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Google Search Algorithm Changes: 2026 Update

May 6, 2026/0 Comments/in Web Design/by Dubado Solutions

Key Takeaways

Google’s 2024 API leak confirmed that click data and user engagement signals carry more weight in rankings than the search giant has publicly acknowledged. Brand authority matters more than many search engine optimization (SEO) professionals realize.
Core updates now target multiple ranking systems at once. The March 2024 update, combined with prior efforts, reduced low-quality content in search results by 45 percent.
AI Overviews (AIOs) appear in more than 25 percent of searches and have reshaped how content gets surfaced. Optimizing for AIO citations requires a different approach than traditional SEO.
Spam enforcement has intensified, with Google actively targeting manipulative link profiles, scaled AI-generated content, cloaking, and site reputation abuse.
High-quality content, link profiles built on relevance rather than volume, technically sound sites, and verifiable experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness (E-E-A-T) signals have held up through every major update.

Have you noticed rankings shift after a recent update?

Keeping pace with Google’s ranking algorithm can feel like chasing a moving target.

Google may tweak its algorithm thousands of times a year, but the core principle remains the same: rank sites that earn it and penalize those that game the system.

If you understand what Google targets in every major update, you can stop reacting to Google algorithm changes and start anticipating them.

This guide covers what we know about ranking factors and every major Google algorithm change worth tracking. It also gives you 11 practical tactics to protect and improve your rankings, no matter what update comes next.

Use the table of contents to jump ahead or read start to finish if you’re new to algorithm changes.

What Do We Know About Google’s Algorithmic Ranking Factors?

Google doesn’t publish a definitive list of ranking factors. But in May 2024, more than 2,500 pages of internal API documentation were leaked, giving SEOs an unprecedented look under the hood.

The biggest revelation was NavBoost, a re-ranking system that uses Chrome clickstream data to evaluate how users interact with search results.

The leaked documents reference click attributes including “goodClicks,” “badClicks,” “lastLongestClicks,” “unsquashed,” and “unicorn” clicks, all of which feed into how Google assesses page quality. Pages where users spend meaningful time send positive signals. Quick bounces do the opposite.

Rand Fishkin of SparkToro, who analyzed the leak, concluded that building a recognizable, trusted brand outside of Google search is one of the most effective things you can do for organic rankings.

Source: https://sparktoro.com/blog/an-anonymous-source-shared-thousands-of-leaked-google-search-api-documents-with-me-everyone-in-seo-should-see-them/

The screenshot above comes straight from the leaked documentation. It catalogs the click-related fields Google tracks inside one of its page-quality modules, with attributes like goodClicks, badClicks, and lastLongestClicks listed directly.

Beyond the leak, here’s a rundown of Google’s established ranking factors:

Page speed: Core Web Vitals (CWVs) are confirmed ranking signals. Slow-loading pages create friction that hurts user experience and rankings.
Content relevance: Google rewards content that matches user intent. Use targeted keywords naturally and build relevant content around the topics those keywords represent.
Freshness: The leaked documentation confirmed how recently a page was published or updated factors into rankings. Regularly refreshing content with current data and examples sends a positive signal.
Link quality: Backlinks from authoritative, relevant sources remain a core signal. The leaked documents suggest Google classifies links into low, medium, and high-quality tiers based in part on click data, with low-tier links ignored entirely. Google also appears to favor diverse link profiles with a range of referring domains over concentrated links from a small number of sources.
Mobile-first indexing: Google uses the mobile version of your site for indexing and ranking.
HTTPS: Secure connections are a baseline ranking signal and a trust factor for users.
User engagement: Signals such as dwell time, click-through rate, and pogo-sticking feed into how NavBoost evaluates page quality.
E-E-A-T: This shapes how Google’s quality raters evaluate content, which in turn influences how ranking systems are calibrated. The leaked documentation also suggests Google can identify authors and treat them as entities in the system, reinforcing the value of publishing content under recognized, credible bylines.

AIOs follow similar ranking principles but place added weight on structured content that directly answers specific questions. AIOs now trigger on nearly half of all tracked queries according to BrightEdge, and only about 38 percent of pages cited in AIOs also appear in the top 10 search results, according to Ahrefs.

Topical authority and content depth are increasingly the deciding factors for AIO citations.

How Often Does Google Release Algorithm Changes?

Google search algorithm updates happen constantly. Google may push multiple changes in a single day, and the company has confirmed making thousands of changes to Search in a single year.

Most of these updates are small. You probably won’t notice a drop in page rankings from any individual one.

The exception is core updates. Google rolls out these larger, more sweeping changes a few times per year, and they can directly impact your page performance.

Based on recent patterns, expect a core update about three to four times a year.

My Brief Timeline of Google Algorithm Updates

Below is a concise history of all Google algorithm updates that have had a lasting impact on how Google and SEOs operate, sorted by release date. Each entry links to a detailed breakdown further in this article.

March 2026 Core Update
December 2025 Core Update
August 2025 Spam Update
Site Reputation Abuse Update (May 2024, updated November 2024)
March 2024 Core Update
Search Generative Experience (May 2023, became AI Overviews May 2024)
How-To and FAQ Changes, September 2023
Product Review Update, April 2023
E-E-A-T Update, December 2022
Link Spam Update, December 2022
Helpful Content Update, August 2022
Page Experience Update, June 2021
Google RankBrain, October 2015
Google Hummingbird, September 2013
Google Penguin, April 2012
Google Panda, February 2011

The Google Algorithm Updates You Need to Know About

Here’s a closer look at each update and what it means for your SEO strategy.

March 2026 Core Update

Google’s first core update of 2026 began rolling out on March 27 and was completed on April 8, taking just over 12 days.

Source:https://status.search.google.com/incidents/7eTbAa2jWdToLkraZj5y

The update produced ranking volatility, but this is more routine with updates than a red flag. SE Ranking data shared with Search Engine Land showed nearly 80 percent of top-three URLs shifting positions, and roughly one in four top-10 pages falling out of the top 100 entirely.

Google described it as “a regular update designed to surface relevant, satisfying content for searchers from all types of sites.”

Independent analysis by Aleyda Solis using Sistrix data showed visibility moving away from aggregators, directories, and comparison sites, and toward official sources, established brands, and specialist platforms.

Brand recognition: Is your site a known name in your niche, or could it be mistaken for a generic content site?
Original value: Are you producing data, analysis, or insights of your own, or summarizing what’s already ranking?
Destination authority: Does your site serve as a primary source or as a stop on the way to one?
E-E-A-T signals: Is it clear who wrote the content and why a reader should trust it?

The March 2026 update is harder to read on its own than most. The core update launched two days after the March 2026 spam update completed on March 25, and roughly a month after the February 2026 Discover update wrapped. That means any visibility changes from late March or early April could trace back to any of the three.

If your rankings shifted during that window, segment your data by date before deciding which update caused it.

December 2025 Core Update

Google’s third and final core update of 2025 began rolling out on December 11 and was completed on December 29, taking just over 18 days.

Google Search Status Dashboard in December 2025.

