Google’s John Mueller answered a question about Search Console and 404 error reporting, suggesting that repeated crawling of pages with a 404 status code is a positive signal. 404 Status Code The 404 status code, often referred to as an error code, has long confused many site owners and SEOs because the word “error” implies…
Last Friday afternoon, Digg died. Again. Two months. That’s how long the relaunch lasted before CEO Justin Mezzell pinned a eulogy to the homepage. The platform had raised $15-20 million. It had Kevin Rose. It had Alexis Ohanian – Reddit’s co-founder, no less. It had promises that AI would “remove the janitorial work of moderators…
An SEO crafting a newsletter with AI spotted a hallucination about a March 2026 Google Core Update and decided to publish it as an experiment to see how misinformation spreads. While search marketing industry publications ignored the fake news some independent SEOs picked it up and ran with it without first checking the factual accuracy…
Boost your skills with Growth Memo’s weekly expert insights. Subscribe for free! Branded search inflates your return on ad spend (ROAS) by taking credit for demand you already own, and every input in the paid acquisition model is getting worse simultaneously. This week, you’ll cover: The math on how branded search distorts performance reporting across…
Every few years, the SEO industry discovers a new way to mass-produce content and convinces itself that this time it’ll work. That the sheer volume of pages will overwhelm Google’s ability to assess quality. That if you just publish enough, the numbers will carry you. It never works. It has never worked. And the people…
I wrote a LinkedIn post on this very topic a while ago, and people seemed, at least, reasonably interested. So I thought I’d expand on it a little. It is, IMO, a very good way of framing how you can generate real value from trends. The value of our traditional (if we’re being fair, beige)…
Google Maps is launching Ask Maps, a conversational feature powered by Gemini that lets users ask complex questions about locations and receive AI-generated suggestions on a personalized map. The feature is now rolling out in the U.S. and India on Android and iOS, with a desktop version coming soon. What Ask Maps Does Ask Maps lets…
For years, communications and PR teams have warned that their budgets are under threat. In 2026, that warning has become a reality. According to industry research, budget pressure remains one of the top concerns for communications leaders, largely because executives still struggle to understand how PR contributes to business outcomes. As Katie Paine bluntly says, when…
This post was sponsored by Resolve Marketing. The opinions expressed in this article are the sponsor’s own. Link building has evolved. It’s no longer about sending templated emails asking how much it costs for a guest post on someone’s site (it probably never should’ve been). It’s about providing resources, data, & information that people want…
Integrating digital PR & SEO with a full-funnel strategy both influences audience behavior and top-three rankings in search engines. In my recent webinar with Search Engine Journal about how to earn links with digital PR, I didn’t have time to dive into the importance of the audience journey and a full-funnel strategy. This article is…