Google Confirms August Spam Update Is Complete
Google says the August 2025 spam update has finished rolling out worldwide. The rollout ran from August 26 to September 22, and applied globally in all languages. Early third-party data…
How AI Mode Will Redefine Paid Search Advertising
Search has always been a moving target. From the days when keyword match types and manual cost-per-click (CPCs) gave advertisers a sense of control, to the rise of Shopping ads,…
AI Agents & The Future Of Content Strategy (Part 3)
For years, the SEO equation appeared to be a fixed and unchanging landscape: optimizing for Googlebot on one side, and creating content for human users on the other. This outdated…
Google Answers SEO Question About Keyword Cannibalization
Google’s John Mueller answered a question about a situation where multiple pages were ranking for the same search queries. Mueller affirmed the importance of reducing unnecessary duplication but also downplayed…
The Future of AI in Search | Whiteboard Friday Revisited With Britney Muller
Five years after this video was created, the idea that machine learning might be “far outside the scope of your SEO work” seems outrageous. But you can understand why it…
Internal WordPress Conflict Spills Out Into The Open
An internal dispute within the WordPress core contributor team spilled into the open, causing major confusion among people outside the organization. The friction began with a post from more than…
DOJ Seeks Google Ad Manager Break Up As Remedies Trial Begins
Google returns to court on Monday for the remedies phase of the Department of Justice’s ad-tech antitrust case, where the government is asking the judge to order a divestiture of…
The Future Of Rank Tracking Can Go Two Ways
Digital marketers are providing more evidence that Google’s disabling of the num=100 search parameter correlates exactly with changes in Google Search Console impression rates. What looked like reliable data may,…
SEO For Paws Live Stream Conference: Free Tickets Out Now
The next SEO For Paws will be held on Sept. 25, 2025. The live stream features a stellar speaker list that includes some of the industry’s best SEO professionals and…
Stop Losing SEO Traffic: AI-Powered Strategies to Detect, Fix, and Drive [MozCon 2025 Speaker Series]
I’ve spent the past year fielding the same panicked question from clients repeatedly: “Why is traffic down, and what can we do about it?” While AI features cannibalize clicks, there…
Google Brings AI Mode To Chrome’s Address Bar
Google is rolling out AI Mode to the address bar in Chrome for U.S. users. This move is part of a series of AI updates, including Gemini in Chrome, page-aware…
Google Introduces Three-Tier Store Widget Program For Retailers
Google is expanding its store widget program into three eligibility-based tiers that you can embed on your site to display ratings, policies, and reviews, helping customers make informed decisions. Google…
Directed Bias Attacks On Brands?
Before we dig in, some context. What follows is hypothetical. I don’t engage in black-hat tactics, I’m not a hacker, and this isn’t a guide for anyone to try. I’ve…
AI Platform Founder Explains Why We Need To Focus On Human Behavior, Not LLMs
Google has been doing what it always does, and that is to constantly iterate to try and retain the best product it can. Large language models (LLMs) and generative AI…
How to Claim, Verify, and Manage Google Business Profiles at Scale
Claim and Verify All Listings with a Domain Email We all know how to claim and verify a Google listing, but many don’t realize that the account you use to…
Google Discover Adds Social Media Posts & Follow Buttons
Google is updating Discover with two changes that could change how your content finds readers. You can now follow publishers directly in Discover, and Google will start showing social posts…
How To Measure Brand Marketing Efforts (And Prove Their ROI)
Brand marketing is often the silent driver behind successful digital campaigns. People are far more likely to read, watch, click, and ultimately buy from a brand they already know and…
Google Is Hiring An Anti-Scraping Engineering Analyst
Google is hiring a new anti-scraping czar, whose job will be to analyze search traffic to identify the patterns of search scrapers, assess the impact, and work with engineering teams…
How To Win Brand Visibility in AI Search
AIOs, LLMs & the New Rules of SEO AI Overviews are changing everything. Your impressions might be up, but the traffic isn’t following. Competitors are showing up in AI search…
How To Automate Your BoFu Strategy With AI [Free Prompts, Templates & Workflows]
When Teal brought me in, their bottom-of-funnel content was barely moving the needle. Blog posts weren’t driving demos, and there was no clear understanding of how published content impacted conversion.…
YouTube Monetization Updates Across Long-Form, Shorts, & Live
YouTube has announced a suite of monetization updates designed to help creators diversify their revenue streams. Key updates include dynamic sponsorship for long-form videos, brand linking in Shorts, AI-powered product…
YouTube Adds Title A/B Testing And “Ask Studio” Analytics
YouTube announces A/B title testing availability, along with AI-powered conversational analytics for YouTube Studio. Title tests are coming to YouTube Studio ‘Ask Studio’ lets you query analytics in plain language…
Personas Are Critical For AI search
Boost your skills with Growth Memo’s weekly expert insights. Subscribe for free! Here’s what I’m covering this week: How to build user personas for SEO from data you already have…
High Volumes Or High Authority Evergreen Content?
This week’s Ask an SEO question comes from an anonymous user: “Should we still publish high volumes of content, or is it better to invest in fewer, higher-authority evergreen pieces?”…
When Advertising Shifts To Prompts, What Should Advertisers Do?
When I last wrote about Google AI Mode, my focus was on the big differentiators: conversational prompts, memory-driven personalization, and the crucial pivot from keywords to context. As we see…
Why The Right Leader Is Critical For Success
Unless you have been living under a rock, you would have seen or experienced the evolution of marketing in recent years; often centered around the marketing leader and the chief…
F*** Traffic: How To Prioritize Conversion Over Vanity Metrics
Clicks are down, and if you’re working in SEO right now, you’re probably stuck trying to explain to your stakeholders why the graphs keep falling. Traffic was the go-to success…
Google Search Console Adds Achievements Report To Track Milestones
Google adds an Achievements report in Search Console so you can track click-based milestones, see in-progress goals, and jump to Insights and tips. Achievements now live inside Search Console. …
1 In 4 Conversations Now Seek Information
New research from OpenAI and Harvard finds that “Seeking Information” messages now account for 24% of ChatGPT conversations, up from 14% a year earlier. This is an NBER working paper…
Google Modifies Search Results Parameter, Affecting SEO Tools
Google appears to have disabled or is testing the removal of the &num=100 URL parameter that shows 100 results per page. Reports of the change began around September 10, and…