Search Engine Land

9/15/2026

Paid search veteran Matt Van Wagner reflects on 20 years of Google Ads, lost PPC tactics, rising automation and more

9/15/2026

Google just released its Gemini 3.8 Live and 3.8 Live Extended Thinking models and 3.8 Live is now powering Search Live on the Google app.

9/15/2026

Mike Ryan shares lessons from AI Max mistakes, campaign over-segmentation and advertiser overreactions to Google Ads changes.

9/15/2026

Chrome’s new ad metrics give advertisers more visibility into ad clutter, page quality and inventory value.

9/15/2026

A search can now become a chain of questions, comparisons, and decisions. Build content that supports what users ask next.

9/15/2026

Search can confirm a decision that was shaped before the query. Here’s where that influence comes from and what you can do.

9/15/2026

Find out where Claude delivers the biggest time savings across SEO, from analyzing data and localizing content to maintaining websites.

9/15/2026

Classify queries by intent and AI visibility to decide where to bid, influence the answer, or shift budget to demand generation.

9/15/2026

Automation layering techniques can be deployed to successfully make AI-driven PPC safer.

9/14/2026

Facebook ad performance improved in 2026, with traffic CTR rising 12.87% to 1.93% and CPC falling 14.29% to $0.60.

9/14/2026

Microsoft is tightening AI ad transparency, requiring advertisers to disclose synthetic content, and preserve provenance data

9/14/2026

Cheap inventory and low competition make ChatGPT Ads worth testing. But Google’s distribution advantage may make it short-lived.

9/14/2026

The data points to a different playbook for AI visibility, where the sources that mention you may matter more than the content you control.

9/14/2026

Google is giving business a way to review what information Google’s automated assistant pulled about their businesses.

9/14/2026

SEO content is getting cheaper to produce, shifting value toward the ideas, expertise, judgment, and experience behind the words.

9/14/2026

This is a Google Search Console feature named AI contribution and is being tested with a limited number of publishers.

9/14/2026

International keyword research can make a market look empty when the seed misses local terms. Here’s how to find better entry points.

9/11/2026

Google Analytics has launched customizable Dashboards that bring key metrics and visualizations into one report.

9/11/2026

Advertisers report Google Ads promotional credits being invalidated after they’ve already spent budget to qualify for them.

9/11/2026

TikTok rejected Meta ads urging it and YouTube to join Meta’s multibillion-dollar child safety settlement with U.S. states.

9/11/2026

A 50-page report can still be fluff. Separate automated findings from the expertise and recommendations that make an SEO audit valuable.

9/11/2026

This is impacting everyone, so it seems to be just a reporting issue and not an issue with your site's indexing performance within Google Search.

9/11/2026

Longer, more specific searches are gaining impression and conversion share, while short queries continue to lose ground.

9/11/2026

What gets your attention in Google Ads can influence where you spend, what you change, and how you judge performance. Here's what to watch.

9/11/2026

Ghosting prospects, candidates, partners and vendors wastes time and damages relationships. Closing the loop still matters in business.

9/10/2026

AI isn't hurting content performance. Dropping proven content strategies is the bigger reason content isn't delivering, survey suggests.

9/10/2026

Amazon is piloting access to ChatGPT Ads through Amazon DSP, letting U.S. advertisers extend campaigns into conversational ads.

9/10/2026

Claude can sort CRO data, surface patterns, and organize findings, but human judgment is still needed to validate conversion problems.

9/10/2026

SEO best practices often start with good reasoning. So why do we still treat old recommendations like gospel after the context has changed?

9/10/2026

OpenAI is reportedly blocking ads for competing image and audio AI tools from running inside ChatGPT.

9/10/2026

Compare MMM outputs to expose hidden assumptions, surface uncertainty, and identify which budget decisions need further testing.

9/10/2026

Google is rolling out new data tools to help marketers better understand what drives growth and where to invest.

9/10/2026

When SEO gets reduced to keywords, audits, and content production, software will always look cheaper. That’s where the real risk begins.

9/10/2026

Agentic marketing works best when marketers can inspect the data and evidence driving an agent's recommendations.

