Core Update Favors Niche Expertise, AIO Health Inaccuracies & AI Slop
Welcome to this week’s Pulse: updates on rankings from December’s core update, platform responses to AI quality issues, and disputes that reveal tensions in AI-generated health information. Early analysis of…
8 Changes Marketers Should Make In 2026
Paid media didn’t slow down last year. If anything, the platforms made sure we stayed busy. Google rolled out more AI-assisted ad creation features, new Performance Max reporting updates, and…
From Simple Builders To Enterprise CMS
WordPress powers hundreds of millions of websites. But when issues occur internally, the vulnerability of relying on a single platform becomes apparent. WordPress isn’t the only content management system (CMS)…
Can AI Systems & LLMs Render JavaScript To Read ‘Hidden’ Content?
For this week’s Ask An SEO, a reader asked: “Is there any difference between how AI systems handle JavaScript-rendered or interactively hidden content compared to traditional Google indexing? What technical…
AI Overviews Show Less When Users Don’t Engage
AI Overviews don’t show up consistently across Google Search because the system learns where they’re useful and pulls them back when people don’t engage. Robby Stein, Vice President of Product…
Google Gemini Gains Share As ChatGPT Declines In Similarweb Data
ChatGPT accounted for 64% of worldwide traffic share among gen AI chatbot websites as of January, while Google’s Gemini reached 21%, according to Similarweb’s Global AI Tracker. Similarweb’s tracker (PDF…
Being Right Isn’t Enough For AI Visibility Today
Bias is not what you think it is. When most people hear the phrase “AI bias,” their mind jumps to ethics, politics, or fairness. They think about whether systems lean…
Why Your Business’s Google Visibility in 2026 Depends on AEO
AI Assistants Decide Which Local Businesses Get Recommended In 2026, local visibility on SERPs is no longer controlled by traditional search rankings alone. AI assistants are increasingly deciding which businesses…
Most Major News Publishers Block AI Training & Retrieval Bots
Most top news publishers block AI training bots via robots.txt, but they’re also blocking the retrieval bots that determine whether sites appear in AI-generated answers. BuzzStream analyzed the robots.txt files…
How Search Engines Tailor Results To Individual Users & How Brands Should Manage It
How many times have you seen different SERP layouts and results across markets? No two people see the same search results, as per Google’s own documentation. No two users receive…
Google’s Mueller Explains ‘Page Indexed Without Content’ Error
Google Search Advocate John Mueller responded to a question about the “Page Indexed without content” error in Search Console, explaining the issue typically stems from server or CDN blocking rather…
Google’s Mueller Weighs In On SEO vs GEO Debate
Google Search Advocate John Mueller says businesses that rely on referral traffic should think about how AI tools fit into the picture. Mueller responded to a Reddit thread asking whether…
Why Global Search Misalignment Is An Engineering Feature And A Business Bug
Google’s AI Overviews (AIO) represent a fundamental architectural shift in search. Retrieval has moved from a localized ranking-and-serving model, designed to return the most appropriate regional URL, to a semantic…
Google Ads Using New AI Model To Catch Fraudulent Advertisers
Google published a research paper about a new AI model for detecting fraud in the Google Ads system that’s a strong improvement over what they were previously using. What’s interesting…
The State of AEO & GEO in 2026
How AI Search Is Reshaping Visibility & Strategy AI search is rapidly changing how brands are discovered and how visibility is earned. As AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity, and other answer…
Google AI Overviews Gave Misleading Health Advice
The Guardian published an investigation claiming health experts found inaccurate or misleading guidance in some AI Overview responses for medical queries. Google disputes the reporting and says many examples were…
State Of AI Search Optimization 2026
Boost your skills with Growth Memo’s weekly expert insights. Subscribe for free! Every year, after the winter holidays, I spend a few days ramping up by gathering the context from…
AI-Generated Content Isn’t The Problem, Your Strategy Is
“If AI can write, why are we still paying writers?” For any CMO or senior manager on a budget, you’ve probably already had a version of this conversation. It’s a…
Google’s Recommender System Breakthrough Detects Semantic Intent
Google published a research paper about helping recommender systems understand what users mean when they interact with them. Their goal with this new approach is to overcome the limitations inherent…
Reddit Introduces Max Campaigns, Its New Automated Campaign Type Reddit Introduces Max Campaigns, Its New Automated Campaign Type
Reddit is rolling out Max campaigns, a new automated campaign type now available in beta for traffic and conversion objectives. The launch comes as Reddit continues to see strong advertiser…
16 Content Writing Tips From Experts To Survive 2026
AI has created insecurity for content writers, where their jobs could be in jeopardy from machine-generated content at scale. The reality is that many content writers may be displaced, but…
Microsoft CEO, Google Engineer Deflect AI Quality Complaints
Within a week of each other, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Jaana Dogan, a Principal Engineer working on Google’s Gemini API, posted comments about AI criticism that shared a theme.…
More Brands Win “Best Of” Queries
Google’s December core update ran from December 11 to December 29. Early analysis shared after the rollout points to a familiar pattern. Sites with narrower, category-specific strength appear to be…
20 AI Prompt Ideas & Templates For PPC (Easy + Advanced)
AI prompts and templates can help to support PPC professionals from campaign planning to paid media reporting. So, we created a list of example prompts for you to use and…
The Technical Guide To Adobe Commerce (Magento) SEO Issues
Magento, now officially Adobe Commerce (but still known as Magento with SEOs), remains a powerful but demanding ecommerce platform, especially in the Magento 2 era. Adobe Commerce can deliver strong…
How To Get The Perfect Budget Mix For SEO And PPC
Figuring out how to divide your budget between SEO and PPC is one of those decisions that looks simple on paper but feels complicated once you start running the numbers.…
Marketing Calendar With Template To Plan Your Content In 2026
Key dates and notable events throughout the year can feed your content strategy and your social media marketing strategy. Timely aligning your digital campaigns with the right seasons for your…
A Note of Gratitude | Google Search Central Blog | Google for Developers
Wednesday, December 31, 2025 It has been a busy second half of the year for the Search Central Live (SCL) team! Zipping through the busy streets of Bangkok to the…
5 Key Enterprise SEO And AI Trends For 2026
Enterprise SEO is at the center of some fascinating and fundamental shifts right now. From mainstream media coverage in the Wall Street Journal and Forbes to the Associated Press, Business…
13 Times AI Actually Delivered
Every AI marketing disaster you’ve seen—the cringeworthy fake influencers, the obviously robotic copy, the brands caught lying about AI use—happened because someone thought AI could replace strategy, creativity, or authenticity.…