AI isn’t just tweaking paid media – it’s transforming it. What was once background automation is now driving entire campaign types and reshaping how users discover brands. From incremental optimization to transformation AI has, in some ways, always been part of paid media. Smart Bidding, responsive search ads, and other machine learning tools quietly optimized […]
When Judge Amit P. Mehta issued his long-awaited remedies decision in the Google search antitrust case, the industry exhaled a collective sigh of relief. There would be no breakup of Google, no forced divestiture of Chrome or Android, and no user-facing “choice screen” like the one that reshaped Microsoft’s browser market two decades ago. But […]
Logan Kilpatrick, lead product manager for Google, said on Friday that Google’s AI Mode will be the “default” search experience for Google Search “soon.” We know Google said AI Mode is the future of Google Search, Liz Reid, the head of Google Search announced that in May 2025. And now that may be happening soon. […]
The European Commission fined Google 2.95 billion euros ($3.45 billion) for its dominance and anti-competitive ad-tech business. The EU Commission accused Google of unfairly favoring its own display advertising technology services and told Google to end these practices. What’s happening. The Commission also ordered Google to “bring these self-preferencing practices to an end” and “implement […]
For years, I’ve updated my working definition of SEO to capture how the discipline has evolved. Here’s how those definitions have changed over time: 1998 to 2023 SEO is “the art and science of persuading search engines such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo to recommend your content as the best solution to a user’s problem.” […]
There’s a lot that goes into SEO. And, now, more broadly into being found online and online visibility overall, whether we’re talking about an organic result in a search engine, an AI Overview, or through a large language model (LLM). With SEO being a discipline that often takes a long time (compared to ads and […]
Generative AI has quickly shifted from experimental novelty to everyday utility – and with that shift comes growing scrutiny. One of the most pressing questions is how these systems decide which content to trust and elevate, and which to ignore. The concern is real: a Columbia University study found that in 200 tests across top […]
Google’s Search Relations team says generic login pages can confuse indexing and hurt rankings. When many private URLs all show the same bare login form, Google may treat them as duplicates and show the login page in search. In a recent “Search Off the Record” episode, John Mueller and Martin Splitt explained how this happens […]
Google will switch to a monthly release cycle for the Google Ads API release schedule. This will result in more frequent releases, with more updates more often. This new release schedule begins in 2026. The new schedule. The new schedule will have three to four major releases and several minor releases. This is the new […]
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 […]