Source: https://status.search.google.com/incidents/DsirqJ1gpPRgVQeccPRv

Google described it as a regular update designed to surface relevant, satisfying content from all types of sites.

Within the first few days, significant ranking volatility was observed across industries, followed by a second spike around December 20. Some sites saw major drops in visibility, while others that had been penalized in previous updates experienced partial recoveries.

Google didn’t release update-specific guidance. Its standing advice remains consistent: there’s no single fix after a core update. If your site lost rankings, the most likely culprit is content that Google no longer considers the most helpful result for the queries you were ranking for.

If you were hit, here are a few areas to review:

Content quality: Does your content fully satisfy the user’s search intent, or does it leave questions unanswered?
Originality: Are you offering a unique perspective, or summarizing what’s already ranking?
E-E-A-T signals: Is it clear who wrote the content, what their experience is, and why a reader should trust it?
Technical health: Have CWVs, crawl errors, or mobile usability issues emerged since your last audit?

Recovery from core updates typically requires patience. Google has noted that meaningful improvements usually become visible after the next core update, though incremental gains are possible in between.

The December 2025 update came five months after the June 2025 core update, continuing a cadence of three to four core updates per year.

August 2025 Spam Update

Google’s August 2025 spam update rolled out from August 26 to September 22, running nearly four weeks. It was the first spam update since December 2024.

Spam updates use Google’s AI-powered SpamBrain system to identify and demote sites that violate Google’s spam policies, including link spam, thin content, cloaking, scraped content, keyword stuffing, and deceptive redirects.

The overall network impact was minimal, but individual sites felt it sharply. Some saw organic rankings collapse for key terms, while others penalized in earlier updates experienced recoveries.

One notable pattern is that sites with old spammy backlinks were not immune.

Case studies showed exact-match anchor text links from low-quality sources, some built five or more years ago, being retroactively devalued as SpamBrain’s pattern recognition continues to improve.

If you haven’t audited your backlink profile recently, run one through Ahrefs or Semrush and flag links with exact-match keyword anchors from irrelevant or low-authority sources. Going forward, focus new link acquisition on relevance and authority.

Site Reputation Abuse Update

Site reputation abuse, also known as “parasite SEO,” is the practice of publishing third-party content on a high-authority domain to exploit that domain’s established ranking signals. Think of a payday loan review page on a university website, or an unrelated affiliate section on a major news site.

Google announced the policy in March 2024 alongside the March 2024 core update, with enforcement beginning May 5, 2024. Initially, the policy targeted third-party content published with little or no host oversight.

In November 2024, Google closed a significant loophole: First-party involvement, including licensing agreements and partial ownership, no longer provides immunity.

The impact was immediate. High-profile publishers, including Forbes Advisor and CNN Underscored, saw sections of their sites deindexed or stripped of rankings within 24 hours.

Enforcement remains manual through Search Console, though Google has indicated plans to build algorithmic enforcement over time. If you host third-party content that exists primarily to rank for keywords outside your site’s core authority, remove it or noindex it.

March 2024 Core Update

The March 2024 core update was one of the most consequential algorithm updates in years. It ran from March 5 to April 19, overlapping with a simultaneous spam update, and involved changes to multiple core ranking systems at once.

Google’s goal was to reduce low-quality, unoriginal content in search results by 40 percent.

After the rollout completed, Google reported that the combined impact of the March update and previous efforts had reduced such content by 45 percent.

Source: https://blog.google/products-and-platforms/products/search/google-search-update-march-2024/

The update also introduced three new spam policies, including expired domain abuse, scaled content abuse (targeting mass-produced pages regardless of whether they were human-written or AI-generated), and site reputation abuse.

One of the most significant structural changes was the retirement of the standalone Helpful Content system. Google folded its function into the core ranking systems, meaning helpful content evaluation now operates as part of the broader quality assessment rather than as a separate algorithmic layer.

Sites that relied on high content volume at the expense of quality were hit hard, with some losing visibility within days of the rollout.

Search Generative Experience (SGE)

What started as SGE in May 2023 was the early prototype for what we now know as AIOs. At the time, SGE was an opt-in, U.S.-only experiment that used generative AI to produce detailed responses to search queries, complete with suggested follow-up questions and relevant links.

Source: https://blog.google/products-and-platforms/products/search/generative-ai-search/

Source: Google Search, query example from blog.google/products/search/generative-ai-search/

The experiment ran through early 2024, with Google iterating on the format and expanding access. By May 2024, SGE was officially retired and replaced by AIOs, which rolled out broadly to U.S. users and later globally.

In hindsight, SGE was the blueprint. Many of the patterns observed during testing carried over directly into AIOs, including a preference for high-authority sources, structured content that clearly answers specific questions, strong E-E-A-T signals, and topical depth across a subject area. The major behavioral shift was that SGE required users to opt in, while AIOs appear automatically.

Today, AIOs trigger on approximately 48 percent of all tracked queries, up from roughly 30 percent a year earlier, according to BrightEdge.

Presence rates climb above 80 percent in informational verticals like B2B technology and education. Only about 17 percent of AIO-cited sources also rank in the organic top 10, according to the same BrightEdge analysis, reinforcing that content depth and topical authority matter more than ranking position for earning citations.

How-To and FAQ Changes

This update, initially released in August 2023 and upgraded in September 2023, changed how Google displayed rich search results, such as frequently asked questions (FAQs) and how-tos.

Specifically, Google reduced the visibility of FAQ rich results and limited the visibility of how-to rich results on both desktop and mobile devices. As of September 13, 2023, Google no longer shows How-To rich results on desktop.

Where FAQ rich results are shown, they will be sourced from well-known, authoritative government and health websites.

There’s no need for websites to remove existing structured data that highlights FAQs and how-tos, but if they do, it won’t affect their rankings.

Product Review Update

The April 2023 Product Review Update focuses on experience. It leans heavily into E-E-A-T guidelines as a standard for content quality, prioritizing review content that goes above and beyond the formulaic results you generally see. Google says its ranking algorithm will reward these types of product reviews in search results.

So, if you’re writing product reviews, put in the extra effort to make them informative and helpful. That means enhancing experience with:

Visual evidence: Include original photos rather than stock images.
Audio experience: Add original audio to improve accessibility and depth.
Evidence of experience: Show proof that you’ve used the product.
Quantitative measurements: Track and share the product’s real-world performance.

E-E-A-T Update

Source: https://neilpatel.com/blog/what-is-e-e-a-t/

On December 15, 2022, Google updated its Search Quality Rater Guidelines to add a fourth dimension to the existing E-A-T (Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) framework: Experience.

The addition recognized that first-hand, lived experience with a topic produces meaningfully different content than expertise acquired secondhand. A product reviewer who has used a product for six months writes differently from someone summarizing a manufacturer’s spec sheet. Google wanted its guidelines to capture that distinction.

Trustworthiness remains the most important member of the E-E-A-T family, according to Google’s own documentation. You can have expertise and experience, but if readers can’t trust that the content is accurate and honest, E-E-A-T breaks down.

Link Spam Update

On December 14, 2022, Google released a link spam update targeting websites that buy and sell links. Google started leveraging its AI-powered SpamBrain system specifically to detect and neutralize link spam, including identifying sites purchasing links and sites used for passing them.

