ICYMI, Microsoft has ambitious plans: to double the size of its ad business to $20 billion. So why is this big news? Google and Meta are showing signs of fading, making more room for eme… Read More

In today’s world, video ads are the most effective way for businesses to reach their target audience and promote their products or services.  During my SMX Next presentation, w… Read More

Google has made a couple of tweaks to two of its SEO-related help documentation. The changes include specifying that the title and link elements are most important for the RSS feed follow in… Read More

“I’m just gonna come in and do my job. Still doing all my deliverables, but not a day early, not doing anyone else’s job on top of mine, not coming in a minute before 9 a.m… Read More

Yoast SEO is rolling out version 20.0 of its popular SEO WordPress plugin today. The big change is a new user interface for the settings section of Yoast SEO. This release is available toda… Read More

Your campaigns, managed by ‘Google Ads experts’ In 2019, some advertisers received an email from Google Ads with the headline: “We’ll focus on your campaigns, so y… Read More

With access to more data than ever before—and tech to interpret that data for marketers looking to write the right content to drive organic traffic—we now know the better framewo… Read More

Update. According to Google, the issue has been resolved. This issue has been resolved. Thank you for your patience and we apologize for the inconvenience. https://t.co/0AqTKCl6Ts&mdash&hell…Read More

Google has been encouraging advertisers to use its network of approved resellers more frequently in recent years. This strategy helps Google reduce expenses for advertising services and… Read More

Google Optimize and Optimize 360 will no longer be available after September 30, 2023. Your experiments and personalizations can continue to run until that date.  Why we care. T… Read More

With the increased prevalence of automation in campaign management platforms, advertisers must possess analytical skills that will allow them to comprehend changes in funnel performance, as… Read More

Checklists are one of the simplest (yet most valuable) content types to create. You probably make checklists all the time without even knowing it. Shopping lists. Grocery lists. Chore… Read More

Expedia buys Travelocity In 2015, Expedia bought rival Travelocity for $280 million amid sluggish travel industry growth and pressure from insurgent travel providers. Expedia had actua… Read More

Make 2023 the year you become a master of search marketing: Attend your choice of SMX Master Class online March 1-2, to learn actionable tactics that will help you drive… Read More

Google deduplicates featured snippets In 2020, Google rolled out a global change to featured snippets that resulted in any URL only appearing once on the first page of search results, ins… Read More

Google explains the “core” algorithm In 2016, Google’s Andrey Lipattsev explained the “core” algorithm. This happened following the news about Panda beco… Read More

According to six sources and documents reviewed by Forbes, TikTok and ByteDance employees frequently engage in “heating,” which is a manual process that guarantees certain videos… Read More

The Verge has a piece up today named Inside CNET’s AI-powered SEO money machine. It covers much of what we reported in Google search responds to BankRate, more brands using AI to write… Read More

Google will demonstrate a version of its search engine with chatbot features this year, according to a New York Times report. Why we care. AI – and OpenAI’s ChatGPT in particu… Read More

On Thursday, a diverse group of individuals and organizations defended the liability shield of Big Tech in a crucial Supreme Court case regarding YouTube’s algorithms. This group inclu… Read More

There’s software to track just about every piece of SEO data. For marketers, this is a blessing and a curse. Access to data helps make savvy marketing decisions and, when analyzed corr… Read More

In December, Google introduced continuous scroll to desktop search results. SEO practitioners immediately anticipated what the move’s impact will be on the industry.  In this a… Read More

This morning, Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai announced their decision to lay off 12,000 employees and contractors, or approximately 5% of their total workforce. In an email to staff, P… Read More

Matt Cutts sticks a fork in guest blogging In 2014, Matt Cutts, the head of Google’s webspam team, took to his personal blog with a clear message: “Stick a fork in it: guest b… Read More

Google has updated the video indexing report in Google Search Console to improve the accuracy of the error reporting. Google said you might see “missing thumbnail” errors reclas… Read More

