It has been a busy second half of the year for the Search Central Live (SCL) team! Zipping through
the busy streets of Bangkok to the skyscrapers of Tokyo and the vibrant harbor of Hong Kong, we’ve
been on a mission to connect, share, and—most importantly—listen.
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PPC didn’t stand still in 2025. It adjusted. These articles resonated because they answered the real questions advertisers are asking: how to stay competitive, cut wasted spend, work with automation instead of against it, and prepare for what’s next.
Below are links to the 10 most-read Search Engine Land PPC columns of 2025, written by our exceptional subject matter experts.
With the right strategy, even the smallest business can stand out, win customers, and make a lasting impact. Here’s how. (By Sophie Logan. Published Sept. 16.)
Shift your optimization mindset in 2025 with fresh strategies for keywords, Performance Max, and audience targeting. (By Pauline Jakober. Published Feb. 6.)
CPCs are rising – but how fast? Compare ad cost inflation to consumer price index and see what it means for your ad strategy. (By Mark Meyerson. Published April 16.)
AI-driven search is blurring the line between organic and paid. Learn how uniting SEO and PPC boosts visibility, intent, and brand authority. (By Jen Cornwell. Published Oct. 6.)
PPC scripts hit limits. Vibe coding removes the roadblocks. Turn complex seasonal patterns into simple, data-driven planning tools. (By Frederick Vallaeys. Published Aug. 21.)
Speed up your ad creation process without losing your message. Use generative AI to craft relevant, personalized copy that connects. (By Jason Tabeling. Published Aug. 1.)
These filtering tactics help refine your targeting, reduce spend on low-quality clicks, and uncover new keyword opportunities. (By Menachem Ani. Published July 22.)
Streamline campaign management with Google Ads scripts. Get insights, use cases, and practical tips for using automation to boost performance. (By Frederick Vallaeys. Published Jan. 9.)
Fewer clicks mean higher stakes. Win visibility with precise targeting, value-based bidding, and authority across paid and organic search. (By Sarah Stemen. Published Oct. 7.)
Some PPC practices no longer fit today’s automated Google Ads environment. Here’s what to phase out – and what to prioritize next year. (By Sarah Vlietstra. Published Nov. 4.)
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Writing strong page titles is one of the simplest and most impactful SEO optimizations you can make. The title tag is often the first thing users see in search results, and it helps search engines understand the content of your page.
In this article, you’ll learn what SEO page titles are, why they matter, and how to write titles that improve visibility and attract clicks.
Let’s start with the basics. If you look at the source of a page (right-click on the page, then choose View Page Source), you find a title in the head section. It looks like this:
This is an example SEO title - Example.com
This is the HTML title tag, also called the SEO title. When you look something up in a search engine, you get a list of results that appear as snippets. The part that looks like a headline is the SEO title. The SEO title typically includes the post title but may also incorporate other elements, such as the site name. Or even emojis!
In most cases, the SEO title is the first thing people see, even before they get on your site. In tabbed browsers, you will usually also see the SEO title in the page tab, as shown in the image below.
Your SEO title aims to entice people to click on it, visit your website, read your post, or purchase your product. If your title is not good enough, people will ignore it and move on to other results. Essentially, there are two goals that you want to achieve with an SEO title:
Google uses many signals when deciding your relevance for a specific keyword. While click-through rate is not a direct ranking factor, user interaction with search results can be a signal that a result matches search intent.
If your page ranks well but attracts few clicks, that may indicate your title doesn’t resonate with searchers. Improving your SEO title can increase clicks and help you perform better over time.
Additionally, as mentioned earlier, Google uses the SEO title specified for your website as a ranking input. So, it’s not just about those clicks; you also need to ensure that your title reflects the topic being discussed on your page and the keyword that you’re focusing on. The SEO title you use has a direct influence on your ranking.
Now that you know the importance of SEO titles, let’s look at how to evaluate and improve them. Tools like Yoast SEO (Free) can help by checking key elements such as title width and keyword usage. Yoast SEO Premium uses generative AI to create titles.
Yoast SEO Premium has a smart content analysis that helps you take your content to the next level!
Yoast SEO Premium includes an AI-powered title generator that can help you create SEO-friendly page titles based on your content and focus keyphrase. This can be useful for inspiration or for quickly generating alternatives when you’re unsure how to phrase a title.