Any benefit previously given to a purchased link was nullified. Google’s John Mueller has repeatedly stated that most sites don’t need to manually disavow spammy links, as Google’s systems are designed to ignore them.

Keeping a clean link profile is essential to avoid getting hit by this update. Don’t buy links, and only use white hat techniques to earn them going forward.

Helpful Content Update

Google’s August 2022 Helpful Content Update rewarded websites that produce high-quality content for visitors. Google wanted the top search results filled with content that users find useful, which meant prioritizing depth, accuracy, and genuine value over keyword-driven fillers.

The initial update targeted English pages but was later expanded globally to all languages.

In March 2024, Google retired the standalone Helpful Content system and folded it into the core ranking systems, as covered in the March 2024 section earlier. It’s now part of how Google assesses quality across every core update, including the August 2024 update and beyond.

Page Experience Update

Google’s Page Experience update began rolling out in June 2021 and was completed in August 2021. It formalized CWVs as direct ranking signals, combining them with existing signals for mobile-friendliness and HTTPS security. Guidelines around intrusive interstitials were also part of the framework.

The three CWVs are:

Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): Measures loading performance. Target: under 2.5 seconds.
Interaction to Next Paint (INP): Measures interactivity and responsiveness. Target: under 200 milliseconds. (INP replaced First Input Delay as a CWV metric in March 2024.)
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): Measures visual stability. Target: a score below 0.1.

Google clarified that CWVs are ranking signals, not a standalone ranking system. A perfect score won’t guarantee top rankings on its own. But for competitive queries where multiple high-quality pages are vying for the same position, page experience can be the tiebreaker.

Use PageSpeed Insights and Search Console’s CWV report to identify where your site needs attention.

Google RankBrain

In 2015, Google released a Hummingbird extension, RankBrain. It ranks pages based on whether they appear to answer a user’s search intent. In other words, it promotes the most relevant and informative content for a keyword or search phrase.

You can pass RankBrain’s scrutiny by researching the user intent behind every keyword and writing rich, quality content to meet their expectations.

Google Hummingbird

This 2013 ranking algorithm update was all about bridging the gap between what keywords people used and the type of content they wanted to find. In other words, it aimed to humanize the search engine experience and move the most informative and relevant content to the first page.

In response, marketers leveled up by including more keyword variations and relevant search phrases to improve their chances of meeting readers’ expectations.

Google Penguin

This update, introduced in 2012, directly combated “black hat” SEO tactics such as link directories and spammy backlinks. Like the Panda update, it also looked at keyword stuffing.

The goal was to shift away from emphasizing link volume to boost a page’s search ranking and instead focus on high-quality content that attracts valuable, engaging links.

Google Panda

Released in 2011, this SEO algorithm update targeted bad practices such as keyword stuffing and duplicate content. It introduced a “quality score” that ranked web pages based on how people would perceive their content rather than how many keywords they included.

To “survive” Google Panda, marketers needed to create quality content and use keywords strategically.

Source: https://thephagroup.com/blog/googles-algorithm-updates-a-timeline/

How Do I Know When Google Releases a New Algorithm Update?

Tracking algorithm updates doesn’t require constant monitoring. What it requires is the right setup.

Sources that tell you when updates happen:

Google Search Central on X: The official account where Google announces confirmed core updates and spam updates. This is the most reliable primary source. If a significant update is rolling out, it appears here first.
Google Search Status Dashboard: Google logs confirmed updates here with start and end dates. Bookmark it.
Google Alerts: Set up an alert for “Google algorithm update” to get notified whenever credible SEO publications cover new updates.
Industry publications: Search Engine Land and Search Engine Journal cover updates in detail. My blog does, too, so check back whenever you suspect a recent update. Subscribing to newsletters is an efficient way to stay informed without having to monitor daily.

Tools that show you when an update may have affected your site:

Google Search Console: The Performance report shows changes in impressions, clicks, and average position over time. If you see a steep, sustained drop in Search Console that coincides with a known update date, it’s a strong indicator of impact.
Google Search Central: Contains resources for diagnosing common performance problems, identifying possible algorithm penalties, and reviewing Google’s official recovery guidance after core updates.
Google Analytics 4: Monitor organic traffic at the channel level with your Google Analytics account. Sudden drops in organic sessions, particularly combined with changes in engagement rate, can signal an algorithmic shift.
MozCast: Tracks daily fluctuations in Google SERPs and displays them as a weather forecast. Mozcast’s high temperatures signal above-average ranking volatility.
Semrush Sensor: Monitors volatility across categories and device types, making it useful for determining whether a change is industry-wide or site-specific.
AccuRanker Grump: Provides volatility tracking by device and keyword category.

Source: https://www.accuranker.com/grump/

Is Google’s Algorithm Different from Other Search Engines?

Each search platform has its own algorithm and ranking factors. While many may overlap with Google’s ranking factors, they all take a unique approach to prioritizing internet content.

Bing

Bing (which also powers Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, and AOL Search) shares broad principles with Google, but Bing’s specific ranking factors differ. It places more emphasis on keyword prominence in title tags and opening paragraphs and has historically been more transparent about incorporating social signals like likes and shares.

Unlike Google, Bing has opted for a device-agnostic approach rather than mobile-first indexing, meaning desktop performance still carries significant weight in its rankings.

In April 2025, Bing launched Copilot Search, its own AI-powered answer layer that blends generative AI with traditional search results.

ChatGPT (SearchGPT)

ChatGPT’s search function operates on fundamentally different logic than a traditional search engine. Rather than ranking pages, it synthesizes answers from multiple sources using a large language (LLM) model augmented with live web retrieval, then presents them as conversational responses with inline citations.

Source: https://chatgpt.com/

An SE Ranking study comparing AI search tools found that ChatGPT produces the most reference-heavy responses of any AI search engine, drawing heavily from user-generated content platforms like Reddit and YouTube alongside established media sources.

Structured content that directly answers specific questions tends to perform better for AI citation than long-form narrative content.

TikTok and Social Search

TikTok has become a genuine search engine for a significant segment of the population. According to Axios, only 46 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds start product and lifestyle searches on Google, while 21 percent go directly to TikTok.

TikTok’s algorithm is engagement-first. The platform’s dominant signal is watch time, followed by shares, comments, and saves. Hashtags, captions, on-screen text, and spoken words all contribute to topical categorization.

Follower count has minimal influence on content discovery, meaning small accounts can compete with large ones on content merit alone.

The bigger takeaway for SEO is that your brand’s visibility across Google, Bing, ChatGPT, TikTok, and YouTube is increasingly interconnected. Brand mentions and citations across authoritative platforms improve your position in AI-generated answers, including Google’s own AIOs.

How to Succeed with Google’s Algorithm

Ready to tackle Google’s algorithm and boost your page rankings? Try these 11 Google search hacks.

1. Optimize for Mobile

Google uses mobile-first indexing, which means the mobile version of your site is what gets indexed and used for ranking, regardless of whether a user searches from a phone or desktop.