The State of Technical SEO Report 2023 is out from digital marketing agency Aira and the Women in Tech SEO community. So what matters in 2023? Here’s a quick summary of some of th… Read More

Google has just rolled out Performance Max experiments, and Twitter has taken notice. Performance Max experiments are rolling out in Google Ads! The highly-anticipated Performance Max… Read More

Of all the ridiculous and sublime ways to spend $10,000 a month of your enterprise SEO budget, your least greatest ROI has come from link exchange emails like this below, where a C-note can… Read More

Google’s launch of Performance Max, a campaign type that replaced Smart Shopping, is forcing search marketers to rethink their Google Ads strategy. Performance Max provides a unifie… Read More

Google Search Console updated the performance report on January 6, 2023, going forward, to report on more product results, even without structured data. That means you may see an increase in… Read More

Google’s page layout algorithm launches In 2012, Google announced it would penalize sites with pages that were top-heavy with ads. The page layout algorithm update took direct ai… Read More

Communicating your value proposition is the overarching goal of your website. But at a URL level, messaging needs to be more refined. This typically means targeting specific keywords and… Read More

In search marketing, you are often captive to what you can measure. That means if it’s not directly converting (or even converting with data-driven attribution), it’s wasted spen… Read More

Google blackens its logo, configures Googlebot to crawl at a much lower rate In 2012, when you visited Google, you saw this: That’s how Google voiced its opposition to two bil… Read More

A top priority for marketers is to increase email responses from their customers and reduce unsubscribe rates. But to be successful, they need data to help personalize messaging with informa… Read More

Every article you can find online about Google ranking factors will tell you there are at least ~200 or so odd variables that contribute to how a site will perform in the SERPs.  Tha… Read More

Imagine this: A small business owner, relying on Google Ads to make sales on his Shopify store, has had his livelihood crushed by Performance Max in two months. Sales are practically zero, c… Read More

Google’s Core Web Vitals first became a ranking factor back in 2021. In February 2022, the change was fully rolled out to all mobile and desktop searches. Since then, Google has… Read More

Google Speed Update: New ranking algorithm designed for mobile search In 2018, Google announced the “Speed Update” – a new ranking algorithm designed for mobile sea… Read More

Blog posts are quite possibly the most common content type that exists. You read them, I read them, we all read them – but which ones actually made an impact on you? Which blogs… Read More

If you want your site to be at the top of search engines, you likely have started researching SEO best practices. Perhaps you have mastered all that you need to know about technical S… Read More

Top Story In 2017, Google’s Gary Illyes explained what crawl budget is, how crawl rate limits work, what crawl demand is and what factors impact a site’s crawl budget. As I… Read More

Facebook Graph Search arrives In 2013, Facebook announced a new experience that it called Graph Search. Facebook Graph Search relied heavily on Likes and other connections to… Read More

R.I.P. AMP In 2022, we revealed what happened when Search Engine Land shut off AMP. TL;DR: “We have seen very little disruption to our traffic and have reaped the benefit of hav… Read More

When Google announced the helpful content update, many in the SEO industry expected AI-generated content to get hit hard.  I was expecting AI-generated content to get wiped out by th… Read More

There are three essential skills you need to develop to progress your SEM career. These critical skills apply to almost any industry, but we will make a specific case for roles within SEM:&n&hell…Read More

Matt Cutts educates Washington, DC about Google In 2011, Matt Cutts, the head of Google’s search spam team, was in Washington DC, doing an “educational tour” to explain… Read More

Google has confirmed that the December 2022 helpful content update is now finished rolling out. The update took 38 days to roll out, starting on December 5, 2022 but was first noti… Read More

Google has confirmed that the December 2022 link spam update is now finished rolling out. The update took 29 days to roll out, starting on December 14, 2022 and ending on January… Read More

Artificial intelligence (AI) has been a scorching hot topic lately, especially since the launch of ChatGPT Nov. 30. Microsoft Bing has plans to add ChatGPT to search. Some have questioned wh… Read More