As with any AI-generated content, it’s best to review and refine the suggested titles to ensure they align with your page’s intent, brand voice, and audience expectations.
In addition, if you use Yoast SEO Premium, you get various other AI features, like Yoast AI Optimize, that help you do the hard work.
The empty title check in Yoast SEO Premium is self-explanatory: it checks whether you’ve filled in any text in your post’s ‘Title’ section. If you haven’t, you’ll see a red traffic light reminding you to add a title. Once this is filled in, the post title can be automatically added to the SEO title field using the ‘Title’ variable.
Note that your post title is output as an H1 heading. A clear H1 helps users quickly understand what a page is about, improves accessibility for screen readers, and aids search engines in interpreting the page structure. You should only use one H1 heading per page to avoid confusing search engines. Don’t worry; we’ve got a check for multiple H1 headings in Yoast SEO!
You will find this check in the SEO tab of the Yoast SEO sidebar or meta box. If you haven’t written an SEO title yet, this will remind you to do so. Additionally, Yoast SEO verifies the width of your SEO title. When it is too long, you will get a warning.
We used to warn you if your SEO title was too short, but we’ve changed that since our Yoast 17.1 release. A title with an optimal width gets you a green traffic light in the analysis. Remember that we exclude the separator symbol and site title from the title width check. We don’t consider these when calculating the SEO title progress bar.
If your SEO title doesn’t have the correct width, parts of it may be cut off in Google’s search results. The result may vary, depending on the device you’re using. That’s why you can also check how your SEO title will look in the mobile and desktop search results in the Search appearance section of Yoast SEO. The tool defaults to the mobile version, but you can also switch to view it in the desktop version.
Here’s a desktop result:
And here’s the mobile result for the same URL:
As a general guideline, aim for a title that fully displays on mobile search results, clearly communicates the main topic, and avoids unnecessary filler words. If your title fits visually and still reads naturally, you’re on the right track.
Have you noticed that we talk about width rather than length? Why is that? Rather than using a character count, Google has a fixed width for the titles counted in pixels. While your title tags can be long, and Google doesn’t have a set limit on the number of characters you can use, there is a limit on what’s visible in the search results. If your SEO title is too wide, Google will visually truncate it. That might be different from what you want. Additionally, avoid wasting valuable space by keeping the title concise and clear. Additionally, the SEO title often informs other title-like elements, such as the og:title, which also has display constraints.
Luckily, our Search appearance section can help you out! You can fill in your SEO title; our plugin will provide you with immediate feedback. The green line underneath the SEO title turns red when your title is too long. Keep an eye on that and use the feedback to create great headlines.
This check appears in the SEO tab of the Yoast SEO sidebar in WordPress and Shopify, as well as in the meta box in WordPress. It checks if you’re using your keyphrase in the SEO title of your post or page. This check is intentionally strict because the SEO title plays an important role in signaling a page’s topic to both search engines and users. Since Google uses the title to figure out your page’s topic, not having the focus keyphrase in the SEO title may harm your rankings. Additionally, potential visitors are more likely to click on a search result that matches their query. For optimal results, try to include your keyphrase at the beginning of the SEO title.
Sometimes, when optimizing for a highly competitive keyword, everyone will have the keyword at the beginning of the SEO title. In that case, you can try making it stand out by putting one or two words before your focus keyword, thereby slightly “indenting” your result. In Yoast SEO, if you start your SEO title with “the”, “a”, “who”, or another function word followed by your keyphrase, you’ll still get a green traffic light.
At other times, such as when you have a very long keyphrase, adding the complete keyphrase at the beginning doesn’t make sense. If your SEO title looks weird with the keyphrase at the beginning, try to add as much of the keyphrase as early in the SEO title as possible. But always keep an eye on the natural flow and readability.
Google may rewrite titles when they are overly long, stuffed with keywords, misleading, or inconsistent with the page’s main heading.
To reduce the likelihood of rewrites:
While rewrites can still happen, clear and concise titles are more likely to be shown as written.
Want to learn how to write text that’s pleasant to read and optimized for search engines? Our SEO copywriting course can help you with that. You can access this course and our other SEO courses with Yoast SEO Premium. This also gives you access to extra features in the Yoast SEO plugin.