9/9/2026

Search intent ranks highest, backlinks remain influential, and original research outperforms scaled AI content in perceived ranking impact.

9/8/2026

Google Ads’s AI Dashboards let advertisers turn simple text prompts into visual reports with AI-generated summaries.

9/8/2026

Google Ads is making it easier for multi-location businesses to reach nearby customers and measure the campaign in-store sales.

9/8/2026

Newly recovered Google data reveals how entities, web signals, geography, and semantic systems shape local visibility.

9/8/2026

Your first 50 pages can tell you whether the next 5,000 are worth building. Here’s how to turn a pilot into a scaling decision.

9/8/2026

High ROAS can mask negative contribution, weak incrementality, and costly inventory decisions. Here's how to measure what really matters.

9/8/2026

Google said "the changes mark the largest reduction in quality of service ‌at the world's most popular internet search engine in its 29-year search history."

9/8/2026

From hallucinated metrics to exposed customer data, here’s how to spot common AI risks and put practical guardrails in place.

9/8/2026

Research finds a measurable digital visibility gap between expanding and shrinking restaurant chains across search, reviews, social, and AI.

9/7/2026

AI Overviews may be reducing Shopping ad impressions while concentrating clicks among higher-intent searches.

9/7/2026

Google is testing exact and phrase match Search ads in AI Mode when users show clear, direct intent.

9/4/2026

Google’s AI-powered AdSense Help guide answers publisher questions and helps with onboarding and troubleshooting.

9/4/2026

Google will allow personalized alcohol advertising on YouTube starting Oct. 30, in markets where local laws permit.

9/4/2026

OpenAI has expanded ChatGPT Ads, alongside new tools for audience targeting, conversion measurement, and reporting

9/4/2026

This October, Semrush, an Adobe company, will bring its Spotlight conference to London to discuss how AI is changing the way brands get discovered and why marketers need to rethink their visibility for the AI age.

9/4/2026

The overhaul includes layoffs and a new audience team structure as AI platforms send fewer users back to publisher websites.

9/4/2026

ChatGPT surged 48% while Bing fell 50% in U.S. traffic. See which sites gained, which lost, and what the latest data means for SEO.

9/4/2026

The keyword that’s too expensive for PPC could be your next SEO priority. The page that ranks first could tell you where to cut paid spend.

9/4/2026

Google can limit ad serving without disapproving your ads. Learn what puts accounts at risk, how to spot a limitation, and how to appeal.

9/4/2026

Show leadership what your SEO investment protects, where growth is justified, and which bets are worth testing as search keeps changing.

9/4/2026

The latests Gemini model was unlikely to link or cite its sources. Google has confirmed the issue and will push a fix soon.

9/3/2026

See how to audit entity recognition, uncover competitor advantages, and strengthen your brand's visibility. Join us for the next SMX Now.

9/3/2026

A healthy traffic graph can mask lost commercial visibility. Find the signals hiding in your rankings, queries, landing pages, and leads.

9/3/2026

Prioritize commercial content, make your best answers easy to extract, and build authority signals for organic and AI search visibility.

9/3/2026

Smart Bidding sees the auction-level signals your hourly report can’t. Know what you’re giving up when you cut an hour.

9/3/2026

AI becomes risky when you delegate judgment. It becomes an “easy button” when you delegate tedious, repetitive, and mundane work.

9/2/2026

This too is first rolling out AI Mode for Google AI Pro & Ultra subscribers in English, like we saw with 3.7.

9/2/2026

Judge keeps the monopoly finding intact, but chooses behavioral remedies over a forced AdX sale, preserving Google's ad exchange.

9/2/2026

From buying links to AI search, Lily Ray shares why lasting visibility comes from E-E-A-T, real expertise and earning recommendations.

9/2/2026

Search visibility now extends from Google results to AI citations and community conversations. Here’s where to focus your SEO effort in 2027.

9/2/2026

Ten ads can behave like one when they make the same pitch. Give each buyer persona a distinct angle to expand your reach.

9/1/2026

This change is happening on February 17, 2027 and will result in a change in total impressions.