A successful SEO strategy includes various must-have components, such as SEO best practices, a proper focus and connection with target audiences and competitive factors. Best practices an… Read More

Audiences are at the heart of marketing. Knowing who your ideal prospects are and what will inspire them to engage with your brand is the main question all campaigns need to address. … Read More

Google Panda becomes a core ranking signal In 2016, Google Panda became baked into Google’s core ranking algorithm. Google Panda was one of Google’s most significant spam-f… Read More

Starting next month, Meta will remove the option for targeting advertising to teen users based on gender. They’ll also end advertisers’ ability to target personalized ads to unde… Read More

Although we hesitate to use the term post-pandemic with any confidence, marketing takes place today in a space changed — perhaps irrevocably — by COVID-19. Yes, marketers are mak… Read More

Everyone’s favorite new Google product, Google Analytics 4 (GA4), has just released 12 new item and event-scoped ecommerce metrics and dimensions. Why we care. Ecommerce advertiser… Read More

Apple has revamped the Apple Business Connect service, where businesses can update what Apple Maps shows about their business. This service initially launched Apple Maps Connect in 2014, and… Read More

Google Business Profiles will only allow product pricing when the price is a single price, not a range of prices, starting on February 15, 2023. Also, Google said that it will no longer allo… Read More

Google reinstated indented search results at the end of 2021. Indented search results are when Google shows additional page(s) from the same domain that it thinks are relevant to your query… Read More

With continuous Google algorithm updates and feature changes, paid search marketers live in a world where their efforts to generate clicks or conversions are constantly disrupted. Add th… Read More

Search is amazing – and there are compelling reasons why it is the cornerstone of all of our media plans:  It’s extremely targeted, reaching exactly the people who are lo… Read More

The mobile intrusive interstitials penalty In 2017, Google started rolling out the mobile intrusive interstitials penalty. In August 2016, Google announced plans to lower the rankings… Read More

Your holiday campaigns were a success but keeping customers engaged throughout the rest of the year can be hard – particularly if you operate in a highly competitive market.Join our li… Read More

As we begin 2023, it’s a good time to reflect on the macro-level trends we’ve observed last year.  Here are a few trends that I believe have some staying power and should… Read More

There are many times during the lifecycle of your website that you will need an expert SEO.  If you don’t enlist the help of a true professional for the following five scenario… Read More

Google’s results got more personal with Search Plus Your World In 2012, Google’s search results were radically transformed as a new “Search Plus Your World” format… Read More

Last week Google updated its Help Center to include a new vertical: Dentists. The change was first noted by Matt Casady who wrote about the update on Local U. Carrie Hill posted about it… Read More

Between the roll-out of the helpful content update and the emphasis of E-E-A-T on every query and search result, Google is clear about the significance SEOs should place on good, valuable co… Read More

Microsoft and BigCommerce just announced a new partnership called “Microsoft Ads and Listings in the BigCommerce Marketplace.” The new collaboration enables BigCommerce merchants… Read More

Many great articles have exposed the seedy underbelly of Local Services Ads spam and fake reviews. There’s one on Search Engine Roundtable regarding fake reviews and another on Search… Read More

If you’ve racked up awards or accolades for your business, you’re not wrong in wanting to show them off. Your achievements signify you’re doing a few things right, so wh… Read More

AdWords Managed Accounts get shared negative lists across accounts In 2017, Google added the ability to create and share negative keyword lists across accounts for Managed Accounts. Th… Read More

Intent research vs. keyword research In 2020, Frédéric Dubut of Bing told us: “Keyword research are probably going to become slowly obsolete and you’ll need to s… Read More

The Spam Clock in 2011, startup search engine Blekko launched a spam clock that estimated 155 million spam pages had been created since Jan. 1 of that year. Blekko said 1 million spam pag… Read More

Google said the two different Google search algorithm updates – the December 2022 helpful content system and the December 2022 link spam update – may take ano… Read More

