it’s distributed across people and happens in small chunks. An hour here, thirty minutes there, two hours next week. It feels manageable until you add it up across multiple integrations. The actual cost isn’t the engineer hours—it’s the context switching and the knowledge fragmentation. Every custom integration creates a small pocket of specialized knowledge. When that knowledge lives in one person’s head, you have a single point of failure. When it’s distributed across a team, nobody has the full picture. The integration becomes a black box that works until it doesn’t, and fixing it requires archaeological work every time. When the original builder isn’t coming back You know you have an integration ownership problem when someone asks “who built the ServiceNow-Slack sync?” and the answer involves checking obscure documentation because the person isn’t on the team anymore. Not because they left the company, but because they moved to a different project six months ago and haven’t touched that code since. The integration isn’t abandoned technically. It still runs. Tickets still sync, mostly. But operationally, it’s orphaned. Nobody wants to own it because understanding it requires reading through code written in a hurry to solve an immediate problem, with comments that made sense at the time but need context nobody documented. This becomes critical when something needs to change. Your team wants to add a new ticket field to the sync. Or ServiceNow announces an API deprecation. Or the integration’s error rate slowly climbs and nobody’s sure why. Now you need someone to become the expert again, which means reading code, understanding the data flow, testing changes carefully because you’re not sure what might break. The person who reluctantly takes this on does it because someone has to, not because they want to. They debug the issue, make the minimum change necessary, and hope they don’t have to touch it again. The integration accrues technical debt because nobody feels ownership, and refactoring something you don’t own feels risky. This pattern repeats across every custom integration as teams grow and shift focus. The integrations that seemed like quick wins become maintenance liabilities that nobody wants to touch. You realize you’ve built a collection of single-purpose tools that only make sense to the people who built them, and those people have moved on. The real cost of integration infrastructure Custom integrations don’t exist in isolation. Each one needs infrastructure: error handling that actually tells you what went wrong, logging detailed enough for debugging, authentication that doesn’t involve API keys in a shared document, and monitoring that alerts someone before customers notice problems. You can build all of this. The question is whether you want to build it for every integration, or whether you need that infrastructure to exist consistently regardless of which team builds what. When your first custom integration fails silently for three days before someone notices, you add monitoring. When the second integration exposes credentials in logs, you add secret management. When the third integration crashes and you can’t figure out why, you add detailed logging. Each integration teaches you something about what infrastructure you needed before you built it. Integration platforms provide this infrastructure by default. Centralized credential management, audit logs, error monitoring, and access controls exist for every integration. More importantly, they’re consistent. Every integration, regardless of which team created it, operates within the same control framework. This consistency matters more as integration count grows. When you have three custom integrations, tribal knowledge suffices. When you have eight, you need systems that ensure integrations remain manageable even as the people who built them move on. The platform becomes the system that prevents integrations from becoming operational black boxes. The infrastructure question becomes concrete when you calculate actual costs. Track time spent on each custom integration over a quarter: debugging, explaining how it works to new team members, updating it when APIs change, investigating why it stopped working. Include the opportunity cost—what isn’t your team building because they’re maintaining integrations? Most teams underestimate this dramatically. They see three days to build, not the three hours per month maintaining it. Multiply that across six integrations and suddenly you’re spending multiple weeks per quarter on integration maintenance alone. That’s weeks not spent on improving your ITSM workflows or reducing ticket escalation friction. When to move custom integrations to platforms Clear triggers indicate when custom integrations should migrate to platforms. The original builder is no longer available Not just gone from the company—unavailable to maintain it. They’ve moved teams, shifted focus, or have enough other responsibilities that maintaining the integration feels like legacy work. When you notice reluctance to touch an integration because no one wants to own it, migration becomes worthwhile. You’re building a second similar integration If you’re about to build a connection to your project tracking tool after already building one to another system, both touching the same ITSM platform, pause. You’re about to create a pattern that will expand. Handle the integration infrastructure question now rather than after you have eight custom integrations with inconsistent error handling. API providers announce version deprecation Platform providers sunset API versions on schedules you can’t control. When you receive deprecation notices, every integration using that version needs updates. This is a natural migration moment. The integration needs work regardless—evaluate whether that work should be updating custom code or moving to a platform that handles version migrations for you. Maintenance time exceeds platform costs Calculate the quarterly cost: developer hours spent on debugging and updates, time explaining how integrations work, deployment complexity, documentation maintenance. When the quarterly cost exceeds what platform licensing would cost, migration makes financial sense even before considering reduced operational risk. Migration triggerWhat it looks likeWhy it mattersOriginal builder unavailableNo one wants to touch the code; knowledge exists only in git historyIntegration becomes operational black boxBuilding similar integrationsSecond or third connection to same systemsPattern about to multiply; infrastructure gaps will compoundAPI deprecation noticesProvider announces version sunsetRequired work anyway; natural time to evaluate platformsMaintenance cost exceeds licensingTeam spending 10+ hours per quarter per integrationDirect financial case for migration The pattern: when you start spending more time maintaining integrations than they save, platform migration becomes operationally and financially justified. When custom integration is still the right answer Platform limitations are real. There are legitimate scenarios where custom integration remains the viable path. Build custom when you’re integrating with internal systems that platforms don’t support. If you need to sync your service desk with a proprietary database or custom-built tool, you’re writing code regardless. Platform value depends on both ends having supported connectors. Build custom when you need integration behavior that platforms fundamentally don’t support. Complex orchestration across three or more systems with conditional logic often exceeds what platforms can handle. If your integration needs to coordinate updates across multiple systems based on specific business rules, platform limitations become actual blockers. Build custom when compliance requirements mandate specific data handling. Some regulated environments require data transformation logic to be auditable at the code level, or need integrations to run entirely within specific network boundaries. Platform architecture might not support these constraints. Build custom when your transformation logic contains proprietary business rules that differentiate your service delivery. If the way you route and categorize incidents contains institutional knowledge that’s core to how you operate, that logic might need to stay under your