The primary technical drivers of mobile optimization are page speed and CLS. Responsiveness, measured by INP, rounds out the CWV picture. On the design side, tap target sizes and font readability matter most. Content should render cleanly on small screens without requiring horizontal scrolling.

Start with Google’s PageSpeed Insights, which provides a detailed audit of your mobile performance alongside specific recommendations.

Source: https://pagespeed.web.dev/

For a deeper technical breakdown, use Lighthouse through Chrome DevTools. Search Console’s CWV report can then help you identify which specific pages fall below Google’s good threshold.

2. Audit Your Internal Links

Next, check your internal links. Do they all work properly, and do they link to relevant, up-to-date content? If not, fix the links and ensure they’re redirecting to useful posts to improve the user experience on your website.

Good quality internal links can improve your rankings.

Overuse is also something to look out for. A page crammed with dozens of internal links dilutes the value of each link. Aim for two to four internal links per post as a baseline, with more on longer, more comprehensive pages.

3. Boost User Engagement

Google Analytics 4 defines an engaged session as one lasting longer than 10 seconds, having a key event, or having at least two page views or screen views. A low engagement rate on key landing pages is a signal worth investigating.

Practical improvements you can make are:

Match content precisely to the query that brings users to the page.
Structure content so the most important information appears above the fold.
Use clear headings to help readers navigate.
Add internal links to keep users moving through your site.

If users leave immediately, there’s a good chance your content isn’t delivering what the query promised.

4. Decrease Site Load Time

A slow site hurts CWV scores and user experience. Two of the most common changes most sites can make are image optimization and script reduction.

Compress and convert images to WebP format. You can take it a step further by lazy loading any images that sit below the fold. Also, audit and remove JavaScript that isn’t critical to page functionality.

Google will provide a prioritized list of fixes if you run PageSpeed Insights. Start at the top and work your way through them. One well-executed fix often improves multiple metrics simultaneously.

Source: https://pagespeed.web.dev/

5. Avoid Duplicate Content

Big or small, duplicate content on your website can attract a penalty.

To identify duplicate content, use Copyscape. You can search by URL to check if your content appears elsewhere on the web or paste in specific text to find matches. Review the results and take action if you find duplicates.

Implement canonical tags to tell Google which version is the primary page, set up 301 redirects where appropriate, or noindex pages that need to remain accessible but shouldn’t be indexed.

Source: https://www.copyscape.com/

6. Create Informative and Helpful Content

Helpful content fully answers the question a user searched for, ideally without them needing to click anywhere else. It provides context, accounts for follow-up questions, and comes from someone with genuine knowledge or direct experience with the topic.

The best way to do this is to write from real expertise and show your work with specific examples and data. If someone clicks on your website and stays there, Google knows you probably answered the user’s search query.

The result? Higher page rankings than if your articles are superficial or don’t target the right search intent.

7. Avoid Keyword Stuffing

Keyword stuffing means cramming the same keyword into your content multiple times just to boost your chances of ranking. This type of content is often distracting and difficult to read, and it falls foul of the Google algorithm.

Want to avoid keyword stuffing and stay on Google’s good side? Just use a keyword naturally within the text.

8. Improve Site Navigation

Clean navigation makes your site easier for users and search engines. It reduces bounce rate and supports crawlability. It also gives Google a clearer picture of your site’s hierarchy and the pages you want prioritized.

A few things worth reviewing:

Menu structure: Keep your primary navigation focused on the most important sections of your site. Burying key pages five clicks deep makes them harder for Google to prioritize.
Internal linking architecture: Pages you want to rank should be linked from multiple places. Your most authoritative content should link out to supporting pages. This creates a content cluster structure that signals topical depth to Google.
Sitemap: Submit an XML sitemap via Search Console to help Google discover your full page inventory, especially for larger sites.
Broken links: Run a site audit monthly. Broken links waste crawl budget and create dead ends for users. Fix or redirect them.

9. Increase Page Security

Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) has been a confirmed ranking signal since Google announced it in 2014. At this point, it’s a baseline. Sites still running on HTTP face trust warnings in Chrome, which affects user behavior regardless of ranking impact.

If you haven’t switched, you should be able to get a free Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate from your hosting provider. Then update all internal links and references to HTTPS. Verify the redirect setup in Search Console to confirm that no ranking signals are lost during the migration.

10. Update and Refresh Old Content

Content that ranked well two years ago may not hold up today. Statistics go stale, tools change, best practices shift, and Google notices when a page stops reflecting current reality.

The leaked API documentation confirmed that freshness is a ranking factor, so regular content refreshes send a direct positive signal.

Build a review cadence for your highest-traffic pages. Update outdated statistics with current data, replace broken or irrelevant outbound links, add new sections where the topic has evolved, and verify that your target keywords still match current search intent.

Pages that have lost rankings over time are often the best candidates for a refresh, since the existing URL already carries domain authority and backlink equity.

11. Build Your E-E-A-T Signals

Strong E-E-A-T signals correlate with better rankings. Here’s how to strengthen each dimension:

Experience: Include original photos, first-person observations, and specific details that could only come from direct involvement with the topic.
Expertise: Add author bios with relevant credentials and links to professional profiles. For Your Money or Your Life (YMYL) content (think health, finance, legal, safety), have qualified experts review or co-author the material.
Authoritativeness: Earn links and mentions from credible sources in your industry. Press coverage and citations in widely-read publications carry particular weight.
Trustworthiness: Make your site transparently owned and operated. Clear About pages, accessible contact information, accurate citations, SSL security, and honest disclosure of commercial relationships all contribute.

FAQs

What is the Google algorithm?

Google’s algorithm is a system of ranking factors, signals, and machine learning models that determines which pages appear in search results for any given query. The 2024 API leak revealed over 14,014 individual attributes tracked across more than 2,500 modules, with core factors including content relevance, link quality, user engagement signals, mobile performance, and page security.

How does Google’s search engine algorithm work?

Google crawls and indexes web pages, then uses its ranking systems to evaluate which pages best match a given query. It weighs hundreds of signals, from content relevance and backlink authority to user engagement data collected through systems like NavBoost, to determine the order of results.

How often does Google change its algorithm?

Google makes minor changes daily. Core updates, which can significantly affect rankings, roll out three to four times per year, with additional spam updates in between.

How do I recover from a Google algorithm update?

Confirm the timing of your traffic drop against known update dates using the Google Search Status Dashboard or Google Search Central on X. Review which pages lost rankings, look for patterns in content quality and E-E-A-T signals, make improvements where warranted, and monitor for recovery after the next core update.

Does Google’s algorithm apply to AI Overviews (AIOs)?

AIOs draw from the same underlying ranking infrastructure as organic search. Pages with strong E-E-A-T signals, structured content, and clear answers to specific questions are most likely to be cited.

Conclusion

Google’s algorithm changes constantly, but what it rewards doesn’t. High-quality content that genuinely helps the reader, link profiles built on trust and relevance, strong E-E-A-T signals, and solid technical foundations have earned rankings through every major update from Panda to March 2026.

The newest layer is optimization for AIOs and LLMs. The fundamentals still apply there, too. Google’s AI draws from the same authoritative, well-structured sources its traditional algorithm has always favored.

