Ahrefs checked Google’s U.S. results for the exact names of 100 global brands every week from July through September, and published the results Oct. 2. On July 1, five of 98 usable results had an AI Overview. By Sept. 30, 63 of the 100 brand-name queries did. For brand teams, this is the results page…
As a paid media marketer for regulated fields such as healthcare, financial, or legal industries, AI can raise flags for concern. Whether it’s the “black box” of automated bid strategies colliding with organizational concerns around targeting, or questions around AI usage to generate creative, I recommend knowing your company’s policies and industry guidelines is a…
This post was sponsored by Leadzai. The opinions expressed in this article are the sponsor’s own. Not long ago, most of our conversations with agencies opened with the same question: should we even be doing TikTok for our small business clients? That question has quietly disappeared. Agencies now come to us asking how quickly they…
If you work in SEO long enough, you start to notice that things tend to move in cycles. First: SEOs (and now GEOs) find a way to influence the organic or AI results or exploit Google’s ranking systems to gain visibility. Their tactics become popularized, shared widely, and duplicated all over the world. Then the…
This post was sponsored by Silver Arbitration Law, PLLC. The opinions expressed in this article are the sponsor’s own. If you manage Google Search campaigns, you have explained rising CPCs many times: more competitors, broader match types, a lower Quality Score, an account that needed restructuring. Each explanation is plausible. I have worked in arbitration…
OpenAI will introduce an invisible watermark to qualifying ChatGPT and Codex texts within the European Union over the coming weeks. Their testing indicates that replacing certain words with synonyms can weaken the watermark’s effectiveness. In one test, substituting 25% of the words in 400-token English passages with synonyms lowered detection rates from approximately 92% to 17%. From…
Google’s Gary Illyes showed timing ranges for common Search processes at Search Central Live Deep Dive Europe in Barcelona, from discovering a new URL to settling a site move. The ranges also cover changes made on a website, including title updates and canonical changes. The figures come from a recap of the Oct. 2 session…
Welcome to the Pulse: This week’s updates include Google’s new guidance for AI-generated content, UTM tags on Gemini links, guidance on analyzing Q2 click-through data, AI Mode monitoring eligibility, and the latest on two AI Overviews lawsuits. Here’s what matters for you and your work. Google Adds A Manual Fact-Check Step To Its AI Content…
Leave it on and watch it. Shopify’s agentic storefronts put your products inside AI chat apps, and if your store is eligible, Shopify signs it up for every new app it adds. That is how eligible stores’ products reached Meta on 8 September 2026, the day Meta launched Muse. Muse is an AI agent that,…
This post was sponsored by AnswerShare. The opinions expressed in this article are the sponsor’s own. You’ve been working hard on AI visibility. Your company is finally showing up when prospective customers ask questions about your market. You earned the mention. You’re in the conversation. What a win! Then someone asks a more direct question:…