control. The key is being honest about which scenario you’re in. “We could build it” isn’t the same as “we should build it.” If your reasons for custom integration are primarily about initial cost rather than actual technical requirements that platforms can’t meet, you’re probably overbuilding. Making the strategic decision The build-versus-platform decision isn’t about integration capability. It’s about whether you want to maintain integration infrastructure as your integration count grows. For most IT operations teams, integration infrastructure is necessary but not strategic. The business value is in having systems connected reliably so escalation context transfers smoothly and teams can collaborate across tools. The value isn’t in how that connection is implemented or who maintains the underlying infrastructure. This suggests a default toward platforms for standard integration patterns—syncing tickets, updating statuses, maintaining field mappings across tools. Custom builds make sense when you have genuinely unique requirements that platforms can’t handle, or when you’re integrating with systems platforms don’t support. The moment to evaluate this is before you build your fourth or fifth custom integration. By then, you have data about actual maintenance costs. You understand which integrations require ongoing attention and which mostly run themselves. You’ve experienced the pain of knowledge silos and the cost of context switching. You can make an informed decision about whether that pattern should continue. If you’re at that evaluation point, or if you’re looking at existing custom integrations and wondering if there’s a better path forward, platforms like Unito handle the infrastructure concerns—API maintenance, error monitoring, access controls, bidirectional synchronization—so your team can focus on supporting operations rather than maintaining integration code. The integrations still need thoughtful configuration and ownership. But the operational burden shifts from “build and maintain everything” to “configure and monitor.” For teams already stretched thin, that shift often makes the difference between sustainable operations and constant firefighting. Still unsure? Get Unito's Build or Buy guide so you always pick the right integration. Get the guide View the full article

PPC didn’t stand still in 2025. It adjusted. These articles resonated because they answered the real questions advertisers are asking: how to stay competitive, cut wasted spend, work with automation instead of against it, and prepare for what’s next. Below are links to the 10 most-read Search Engine Land PPC columns of 2025, written by our exceptional subject matter experts. 10. Can small businesses compete on Google Ads anymore? With the right strategy, even the smallest business can stand out, win customers, and make a lasting impact. Here’s how. (By Sophie Logan. Published Sept. 16.) 9. Google Ads optimization: What to stop, start, and continue in 2025 Shift your optimization mindset in 2025 with fresh strategies for keywords, Performance Max, and audience targeting. (By Pauline Jakober. Published Feb. 6.) 8. CPC inflation: How fast are Google Ads costs rising? CPCs are rising – but how fast? Compare ad cost inflation to consumer price index and see what it means for your ad strategy. (By Mark Meyerson. Published April 16.) 7. The end of SEO-PPC silos: Building a unified search strategy for the AI era AI-driven search is blurring the line between organic and paid. Learn how uniting SEO and PPC boosts visibility, intent, and brand authority. (By Jen Cornwell. Published Oct. 6.) 6. How to vibe code for PPC: Building a seasonality analysis tool PPC scripts hit limits. Vibe coding removes the roadblocks. Turn complex seasonal patterns into simple, data-driven planning tools. (By Frederick Vallaeys. Published Aug. 21.) 5. How to write high-performing Google Ads copy with generative AI Speed up your ad creation process without losing your message. Use generative AI to craft relevant, personalized copy that connects. (By Jason Tabeling. Published Aug. 1.) 4. 7 Google Ads search term filters to cut wasted spend These filtering tactics help refine your targeting, reduce spend on low-quality clicks, and uncover new keyword opportunities. (By Menachem Ani. Published July 22.) 3. Google Ads scripts: Everything you need to know Streamline campaign management with Google Ads scripts. Get insights, use cases, and practical tips for using automation to boost performance. (By Frederick Vallaeys. Published Jan. 9.) 2. PPC in the age of zero-click search: How to stay profitable Fewer clicks mean higher stakes. Win visibility with precise targeting, value-based bidding, and authority across paid and organic search. (By Sarah Stemen. Published Oct. 7.) 1. 5 Google Ads tactics to drop in 2026 Some PPC practices no longer fit today’s automated Google Ads environment. Here’s what to phase out – and what to prioritize next year. (By Sarah Vlietstra. Published Nov. 4.) View the full article

If you received gift cards over the holidays, don't throw them in a drawer and forget about them. While many gift card scams involve thieves demanding payments—for everything from taxes and fines owed to outstanding utility bills—via prepaid cards, there's a less obvious type of fraud known as gift card draining. How gift card draining scams workIf you forget how much money is on a gift card you received a while ago, you're likely to check the balance online. You'll typically need to enter your card number and PIN or security code, but some websites that claim to provide gift card balances are actually collecting that information to use it later. Always use the official site listed on the back of your card, or better yet, call or visit the retailer directly to confirm the balance. In another version of this scam, fraudsters have set up sites offering to pay you for gift cards you don't want or won't use. They may claim to purchase your $100 card for $90—which sounds better than no money at all—but are simply out to steal the card information and drain the funds, and you'll never actually see that cash. Sites promoting that type of deal are typically not legitimate. When you purchase or receive a gift card, keep the receipt, note the starting balance, and register it with the retailer or transfer the funds from the gift card to your existing account if those options are available. If possible, change the PIN, and spend the funds sooner rather than later. Gift card scams begin in the storeIf you're considering buying physical gift cards in the future, be sure to check for signs of a scam. Fraudsters will tamper with cards in stores by adding stickers over the barcode, so when you check out, the funds you pay go to their account rather than the card itself, which means the balance will be zero when the recipient goes to spend it. Scammers can also record the card number and activation PIN or security code, then reseal the packaging and replace the card on the rack—once the card is paid for or activated, they use the information to spend the funds. Inspect gift cards purchased in-store carefully for added stickers, damage to the packaging, or scratch-off coating that has been removed. You can avoid some risk by purchasing gift cards online directly from the merchant's website (as gift cards sold at steep discounts on social media or deal sites are often scams). And if you do end up with a scam card, you can file a report with the gift card issuer, though your mileage may vary in terms of recovering funds. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has a list of fraud contacts for some of the most popular card retailers, including American Express, Visa, and Amazon. View the full article