Stay informed on the latest trends in SEO and check back here whenever a new update lands. If you need help translating these algorithm signals into a strategy for your specific site, my team at NP Digital is here to help.

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ChatGPT ads show strong early CTRs — but scale is still the question

May 5, 2026/0 Comments/in Search Engine Land, Web Design News/by Dubado Solutions

Initial reports from SimilarWeb indicate ChatGPT ads are outperforming traditional benchmarks on engagement — but with limited inventory and small-scale tests, it’s too early to call this a long-term trend.

What’s happening. According to early analysis, ads appearing in ChatGPT conversations are generating strong click-through rates vs Display and Podcast channels, likely driven by high-intent user queries and the native way ads are integrated into responses.

Unlike traditional search ads, these placements appear directly within conversational answers, making them feel more contextual and less disruptive.

Why we care . If these early CTRs hold at scale, ChatGPT could become a serious performance channel — especially for advertisers looking to reach users at the moment of intent.

But there’s a catch: inventory is still limited, and early performance often looks better before wider rollout introduces more competition and variability.

Between the lines. High CTRs don’t necessarily mean high performance. Conversion quality, cost efficiency and scalability will ultimately determine whether ChatGPT ads can compete with established platforms like Google Ads.

There’s also the novelty factor — users may be more likely to engage simply because the format is new.

Zoom in. Some categories are already showing stronger signals than others.

Mother’s Day-related prompts are far more likely to trigger ads—about three times more than average—because they signal strong purchase intent, with brands like Etsy, Nordstrom and flower retailers already showing strong visibility.

What to watch:

Whether CTRs hold as inventory expands
How conversion rates compare to search and social
If pricing models evolve beyond early testing phases

Bottom line. ChatGPT ads are off to a strong start on engagement — but until scale, cost and conversion data catch up, advertisers should treat this as a promising test channel, not a proven one.

Dig deeper. Advertising in AI: Insights from Real User Behavior

Read more at Read More

How China’s fragmented search ecosystem is reshaping SEO in 2026

May 5, 2026/0 Comments/in Search Engine Land, Web Design News/by Dubado Solutions

In February 2025, the world watched as a small group of humanoid robots took the stage at the CCTV Chinese New Year show for the very first time. It was a charming performance, even if the steps were shaky and the movements were mostly limited to the arms.

Just one year later, at the Spring Festival Gala, the shaky steps were gone and the humanoid robots were able to actually run and do standing somersaults and full kung fu routines with swords and nunchaku. The message was clear: in just one year, we have witnessed a decade’s worth of advancement.

The 10-year leap in technology is real and not limited to robotics. Which raises a critical question for every digital marketer eyeing the world’s largest web population: How has search in China progressed in recent years?

A parallel in the Chinese search landscape

The answer is that we’re witnessing the first, calculated tremors of a massive shift. AI models have not yet replaced traditional search. The evolution isn’t happening through a single “big bang,” but through a constant, iterative pulse.

New LLM models are surfacing every few months, each more specialized than the last. Chinese tech giants are increasingly open-sourcing their models, and even industry leaders are hedging their bets. Baidu, for example, is integrating DeepSeek into its search experience, even as its own Ernie (Wenxin) model remains a formidable powerhouse.

Let’s look at how users actually search in China today — and what this nuanced shift from links to reasoning means for your 2026 SEO strategy.

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The great narrative fallacy: Is web search dead in China?

In many marketing circles, a specific narrative has been repeated so often it has become an article of faith: “Traditional search on Baidu is dead — and has been for years. Websites are obsolete. In China, everything is WeChat.”

This narrative is almost always driven by service providers whose business models depend on WeChat, Douyin, Weibo, or Xiaohongshu marketing. To them, the “open web” is a ghost town. But is this actually true?

The social supremacy argument

There’s a grain of truth in the hype. The Chinese web is a mobile-first multiverse. Users access and explore the web through super-apps:

RedNote (Xiaohongshu / Little Red Book): This is the de facto engine for lifestyle research and travel planning.
Pinduoduo and Douyin: These are the juggernauts of social commerce and impulse buying.
WeChat: The absolute center of daily life, where everything from a quick message to a utility bill payment via QR code happens.

In this environment, social media isn’t just a channel. It’s the air people breathe. For B2C brands, social ads can — and often do — exceed website-driven sales by orders of magnitude.

The B2B reality check

For those of us working with B2B companies that need real visibility in China, the “Baidu is dead” narrative falls apart the moment you look at the analytics. Clients who invest in Baidu SEO and Baidu search engine advertising (SEA) continue to see a steady, high-volume stream of real human visitors — in many cases generating more qualified leads and higher conversion rates than their counterparts in the UK or Germany.

Why? Because when a B2B procurement officer or a technical engineer needs a specific industrial solution, they don’t just scroll until they find it on a social media feed. They search for a verified, authoritative source. In other words, they look for a website.

Is the social media narrative a lie? No. But ignoring a channel that — at least in the B2B sector — remains more effective in China than in many search-first Western countries is simply bad business. The goal isn’t to choose one over the other; it’s to understand how they coexist.

And just as we’ve settled the debate between web marketing versus app marketing, a new challenger — the LLM — has entered the battleground to disrupt both.

Mapping the 2026 landscape: Intent-based specialization

To a Google-first marketer, the idea of searching anywhere but a search engine feels like a detour. In China, it’s the standard operating procedure. Users don’t just “Google it.” Instead, they choose the tool that fits the intent.

As a Baidu specialist living and working in China, I see this daily. While I might be optimizing a B2B landing page for Baidu, my wife is likely on Pinduoduo, finding household deals, or on Xiaohongshu, planning our next weekend trip.

The “everything app” exists, but the “right app” always wins the click.

1. Traditional web search: The authority tier

Despite the “death of the web” narrative, traditional web search remains the primary battleground for B2B and high-authority research. If a user needs a technical whitepaper, a government regulation, or a verified corporate headquarters, they go here.

Baidu: Still the mobile heavyweight, with a ~70% mobile market share. Its structural advantage is massive: The Baidu app is installed on over 724 million monthly active devices (as of early 2026). It has evolved into an AI-first portal, but for SEOs, it remains the place where the open web lives and breathes.
Microsoft Bing: The professional’s sanctuary. It has claimed a massive chunk of desktop search for those seeking a cleaner, international, or technical experience.
Haosou (360 Search): The enterprise default, often pre-installed on corporate PCs and known for its security focus.
Sogou: Deeply integrated with WeChat, it’s the bridge between the walled garden and the web.
Google: Yes, Google. Despite the firewall, a significant population of tech-savvy professionals and researchers use it via VPN for global technical data and academic resources.

2. Social discovery: The inspiration tier

This is where search becomes discovery. Users don’t always have a keyword, but they do have an interest. In this context, SEO is about social indexing: ensuring your brand appears when a user looks for proof and not just products.

