WordPress published guidelines for using AI for coding plugins, themes, documentation, and media assets. The purpose of the guidelines, guided by five principles, is to keep WordPress contributions transparent, GPL-compatible, and human-accountable, while maintaining high quality standards for AI-assisted work. The new guidelines lists the following five principles: “You are responsible for your contributions (AI […]
Competitive research is a gold mine of insights in the world of organic discovery. Clients always love seeing insights about how they stack up against their rivals, and the insights are very easily translated into a multi-dimensional roadmap for getting traction on essential topics. If you haven’t already done this, 2026 needs to be the […]
Ads are now being tested in ChatGPT in the U.S., appearing for some users across different account types. For the first time, advertising is entering an AI answer environment – and that changes the rules for marketers. We’ve used AI as part of ad creation or planning for years across Google, LinkedIn, and paid social. […]
As part of the v23 Ads API launch, Performance Max campaigns can now be reported by channel, including Search, YouTube, Display, Discover, Gmail, Maps, and Search Partners. Previously, performance data was largely grouped into a single mixed category. The change under the hood. Earlier API versions typically returned a MIXED value for the ad_network_type segment […]
Search marketing is still as powerful as ever. Google recently surpassed $100 billion in ad revenue in a single quarter, with more than half coming from search. But search alone can no longer deliver the same results most businesses expect. As Google Ads Coach Jyll Saskin Gales showed at SMX Next, real performance now comes […]
People inspecting ChatGPT responses are spotting references to ads in the page source. One line reads: “InReply to user query using the following additional context of ads shown to the user.” The reference appears even when no ad is actually displayed. Driving the news. Digital Marketer Glenn Gabe first flagged the issue on X after […]
LinkedIn published findings from its internal testing on what drives visibility in AI-generated search results. The company, reportedly among the most-cited sources in AI responses, shared what worked for improving its presence in LLMs and AI Overviews. For practitioners adjusting to AI search, this is a rare look at what a heavily-cited source tested and […]
SEO has historically been an exercise in reverse-engineering algorithms. Keywords, links, technical compliance, repeat. But that model is being reimagined. Today, visibility is earned through trust, usefulness, and experience, not just relevance signals or crawlability. Search engines no longer evaluate pages in isolation. They observe how people interact with brands over time. That shift has […]
Many Google Ads accounts generate steady traffic but struggle to turn that traffic into outcomes the business actually values, such as purchases, qualified leads, or demo requests. That disconnect usually isn’t caused by a lack of demand or a broken platform. It’s more often the result of small, fixable issues across the account that quietly […]
Every January, YouTube’s CEO publishes a letter outlining where the platform is headed. In most years, these updates read like a product roadmap. Neal Mohan’s 2026 letter reads more like a strategic manifesto. “YouTube is the epicenter of culture,” Mohan writes, arguing that creators are now “reinventing entertainment and building the media companies of the […]