Author Archives: SocialSignalCounter

Google Ads Editor 2.11 gets campaign-level negatives and smarter automation

Google Ads Editor 2.11 gets campaign-level negatives and smarter automation

Google Ads Editor just got a major upgrade. The 2025 release of version 2.11 introduces smarter automation, better visibility, and tighter controls for advertisers managing large-scale accounts. The update focuses on control and transparency — giving advertisers more say in how Performance Max, Search, and account-wide settings behave. Campaign-level negative keywords for Performance Max. Advertisers […]

Microsoft makes Clarity mandatory for publishers

Microsoft makes Clarity mandatory for publishers

Microsoft is tightening its advertising standards. The company announced that all third-party publishers must now implement Microsoft Clarity — its free behavioral analytics tool — to remain eligible for paid impressions and clicks in Microsoft Advertising. The details: What’s required: Publishers must install Microsoft Clarity and enable Consent Mode to track and analyze user interactions […]

Report Links Original Research to Higher B2B ROI

Report Links Original Research to Higher B2B ROI

TopRank Marketing and Ascend2 released a survey involving 797 B2B leaders. They discovered that 97% consider thought leadership as essential for achieving success throughout the entire marketing funnel. The report frames the findings as building an “Answer Engine” for how buyers discover information across SEO and GenAI answer platforms (ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI search). The authors […]

Google expands image search ads with mobile carousel format

Google expands image search ads with mobile carousel format

Google rolled out AI-powered ad carousels in the Images tab on mobile, now appearing across all categories — not just shopping-related ones. Why we care. Ads are now showing directly within image search results, giving brands a new, highly visual placement to grab attention where users are actively browsing and comparing visuals. With users often […]

Google tightens rules on fraud-linked phone numbers in ads

Google tightens rules on fraud-linked phone numbers in ads

Google Ads is updating its Destination requirements policy to block phone numbers tied to fraud or prior policy violations, part of the company’s ongoing effort to curb deceptive advertising practices. The timeline: Policy update effective: December 10, 2025 Enforcement ramp-up: Over roughly 8 weeks after rollout What’s changing. Phone numbers flagged as fraudulent or with […]

With negative review extortion scams on the rise, use Google’s report form

With negative review extortion scams on the rise, use Google’s report form

Google Business Profiles has a form where you can report negative review extortion scams, the form launched a month ago. You can find access to the form in this help document and I believe you need to be logged into your Google account with access to the Business Profile you want to report. Review extortion […]

Budget SEO For Capacity, Not Output

Budget SEO For Capacity, Not Output

Marketing leaders are still budgeting to grow clicks in 2026, even though AI Overviews cut organic traffic in half and AI Mode kills it almost entirely. Image Credit: Kevin Indig Meanwhile, close to 60% of those who responded to my recent poll report their stakeholders don’t understand the value of brand mentions in LLMs. The SEO budget […]

Do I Need To Rethink My Content Strategy For LLMs?

Do I Need To Rethink My Content Strategy For LLMs?

For this week’s Ask An SEO, the question asked was: “Do I need to rethink my content strategy for LLMs and how do I get started with that?” To answer, I’m going to explain the non-linear journey down the customer journey funnel and where large language models (LLMs) show up. From rethinking traffic expectations to […]