WeChat (Weixin): The internal search for official brand news and private traffic.
Xiaohongshu (RED): The ultimate product-discovery engine. If you aren’t on RED, you don’t exist in the lifestyle or luxury sectors.
Douyin: Visual, video-first search. Users search Douyin to see how something works.
Kuaishou: The powerhouse for lower-tier cities and raw, authentic grassroots content.
Weibo: Real-time search — what is happening right now in the public eye.
Bilibili: Long-form video search for deep dives, tutorials, and Gen Z subcultures.

3. Ecommerce: The transactional tier

In the West, users often start on Google and end on Amazon. In China, the journey frequently starts and ends in the same place.

Taobao / Tmall: The grand bazaar. If you want variety and brand stores, this is the first stop.
JD.com: The Amazon of China for logistics and high-end electronics.
Pinduoduo: The favorite for daily essentials and group-buy deals. Its search logic is entirely driven by value for money.
Douyin Mall: The rising star of “impulse search,” merging entertainment with immediate checkout.
Xianyu (Goofish): The go-to for the thriving second-hand market and hobbyist niches.

4. Generative AI (LLMs): The reasoning tier

This is the newest layer of the map — the “thinking” search. These AI models don’t just produce lists of links. They are assistants that synthesize the web for the user.

Doubao (ByteDance): Currently the most popular consumer AI assistant, used for casual, conversational queries.
DeepSeek (Domestic): The choice for developers and those in need of “deep thinking” logic. It’s the engine currently getting tested inside WeChat’s search bar.
Kimi (Moonshot AI): The king of long-context. Users use Kimi to search through 50-page PDFs or complex financial reports.
Qwen (Alibaba): Powerfully integrated into the Alibaba ecosystem for business and coding tasks.
Tencent Yuanbao: The “AI brain” for WeChat content.
Wen Xiaoyan (Baidu): The AI-facing evolution of Baidu search.

5. Hyper-local and logistics: The utility tier

For the physical world, search is about “now” and “near me.”

Meituan / Dianping: If you’re hungry or want to see a movie, you don’t use Baidu. You use Dianping for reviews and Meituan for transactions.
Amap (Gaode) / Baidu Maps: The “search engines of the real world.” SEO on these platforms is purely about point-of-interest (POI) optimization.
Ctrip (Trip.com) / Railway 12306: The specialized gates for the massive domestic travel market.

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From mapping to maneuvering: The Baidu specialist’s edge

Baidu SEO isn’t dead; your website just isn’t the sole focus of web search anymore.

The ‘walled garden’ SERP: A decade of distraction

If you’re a Google-centric SEO, there are some notable differences when working with Baidu:

The ad-heavy layout: It isn’t uncommon to see ads claiming the top, middle, and bottom of a Baidu search engine results page (SERP), occupying nearly 50% of the visible real estate.
The Baidu monopoly: The most coveted organic positions are almost always reserved for Baidu’s own properties. Baidu Baike (the encyclopedia), Baidu Zhidao (the Q&A hub), and Baijiahao (the news/blogging arm) are the permanent residents of Page 1.
The portal giants: High-authority giants like Zhihu (China’s Quora), Bilibili, and Sohu take up whatever space is left.

Riding the Chinese SERP dragon

In this environment, ranking a corporate homepage for a high-volume keyword is a fool’s errand. Instead, we’ve mastered the art of the “long-tail dragon.”

In the West, we talk about the long tail of search as a small, niche opportunity. In China, with its linguistic complexity and massive user base, the long tail is a winding, multi-layered beast that is often more lucrative than the head terms.

And we don’t just rank a website; we piggyback on the authority of the platforms Baidu already trusts. If you can’t beat Baidu Baike, you become the verified entry inside it.

Interestingly, it is these very platforms — the ones we’ve been using to bypass the “blue link problem” — that have now become the primary focus of the next generation of search.

What is changing in Baidu SEO?

In China, there is no brand loyalty toward particular AI models, as Westerners have toward platforms like ChatGPT and Claude.

The AI-switching reality

Chinese users are restless. They don’t stick with one model. They switch — sometimes because a hyped model hits a downtime wall, and sometimes because a new model claims the throne of the “most intelligent AI.” In this cycle of competition and user preference, an SEO can’t just focus on the “big sources.”

If you’re following the Western playbook, you’re likely chasing Reddit, Quora, and YouTube as your “sources of truth” for AI training. But in China, that focus is dangerously narrow. To win the reasoning battle, you must understand the investor-source connection.

Brainstorming the wisdom platforms

If you want to train AIs to see your brand in China, you have to look at the platforms they were built on:

Tencent is invested in Sogou. In 2021, Tencent fully privatized Sogou. This means Sogou Baike is no longer just a Baidu alternative — it is now a core training set for Tencent’s Yuanbao. If you ignore Sogou Baike, you’re invisible to the AI search bar inside WeChat.
Bytedance owns Baike.com. Bytedance bought Baike.com (formerly Hudong Baike) specifically to fuel its search ambitions. If you want to get cited by Doubao, your content needs to be mirrored here and not just on Baidu.
The neutral giants: Keep an eye on Zhihu. Because both Tencent and Baidu are heavy investors in Zhihu, it remains one of the few neutral high-authority sources that almost every Chinese LLM uses for opinionated or expert reasoning.

The new SEO commandment

We’re no longer just optimizing for a search engine. We’re optimizing for a data pedigree.

If your client is B2B, you might still prioritize the Baidu ecosystem. But if your client is in ecommerce and you aren’t feeding the Qwen engine via Alibaba’s ecosystem, or the Doubao engine via Baike.com, you’re limiting your visibility across key AI systems.

The 2026 China SEO/GEO blueprint: From keywords to semantic saturation

If you’re waiting for a “DeepSeek optimization checklist” or a “Doubao ranking guide,” you’ve already missed the point. Because users switch models as often as they switch takeout apps, you can’t afford to be “Baidu-only” or “WeChat-centric.”

Here is what’s actually working for SEO in China in 2026:

Optimize for citations and not just clicks

While SEO in the West is focused on generative engine optimization (GEO), in China, it’s all about fact density.

The logic: When Kimi or DeepSeek performs a reasoning query, the AI looks for verifiable facts.
The tactic: Stop writing marketing fluff. Start using the inverted pyramid writing style. Lead with a direct, data-backed answer in your first paragraph. Use hard statistics, expert quotes, and structured lists. If a model can’t extract a fact from your content in 200 milliseconds, it might hallucinate a competitor’s data instead.

Build an entity moat across wisdom platforms

As we brainstormed earlier, every AI has a “parent” with a preferred data source. But since models are now open-sourcing their weights and distilling each other’s intelligence, your brand must achieve entity consistency.

The goal: Your brand name, headquarters, and core product claims must be identical across Baidu Baike (Baidu), Sogou Baike (Tencent), and Baike.com (ByteDance).
The result: When these models cross-check their reasoning, they find a consensus. In 2026, consensus is the new authority.

Leverage information gain

Chinese AI models have a well-observed recency bias — they prefer sources that are roughly 25% fresher than traditional search results.

The tactic: Don’t just regurgitate what’s already on Zhihu. Provide a “unique data slice.” If everyone says “The best time to post on Douyin is 6 PM,” and you publish a case study proving “11 AM is better for B2B industrial leads,” the AI will cite you as the “nuanced exception.” That citation is worth more than ten #1 rankings.

