Your content can rank on the first page of Google and still never be cited or mentioned by LLMs. This makes sense once you understand query fan-out, a background process AI systems use to build answers. When someone asks ChatGPT or Perplexity a question, it doesn’t default to the best-ranking page. Instead, it runs related […]
Key Takeaways AI-generated answers have compressed brand discovery into a single moment. One summary can now serve as a customer’s entire first impression. AI systems pull from a wide range of sources, including forums, review sites, and outdated content, not just your owned properties. The most repeated claim tends to surface in AI outputs, not […]
Key Takeaways Google is testing “Sponsored Shops,” a format that groups multiple products from a single retailer into one branded unit inside Shopping results. This moves competition from the product level to the retailer level, changing what it takes to win visibility. Feed quality, seller ratings, and assortment depth become more critical than ever. The […]
Google searches ended without a click 68.01% of the time in the U.S. during the first four months of 2026, according to new SparkToro research based on Similarweb clickstream data. That’s up from 60.45% in 2024, a 7.56-point increase in two years. Fewer searches result in clicks. The share of searches generating at least one […]
AI forms opinions about your brand from what it can see online. That’s your digital footprint. The problem is that AI often sees only fragments of your business. It sees your website, content, reviews, and mentions, but much of the expertise, customer insight, and operational knowledge that makes your business valuable never makes it into […]
For large websites, server logs often reveal technical SEO problems long before rankings decline. They show how search engines crawl your site, where crawl budget gets wasted, how quickly servers respond, and whether important pages remain accessible. Unlike Google Search Console, analytics platforms, and third-party crawlers, server logs capture every request search engines make to […]
Not long ago, broad match was positioned as the future of paid search. Today, that role belongs to AI Max. Over the last few months, I’ve heard repeated recommendations to enable AI Max on brand campaigns, even when those campaigns are already performing exactly as intended. The problem is that many accounts still lack the […]
You can be a strong brand, publish high-quality content, and still not have topical authority. Just look at Great Jones, a kitchenware company. Their Dutch oven (called The Dutchess) is beautiful, well-reviewed, and featured in industry-leading sites like Vogue, the New York Times, Bon Appétit, and The Kitchn. But search “best Dutch ovens” on Google […]
Google is expanding experimentation capabilities in Performance Max, giving advertisers more ways to test creative assets and measure campaign performance before making large-scale changes. What’s happening. Google is rolling out new asset experiments for Performance Max campaigns, allowing advertisers to test how different creative assets affect results. The feature enables marketers to compare entirely new […]
OpenAI is expanding its advertising ambitions inside ChatGPT, beginning an early test that allows multiple advertisers to appear within a single ad placement. What’s happening. The company is testing multi-advertiser ad units across a small subset of ChatGPT ads, according to a product update sent to advertisers. Rather than displaying a single sponsored result, the […]
