As Google Ads leans further into AI-driven automation, savvy advertisers are looking for ways to stay in control – ensuring that automation truly drives efficient results. Yet, the data available often tells only part of the story, with some advertisers reporting that 20%-80% of their ad spend is tied to hidden search terms. So where […]
New research examining 16 million URLs aligns with Google’s predictions that hallucinated links will become an issue across AI platforms. An Ahrefs study shows that AI assistants send users to broken web pages nearly three times more often than Google Search. The data arrives six months after Google’s John Mueller raised awareness about this issue. […]
The search marketing community today is remembering Alan Bleiweiss, a veteran SEO consultant known for his detailed forensic site audits, sharp wit, and tireless mentorship. Bleiweiss passed away Aug. 22, but news of his death was only revealed publicly last night. As I’ve written before about Bleiweiss, he was known for being selfless, friendly, insightful, […]
Ask a question in ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, or Copilot, and the answer appears in seconds. It feels effortless. But under the hood, there’s no magic. There’s a fight happening. This is the part of the pipeline where your content is in a knife fight with every other candidate. Every passage in the index wants to […]
For as long as marketers have been chasing leads online, the debate over gated versus ungated content has raged. Entire conference sessions, whitepapers, and LinkedIn flame wars have been dedicated to the question: Should you hide your best stuff behind a form fill, or give it away for free to maximize search rankings and reach? […]
It is a wild job market right now, and if you’re applying for a PPC role, you’re probably feeling the pressure to stand out in interviews that are increasingly demanding and often unclear in their expectations. Whether you’re interviewing for a specialist, manager, or hybrid media role, one thing is certain: You need to be […]
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A sharp-eyed search marketer discovered the reason why Google’s AI Overviews showed spammy web pages. The recent Memorandum Opinion in the Google antitrust case featured a passage that offers a clue as to why that happened and speculates how it reflects Google’s move away from links as a prominent ranking factor. Ryan Jones, founder of […]
This post was sponsored by Writesonic. The opinions expressed in this article are the sponsor’s own. AI search now makes the first decision. When? Before a buyer hits your website. If you’re not part of the AI answer, you’re not part of the deal. In fact, 89% of B2B buyers use AI platforms like ChatGPT […]
Traffic from large language models (LLMs) doesn’t convert significantly better than traditional organic search, according to new research from digital marketing agency Amsive. What they found. Across 54 websites analyzed: Organic traffic converted at 4.6% vs. 4.87% for LLM referrals. That slight edge disappeared under statistical testing – the difference was not significant. Even on […]