2022 marked the first year since 2014 that Google and Meta’s advertising market share dropped below 50%, standing at 48.4%. By the end of 2023, that number is expected to drop to 44.9%… Read More

We’ve all heard about search engine optimization (SEO), but what about search engine de-optimization? In one Search Off The Record episode, Martin Splitt, Gary Illyes, and Lizzi Sas… Read More

Google Webmaster Tools adds ‘unnatural links’ and ‘cloaking’ spam warnings In 2011, Google Webmaster Tools started sending out two new types of warnings – fo… Read More

When analyzing consumer behavior at scale, decision-makers need to keep up – making consumer insights matter more now than ever. This means staying on your toes with actionable consume… Read More

Consumers in a 12-year-long class action lawsuit against Google say that Google shared their queries with third parties without their permission. What happened. The lawsuit alleged that G… Read More

I have a new recommendation for Google Ads advertisers in 2023:Turn off and pause the use of all Google Ads recommendations.Why? On Jan. 4, Google Ads fundamentally changed the definitio… Read More

Microsoft has just announced Store Ads to promote desktop apps on Windows 10 and 11 devices on desktops. When you create the ad on the Microsoft Advertising Platform, you can see it in the M… Read More

SEO product managers are the teammates you never knew you needed. In-house SEO teams also can’t live without them.  In this article, we will cover what an SEO product manager d… Read More

At SMX Next in November, I was honored to give a talk on making automation work for lead generation when it’s not designed for lead generation. A huge thank you to all who attended… Read More

Google AdWords introduces click-to-call ads In 2010, Google sent out notification to its AdWords advertisers that “your location-specific business phone number will display alongsid… Read More

Over half of consumers would stop buying from a company after multiple bad experiences. Is your company doing enough to drive loyalty? Join PwC in their live webinar as they reveal the… Read More

Meta has been fined 390 million euros ($414 million) after European Union (EU) regulators found it had illegally forced users to accept personalized ads. What happened. According to the N… Read More

An announcement by Twitter, on Twitter, says that the company is going to relax its ban on cause-based ads (such as those for climate change or women’s rights). They also plan on lifti… Read More

Advertisers running PPC ads on Google may have woken up to an email this morning outlining its new policy regarding redundant keywords. What’s changed. The “Remove redundant… Read More

Don’t lie. Show of hands.  How many times have you uttered the following in the last year alone?  “I can’t find any good writers.” “No one… Read More

Google has updated the article structured data help documentation to remove the hard character limit for the headline property. Instead of Google saying there is a 110-character limit, now… Read More

Microsoft may be adding OpenAI’s ChatGPT features to Bing Search in the coming months. According to a report by The Information, two sources from the company is saying the company lik… Read More

As we ring in a new year, among your 2023 goals as an agency may be to level up your data game, deliver excellence to your current clients and stand out to prospects.  Using the foll… Read More

Rap Genius returns to Google after link penalty In 2014, 10 days after being penalized for “unnatural links” that it helped create, lyrics site Rap Genius returned to Google&r&hell…Read More

In search, one of your most effective and profitable strategies is to leverage your most valuable asset – your brand. People searching for products by brand name are further along in t… Read More

Commerce Components by Shopify (CCS) is the latest innovation from Shopify that gives large ecommerce retailers direct access to its component infrastructure. CCS is Shopify’s composab… Read More

TikTok has announced five new ways to help keep teens safe on the platform. The new enforcement policies will also make borderline or “suggestive” content ineligible for recommen… Read More

SEO content writing, what exactly is it? And how does it differ from typical content writing? Is SEO content writing better than more traditional content writing? In this article, we&r&hell…Read More

An About Us page is an integral piece of content to have on your website. Every single successful business has one, no matter their industry or what they sell. After all, every brand h… Read More

Google’s sponsored post campaign forces Google to penalize Google Chrome’s home page In 2012, Google’s sponsored post campaign to promote its Chrome browser produce… Read More