Google’s John Mueller Suggests AI SEO Acronyms May Lead To ...
Google’s John Mueller replied to a lot of the hype around all GEO, AIO, AEO, etc topics floating around the SEO space. John said on Bluesky, “The higher the urgency,…
Google Search Age Verification: Asking To Confirm You’re An...
Google Search started to roll out the age verification that it said it would begin doing a couple of weeks ago. Yes, it is not just YouTube, it goes across…
Google Looking Into Adding Analytics For Preferred Sources
Google recently launched the preferred sources for top stories within Google Search. But there is no way for publishers to know how many of their readers selected their website as…
Google Tests Loyalty Benefits Section In Merchant Knowledge Panel...
Google is testing adding a “loyalty benefits” section to the merchant/retailer knowledge panels. This would show on the right side of the page, under the description of the retailer.
Microsoft Copilot Links Local Reviews To Bing Competitor Google M...
It looks like Microsoft Copilot, formerly Bing Chat, is using Google Maps reviews for its local AI results. It also links directly to the Google Maps business profile listing when…
5 Best SEO Plugins for WordPress (Tried & Tested)
You don’t need an SEO plugin to help your website rank in Google. In fact, you can do more harm than good if you don’t know what you’re doing with…
Daily Search Forum Recap: August 14, 2025
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. Microsoft says SEOs…
Branded GEO: How to Control What AI Says About Your Brand
A few months back, one of my clients pinged me on Slack and said: “We keep hearing on sales calls that ChatGPT says we don’t offer a feature we’ve had…
Microsoft: SEOs Need To Study Clicks To Conversions From AI Searc...
Fabrice Canel from the Microsoft Bing team said that search engines, like Bing, have “limited visibility” into the conversions after the click from AI search and it is up to…
Google Ads PMax Cost Toggle For Share Of Cost
Google Ads is reportedly rolling out a new cost toggle in the Performance Max reporting to show you the share of cost for each channel within your PMax campaigns.
Google Traffic Drops 50% After Site Hack; Recovery Can Take Time ...
An SEO consultant posted on LinkedIn that one of his websites saw a 50% decline in traffic in a two week period. This was due to the site being hacked,…
ChatGPT App Lets You Pick Google Maps Instead Of Apple Maps
OpenAI updated its ChatGPT iOS app to let you select Google Maps instead of Apple Maps as the maps provider for local results. I am told this is new as…
Google AI Overviews Testing Keyboard Shortcuts
Google is now experimenting with keyboard shortcuts to the overlay menu in the AI Overviews within Google Search. Rajan Patel, VP, Engineering for Google Search, said this is just an…
Ex-Microsoft SEO Pioneer On Why AI’s Biggest Threat To SEO Isn’t ...
In an interview with Shelley Walsh, Duane Forrester shares how Agentic AI redefines SEO careers and which skills are worth developing now. The post Ex-Microsoft SEO Pioneer On Why AI’s…
Google Explains Why They Need To Control Ranking Signals
Gary Illyes confirmed that external signals like social shares are not used as a ranking signal because they are out of Google’s control. The post Google Explains Why They Need…
The Genius Marketing Strategy in Ryan Trahan’s 50 States Challeng...
Ahrefs’ Community Manager, Michelle Lindner, shared Ryan Trahan’s “50 States Challenge” in our #Marketing Slack channel after watching it with her kids. She thought it showed some awesome examples of…
Daily Search Forum Recap: August 13, 2025
Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today…
Google Top Stories Preferred Sources Is Live In US & India
Google has launched the Preferred Sources top stories feature fully in the US and India, after testing it in Search Labs for a bit over six weeks. As I said…
Google Ads Performance Max Campaigns Gain Gender Exclusion
Google Ads has added the gender exclusions feature for Performance Max campaigns. This was previously announced last week and is now showing up in the Google Ads interfaces for advertisers.