Writing strong page titles is one of the simplest and most impactful SEO optimizations you can make. The title tag is often the first thing users see in search results, and it helps search engines understand the content of your page. In this article, you’ll learn what SEO page titles are, why they matter, and how to write titles that improve visibility and attract clicks. Key takeaways Crafting a strong page title is vital for SEO; it attracts clicks and helps search engines understand your content An SEO page title appears in search results and browser tabs, serving as the first impression for users To optimize your page title, include relevant keywords and ensure it aligns with the content to improve your ranking Yoast SEO provides tools to help check title width and keyword usage, and includes an AI-powered title generator You can change the page title after publication, and doing so may significantly improve click-through rates Table of contents What is an SEO page title? What’s the purpose of an SEO title? What does the empty title check in Yoast SEO do? What does the keyphrase in the SEO title check in Yoast SEO do? How to use your keyphrase in the SEO title Crafting SEO-friendly page title: FAQs What is an SEO page title? Let’s start with the basics. If you look at the source of a page (right-click on the page, then choose View Page Source), you find a title in the head section. It looks like this: This is an example SEO title - Example.com This is the HTML title tag, also called the SEO title. When you look something up in a search engine, you get a list of results that appear as snippets. The part that looks like a headline is the SEO title. The SEO title typically includes the post title but may also incorporate other elements, such as the site name. Or even emojis! In most cases, the SEO title is the first thing people see, even before they get on your site. In tabbed browsers, you will usually also see the SEO title in the page tab, as shown in the image below. What’s the purpose of an SEO title? Your SEO title aims to entice people to click on it, visit your website, read your post, or purchase your product. If your title is not good enough, people will ignore it and move on to other results. Essentially, there are two goals that you want to achieve with an SEO title: It must help you rank for a keyword It must make the user want to click through to your page Google uses many signals when deciding your relevance for a specific keyword. While click-through rate is not a direct ranking factor, user interaction with search results can be a signal that a result matches search intent. If your page ranks well but attracts few clicks, that may indicate your title doesn’t resonate with searchers. Improving your SEO title can increase clicks and help you perform better over time. Additionally, as mentioned earlier, Google uses the SEO title specified for your website as a ranking input. So, it’s not just about those clicks; you also need to ensure that your title reflects the topic being discussed on your page and the keyword that you’re focusing on. The SEO title you use has a direct influence on your ranking. Now that you know the importance of SEO titles, let’s look at how to evaluate and improve them. Tools like Yoast SEO (Free) can help by checking key elements such as title width and keyword usage. Yoast SEO Premium uses generative AI to create titles. A smarter analysis in Yoast SEO PremiumYoast SEO Premium has a smart content analysis that helps you take your content to the next level! Get Yoast SEO Premium »Only $118.80 / year (ex VAT) Yoast SEO Premium includes an AI-powered title generator that can help you create SEO-friendly page titles based on your content and focus keyphrase. This can be useful for inspiration or for quickly generating alternatives when you’re unsure how to phrase a title. As with any AI-generated content, it’s best to review and refine the suggested titles to ensure they align with your page’s intent, brand voice, and audience expectations. In addition, if you use Yoast SEO Premium, you get various other AI features, like Yoast AI Optimize, that help you do the hard work. What does the empty title check in Yoast SEO do? The empty title check in Yoast SEO Premium is self-explanatory: it checks whether you’ve filled in any text in your post’s ‘Title’ section. If you haven’t, you’ll see a red traffic light reminding you to add a title. Once this is filled in, the post title can be automatically added to the SEO title field using the ‘Title’ variable. Note that your post title is output as an H1 heading. A clear H1 helps users quickly understand what a page is about, improves accessibility for screen readers, and aids search engines in interpreting the page structure. You should only use one H1 heading per page to avoid confusing search engines. Don’t worry; we’ve got a check for multiple H1 headings in Yoast SEO! What does the SEO title width check in Yoast SEO do? You will find this check in the SEO tab of the Yoast SEO sidebar or meta box. If you haven’t written an SEO title yet, this will remind you to do so. Additionally, Yoast SEO verifies the width of your SEO title. When it is too long, you will get a warning. We used to warn you if your SEO title was too short, but we’ve changed that since our Yoast 17.1 release. A title with an optimal width gets you a green traffic light in the analysis. Remember that we exclude the separator symbol and site title from the title width check. We don’t consider these when calculating the SEO title progress bar. How to write an SEO title with an optimal width If your SEO title doesn’t have the correct width, parts of it may be cut off in Google’s search results. The result may vary, depending on the device you’re using. That’s why you can also check how your SEO title will look in the mobile and desktop search results in the Search appearance section of Yoast SEO. The tool defaults to the mobile version, but you can also switch to view it in the desktop version. Here’s a desktop result: And here’s the mobile result for the same URL: As a general guideline, aim for a title that fully displays on mobile search results, clearly communicates the main topic, and avoids unnecessary filler words. If your title fits visually and still reads naturally, you’re on the right track. Width vs. Length Have you noticed that we talk about width rather than length? Why is that? Rather than using a character count, Google has a fixed width for the titles counted in pixels. While your title tags can be long, and Google doesn’t have a set limit on the number of characters you can use, there is a limit on what’s visible in the search results. If your SEO title is too wide, Google will visually truncate it. That might be different from what you want. Additionally, avoid wasting valuable space by keeping the title concise and clear. Additionally, the SEO title often informs other title-like elements, such as the og:title, which also has display constraints. Luckily, our Search appearance section can help you out! You can fill in your SEO title; our plugin will provide you with immediate feedback. The green line underneath the SEO title turns red when your title is too long. Keep an eye on that and use the feedback to create great headlines. Yoast SEO for WordPress Yoast SEO for Shopify What does the keyphrase in the SEO title check in Yoast SEO do? This check appears in the SEO tab of the Yoast SEO sidebar in WordPress and Shopify, as well as in the meta box in WordPress. It checks if you’re using your keyphrase in the SEO title of your post or page. This check is intentionally strict because the SEO title plays an important role in signaling a page’s topic to both search engines and users. Since Google uses the title to figure out your page’s topic, not having the focus keyphrase in the SEO title may harm your rankings. Additionally, potential visitors are more likely to click on a search result that matches their query. For optimal results, try to include your keyphrase at the beginning of the SEO title. How to use your keyphrase in the SEO title Sometimes, when optimizing for a highly competitive keyword, everyone will have the keyword at the beginning of the SEO title. In that case, you can try making it stand out by putting one or two words before your focus keyword, thereby slightly “indenting” your result. In Yoast SEO, if you start your SEO title with “the”, “a”, “who”, or another function word followed by your keyphrase, you’ll still get a green traffic light. At other times, such as when you have a very long keyphrase, adding the complete keyphrase at the beginning doesn’t make sense. If your SEO title looks weird with the keyphrase at the beginning, try to add as much of the keyphrase as early in the SEO title as possible. But always keep an eye on the natural flow and readability. How to reduce the chance of Google rewriting your SEO title Google may rewrite titles when they