Free Subdomain Hosting Makes SEO Harder
Google’s John Mueller warns that free subdomain hosting services create unnecessary SEO challenges, even for sites doing everything else right. The advice came in response to a Reddit post from…
Google On Phantom Noindex Errors In Search Console
Google’s John Mueller recently answered a question about phantom noindex errors reported in Google Search Console. Mueller asserted that these reports may be real. Noindex In Google Search Console A…
Vibe Coding Your Own SEO Tools — Whiteboard Friday
These are things that I tried and tested myself, and I’m happy with the results. You can always make it better. You can improve things. But it does give you…
ChatGPT To Begin Testing Ads In The United States
Just today, OpenAI confirmed it will begin testing advertising in the United States for ChatGPT Free and ChatGPT Go users in the coming weeks, marking the first time ads will…
Total Budgets Expand, Direct Offers, & Shopping Promotions
Welcome to this week’s PPC Pulse. This week’s news centers around quite a few Google updates. Google rolled out campaign total budgets in open beta, introduced a new Direct Offers…
UCP Debate, Trends Gets Gemini, Health AIO Concerns
Welcome to this week’s Pulse. Google is laying more groundwork for agent-led shopping, Google Trends is getting a Gemini helper inside Explore, and Google appears to have responded to a…
Create a Brand Guide That Drives Search Visibility
AI tools make it easier than ever to create content at scale, but they’ve also made it harder than ever to stand out. When everyone uses similar tools and targets…
10 Remarketing Lists To Boost PPC Performance
Remarketing lists continue to be one of the more dependable tools inside PPC accounts, especially for search campaigns. They give advertisers clearer control over who sees ads, how bids are…
WordPress Membership Plugin Flaw Exposes Sensitive Stripe Data
An advisory was published about a vulnerability discovered in the Membership Plugin By StellarWP which exposes sensitive Stripe payment setup data on WordPress sites using the plugin. The flaw enables…
Google Health AI Overviews Cite YouTube More Than Any Hospital Site
Google’s AI Overviews may be relying on YouTube more than official medical sources when answering health questions, according to new research from SEO platform SE Ranking. The study analyzed 50,807…
All In One SEO WordPress Vulnerability Affects Over 3 Million Sites
A security vulnerability was discovered in the popular All in One SEO (AIOSEO) WordPress plugin that made it possible for low-privileged users to access a site’s global AI access token,…
Building A Brand Is Not A Strategy, It Is A Starting Point
“Build a brand” has become one of the most repeated phrases in SEO over the past year. It is offered as both diagnosis and cure. If traffic is declining, build…
SEO Is No Longer A Single Discipline
Most people have a favorite coffee mug. You reach for it without thinking. It fits your hand. It does its job. For a long time, SEO felt like that mug.…
Publishers Expect Search Traffic To Fall Over 40%
The Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism has published its annual predictions report based on a survey of 280 senior media leaders across 51 countries and territories. The report…
Social Media Trust Is Breaking Down (And How You Can Rebuild It)
Social media is an integrated part of life in the U.S., with usage growing among adults. Pew Research Center reports that YouTube (84%) and Facebook (71%) remain the most widely…
YouTube Expands Monetization For Some Controversial Issues
YouTube is updating its Advertiser-friendly content guidelines to allow more videos about certain “controversial issues” to earn full ad revenue, as long as the content is non-graphic and presented in…
Why Paid Search Foundations Still Matter In An AI-Focused World
At this point in time, AI search products such as Google and Microsoft’s PMax (and now AI Max) have firmly woven themselves into the toolkits of search marketers around the…
AI Mode Checkout Can’t Raise Prices
Google is disputing claims that its new AI-powered shopping checkout work could enable what critics describe as “surveillance pricing” or other forms of overcharging. The back-and-forth started after Lindsay Owens,…
What Google SERPs Will Reward in 2026
The Changes, Features & Signals Driving Organic Traffic Next Year Google’s search results are evolving faster than most SEO strategies can adapt. AI Overviews are expanding into new keyword and…
5 Ways To Reduce CPL & Improve Conversion Rates In 2026
The marketers who crack attribution aren’t chasing perfection; they’re layering multiple data sources to get progressively closer to the truth. What To Do: Identify Which Marketing Efforts Are Actually Working…
Search Marketing’s Insight Gap: When Automation Replaces Understanding
Automation is a part of our daily lives in marketing. If you’re in a leadership role or oversee it in some capacity, you’re hearing about it from your team doing…
How Much Can We Influence AI Responses?
Right now, we’re dealing with a search landscape that is both unstable in influence and dangerously easy to manipulate. We keep asking how to influence AI answers – without acknowledging…
Google Downplays GEO – But Let’s Talk About Garbage AI SERPs
Google’s Danny Sullivan and John Mueller’s Search Off The Record podcast offered guidance to SEOs and publishers who have questions about ranking in LLM-based search and chat, debunking the commonly…
Link Building Agency Red Flags in 2026: AI Search Edition
This post was sponsored by uSERP. The opinions expressed in this article are the sponsor’s own. Let’s get real. Most link building agencies are selling you an outdated playbook from…
WordPress X Account’s ‘Childish’ Trolling Causes Backlash
An official WordPress.org social media account was used to troll the open source movement to decentralize the WordPress plugins and themes repository, creating what some feel was an undignified, even…
WooCommerce WordPress Plugin Exploit Enables Fraudulent Charges
The popular WooCommerce Square plugin for WordPress vulnerability enables unauthenticated attackers to uncover credit cards on file and make fraudulent charges. The vulnerability affects up to 80,000 installations. WooCommerce Square…
Google’s UCP Checkout Brings New Tradeoffs For Retailers
When Google announced that shoppers could complete purchases directly in AI Mode, the focus was on convenience and technical capability. A retailer who emailed Search Engine Journal raised different questions…
Apple Selects Google’s Gemini For New AI-Powered Siri
Apple is partnering with Google to power its AI features, including a major Siri upgrade expected later this year. The companies announced the multi-year collaboration on Monday. Google’s Gemini models…
What SEOs Need To Consider (ACP & UCP)
In my last post, I referenced how there is now a growing split between the “human” web and the “agentic” web, where AI agents are becoming an additional audience/profile alongside…
Insights From Last Year’s Best Debates For 2026
Hosting my podcast, gives me a front-row seat to the unfiltered reality of our industry, the gritty, “in-the-trenches” reality shared by experts who manage millions in spend. Last year, my…