Google & Bing Tests Search Title Expansion, Colors & More
Google and Bing are busy testing changing the search results snippets title. In one case, Google is expanding the title of the search result on mouse hover. In another case,…
Google Allows Dating & Companionship Ads In More Countries
Google has removed some of the restricted countries from the list of countries not allowed to serve Dating and Companionship ads. Specifically, Google removed Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Pakistan and…
Google Ads Touts New AI To Reduce Invalid Traffic In Some Cases B...
Google announced it has new AI and large language models to fight invalid ad traffic or as Google calls it “IVT.” Google explained they have used AI for a long…
AI Search Changes Everything – Is Your Organization Built To Comp...
Ranking without representation means you’re invisible. Bill Hunt outlines how to restructure for AI Overviews, entity alignment, and competitive visibility. The post AI Search Changes Everything – Is Your Organization Built…
Google Rolls Out ‘Preferred Sources’ For Top Stories In Search
Google is rolling out Preferred Sources for Top Stories in Search, letting you choose outlets to see more often. The post Google Rolls Out ‘Preferred Sources’ For Top Stories In…
GPT-5 Rolls Out: What the New Model Means for Marketers
OpenAI says GPT-5 is faster, higher-performing, and uses better reasoning. Learn what it means for you.
Daily Search Forum Recap: August 12, 2025
Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today…
Is AI Cutting Into Your SEO Conversions?
From AI Overviews to attribution loss, here are five reasons SEO conversions may be falling and how to check what’s hitting you hardest. The post Is AI Cutting Into Your…
Ask An SEO: The Metrics That Matter For Content Strategies
Content KPIs vary by business model. Adam Riemer breaks down which metrics really matter for driving revenue, leads, and brand growth. The post Ask An SEO: The Metrics That Matter…
Google Ads Updated 14 Policy Help Center Articles
Google has updated fourteen different help center documents, specific to Google Ads policy. Google said the updates “improved organization and readability” of those help center articles.
Bing Tests Recent Searches At Top Of Search Results
Microsoft is testing placing “Recent searches” at the top of the Bing Search results page. This is instead of it being placed at the bottom or the side.
Google From Online Stores Section In Search
Google is testing a new section in the Google Search results titled “From online stores.” We’ve seen a similar section for nearby stores but I am not sure if we’ve…
Google Search Energy-Saving Green Leaf Label On Product Listings
Google is now showing the energy-saving label with a green leaf icon in the product listings side panel within Google Search. We saw these on special compare and save type…
What happened when seoCon switched from multiple tools to a unifi...
Discover how seoCon streamlined operations, cut costs, and boosted client retention by switching from a fragmented toolset to SE Ranking’s unified SEO platform.
Google Merchant Center Ads Promotions Preview & Chat Checkbox
Google Merchant Center now lets you preview your promotions, your sponsored ads, before adding them. Google also added two check boxes to your customer service section for live versus chatbot…
Google Trends Stalled With Four Hour Filter
Google Trends seems to be broken or stalled over the past few hours. If you filter Google Trends for a specific region and then say only show me trends over…
How Search Engines Work [Explained]
Search engines crawl the web, store the discovered content, and then serve the most useful results.
Google Confirms That AI-Generated Content Should Be Human Reviewe...
Google’s Gary Illyes said that AI-generated content should have human editorial oversight. The post Google Confirms That AI-Generated Content Should Be Human Reviewed appeared first on Search Engine Journal.
What Is Query Fan-Out & Why Does It Matter?
Query fan-out is an AI search system process that splits a user query into multiple sub-queries to deliver a better response.
GPT-5 just dropped: Here’s what it means for your visibility in A...
GPT-5 just raised the bar for making the cut in AI answers. Optimize for these five benchmarks to stay ahead.
Google Says AI-Generated Content Will Not Cause Ranking Penalty
Google’s Gary Illyes confirmed that AI-generated content does not have a negative impact on SEO. The post Google Says AI-Generated Content Will Not Cause Ranking Penalty appeared first on Search…
The Great Diversification: How 8 Companies Are Evolving Their SEO...
