Google Begins Rolling Out The March 2026 Spam Update
Google started rolling out the March 2026 spam update today, according to the Google Search Status Dashboard. The update is global and in all languages, with a rollout that may…
Google Adds AI & Bot Labels To Forum, Q&A Structured Data
Google updated its Discussion Forum and Q&A Page structured data documentation, adding several new supported properties to both markup types. The most notable addition is digitalSourceType, a property that lets…
How To Determine What Paid Media Channels Are Right for You
For businesses just beginning to test the waters in paid media, identifying the right channels to start with is foundational to success. Splitting a budget prematurely among too many platforms…
Is AI Content Bad for SEO? No, and It Never Will Be (7 Reasons)
AI content is not bad for SEO. Google has made it clear that they evaluate content based on quality and helpfulness, not the tool you used to make it. The…
The Science Of How AI Picks Its Sources
Boost your skills with Growth Memo’s weekly expert insights. Subscribe for free! In “The science of how AI pays attention,” I analyzed 1.2 million ChatGPT responses to understand exactly how…
“You Are An Expert” Prompts Can Damage Factual Accuracy
“You are an expert” persona prompting can harm performance as much as it helps. A new study shows that persona prompting improves alignment with human expectations but can reduce factual…
How Content Marketing Drives Visibility in AI Search
The next evolution of SEO is unfolding right now: AI is changing how people discover brands & content. Is your content cited ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, & AI Overviews? How do…
Bing AI Dashboard Maps Grounding Queries To Cited Pages
Bing Webmaster Tools added a new mapping feature to the AI Performance dashboard. You can now click a grounding query to see which pages are cited for it. Or click…
Is WordPress Too Complex For Most Sites?
Joost de Valk, the co-founder of the Yoast SEO plugin, provoked a discussion and some controversy with a recent blog post that posited that the concept of needing a content…
Google Responds To Error That Causes Old Branding To Persist In SERPs
Google’s John Mueller answered a question about Google rewriting title tags to show the old brand of a site that rebranded in 2015. Apparently everything was updated to the new…
Why Technical Expertise Alone Won’t Cut It Anymore
The SEO industry has spent the last couple of decades perfecting the art of looking productive while delivering value some might describe as questionable. Armed with an extensive suite of…
What I Shared At SEJ Live
It’s been an eventful start to the year for AI search, and AI is moving quickly, but there’s a lot of hype and panic. When really search is just doing…
7 Google Ads Shortcuts Every PPC Manager Should Be Using
Managing PPC accounts is already time-consuming, especially when attention gets pulled toward tasks that don’t meaningfully impact performance. Over time, accounts accumulate extra keywords, inconsistent negatives, and small inefficiencies that…
5 GEO Strategies To Make AI Search Recommend Your Brand
This post was sponsored by Geoptie. The opinions expressed in this article are the sponsor’s own. The way people search is changing faster than most marketers realize. ChatGPT alone now…
Google Tested AI Headlines In Discover. Now It’s Testing Them In Search
When Google started rewriting headlines with AI in Discover last year, it called the test “small.” By the following month, it was reclassified as a feature. Now the same pattern…
From SEO And CRO To Agentic AI Optimization (AAIO)
For 25 years, we’ve built websites for humans who click, scroll, and browse. That era is ending. I’ve been in website optimization for 15+ years, and this is the biggest…
Get Ready for Sydney and more! | Google Search Central Blog | Google for Developers
Friday, March 20, 2026 It’s that time of the year again! Let’s talk about the Search Central Live (SCL) schedule for the Asia Pacific (APAC) region. We have mapped out…
Google AI Mode Goes Personal, Crawl Limits Clarified – SEO Pulse
Welcome to the week’s Pulse: updates affect how Google personalizes AI Mode, what Googlebot’s crawl limits look like in practice, and what new data shows about AIO click behavior and…
Google Ads Creative Tools Expand, Microsoft Simplifies Bidding – PPC Pulse
Welcome to this week’s PPC Pulse. Updates focus on expanding creative tools in Google Ads and updates to bidding strategies in Microsoft Ads. The newest version of Nano Banana Pro…
10 Fan-Outs for Prompt Research — Whiteboard Friday
1. Semantic So number 1, semantic. This is obviously one we’re very familiar with from conventional keyword research. Instead of wireless mice, what about cordless mice or other similar sorts…
What Can Log File Data Tell Me That Tools Can’t? – Ask An SEO
For today’s Ask An SEO, we answer the question: “As an SEO, should I be using log file data, and what can it tell me that tools can’t?” What Are…
Google Expands UCP With Cart, Catalog, Onboarding
Google updated the Universal Commerce Protocol with new Cart and Catalog capabilities, highlighted Identity Linking as an available option, and announced a simpler onboarding process through Merchant Center. The update…
The Content Moat Is Dead. The Context Moat Is What Survives
So, let’s say you spent six months building a resource library: guides, explainers, comparison pages, all well-researched and clearly written, structured for humans who are trying to make decisions. Your…
What Is Prompt Tracking? [Tips and Workflows To Do It on a Budget]
Avoid prompts that create false positives Separate prompts into three types: branded, comparison, and non-branded. Branded prompts trigger your brand name and inflate visibility, which doesn’t tell you whether you’re…
404 Crawling Means Google Is Open To More Of Your Content
Google’s John Mueller answered a question about Search Console and 404 error reporting, suggesting that repeated crawling of pages with a 404 status code is a positive signal. 404 Status…
How To Track AI Visibility & Prompts The Right Way
AI search has changed the rules, but has your tracking? How do you measure visibility without rankings? Which prompts actually reflect real buyer intent? And how do you avoid AI…
How Smart Advertisers Combine Automation With Strategy
Automation has been part of PPC management for longer than many marketers realize. Bid adjustments, keyword expansion, and audience targeting have been guided by machine learning inside platforms like Google…
How To Use AI To Streamline Time (And Money) Consuming SEO Tasks
SEO, like most organic and non-advertising or paid channels in digital marketing, is labor-intensive. Yes, there are software suites, analytics platforms, research tools, and a number of other things that…
How To Build An SEO Commissioning Workflow
Enterprise SEO doesn’t fail because teams lack knowledge. It fails because they’re invited too late. In most large organizations, SEO still operates in a reactive posture. Teams review pages after…
Authentic Human Conversation™
Last Friday afternoon, Digg died. Again. Two months. That’s how long the relaunch lasted before CEO Justin Mezzell pinned a eulogy to the homepage. The platform had raised $15-20 million.…