are overly long, stuffed with keywords, misleading, or inconsistent with the page’s main heading. To reduce the likelihood of rewrites: Make sure your SEO title closely matches your page’s H1 Avoid excessive separators, repetition, or boilerplate text Ensure the title accurately reflects the page content While rewrites can still happen, clear and concise titles are more likely to be shown as written. Want to learn how to write text that’s pleasant to read and optimized for search engines? Our SEO copywriting course can help you with that. You can access this course and our other SEO courses with Yoast SEO Premium. This also gives you access to extra features in the Yoast SEO plugin. Are you struggling with more aspects of SEO copywriting? Don’t worry! We can teach you to master all facets, so you’ll know how to write awesome copy that ranks. Take a look at our SEO copywriting training and try the free trial lessons! Crafting SEO-friendly page title: FAQs Are the SEO title and the H1 heading the same? To be clear, you should not confuse the SEO title with the post title; both serve different purposes and do not have to be the same. The post title, also known as the H1 heading, is the main heading users see on the page. Its primary role is to help readers understand what the page is about and to add structure to your content. You should always write your H1 with users in mind. The SEO title is the title that appears in search results and in the browser tab. This title helps search engines understand the topic of your page and influences whether users click on your result. While the SEO title and H1 can be similar, they do not need to be identical. In WordPress, tools like Yoast SEO allow you to set a separate SEO title, giving you more control over how your page appears in search results without changing the on-page heading. Should you add your brand to the SEO title? For quite some time, it was a common practice among some SEOs to omit the site name from the SEO title. The idea was that the “density” of the title mattered, and the site name wouldn’t help with that. Don’t do this. If possible, your SEO title should include your brand, preferably in a recognizable way. If people search for a topic and see your brand several times, even if they don’t click on it the first time, they might click when they see you again on their next page of results. However, with the site name and favicon updates, be sure to fill in the site settings, upload a favicon, and make general changes to the design of the snippets. This will increase your brand’s visibility in search results. Today, you’ll notice that Google hardly shows your brand name in the snippet’s title. However, Google often has a mind of its own when generating titles to change them for any given reason. The design and function of the SERPs can change at any moment, so we still recommend adding your brand to your titles. Can you change the SEO title after a page is published? Yes. You can change the SEO title even after a page has been published, and doing so can improve performance. At Yoast, we once noticed that although we ranked well for “WordPress security,” the page was not getting as much traffic as expected. We updated the SEO title and meta description to make them more engaging and relevant. As a result, traffic to that page increased by over 30 percent. The original SEO title was: WordPress Security • Yoast We changed it to: WordPress Security in a few easy steps! • Yoast This change did not significantly affect rankings, but it did improve click-through rates. The keywords stayed largely the same, but the title became more compelling for searchers. This shows that optimizing SEO titles after publication can be an effective way to increase traffic, especially if your page already ranks well but receives fewer clicks than expected. Does Google always use the SEO title you set? No. Google does not always display the exact SEO title you set in search results. That said, the HTML title tag is still the most common source Google uses for generating title links. Google Search uses the following sources to automatically determine title links: The <title> tag The main visible heading on the page, such as the Other headings on the page Prominent text styled to stand out Anchor text from internal or external links Structured data related to the website Google typically selects one title per page and does not change it for different queries. What does this mean for you? The SEO title you set remains important for ranking and relevance. Even if Google sometimes displays a different version, your title still helps search engines understand the content of your page. To stay on top of changes, monitor your key pages in Google Search Console, check how titles appear in search results, and watch for shifts in click-through rates. Can you use the same title for SEO and social media? You can, but it is often better not to. What might be a good SEO title isn’t necessarily a good title for social media. In social media, keyword optimization is less important than creating a title that entices people to click. You often don’t need to include the brand name in the title. This is especially true for Facebook and X if you include some branding in your post image. Our social media appearance previews in Yoast SEO Premium and Yoast SEO for Shopify can help you. If you use Yoast SEO, you can set different titles for Google, Facebook, and X. Enter your SEO title in the snippet editor, then customize the social media titles in the social tab. If you do not set a specific X title, X will use the Facebook title by default. This flexibility allows you to optimize your titles for both search engines and social platforms without compromise. The post How to craft great page titles for SEO? appeared first on Yoast. View the full article

Customer service is essential for any business aiming for success. By comprehending your customers’ needs and nurturing a customer-centric culture, you set the stage for effective service. Implementing omnichannel support and investing in staff training can improve overall experiences. Furthermore, leveraging technology for personalized service and actively encouraging feedback helps refine your approach. Each strategy plays a significant role in enhancing performance metrics. To explore these strategies in detail, consider how they can transform your service approach. Key Takeaways Understand and measure customer needs through surveys and analytics to personalize service and enhance satisfaction. Implement robust customer feedback systems to gather insights and act on them for continuous improvement. Foster a customer-centric culture by empowering staff, which leads to quicker resolutions and higher customer loyalty. Utilize omnichannel support to provide seamless communication, increasing trust and customer retention across various platforms. Invest in ongoing staff training and development to boost employee competency and improve overall customer service effectiveness. Understand Your Customer’s Needs Grasping your customer’s needs is vital for any business aiming to succeed in today’s competitive environment. To effectively improve your customer service strategy, start by gathering insights through surveys, analytics, and direct feedback. These methods can help you tailor your services to meet customer expectations more closely. Research shows that 70% of consumers are more likely to make a purchase when their experience is personalized, emphasizing the importance of comprehending customer preferences. Regularly evaluating customer needs likewise helps you stay ahead of changing behaviors, allowing you to adapt proactively and retain loyalty. Engaging in active listening during interactions can reveal unspoken needs, leading to improved service delivery and satisfaction. Foster a Customer-Centric Culture To cultivate a customer-centric culture, you need to empower your staff with the autonomy to make decisions that benefit the customer. Recognizing team efforts not just boosts morale but additionally encourages collaboration, leading to a more responsive service environment. Empower Staff Autonomy Empowering staff autonomy in customer service is fundamental for creating a customer-centric culture that benefits both employees and clients. When you allow your team to make decisions