You’ve probably heard that Google’s AI search features are tanking organic traffic. In April, we reported that click-through rates dropped by 35% across 300,000 keywords. Now, a Pew Research study…
Google Analytics Real Time Reporting Not Working Again
Google Analytics seems not to be functioning properly again. The real-time reporting feature is underreporting numbers for many sites. Google had a similar issue last month and a couple months…
Daily Search Forum Recap: August 11, 2025
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. Another weekend…
How to Detect AI-Generated Content
With the rapid growth of generative AI, businesses, educators, and publishers are asking a critical question: how can we tell what’s written by humans and what’s produced by machines? The…
Google Web Guide: How It’s Reshaping The SERP And What It Means F...
Search is evolving into semantic territory. Web Guide’s “query fan-out” changes how content is found, and how it must be created. The post Google Web Guide: How It’s Reshaping The…
Google Search Ranking Volatility Shakes Up
This weekend I am seeing a spike in chatter within the SEO community on the topic of, you guessed it, Google search ranking volatility. Truth is, it really has not…
Google May Be Using Generic & Undocumented Google Crawler
There are numerous reports that Google may be using a more generic and undocumented Googlebot, Google crawler. The crawler user agent is just named “Google,” and it is not listed…
Google Ads Tests Horizontal Line Above Sponsored Results
Google is testing a horizontal line about the search ads, the sponsored results, within the Google search results. We’ve seen Google show a blue side color on these ads, we’ve…
ChatGPT Is Not Replacing Google—It’s Expanding Search [Study]
New research shows ChatGPT is not replacing Google Search—usage remains steady post-ChatGPT adoption.
Google’s Gary Illyes Interviewed On AI Search, Content &...
Kenichi Suzuki and Rio Ichikawa from Farber Company in Japan sat down with Gary Illyes of Google to interview him on AI Search, AI content, SEO and other topics. It…
Google Search Testing Deep Dive Button
Google seems to be testing a new “Deep Dive” button in the search results. This button is on some of the knowledge panels, specifically, this one is for a movie…
Why Semantic HTML Matters For SEO And AI
Structured data helps, but semantic HTML does the heavy lifting. Here’s a practical guide for making your markup meaningful again. The post Why Semantic HTML Matters For SEO And AI…
Only 12% of AI Cited URLs Rank in Google’s Top 10 for the Origina...
Perplexity is the outlier: nearly 1 in 3 of its citations point to pages that rank in the top 10 for the target query. We analyzed four AI assistants—ChatGPT, Gemini,…
Google Is Testing An AI-Powered Finance Page
Google is testing an AI-powered finance destination for answering questions, generating advanced charts, and news. The post Google Is Testing An AI-Powered Finance Page appeared first on Search Engine Journal.
Is SEO Dead?
Short answer: Not yet. But SEO as we know it is dying. SEO used to work fairly consistently: write great content, sprinkle in keywords, land a few links — boom,…
Daily Search Forum Recap: August 8, 2025
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. OpenAI announced GPT-5…
ChatGPT-5 Is Here: What Search Marketers Need to Know
ChatGPT-5 is here. Rolling out to 700M+ weekly users. With it comes the usual hype and hot takes. But if you’re in digital marketing, the real question is: How does…
Search News Buzz Video Recap: Google Clicks To Sites Stable, Vola...
This week, we covered the ongoing Google search volatility, which cooled for a bit and then got heated again. Google’s Liz Reid said that website clicks from Google are relatively…
Google Ads For Performance Max Gains New Controls & Reporti...
Google announced a number of new Google Ads Performance Max controls and reporting features. They include new controls such as campaign-level negative keyword lists, more search theme limits, more demographic…
Bing Webmaster Tools Performance Report Gains 24 Months Of Data &...