Are you struggling with more aspects of SEO copywriting? Don’t worry! We can teach you to master all facets, so you’ll know how to write awesome copy that ranks. Take a look at our SEO copywriting training and try the free trial lessons!
To be clear, you should not confuse the SEO title with the post title; both serve different purposes and do not have to be the same.
The post title, also known as the H1 heading, is the main heading users see on the page. Its primary role is to help readers understand what the page is about and to add structure to your content. You should always write your H1 with users in mind.
The SEO title is the title that appears in search results and in the browser tab. This title helps search engines understand the topic of your page and influences whether users click on your result.
While the SEO title and H1 can be similar, they do not need to be identical. In WordPress, tools like Yoast SEO allow you to set a separate SEO title, giving you more control over how your page appears in search results without changing the on-page heading.
For quite some time, it was a common practice among some SEOs to omit the site name from the SEO title. The idea was that the “density” of the title mattered, and the site name wouldn’t help with that. Don’t do this. If possible, your SEO title should include your brand, preferably in a recognizable way. If people search for a topic and see your brand several times, even if they don’t click on it the first time, they might click when they see you again on their next page of results.
However, with the site name and favicon updates, be sure to fill in the site settings, upload a favicon, and make general changes to the design of the snippets. This will increase your brand’s visibility in search results. Today, you’ll notice that Google hardly shows your brand name in the snippet’s title. However, Google often has a mind of its own when generating titles to change them for any given reason. The design and function of the SERPs can change at any moment, so we still recommend adding your brand to your titles.
Yes. You can change the SEO title even after a page has been published, and doing so can improve performance.
At Yoast, we once noticed that although we ranked well for “WordPress security,” the page was not getting as much traffic as expected. We updated the SEO title and meta description to make them more engaging and relevant. As a result, traffic to that page increased by over 30 percent.
The original SEO title was:
WordPress Security • Yoast
We changed it to:
WordPress Security in a few easy steps! • Yoast
This change did not significantly affect rankings, but it did improve click-through rates. The keywords stayed largely the same, but the title became more compelling for searchers.
This shows that optimizing SEO titles after publication can be an effective way to increase traffic, especially if your page already ranks well but receives fewer clicks than expected.
No. Google does not always display the exact SEO title you set in search results.
That said, the HTML title tag is still the most common source Google uses for generating title links. Google Search uses the following sources to automatically determine title links:
<title> tagGoogle typically selects one title per page and does not change it for different queries.
What does this mean for you? The SEO title you set remains important for ranking and relevance. Even if Google sometimes displays a different version, your title still helps search engines understand the content of your page.
To stay on top of changes, monitor your key pages in Google Search Console, check how titles appear in search results, and watch for shifts in click-through rates.
You can, but it is often better not to.
What might be a good SEO title isn’t necessarily a good title for social media. In social media, keyword optimization is less important than creating a title that entices people to click. You often don’t need to include the brand name in the title. This is especially true for Facebook and X if you include some branding in your post image. Our social media appearance previews in Yoast SEO Premium and Yoast SEO for Shopify can help you.
If you use Yoast SEO, you can set different titles for Google, Facebook, and X. Enter your SEO title in the snippet editor, then customize the social media titles in the social tab. If you do not set a specific X title, X will use the Facebook title by default.
This flexibility allows you to optimize your titles for both search engines and social platforms without compromise.
The post How to craft great page titles for SEO? appeared first on Yoast.
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Pay-per-click (PPC) marketing in 2025 moved fast and grew more complex.
Google drove many of the year’s most consequential changes, from deeper Search automation with AI Max and ads inside AI Overviews to long-awaited gains in transparency and control for Performance Max.
At the same time, updates to Google Tag Manager and conversion tracking changed how advertisers collect and trust data. Policy shifts, automatic content extraction, and pullbacks from Google Shopping by major advertisers like Amazon and Temu also disrupted auction dynamics, exposing growing tension between platform power, advertiser control, and market stability.
As 2025 winds down, let’s look at the most newsworthy headlines, ranked by pageviews.
March 10 – Google updated Google Tag Manager (GTM) to ensure the Google tag loaded before events fired, improving tracking accuracy and data collection, starting April 10.