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The era of the entity architect

We’ve come a long way from the shaky steps of the 2025 CCTV Gala.

In 2026, China’s search ecosystem is no longer a directory of links. It’s a living, reasoning entity.

For the Western search specialist, the lesson is clear: The “super app” was a distraction. The real story is the fragmentation of intent.

My wife still goes to Pinduoduo for the best price. My colleagues still go to Bing for technical sanctuary. And the “I, Robot” enthusiasts of 2026 are using a rotating door of LLMs to find their answers.

As a Baidu specialist, my job has shifted from “ranking a website” to “architecting an entity.” We no longer build for the bot; we build for the source. If you’re the undeniable source of truth across the platforms that shape China’s information ecosystem, it doesn’t matter which model delivers the answer.

You’ll be the one they’re cheering for.

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Unifying the search experience for real growth in 2026 by Level Agency

May 5, 2026/0 Comments/in Search Engine Land, Web Design News/by Dubado Solutions

In February 2024, Gartner predicted that traditional search volume would drop 25% by 2026. It didn’t. Google’s search revenue accelerated to 17% year-over-year growth, crossing $63 billion in Q4 2025 alone. But clicks per search are falling while query volume explodes. The pie got bigger. The slices got redistributed. And most search teams are still optimizing for the old pie.

Are you still poring over spreadsheets full of organic keyword rankings like it’s 2003? Your customers don’t care where they’re getting their answers. They’re just looking for answers they can trust. And they’re finding those answers across more surfaces than your rank tracker knows exist.

If your organic strategy lives in one spreadsheet, your paid strategy in another, and your AI search strategy in a third (or nowhere), you’re optimizing for a search experience that no longer exists.

What “search” actually looks like now

Google “best tax software” right now. Go ahead, I’ll wait.

Count the surfaces on that single results page. Sponsored ads across the top. An AI Overview with its own recommendations and citations. A Reddit thread (because Google knows people trust other people more than brands). Organic listings from CNET, H&R Block, and others. A video carousel. Discussion forum links. A product carousel with images and prices. More sponsored results at the bottom. And a “People also search for” section feeding the next query.

That is one search. One keyword. And nobody owns it.

Now think about how different people actually use that page. I scroll past everything to find the Reddit thread, because I want to know what real humans recommend. My dad clicks the first sponsored ad because he doesn’t understand paid advertising (sorry, dad!) and just trusts Google to surface the best option up top. Someone else reads the AI Overview, gets a good-enough answer, and never clicks anything at all. A fourth person watches the Smart Family Money video and leaves.

Same query. Four completely different paths. Four different “winners.” And if you’re the brand celebrating a number-three organic ranking on this page, you may be missing that most of the real estate, and most of the user attention, lives somewhere other than those blue links.

This is what I mean by the total SERP experience. Your customer sees the whole page. You should too.

The AI layer changes the math

AI Overviews now appear on roughly 25% to 48% of Google queries, depending on the study. ChatGPT processes 2.5 billion prompts a day. Perplexity is up 239% year over year. These are real numbers from real platforms where real buyers are forming opinions about your brand, or not forming opinions because you’re nowhere to be found.

But before the panic sets in: AI tools still account for less than 1% of U.S. web traffic. Google sends 300x more referral traffic than all AI platforms combined. The sky isn’t falling, but the ground is shifting.

The shift that matters most is behavioral. Wynter’s 2026 research found 68% of B2B buyers now start their research in AI tools before they ever open Google. They ask ChatGPT to narrow the field, then Google the shortlist to validate. AI evaluates, Google verifies, and your website converts. If your brand is missing from that first AI conversation, you’re not even on the shortlist when the Googling starts.

Why the click data is more interesting than scary

A Search Engine Land analysis of 25 million organic impressions across 42 clients found organic CTR drops 61% when an AI Overview appears. In addition, paid CTR drops 68%.

EVERYBODY FREAK OUT!!! Right? Not quite.

Here’s what the panicked LinkedIn posts leave out: brands cited inside AI Overviews see 35% more organic clicks and 91% more paid clicks. Being in the AI Overview doesn’t cannibalize your traffic. If anything, it amplifies it. The AI Overview functions like a trust signal, a stamp of “this brand is relevant to your question” that makes people more likely to click your listing below.

The real twist, though, is that ranking well in organic doesn’t guarantee you show up in AI. Tom Capper’s research at Moz found 88% of AI Mode citations are NOT in the organic SERP for the same query. Organic and AI are pulling from different source pools. You can be number one in Google and completely invisible in ChatGPT’s answer to the same question.

And the small amount of traffic that does come from AI? It converts at more than quadruple the rate of organic, according to Semrush. These visitors arrive more informed, more intentional, and more ready to buy. Which makes sense, because they’ve already done the evaluation inside the AI interface. By the time they click, they’re just confirming and often converting.

The org chart is the problem

Most companies have SEO reporting to content, PPC reporting to demand gen, and AI search reporting to nobody. BrightEdge found 54% of organizations have handed AI search to the SEO team alone, which is a little like asking your plumber to also handle the electrical work because, hey, it’s all in the same house.

The waste from this setup is real. One branded Performance Max campaign paid roughly $500,000 for clicks that would have come through organic anyway. Google’s own research confirms: when you rank number one organically, only half your paid clicks are truly incremental. The other half? You bought what you already owned.

Meanwhile, McKinsey found that a brand’s own website makes up only 5% to 10% of the sources AI references. AI pulls from Reddit, review sites, affiliates, publishers, and user-generated content. You can have the best SEO program in your category and be completely absent from AI search results because AI is reading what other people say about you, not what you say about yourself.

The unified approach works. Level cut acquisition costs 18% and boosted SEO leads 22% by merging paid and organic for a B2B SaaS client. And we can use tools in our Level Intelligence Suite to connect performance signals across search surfaces. The channels compound each other. Treating them as separate line items on separate P&Ls leaves that compounding on the table.

Three audits you can run Monday morning

You don’t need a six-month transformation to start seeing the gaps. Three lenses, applied to your top 20 keywords, will show you where the opportunities and the waste are hiding.

Lens 1: Where do you actually appear? Check your organic rankings, paid ad coverage, and AI visibility across ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini for the same set of keywords. Semrush has a free AI visibility checker. Most teams have never looked at all three surfaces side by side, and the gaps are almost always larger than they expect.

Lens 2: Where are you paying for traffic you already own? Cross-reference your number-one organic rankings with active PPC bids on the same terms. Start with branded keywords, where the waste is usually largest and the test is cleanest. If you rank first and you’re still bidding, you’re probably buying your own clicks.

Lens 3: Where is AI ignoring you? Compare your organic rankings with your AI citation presence. Only 11% of domains get cited by both ChatGPT and Perplexity, so strength in one guarantees nothing in the other. And check your robots.txt while you’re at it. If you’re blocking AI crawlers like OAI-SearchBot or PerplexityBot, you’ve pulled yourself off those shelves entirely.