on the spot, it not only reduces resolution times but additionally improves customer satisfaction. This aligns with an effective customer service management strategy, nurturing a culture where employees feel trusted to take initiative. Studies reveal that companies with empowered teams see a 15% increase in employee retention, leading to a more experienced workforce. Furthermore, allowing staff to resolve issues independently cultivates ownership and accountability, boosting morale by 30%. Such an approach greatly improves the customer experience, as 82% of customers return to businesses that provide excellent service, even after mistakes. Recognize Team Efforts Recognizing team efforts is crucial for promoting a customer-centric culture within any organization. When you acknowledge your team’s contributions, studies show that 70% of employees feel more motivated, leading to better service quality. Implementing recognition programs can result in 31% lower voluntary turnover, ensuring team stability and consistent customer service. Celebrating successes together encourages collaboration and boosts employee engagement, positively impacting customer satisfaction scores. A customer care strategy example might include peer recognition systems, as 68% of employees feel more valued when appreciated by colleagues. Consistently recognizing efforts reinforces the importance of exceptional service and empowers employees to take ownership of customer interactions, making it a key component of effective customer service strategies. Implement Omnichannel Support To effectively implement omnichannel support, you need to leverage diverse communication channels that your customers prefer, such as social media, email, and chat. This approach guarantees a seamless interaction experience, allowing customers to switch between platforms without losing context or information. Diverse Communication Channels As customers increasingly utilize multiple platforms during their purchasing experiences, implementing omnichannel support has become essential for businesses aiming to improve customer service. A solid customer support strategy involves meeting customers where they prefer to communicate, enhancing their overall experience. Here are three key aspects to bear in mind: Unified Communication: A single platform guarantees consistent messaging, which builds trust and satisfaction. Response Times: Faster replies across channels can notably increase customer engagement and retention. Customer Preference: Comprehending where your customers engage most allows you to tailor your customer service strategy examples effectively. Seamless Interaction Experience Implementing an omnichannel support strategy is vital if you want to create a seamless interaction experience for your customers. With over 50% of customers using multiple channels during their purchasing experience, it’s critical to provide consistent communication across all touchpoints. By integrating your customer service management process into a unified platform, you can reduce response times and improve efficiency, ultimately leading to higher customer retention rates. Companies excelling in omnichannel engagement retain 89% of their customers, compared to just 33% for those with weaker strategies. In addition, this client service strategy meets customers’ expectations for immediate interaction but also allows for personalized communication, nurturing stronger relationships customized to individual preferences. Invest in Staff Training and Development Investing in staff training and development is crucial for creating a competent and effective customer service team. When you prioritize ongoing training, you not just improve employee competency but also see significant benefits for your organization. Here are three key advantages: Increased Productivity: Companies experience a 24% boost in productivity when employees receive regular training. Improved Customer Satisfaction: With better-equipped staff, customer satisfaction scores can rise by up to 11%, as employees handle inquiries more effectively. Lower Turnover Rates: By focusing on employee development, organizations can achieve 34% lower turnover rates, resulting in a more knowledgeable customer service team. For insights on how to improve customer service skills, refer to customer service management articles that emphasize the importance of continuous professional development. Leverage Technology for Personalized Service Building an effective customer service team involves not just training employees but moreover leveraging technology to improve the customer experience. A robust customer service plan should include AI-driven chatbots that provide 24/7 support, handling routine inquiries as human agents focus on complex issues. Integrating customer relationship management (CRM) systems with AI analytics helps personalize interactions based on individual preferences, enhancing your service strategy. Furthermore, offering omnichannel support guarantees a seamless experience across various platforms, as over 50% of customers use multiple channels during their purchasing expedition. Personalized messaging fueled by AI can increase engagement notably, tailoring communication to meet specific customer needs. Moreover, technology-driven self-service options, like FAQs and knowledge bases, empower customers to find answers independently, improving satisfaction and reducing support costs. Encourage and Act on Customer Feedback How can you effectively encourage and act on customer feedback to improve your service? Implementing a strong feedback system is essential for your customer service plan example. Here are three steps to improve your approach: Gather Feedback: Use post-interaction surveys to collect insights, as 85% of customers are willing to share their opinions when prompted. This data helps track satisfaction scores and identify improvement areas. Engage with Customers: Don’t just collect feedback; engage with dissatisfied customers. Address their concerns swiftly to restore loyalty and show them they’re valued. Act on Insights: Regularly analyze the feedback you receive. By acting on this information, you can drive strategic decisions that lead to a 70% increase in customer retention, demonstrating how to boost customer service effectively. Measure and Analyze Customer Service Performance Measuring and analyzing customer service performance is crucial for refining your strategies and enhancing customer satisfaction. By utilizing key metrics like Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT), Net Promoter Score (NPS), and Customer Effort Score (CES), you gain valuable insights into your service effectiveness. Regularly reviewing these metrics helps you identify trends and track progress, allowing you to manage customer service operations more effectively. Metric Purpose Actionable Insight CSAT Gauge satisfaction Identify areas needing improvement NPS Measure loyalty Understand customer advocacy CES Assess ease of service Streamline processes for better service Incorporating customer feedback systems like post-interaction surveys can yield actionable data. With 85% of customers willing to provide feedback, you can continually adapt your customer strategy examples to meet evolving expectations. Frequently Asked Questions What Are the 7 Essentials to Excellent Customer Service? To achieve excellent customer service, focus on seven fundamentals: personalize interactions, communicate proactively, empower your team, guarantee product knowledge, listen to feedback, maintain a positive attitude, and build rapport. Personalization makes customers feel valued, whereas proactive communication prevents issues from escalating. Empowering your team leads to quicker resolutions, and strong product knowledge nurtures trust. Actively seeking feedback helps identify improvement areas, guaranteeing a continuous cycle of improvement in service delivery. What Are the 7 R’s of Customer Service? The 7 R’s of customer service are crucial for meeting customer needs effectively. They include the Right Product, Right Time, Right Place, Right Price, Right Quantity, Right Information, and Right Customer. Each aspect plays a significant role in enhancing customer satisfaction. For instance, offering the Right Information builds trust, whereas the Right Price affects