The holiday this year brings more competition than ever, but the shopper journey is also shifting. Consumers begin research weeks earlier, often starting in October, and rely on conversational AI or chatbot-style searches to compare products. Microsoft’s holiday insights show that shopping behavior kicks off in October, with many November and December conversions originating from […]
The latest Ahrefs podcast shares data showing that brand mentions on third-party websites help improve visibility across AI search surfaces. What they found is that brand mentions correlate strongly with ranking better in AI search, indicating that we are firmly in a new era of off-page SEO. Training Data Gets Cited Tim Soulo, CMO of […]
Search Engine Land is expanding its contributor roster in 2026 – and we’re looking for seasoned experts in SEO, PPC, AI, and analytics to join us. Why we care. Search Engine Land is not just our publication – it’s yours. For 20 years, Search Engine Land has been the go-to source for search marketing insights, […]
Google’s AI Overviews are for research, not buying. A new BrightEdge analysis of thousands of ecommerce keywords (Sept. 1-Oct. 15) found that AI results appear for research and evaluation, while bottom-funnel queries still belong to traditional search. Why we care. Google’s AI Overviews appear to shape discovery, while traditional search continues to drive sales. So […]
Google gives local businesses two main ways to generate PPC leads online: Local Services Ads (LSAs) and Search campaigns. LSAs are pay-per-lead campaigns – for actions such as calls, messages, or booked appointments – with a quick setup process that involves verifying your business. After that, Google automates most of the ad and keyword setup. […]
Apple is reportedly paying Google to build a custom Gemini AI model that will power a major Siri upgrade targeted for spring 2026, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. The custom Gemini model is expected to run on Apple’s Private Cloud Compute infrastructure. Neither Apple nor Google has officially announced the partnership. What’s Being Reported Bloomberg […]
John Mueller from Google posted an SEO tip and reminder for those who use cloud services, such as AWS, Azure, Google Cloud or others, to host images, videos or other content. John explained that you should probably verify those within Google Search Console. This will give you the ability to track the performance of those […]
Google has added a new user agent to its help documentation named Google-CWS. This is the Chrome Web Store user agent that is a user-triggered fetchers. More details. Google posted about the new user agent over here, it reads; “The Chrome Web Store fetcher requests URLs that developers provide in the metadata of their Chrome […]
Benjamin Houy shut down Lorelight, a generative engine optimization (GEO) platform designed to track brand visibility in ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity, after concluding most brands don’t need a specialized tool for AI search visibility. Houy writes that, after reviewing hundreds of AI answers, the brands mentioned most often share familiar traits: quality content, mentions in […]
Search is changing faster than ever – and 2026 may be the year it fully breaks from the past. Over the last year, AI has reshaped how people discover, decide, and convert, collapsing the traditional customer journey and cutting touchpoints in half. AI-powered assistants and large language models (LLMs) will handle roughly 25% of global […]