Bing not only added new filters by device and country, but also Bing added several more months of historical data – from 16 months to 24 months of data to…
Google AI Mode With People Also Search For
Google is testing adding the “people also search for” section within the Google AI Mode results. This shows below the link cards on the right, and shows other queries people…
Google Analytics Code On Wrong Site Won’t Hurt Your Google ...
Did you ever see your Google Analytics code, for your website, on someone else’s site? It happens for some reason here and there. But if it does, there is no…
Microsoft Copilot Now Using OpenAI’s GPT-5 (Did Bing Get An...
Yesterday, OpenAI announced GPT-5 and it is free for all users within ChatGPT and other platforms. That includes Microsoft Copilot, which now is also using GPT-5’s models.
Google Cautions Businesses Against Generic Keyword Domains
Google’s John Mueller advises small businesses to choose distinctive brand names over generic keyword domains for better search visibility. The post Google Cautions Businesses Against Generic Keyword Domains appeared first…
Google: Unique Image Landing Pages Can Help Boost Search Visibili...
Google’s John Mueller says giving each image its own landing page can help it appear in image search, while gallery setups may limit visibility. The post Google: Unique Image Landing…
5 LLM Visibility Tools to Track Your Brand in AI Search Results
LLMs like ChatGPT and Gemini are quickly becoming the first place people turn when researching brands, products, and services. But most companies have no idea how they’re actually showing up….
Daily Search Forum Recap: August 7, 2025
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…
Google: Clicks To Websites Relatively Stable With AI Overviews (I...
Google’s Liz Reid, in response to all the third-party studies, wrote on the Google blog, “Overall, total organic click volume from Google Search to websites has been relatively stable year-over-year.”…
Apple Business Connect Supports UTM Parameters For Action Links
Apple sent out an email update to some of those using Apple Business Connect to announce that it now supports UTM parameters for action links. This means you can more…
Google Ads API Version 21 Now Available
Google has released version 21 of the Google Ads API, this is a major release with dozens of updates. Updates include AI Max for Search campaigns, PMax changes, reporting updates…
Bing Search Tests Moving Search Tools By Search Box
Microsoft is testing moving the search tools links that is typically below the search box, to above the search box. At least I think that is where Bing places those…
Google AI Mode Button Now In Search App
Google has added the AI Mode button to the Google Search App. I am not sure if this is super new, as I don’t use the Google app all that…
Bing Webmaster Tools Performance Report Adds List By Device &...
Microsoft has added two new options to the Bing Webmaster Tools Search Performance report. There is a new list by for “device” and for “country,” which was added to the…
Ecosia & Qwant Launch European Search Infrastructure
Ecosia begins using its own search index in France, part of a joint effort with Qwant to reduce reliance on U.S. tech providers. The post Ecosia & Qwant Launch European…
ChatGPT Definitely Uses Google to Search the Web
Contrary to popular belief, ChatGPT doesn’t just use Bing to search the web—it sometimes uses Google.
Daily Search Forum Recap: August 6, 2025
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. Google Search rankings…
Effective SEO Organizational Structure For A Global Company
Build an SEO organization that scales globally and delivers locally, with clearly defined roles, metrics, and SLA-driven processes. The post Effective SEO Organizational Structure For A Global Company appeared first…
ChatGPT Is Using Google Search – We Tested It
Last month, Abhishek Iyer ran a sharp experiment: He created a brand-new nonsense term, got it indexed only in Google, and then asked ChatGPT about it. ChatGPT returned a perfect…
Google Search Ranking Volatility Calmed For Just A Second & H...