9/1/2026

Your crawler can find the symptom. Your audit needs to explain the cause, why it matters, and what should happen next.

9/1/2026

Learn where the platforms align, where controls and reporting differ, and how to test AI features without disrupting campaign performance.

9/1/2026

Confused by the AI watermark debate? Cut through the noise with a clear look at what Claude changed, why it matters, and what's being missed.

8/31/2026

New findings show rankings remain stable while customer behavior changes, making profile quality and reviews critical for local visibility.

8/31/2026

After a few months of slowing rolling out these features, everyone should soon have access to them.

8/31/2026

Reddit can reveal why people choose, reject, or question a brand. Turn those insights into better content for organic and AI search.

8/31/2026

Microsoft says it has "redesigned the navigation and enhanced tables for a more intuitive, efficient experience."

8/31/2026

Your brand may win the shortlist and lose the buyer earlier. Map prompts to see where AI introduces, recommends, compares, or drops you.

8/31/2026

Confident mistakes, noisy alerts, and conversion lag reveal what it takes to build an AI agent you can trust with paid media.

8/28/2026

This behavior pushes down the core search results and gives you an AI Mode type of experience within the main Google Search interface.

8/28/2026

Greg Finn reflects on 20 years of PPC, from exact match and Smart Bidding to automation, AI Mode and why authenticity will matter more than ever.

8/28/2026

Google’s new YouTube creative guidance highlights the ad elements associated with stronger conversions and ROI.

8/28/2026

Google’s DV360 changes remove targeting exclusions and add new business identity requirements for YouTube responsive ads.

8/28/2026

Form fills don't tell ad platforms what makes a lead valuable. Deeper-funnel signals can improve lead quality and campaign performance.

8/28/2026

Claude can accelerate research, analysis, and drafting, but SEO execution still needs human judgment to avoid costly mistakes.

8/28/2026

Find higher-value SEO tasks where AI can give you an edge, from experiments and gap analysis to tools and digital PR.

8/28/2026

Link volume tells only part of the story. See what separates earned authority from spam, recycled ideas, and pitches destined for the trash.

8/28/2026

Searchers outside of the European Economic Area (EEA), the manual action will apply but not within the EEA.

8/27/2026

Google's Demand Gen tools aim to shorten the path from discovery to conversion while making it easier to scale creative across campaigns.

8/27/2026

Google's spam update caused exceptional search disruption, with dramatic ranking losses across 20 industries, according to SE Ranking data.

8/27/2026

New inventory and AI-powered creative come with trade-offs. See which controls and capabilities change in Demand Gen.

8/27/2026

Use Semrush to mine Reddit's rankings for content gaps, unanswered questions, and opportunities to strengthen your search visibility.

8/27/2026

AI doesn't see your images the way a human does. See what it detects, what it misses, and whether the page confirms the right story.

8/27/2026

AI watermarks don’t determine search performance. What matters is whether your content is original, useful, accurate, and worth publishing.

8/27/2026

Google said it deploys technical measures against evolving forms of abuse and this is one of those.

8/26/2026

Google Ads API Developer Assistant v4.0.0 brings specialized API dev, troubleshooting and reporting tools into AI workflows.

8/26/2026

Getting the click is only the first step. Here’s how to make SEO content help users move through the funnel and toward conversion.

8/26/2026

Google’s new Product titles report shows advertisers which AI-generated product titles are being served and how they perform.

8/25/2026

Google is testing new Performance Max controls that let advertisers influence which channels the algorithm prioritizes.

8/25/2026

Getting cited by AI isn't enough. Discover why winning recommendations requires cross-functional action beyond SEO and website optimization.

8/25/2026

Google is adding Gemini Omni to Asset Studio, making it easier to turn creative briefs and brand assets into campaign-ready videos.

8/25/2026

Google is expanding LSA direct booking to more than 500 partners, making it easier for customers to book straight from ads.

8/25/2026

Google will start charging Local Services Ads advertisers for some missed and follow-up calls that qualify as valid leads from Oct. 1.

8/25/2026

SEO roadmaps should tie business goals to ownership, capacity, impact, and measurement. Otherwise, you’ve built a backlog.