perceptions of value. What Are the 5 R’s of Customer Service? The 5 R’s of customer service are Recognize, Respond, Resolve, Retain, and Refer. You should first recognize customer needs and emotions to tailor your approach. Next, respond swiftly to inquiries, as quick solutions are essential. When issues arise, resolve them effectively to build trust and loyalty. Retaining customers is important, as it’s often cheaper than acquiring new ones. Finally, refer satisfied customers, as their recommendations can greatly boost your brand’s reputation. What Are the 4 P’s of Service Strategy? The 4 P’s of service strategy are Product, Price, Place, and Promotion. First, Product emphasizes providing services that meet customer needs and expectations. Next, Price involves setting competitive pricing that reflects the service’s value. Place focuses on delivering services through accessible channels, ensuring convenience for customers. Finally, Promotion refers to marketing efforts that communicate the service’s benefits, helping to raise awareness and encourage customer engagement effectively. Conclusion In summary, implementing these seven customer service strategies can greatly improve your business’s performance. By comprehending customer needs, cultivating a supportive culture, and utilizing technology, you create a more efficient service environment. Investing in staff training and encouraging feedback guarantees continuous improvement, whereas measuring performance helps you track progress. These approaches not just lead to increased customer satisfaction but also nurture loyalty and retention, eventually driving your success in a competitive marketplace. Image via Google Gemini This article, "7 Essential Customer Service Strategies for Success" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

Customer service is essential for any business aiming for success. By comprehending your customers’ needs and nurturing a customer-centric culture, you set the stage for effective service. Implementing omnichannel support and investing in staff training can improve overall experiences. Furthermore, leveraging technology for personalized service and actively encouraging feedback helps refine your approach. Each strategy plays a significant role in enhancing performance metrics. To explore these strategies in detail, consider how they can transform your service approach. Key Takeaways Understand and measure customer needs through surveys and analytics to personalize service and enhance satisfaction. Implement robust customer feedback systems to gather insights and act on them for continuous improvement. Foster a customer-centric culture by empowering staff, which leads to quicker resolutions and higher customer loyalty. Utilize omnichannel support to provide seamless communication, increasing trust and customer retention across various platforms. Invest in ongoing staff training and development to boost employee competency and improve overall customer service effectiveness. Understand Your Customer’s Needs Grasping your customer’s needs is vital for any business aiming to succeed in today’s competitive environment. To effectively improve your customer service strategy, start by gathering insights through surveys, analytics, and direct feedback. These methods can help you tailor your services to meet customer expectations more closely. Research shows that 70% of consumers are more likely to make a purchase when their experience is personalized, emphasizing the importance of comprehending customer preferences. Regularly evaluating customer needs likewise helps you stay ahead of changing behaviors, allowing you to adapt proactively and retain loyalty. Engaging in active listening during interactions can reveal unspoken needs, leading to improved service delivery and satisfaction. Foster a Customer-Centric Culture To cultivate a customer-centric culture, you need to empower your staff with the autonomy to make decisions that benefit the customer. Recognizing team efforts not just boosts morale but additionally encourages collaboration, leading to a more responsive service environment. Empower Staff Autonomy Empowering staff autonomy in customer service is fundamental for creating a customer-centric culture that benefits both employees and clients. When you allow your team to make decisions on the spot, it not only reduces resolution times but additionally improves customer satisfaction. This aligns with an effective customer service management strategy, nurturing a culture where employees feel trusted to take initiative. Studies reveal that companies with empowered teams see a 15% increase in employee retention, leading to a more experienced workforce. Furthermore, allowing staff to resolve issues independently cultivates ownership and accountability, boosting morale by 30%. Such an approach greatly improves the customer experience, as 82% of customers return to businesses that provide excellent service, even after mistakes. Recognize Team Efforts Recognizing team efforts is crucial for promoting a customer-centric culture within any organization. When you acknowledge your team’s contributions, studies show that 70% of employees feel more motivated, leading to better service quality. Implementing recognition programs can result in 31% lower voluntary turnover, ensuring team stability and consistent customer service. Celebrating successes together encourages collaboration and boosts employee engagement, positively impacting customer satisfaction scores. A customer care strategy example might include peer recognition systems, as 68% of employees feel more valued when appreciated by colleagues. Consistently recognizing efforts reinforces the importance of exceptional service and empowers employees to take ownership of customer interactions, making it a key component of effective customer service strategies. Implement Omnichannel Support To effectively implement omnichannel support, you need to leverage diverse communication channels that your customers prefer, such as social media, email, and chat. This approach guarantees a seamless interaction experience, allowing customers to switch between platforms without losing context or information. Diverse Communication Channels As customers increasingly utilize multiple platforms during their purchasing experiences, implementing omnichannel support has become essential for businesses aiming to improve customer service. A solid customer support strategy involves meeting customers where they prefer to communicate, enhancing their overall experience. Here are three key aspects to bear in mind: Unified Communication: A single platform guarantees consistent messaging, which builds trust and satisfaction. Response Times: Faster replies across channels can notably increase customer engagement and retention. Customer Preference: Comprehending where your customers engage most allows you to tailor your customer service strategy examples effectively. Seamless Interaction Experience Implementing an omnichannel support strategy is vital if you want to create a seamless interaction experience for your customers. With over 50% of customers using multiple channels during their purchasing experience, it’s critical to provide consistent communication across all touchpoints. By integrating your customer service management process into a unified platform, you can reduce response times and improve efficiency, ultimately leading to higher customer retention rates. Companies excelling in omnichannel engagement retain 89% of their customers, compared to just 33% for those with weaker strategies. In addition, this client service strategy meets customers’ expectations for immediate interaction but also allows for personalized communication, nurturing stronger relationships customized to individual preferences. Invest in Staff Training and Development Investing in staff training and development is crucial for creating a competent and effective customer service team. When you prioritize ongoing training, you not just improve employee competency but also see significant benefits for your organization. Here are three key advantages: Increased Productivity: Companies experience a 24% boost in productivity when employees receive regular training. Improved Customer Satisfaction: With better-equipped staff, customer satisfaction scores can rise by