For containers with Google Ads and Floodlight tags, GTM now loads the Google tag automatically. Advertisers got easier access to Enhanced Conversions, cross-domain tracking, and auto events directly within tag settings.
The update further simplified data collection and compliance by automatically enabling user-provided data when Customer Data Terms were accepted.
Jan. 28 – Google clarified that you can control Performance Max campaigns using API-based placement exclusions, reversing months of documentation and support guidance that said this wasn’t possible.
Research from ad tech firm Optmyzr confirmed that API exclusions fully blocked spend on excluded placements and worked faster than manual UI controls.
The change gave advertisers stronger programmatic control over PMax campaigns and addresses a long-standing frustration with the AI-driven format.
March 21 – Google updated Performance Max campaigns to show which search terms trigger ads and to let advertisers add negative keywords directly from the Search Terms report.
The rollout improved transparency and control, addressing long-standing criticism that Performance Max lacked query-level insight.
By tying into recent negative keyword features, the update gave advertisers visibility closer to standard Search campaigns while retaining AI-driven optimization.
May 6 – Google announced AI Max, a new one-click enhancement for Search campaigns using advanced AI to expand reach, generate ads dynamically, and adapt creative in real time.
AI Max combined broad match, keywordless technology, automated text customization, and final URL expansion to help advertisers capture untapped high-intent queries while tailoring headlines, descriptions, and landing pages as user intent emerges.
May 22 – Google began showing ads directly within AI Overviews on desktop search in May, marking a major shift in how it monetizes its generative search experience.
Confirmed at Google Marketing Live 2025, the rollout placed Search and Shopping ads within or alongside AI-generated summaries at the top of results.
March 31 – Google Ads updated its Unfair Advantage Policy to allow advertisers to show multiple ads for the same business on a single results page, as long as the ads appeared in different locations.
By treating each ad location as a separate auction, Google formalized earlier experiments that expand advertiser presence across the SERP. The change created new opportunities for larger brands to dominate visibility and potentially drive more clicks and conversions.
April 3 – Google launched a feature that automatically pulled merchants’ existing marketing content (e.g., promotions, product details, social links, brand assets) to boost visibility across Search, Shopping, and Maps.
All merchants were auto-enrolled. Google sources the content through marketing emails or direct submissions to a dedicated Google address, though businesses could opt out at any time in Merchant Center.
April 14 – Temu abruptly shut off its U.S. Google Shopping ads, exposing how heavily its growth relied on paid acquisition. Within days, its App Store ranking fell from the top four to 58 as its impression share collapsed and vanished from auction data.
The pullback aligned with higher U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports and stricter enforcement of import loopholes, both of which directly weakened Temu’s subsidized, direct-from-manufacturer model.
July 25 – Amazon abruptly halted its Google Shopping ads, a move experts called unprecedented and “colossal” given Amazon’s long-standing role in fueling auction competition and Google ad revenue.
The shutdown marked a clear inflection point after a year of gradual cooling. It spanned roughly 20 international markets and removed a dominant bidder that routinely drove up CPCs and captured outsized impression share.
One month later, Amazon resumed Shopping ads globally but remained absent from the U.S.
Feb. 5 – Google Ads introduced a new form tracking feature in Google Tag Manager to let you create conversion events for lead form submissions without manual coding.
The wizard-style setup supports codeless event detection, flexible form submission tracking, and multiple URL matching options, making conversion tracking far easier to implement.
PPC in 2025 was dominated by major talking points that, unsurprisingly, largely centered on Google.
Looking ahead, 2026 is likely to bring even deeper AI integration, with real differentiation coming from experts who can apply AI strategically rather than simply market its use.
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The third and likely final core update of 2025, the December 2025 core update, is now rolling out and complete. It started on December 11, 2025 and was completed about 18 days and 2 hours later on December 29, 2025. Google called this update “a regular update designed to better surface relevant, satisfying content for searchers from all types of sites.”
This December 2025 core update came after waiting five months since the previous core update, the June 2025 core update. That June update came a few months after Google’s first core update on the 2025 year, the March 2025 core update.
In the coming days we will gather data on the impact of this update and share some of that data with you on Search Engine Land.
What Google is saying. Google updated its Search Status Dashboard to state:
Google added on LinkedIn:
What we saw. The initial rollout touched down within a few days after the update was announced, specifically on December 13, 2025. Then on December 20th, we saw another big spike in volatility. Like with all core updates, some sites saw huge declines in ranking visibility, some saw some big improvements and many saw no changes.
