SEO

It seems like the search algorithm changes have been hitting harder than a Taylor Swift breakup song. There’s been much talk about core updates, helpful content, reputation abuse, etc. OpenAI is building a search engine, and Google’s Search Generative Experience is likely expanding soon. It’s getting hard to keep up, and many SEOs are having…

Paid search advertising conversion rates have decreased across nearly all industries year over year. Meanwhile, the cost of generating leads through search ads continues to increase. Feeling déjà vu? I sure was after reading LocalIQ’s annual search advertising benchmarks report, which was released today. It’s basically more of the same story as 2023. The 2024…

Google is rolling out restrictions for suspended Google Ads accounts, limiting the actions advertisers can take while their accounts are suspended. Restrictions will be implemented in June 2024. Why we care. The restrictions could frustrate some advertisers wanting full access during suspension periods. What’s new? The functionality of suspended accounts will be narrowed to a…

New creative controls for video ads that allow advertisers to dictate where their videos appear across Google’s different ad formats are being introduced for Demand Gen campaigns. They have been released in beta. Why we care. Assigning video assets to specific formats (e.g. in-stream, in-feed or Shorts) gives marketers more control over the amplification of…

You’ve created awesome content, but now what? Content distribution is the secret sauce that gets your hard work in front of the right eyes. And for B2B, you need a content strategy with a strategic distribution plan. I’ve been in the content trenches for years, and I’ve seen firsthand what works (and what falls flat)….

Google has sent some Google Merchant Center e-commerce site managers notifications that a new annotation may begin to show up in the search results next to their site’s listing that shows how many searchers purchased on your site. It may read, “1K shopped here recently.” The email was sent to Menachem Ani who shared a…

Google has updated its Local Services Ads help document on ad rankings to remove the line around “proximity to potential customers’ locations” is a ranking factor for those ads. Ginny Marvin, the Google Ads Liaison, said the document was updated but there was no recent or “sudden change to ranking considerations” to LSA rankings or…

Google can show the owner of the business in the local panels in the Google search results. I suspect this is not new but I don’t believe I’ve seen this before, where Google will add an “owner” attribute to the local panel. I spotted this via Anthony Higman, who posted this on X – I…

Danny Sullivan, Google’s Search Liaison, made it crystal clear that the site reputation abuse policy has zero to do with linking. This means that who you link to and/or who links to you has no impact on this new policy that Google began enforcing with manual actions earlier this week. Danny Sullivan said this on…

Mikhail Parakhin, the former head of Bing Search and Microsoft Advertising at Microsoft, confirmed he is no longer working on the Copilot project. He stepped down as the head of Bing Search and Microsoft Advertising weeks ago after Microsoft hired Mustafa Suleyman as the CEO of AI at Microsoft. We knew Mikhail Parakhin was planning…