up to 11%, as employees handle inquiries more effectively. Lower Turnover Rates: By focusing on employee development, organizations can achieve 34% lower turnover rates, resulting in a more knowledgeable customer service team. For insights on how to improve customer service skills, refer to customer service management articles that emphasize the importance of continuous professional development. Leverage Technology for Personalized Service Building an effective customer service team involves not just training employees but moreover leveraging technology to improve the customer experience. A robust customer service plan should include AI-driven chatbots that provide 24/7 support, handling routine inquiries as human agents focus on complex issues. Integrating customer relationship management (CRM) systems with AI analytics helps personalize interactions based on individual preferences, enhancing your service strategy. Furthermore, offering omnichannel support guarantees a seamless experience across various platforms, as over 50% of customers use multiple channels during their purchasing expedition. Personalized messaging fueled by AI can increase engagement notably, tailoring communication to meet specific customer needs. Moreover, technology-driven self-service options, like FAQs and knowledge bases, empower customers to find answers independently, improving satisfaction and reducing support costs. Encourage and Act on Customer Feedback How can you effectively encourage and act on customer feedback to improve your service? Implementing a strong feedback system is essential for your customer service plan example. Here are three steps to improve your approach: Gather Feedback: Use post-interaction surveys to collect insights, as 85% of customers are willing to share their opinions when prompted. This data helps track satisfaction scores and identify improvement areas. Engage with Customers: Don’t just collect feedback; engage with dissatisfied customers. Address their concerns swiftly to restore loyalty and show them they’re valued. Act on Insights: Regularly analyze the feedback you receive. By acting on this information, you can drive strategic decisions that lead to a 70% increase in customer retention, demonstrating how to boost customer service effectively. Measure and Analyze Customer Service Performance Measuring and analyzing customer service performance is crucial for refining your strategies and enhancing customer satisfaction. By utilizing key metrics like Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT), Net Promoter Score (NPS), and Customer Effort Score (CES), you gain valuable insights into your service effectiveness. Regularly reviewing these metrics helps you identify trends and track progress, allowing you to manage customer service operations more effectively. Metric Purpose Actionable Insight CSAT Gauge satisfaction Identify areas needing improvement NPS Measure loyalty Understand customer advocacy CES Assess ease of service Streamline processes for better service Incorporating customer feedback systems like post-interaction surveys can yield actionable data. With 85% of customers willing to provide feedback, you can continually adapt your customer strategy examples to meet evolving expectations. Frequently Asked Questions What Are the 7 Essentials to Excellent Customer Service? To achieve excellent customer service, focus on seven fundamentals: personalize interactions, communicate proactively, empower your team, guarantee product knowledge, listen to feedback, maintain a positive attitude, and build rapport. Personalization makes customers feel valued, whereas proactive communication prevents issues from escalating. Empowering your team leads to quicker resolutions, and strong product knowledge nurtures trust. Actively seeking feedback helps identify improvement areas, guaranteeing a continuous cycle of improvement in service delivery. What Are the 7 R’s of Customer Service? The 7 R’s of customer service are crucial for meeting customer needs effectively. They include the Right Product, Right Time, Right Place, Right Price, Right Quantity, Right Information, and Right Customer. Each aspect plays a significant role in enhancing customer satisfaction. For instance, offering the Right Information builds trust, whereas the Right Price affects perceptions of value. What Are the 5 R’s of Customer Service? The 5 R’s of customer service are Recognize, Respond, Resolve, Retain, and Refer. You should first recognize customer needs and emotions to tailor your approach. Next, respond swiftly to inquiries, as quick solutions are essential. When issues arise, resolve them effectively to build trust and loyalty. Retaining customers is important, as it’s often cheaper than acquiring new ones. Finally, refer satisfied customers, as their recommendations can greatly boost your brand’s reputation. What Are the 4 P’s of Service Strategy? The 4 P’s of service strategy are Product, Price, Place, and Promotion. First, Product emphasizes providing services that meet customer needs and expectations. Next, Price involves setting competitive pricing that reflects the service’s value. Place focuses on delivering services through accessible channels, ensuring convenience for customers. Finally, Promotion refers to marketing efforts that communicate the service’s benefits, helping to raise awareness and encourage customer engagement effectively. Conclusion In summary, implementing these seven customer service strategies can greatly improve your business’s performance. By comprehending customer needs, cultivating a supportive culture, and utilizing technology, you create a more efficient service environment. Investing in staff training and encouraging feedback guarantees continuous improvement, whereas measuring performance helps you track progress. These approaches not just lead to increased customer satisfaction but also nurture loyalty and retention, eventually driving your success in a competitive marketplace. Image via Google Gemini This article, "7 Essential Customer Service Strategies for Success" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

See how embeddings, Pinecone, OpenAI, and Vertex AI come together to automate internal linking at scale inside WordPress. The post Free AI WordPress Plugin To Automate Internal Linking For SEOs appeared first on Search Engine Journal. View the full article

Analysts say Federal Reserve rate cuts will push the US currency lower in 2026 View the full article

It’s well-established that physical clutter impairs your productivity and focus, going as far as to make you exhausted, stressed, and burnt out, which is why decluttering your workspace is key component in a lot of productivity techniques. In this day and age, though, your "workspace" isn't always (or, in some cases, even) an office or desk. Your phone and computer are your workspace. That's where you spend most of your work day looking and interacting—and when it's cluttered, you can feel discombobulated, the same as you might with a messy cubicle. It's time to stop thinking only about decluttering the physical world and make a better plan to keep the digital one in good shape. Take stock of your desktop, your tabs, your inbox, and your home screen: How many different windows do you have open right now? They are not only bogging down your mental energy, but your device’s energy, too. Let's fix that—and find a solution that sticks. When to declutter your devicesAim to start each week with a digital decluttering. It doesn’t have to take more than 15 minutes, but you’ll be more productive when it’s done, so it’s a good investment of your time. Approaches like this work best when you actively take the time to schedule them out, so fall back on time boxing and time blocking, and consider using a specialized to-do list system like 3-3-3, then designating the weekly decluttering one of Monday's three small tasks. How to digitally declutter (easily)On your desktop, create folders that can store whatever you need, whether those are documents for work or screenshots for your side business. Each Monday, go through whatever docs or pics have accumulated on the desktop and stick them in their respective folders so the whole thing looks cleaner. Do the same thing with any new apps you’ve put on your phone. There’s no reason to scroll through pages