I’d also recommend you watch this video from Glenn Gabe on the December core update.
What to do if you are hit. Google did not share any new guidance specific to the December 2025 core update. However, in the past, Google has offered advice on what to consider if a core update negatively impacts your site:
In short: write helpful content for people and not to rank in search engines.
For more details on Google core updates, you can read Google’s documentation.
Previous core updates. Here’s a timeline and our coverage of recent core updates:
Why we care. Now that this December 2025 core update is done, you can start to dig in to see how you are your clients were impacted. You can review Google’s guidance and continue to improve your site, which hopefully will lead to better Google ranking in the future. Google releases core update every few to several months, so you should always continue to work on improving your site and the content on your site.
I hope you all did well with this last Google update and you all have an amazing holidays and new years!
Video summary. Here is a video summary I made on this core update:
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Google launched four official and confirmed algorithmic updates in 2025, three core updates and one spam update. This is in comparison to last year, in 2024, where we had seven confirmed updates, then in 2023, when we had nine confirmed updates and in 2022 and 2021, Google had 10 confirmed algorithmic updates.
Fewer updates. Google appears to be confirming fewer updates, even though Google said a year ago, that we should expect more core updates, more often. But that doesn’t mean there were fewer updates. Google did reaffirm that it does not announce all core updates, that the search company only confirms the larger, broader core updates.
Plus, I covered dozens of unconfirmed Google updates on the Search Engine Roundtable. It was a super volatile year, even without Google confirming as many algorithmic search updates.
We whipped up this timeline documenting all the confirmed Google search algorithm updates in 2025, so you can visualize the updates over the year.
Google had three core updates in 20225, four core updates in 2024, the same number as it had in 2023, but in 2022 Google only had two core updates. We had core updates in March, June, and December.
March 2025 core update. The Google March 2025 core update started rolling out March 13, it took 14 days to complete, and finished on March 27. Google told us this core update was a normal core update. Google wrote:
“Today we released the March 2025 core update to Google Search. This is a regular update designed to better surface relevant, satisfying content for searchers from all types of sites. We also continue our work to surface more content from creators through a series of improvements throughout this year. Some have already happened; additional ones will come later.”
The volatility from this update seemed similar to previous core updates – we broke that down over here.
June 2025 core update. The June 2025 core update started rolling out on June 30, it took about 16 days to complete, and finished on July 17. Again, this was a normal broad core update. Google wrote:
“This is a regular update designed to better surface relevant, satisfying content for searchers from all types of sites.”
The volatility from this update seemed similar to previous core updates – we broke that down over here. The interesting thing with this update is that we saw some accounts of partial recoveries from the September 2023 helpful content update and previous core updates. Then we saw a lot of heated volatility from July 11th through July 14th.
December 2025 core update. The December 2025 core update started rolling out on December 11, it took 18 days to complete, and finished on December 29. Again, this was a normal broad core update. Google wrote:
“This is a regular update designed to better surface relevant, satisfying content for searchers from all types of sites.”
The volatility was intense but also super calm throughout most of the weekdays. We had two big spikes, both on Saturdays, on December 13th and December 20th.
August 2025 spam update. The August 2025 spam update started rolling out on August 26, it took 27 days to complete, and finished on September 22. This update was a general and broad spam update. Google did not announce anything unique with this spam update. Google just wrote:
“This is a normal spam update, and it will roll out for all languages and locations.”
This spam update touched down very quickly, where sites that were impacted by this update saw the results within about 24 hours. It hit hard and fast. Then, around Sept. 9, the update heated up again, with a number of sites noticing ranking fluctuations and indexing issues. While many impacted sites saw steep declines in Google Search organic visibility, some sites that were hit by previous spam updates saw significant recoveries.
Other Google updates. While we had three core updates and one spam update, Google also pushed out other search specific updates in 2025. Here is a list of those:
Google Search bugs. Google also had several search bugs throughout 2025:
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The evolution of search continued to accelerate in 2025.
Between GEO and AI-driven discovery, agents, and new optimization frameworks and tools, SEO experienced another huge year of change.