I am seeing a huge spike in chatter within the SEO industry over the past 24 hours. This comes a day or so after we saw some Google search ranking…
Google Search Rolling Out Sticky Search Bar As You Scroll
Google seems to be rolling out a sticky search bar, so as you scroll down the page, the scroll bar sticks to the top. Google actually made this official in…
Google Ads Updates EU Political Content Policy For September 2025
Google sent out an email and posted an update that it will update the Political content policy for Google Ads to include the following regional restriction for the European Union…
Google Ads On If Negative Keywords Train Smart Bidding
Google’s Ginny Marvin, the Google Ads Liaison, was asked if negative keywords are included in the algorithms to help train smart bidding. Ginny Marvin responded, saying they are one of…
Google Tests AI Mode Tab Icon With Divider
Google is testing adding an icon and a line separator/divider for the AI Mode tab under the search bar. Google always placed the AI Mode tab at the first spot…
Ask Anything In AI Mode Within Google Product Search Listings
Google is testing the Ask Anything In AI Mode feature, which we saw in the people also ask, now in the Google Search product listings. So when you click on…
What Is Online Advertising? The Complete Beginner’s Guide
Learn what online advertising is, how it works, and the main ad types. Plus, how to launch a campaign.
The Great Reversal: Why Agencies Are Replacing PPC With Predictab...
Learn why SEO is essential for long-term growth and how it compares to PPC spending in today’s digital landscape. The post The Great Reversal: Why Agencies Are Replacing PPC With…
How to Run a Competitor Traffic Analysis (9 Steps)
You know that feeling when you see a brand new competitor swooping in and snatching leads away from you? It can make you start questioning your whole approach. But instead…
Daily Search Forum Recap: August 5, 2025
Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today…
The Future Of Search: 5 Key Findings On What Buyers Really Want
AI answers, offline calls, and voice search are reshaping how buyers act. This report breaks down what that means for your search strategy. The post The Future Of Search: 5…
Google Ecommerce SERP Features 2025 Vs. 2024
What’s replacing product grids? This year-over-year analysis of Google’s ecommerce SERPs highlights the rise of AI Overviews, visuals, and disappearing UGC. The post Google Ecommerce SERP Features 2025 Vs. 2024…
Google Posts Creation Tool Refresh Now Live
Google has rolled out an update to the Google Business Profiles Google Posts creation tool. We covered Google testing these changes earlier but now it is officially live as of…
Google AI Overviews Within AI Overviews
Did you know that Google can show AI Overviews within AI Overviews. We’ve seen AI Overviews in people also ask, we’ve also seen AI Mode in people also ask. But…
Google: We Did Not Confirm We Use MUVERA
Gary Illyes said that despite what people are saying, he did not confirm Google uses MUVERA – Multi-Vector Retrieval via Fixed Dimensional Encodings. He said that Google might use something…
Microsoft Advertising Audience Planner Updated
Navah Hopkins, the Microsoft Ads Liaison, posted about new updates released to the Microsoft Advertising Audience Planner. Hopkins said her favorite feature of this tool is that it can tell…
Google Search Indexing & Ranking Near Me Google Maps Results
It looks like Google Search is indexing and also ranking Google Maps search results pages for some [near me] types of queries. Google is listing these Google Maps search results…
Google AI Catch Up
Similar to the AI Audio overviews in Google Search, Google is testing “AI Catch Up.” These give you summaries of the highlights from the latest game you Googled to get…
Google Ads Sitelinks Impact Performance Max Ad Strength
Did you know that your sitelinks in your Performance Max (PMax) campaigns can impact the overall ad strength? Google actually has a help document that lists that and the ad…
Ask An SEO: Why Aren’t My Pages Getting Indexed?
Sitemap? Check. Crawl request? Check. Indexing? Still not happening. Helen Pollitt explains why in this week’s Ask An SEO. The post Ask An SEO: Why Aren’t My Pages Getting Indexed?…
My Complete AI Content Process for Ahrefs
I’ll be honest: there are parts of my job that I don’t like. Writing my 500th article on content gap analysis because we found a new long-tail keyword to target….
What Are Keyword Match Types? Examples + Best Practices
Control your ad targeting with broad match, phrase match, and exact match keyword types. Learn how.