and pages of apps to find the one you need when you can stash it in a folder and keep your home screen organized. Only keep the necessary, daily-use folders available on your desktop and home screen. The rest should be banished somewhere invisible, but searchable. Close all open windows you’re not using—and all the tabs left over from your last browsing session. If you genuinely need something available, bookmark it. Get in the habit of closing tabs whenever you’re done with them. (Check for minimized browser windows, too; I always have at least two that need to be closed, but I rarely realize they're running in the background.) Next up is email. I've recommended the “one-touch” method of inbox management before, and an adaptation of it works great here: Open every email you’ve gotten in the last week and either delete it or archive it, depending on whether you anticipate needing it later. Anything you archive, be sure to set aside time to respond to later in the day or week. (Again, time box and time block this, plus add it to your to-do list so it's a real, scheduled task, not just a good idea you may or may not get around to.) Perhaps most importantly, delete as you go. This is the the one I struggle with most, but once you get in the habit, it's easy. If you downloaded an app for a single purpose and don’t use it anymore, delete it. If you have docs in your files from an old class or work project, delete them. Stick to doing this for the first 15 minutes every Monday (or whenever you start your week) to dramatically reduce your digital clutter and any related stress. View the full article

Pay-per-click (PPC) marketing in 2025 moved fast and grew more complex. Google drove many of the year’s most consequential changes, from deeper Search automation with AI Max and ads inside AI Overviews to long-awaited gains in transparency and control for Performance Max. At the same time, updates to Google Tag Manager and conversion tracking changed how advertisers collect and trust data. Policy shifts, automatic content extraction, and pullbacks from Google Shopping by major advertisers like Amazon and Temu also disrupted auction dynamics, exposing growing tension between platform power, advertiser control, and market stability. As 2025 winds down, let’s look at the most newsworthy headlines, ranked by pageviews. 10. Google changed how Tag Manager works with Google Ads March 10 – Google updated Google Tag Manager (GTM) to ensure the Google tag loaded before events fired, improving tracking accuracy and data collection, starting April 10. For containers with Google Ads and Floodlight tags, GTM now loads the Google tag automatically. Advertisers got easier access to Enhanced Conversions, cross-domain tracking, and auto events directly within tag settings. The update further simplified data collection and compliance by automatically enabling user-provided data when Customer Data Terms were accepted. 9. Google Performance Max campaign API placement exclusions Jan. 28 – Google clarified that you can control Performance Max campaigns using API-based placement exclusions, reversing months of documentation and support guidance that said this wasn’t possible. Research from ad tech firm Optmyzr confirmed that API exclusions fully blocked spend on excluded placements and worked faster than manual UI controls. The change gave advertisers stronger programmatic control over PMax campaigns and addresses a long-standing frustration with the AI-driven format. 8. Search Terms visibility in Google Performance Max campaigns March 21 – Google updated Performance Max campaigns to show which search terms trigger ads and to let advertisers add negative keywords directly from the Search Terms report. The rollout improved transparency and control, addressing long-standing criticism that Performance Max lacked query-level insight. By tying into recent negative keyword features, the update gave advertisers visibility closer to standard Search campaigns while retaining AI-driven optimization. 7. Google Ads AI Max for Search campaigns beta May 6 – Google announced AI Max, a new one-click enhancement for Search campaigns using advanced AI to expand reach, generate ads dynamically, and adapt creative in real time. AI Max combined broad match, keywordless technology, automated text customization, and final URL expansion to help advertisers capture untapped high-intent queries while tailoring headlines, descriptions, and landing pages as user intent emerges. 6. Google AI Overviews ads May 22 – Google began showing ads directly within AI Overviews on desktop search in May, marking a major shift in how it monetizes its generative search experience. Confirmed at Google Marketing Live 2025, the rollout placed Search and Shopping ads within or alongside AI-generated summaries at the top of results. 5. Google Ads allowed multiple ads for the same business on one results page March 31 – Google Ads updated its Unfair Advantage Policy to allow advertisers to show multiple ads for the same business on a single results page, as long as the ads appeared in different locations. By treating each ad location as a separate auction, Google formalized earlier experiments that expand advertiser presence across the SERP. The change created new opportunities for larger brands to dominate visibility and potentially drive more clicks and conversions. 4. Google launched automatic marketing content extraction April 3 – Google launched a feature that automatically pulled merchants’ existing marketing content (e.g., promotions, product details, social links, brand assets) to boost visibility across Search, Shopping, and Maps. All merchants were auto-enrolled. Google sources the content through marketing emails or direct submissions to a dedicated Google address, though businesses could opt out at any time in Merchant Center. 3. Temu pulled its U.S. Google Shopping ads April 14 – Temu abruptly shut off its U.S. Google Shopping ads, exposing how heavily its growth relied on paid acquisition. Within days, its App Store ranking fell from the top four to 58 as its impression share collapsed and vanished from auction data. The pullback aligned with higher U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports and stricter enforcement of import loopholes, both of which directly weakened Temu’s subsidized, direct-from-manufacturer model. 2. Amazon pulled out of Google Shopping ads July 25 – Amazon abruptly halted its Google Shopping ads, a move experts called unprecedented and “colossal” given Amazon’s long-standing role in fueling auction competition and Google ad revenue. The shutdown marked a clear inflection point after a year of gradual cooling. It spanned roughly 20 international markets and removed a dominant bidder that routinely drove up CPCs and captured outsized impression share. One month later, Amazon resumed Shopping ads globally but remained absent from the U.S. 1. Google Ads simplified conversion tracking with new tag manager feature Feb. 5 – Google Ads introduced a new form tracking feature in Google Tag Manager to let you create conversion events for lead form submissions without manual coding. The wizard-style setup supports codeless event detection, flexible form submission tracking, and multiple URL matching options, making conversion tracking far easier to implement. That’s a wrap PPC in 2025 was dominated by major talking points that, unsurprisingly, largely centered on Google. Looking ahead, 2026 is likely to bring even deeper AI integration, with real differentiation coming from experts who can apply AI strategically rather than simply market its use. View the full article

Adam and Joanne Gallagher from the food recipe blog, Inspired Taste, has been documenting a lot of really painful and shameful tactics Google is using for its AI responses to some recipes. Adam calls its Google's AI Frankenstein recipes, where it pulls parts of the recipes from recipe bloggers, says it is the brand's recipe, but changes it enough where the recipe is not real and tastes horrible.View the full article

Microsoft Bing is testing loading more people also ask options as you click on them. This is something Google has done for a long time now, but now when you click on an option under the people also ask section within Bing, Bing may load more beneath them - to show you more options.View the full article