As always, Search Engine Land helped you make sense of the advances – what was happening, what was coming next, and what truly mattered.
Below are the 10 most-read SEO columns of 2025, written by our outstanding group of subject matter experts.
GEO isn’t the death of SEO. It’s what happens when search becomes multi-platform, multi-modal, and powered by AI. (By Roslyn Ayers. Published Aug. 8.)
Find out what llms.txt is, how it works, how to think about it, whether LLMs and brands are buying in, and why you should pay attention. (By Rob Garner. Published March 28.)
Learn how SEO and GEO strategies differ – and how combining both can boost your visibility across search engines and AI-driven platforms. (By Dan Taylor. July 28.)
Read this deep dive into six patents that reveal how Google’s AI Overviews and AI Mode work – and what it all means for the future of SEO. (By Michael King. June 2.)
From ChatGPT to Gemini, here’s what each AI model trusts – and how strategic content earns visibility in generative search results. (By James Allen. Published May 12.)
AI search tools are on the rise, but SEO fundamentals remain critical. Learn how the two intersect and what it means for your strategy. (By Lily Ray. Published July 18.)
The SEO toolkit you know, plus the AI visibility data you need.
Don’t rely solely on tools like Search Console or Screaming Frog. Diversify your toolset with these time-saving Chrome extensions. (By Stephanie Wallace. Published Jan. 16.)
AI platforms are transforming discovery. Traffic is surging. Now strategies must evolve, according to the 2025 Previsible AI Traffic Report.. (By David Bell. Published Aug. 5.)
To be visible, optimize your site with clean HTML, metadata, fast responses, and bot-friendly configurations. (By Jed White. Published Jan. 29.)
Why the web as we know it may fade and what AI, personal agents, and data interfaces mean for publishers, SEO, and commerce. (By Mario Fischer. Published Nov. 14.)
Read more at Read More
Another year in search has come and gone, and Google called it year three of a 10-year platform shift. In 2025, that shift became impossible to ignore. AI moved from experiments and previews into the core of how search actually works.
Below are the biggest SEO news stories of 2025 on Search Engine Land.
Note: This article doesn’t include any stories related to Google algorithm updates. Barry Schwartz wrote a separate recap on that, which will also publish today.
Independent researcher Metehan Yesilyurt analyzed browser-level interactions to reveal how Perplexity scores, reranks, and sometimes drops content. He uncovered a three-layer machine-learning reranker for entity searches, manual authority whitelists, and dozens of engagement and relevance signals.
Yesilyurt’s research also found boosts for authoritative domains, strong early performance, and topics centered on tech and AI. Rankings further reflected time decay, interconnected content clusters, and synchronized YouTube trends that increased visibility across platforms.
The SEO toolkit you know, plus the AI visibility data you need.
Google added Query groups to the Search Console Insights report. The feature uses AI to cluster similar search queries into clear audience topics and does not affect rankings. It rolled out gradually to high-volume sites and replaced long query lists with topic-level groupings that make performance shifts easier to spot.
HubSpot’s organic traffic appeared to fall from 13.5 million to 8.6 million in a month, with most of the losses coming from its blog. The drop followed several Google updates, and SEOs publicly pointed to thin, off-topic, traffic-at-all-costs content that drifted beyond HubSpot’s core expertise.
The SEO identity crisis continued as Google dismissed new acronyms like GEO (generative engine optimization) and AEO (answer engine optimization), arguing that good SEO is good GEO, and that the same fundamentals drive AI Overview rankings.
That stance collided with Google’s own admission that search traffic decline is inevitable as AI answers replace clicks, even while traditional search still dominates discovery at a massive scale.
Yet, search behavior is fracturing: users turn to AI for quick answers and to Google for deeper research, pushing brands to optimize for visibility, not just traffic.
Google rapidly expanded AI Mode from an opt-in experiment into a widely available, and possibly soon default, search experience. It added deeper research, agentic actions, personalization, and Gemini 2.5, signaling longer and more complex search behavior.
At the same time, AI Mode exposed major transparency gaps. It initially broke referral tracking and still blends performance data into standard Search Console reports, raising new concerns about visibility, attribution, and what SEO becomes as AI takes on a larger role in search.
Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince said AI was breaking the web’s search-driven business model. He said Google scraped far more content while sending back much less traffic because of zero-click results. He added that AI companies deepen the imbalance by consuming huge amounts of content with little return to creators, putting original publishing at risk unless the economic model changes.
Statcounter data showed Google’s global search share fell below 90% in October, November, and December 2024, the first time its search share remained under 90% since early 2015. The decline was driven mainly by Asia, alongside a December U.S. dip to 87.39%. Bing, Yandex, and Yahoo captured much of the lost share.
Google tightened its stance on AI-generated content by telling quality raters to give the Lowest ratings to pages where most main content is auto- or AI-generated with little originality or added value. It also expanded its spam definitions to target scaled, low-effort AI use.
At the same time, Google tested AI-generated and AI-summarized search snippets, pointing to a future where AI both judges content more harshly and increasingly controls how that content appears in search.
Analyses from Seer, Ahrefs, Amsive, and BrightEdge all showed the same pattern. Google Search produced more impressions and more AI Overview visibility, but sent fewer clicks. The drop was sharpest on non-branded, informational queries, where AI Overviews pushed classic results down, and CTR fell hard.
The studies also found a winner-take-some dynamic. Brands cited in AI Overviews saw higher paid and organic CTR, while those left out lost ground, showing that AI visibility increasingly drives results.
Google’s removal of the long-standing &num=100 search parameter disrupted SEO data across the industry. It broke rank-tracking tools and coincided with sharp drops in Google Search Console impressions and query counts.
Early analysis showed most sites lost reported visibility, especially beyond Page 1. The change suggested years of inflated metrics from scrapers and a new, possibly more accurate, view of organic performance.
Track, optimize, and win in Google and AI search from one platform.
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OpenAI is laying the groundwork for an advertising business, signaling a potential shift in how ChatGPT and other products could be monetized beyond subscriptions and enterprise deals.
What’s happening. According to reporting from The Information, OpenAI has begun exploring ad formats and partnerships, with early discussions pointing toward ads that could appear within or alongside AI-generated responses. The effort is still in its early stages, but internal conversations suggest ads are becoming a more serious part of OpenAI’s long-term revenue strategy.
Why we care. OpenAI is exploring ads inside AI-generated responses, creating a new, highly contextual channel for reaching users at the moment they seek information. This could put OpenAI in direct competition with Google and Meta, but also raises questions about trust and user engagement. Early adoption could offer a first-mover advantage, while formats and metrics may differ from traditional digital ads. Overall, it’s a potentially transformative new frontier for advertising.
The SEO toolkit you know, plus the AI visibility data you need.
Between the lines. OpenAI appears cautious, aiming to avoid disrupting user experience or undermining confidence in its models. Any ad product is likely to be tightly controlled, at least initially, and positioned as helpful or contextually relevant rather than overtly promotional.
The bigger picture. With soaring infrastructure costs and growing pressure to scale revenue, ads could become a key lever for OpenAI — especially as generative AI reshapes how people search for information and discover products.
What to watch. When ads move from internal planning to public testing, how clearly they’re labeled, and whether users accept advertising embedded in AI responses.
Bottom line. OpenAI isn’t rushing ads to market, but the foundations are being laid — and their eventual arrival could reshape both AI products and the digital advertising landscape.
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Google reduced the minimum audience size requirement to just 100 active users across all networks and audience types, making remarketing and customer list targeting far more accessible—especially for smaller advertisers.
What’s new. Audience segments with as few as 100 users can now be used across Search, Display, and YouTube, including both remarketing lists and customer lists. The same 100-user threshold now applies for segments to appear in Audience Insights, down from 1,000.
Catch up. The shift toward smaller audience thresholds began in May, when Google lowered the minimum user requirement for Customer Lists in Search campaigns from 1,000 to 100.
Why we care. Smaller accounts and niche advertisers can now activate audience strategies that were previously out of reach due to size constraints. This change removes a long-standing barrier to personalization, remarketing, and first-party data activation within Google Ads.
What to watch. How advertisers use smaller, more precise segments—and whether performance or privacy safeguards evolve alongside the expanded access.
First seen. This update was first spotted by Web Marketing Consultant, Dario Zannoni, who shared it on LinkedIn.
Bottom line. By lowering audience size limits to 100 users everywhere, Google is opening advanced audience targeting to a much broader range of advertisers.
Read more at Read More