This diagnostic shows you the full picture. What to do about it, the actual unification framework, is what I’m laying out at SMX Advanced.

The window won’t stay open

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) keyword difficulty currently averages 15 to 20, compared to 45 to 60 for equivalent SEO terms. That gap will close. Once an LLM selects a trusted source, it reinforces that choice across related prompts. The brands getting cited now are training the models to keep citing them. Winner-takes-most dynamics are being baked into the weights.

Many companies are seeing search traffic drop significantly. Those same brands, the ones that get it right, are seeing the inverse when it comes to business growth. Rankings and revenue have decoupled. The brands that win from here are the ones that stopped measuring channels in isolation and started measuring the search experience their customers actually have.

We’re presenting a search unification framework at SMX Advanced in our session, “Organic, paid, and AI search: one strategy to rule them all.” If you want to stop optimizing for three separate channels and start compounding performance across every search surface, join us for the session or come find the Level team at Booth #9.

Remember: The search experience that existed in 2023 is gone. The strategy should be too.

Read more at Read More

How to Calculate Share of Voice (+ Why it Matters for SEO)

April 30, 2026/0 Comments/in Web Design News/by Dubado Solutions

Your analytics dashboard tracks clicks, but it doesn’t convey the complete picture.

When a buyer reads an AI answer that mentions your competitor, or scrolls through a Reddit thread where your brand doesn’t appear, that’s lost visibility. And it won’t show up anywhere in your traffic data.

Share of voice (SoV) captures what traffic metrics can’t.

It measures your brand’s visibility against competitors across channels where buyers actually research and make decisions.

While SoV spans social, PR, and paid media, search is where most brands should start. It’s the channel where buyers with the strongest purchase intent show up, and it’s the easiest to measure competitively. That’s what this guide focuses on.

I’ll walk you through four steps to measure your share of voice in organic and AI search. Then, I’ll show you how to turn that data into decisions that move the needle where it matters.

What Is Share of Voice?

Share of voice measures your brand’s visibility relative to competitors across multiple marketing channels.

That includes organic and AI search, social media, review sites, communities, and more.

Traditionally, brands used SoV to track their share of ad spend in a market.

Now it’s evolved into something even more valuable. It can measure your brand’s presence across every touchpoint where buyers research and make decisions.

In simple terms: SoV tells you what percentage of the conversation you own in your category, compared to competitors.

This guide focuses on search SoV — both organic and AI — because that’s where buyer discovery is shifting fastest and where the measurement tools have matured enough to give you actionable data.

I find that search SoV also tends to be the foundation: once you understand your visibility in organic and AI results, layering in other channels becomes much simpler.

What Counts as a “Good” Share of Voice?

While there’s no universal benchmark for SoV, establishing one for your brand comes down to:

Market position: Market leaders have a higher share of voice since they own the conversation. Challengers aim for a mid-range SoV when competing against players with decades of brand equity.
Competitive context: In a fragmented market with 20+ active competitors, 8% SoV could put you in the top five. But in a three-player market, anything below 30% could mean you’re behind the leader.

Beyond these two factors, look at the broader market shifts within your category.

High SoV in a declining market can be a vanity metric. The real win is growing your share as the category grows.

How SoV Works in Traditional vs AI Search

Both SEO and AI SoV answer the same question: What percentage of category demand does your brand own?

But they measure different search contexts.

SEO SoV calculates your slice of traditional organic search traffic.

You track 100 target keywords. Those keywords generate 50,000 total monthly visits across all ranking sites. You capture 15,000 of those visits.

That’s 30% organic share of voice.

AI SoV measures brand mentions in LLM responses from ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Mode, and similar tools.

For example, you test 100 category-related prompts. Your brand is mentioned in 45 responses and cited in 15. Your competitor shows up in 30 responses with 10 mentions.

An AI visibility tool can calculate your weighted AI SoV based on mentions and citations.

Try now: Curious to know how often your brand shows up in AI responses? Try our free AI visibility checker to find out.

Why Is Share of Voice So Important, Especially Now?

Here are three reasons why share of voice should be your core KPI when visibility is scattered across platforms.

Track Visibility Beyond Traditional Traffic Data

Your organic traffic data reveals only half the story.

And with zero-click searches on the rise, that half is shrinking fast.

When users get their answers directly from AI Overviews and featured snippets, a huge chunk of your visibility is never captured in Google Analytics.

This makes traffic a lagging indicator of visibility.

Share of voice is a better metric because it measures how visible you are in the consideration set, even when users don’t click your site.

Think of it this way:

A user searches for the “best project management software for remote teams.”

They see an AI Overview listing five tools, including yours. The user reads it, takes no action, and later signs up for a product demo on your site.

Traditional traffic data would show this as “direct traffic” since the person went straight to the website. It wouldn’t capture the discovery that occurred in Google.

But SoV reveals that your brand appeared in the consideration set for this high-intent query.

Work Toward One North Star Metric

Your marketing team might be operating in silos.

The SEO team wants more website visits. PR wants more media mentions. The social team wants better engagement.

Each team tracks its own KPIs and optimizes for different outcomes.

But the long-term power of SoV is that it can become the one metric every team rallies around.

When everyone sees how their work contributes to the same visibility percentage, it changes how teams collaborate.

Here’s what this looks like in practice:

SEO team targets specific keywords to boost traffic and visibility via content
PR secures features in industry publications through expert quotes
Social drives brand conversations on Reddit and LinkedIn
Product wins better reviews on G2 and Capterra

This full picture takes time to build.

Start with the foundation by measuring your SoV in organic and AI search.

Once you have that baseline, you can layer in other channels over time.

Read more: How to Rank Higher (& Get More Visibility) on Google in 2026

How to Measure Share of Voice in 4 Steps

Let’s see how you can strategically calculate share of voice in four steps.

I’ll use a fictional project management software example to show how each step translates into business insights.

Step 1: Define Your Industry Landscape

Start by outlining the specific competitors and keywords you’ll track for SoV.

Without clear boundaries, you’ll either miss critical gaps or drown in too much noise.

To map your competitive terrain, pick topic clusters tied to revenue.

For a project management software, I picked these clusters:

Category fundamentals (like “project management 101” and “project management for freelancers”)
Use cases (like “agile project management” and “remote team collaboration”)
Industry-specific (like “construction project management” and “marketing project management”)

Pro tip: Don’t pick these topics solely based on search volume. Choose clusters where gaining visibility directly impacts your bottom line.

One way to assess a topic’s revenue potential is to map it to funnel stages.

Categorize your clusters into three stages:

Awareness: Where people are learning and researching, like how to manage projects
Consideration: Where they’re exploring solutions, like the best project management software
Decision: Where they’re comparing options and ready to buy, like Software A vs Software B

Your SoV at each stage tells you where you’re winning and losing in the buyer journey.

This allows you to allocate resources for maximum business impact.

Let’s say this project management software segments the SoV by funnel stage.

It reveals that most of the brand’s visibility is concentrated at the top with almost none at the decision stage.

That’s a problem.

They’re educating the market, but invisible when prospects are actually comparing options and reaching for their wallets.

Strategic takeaway: They need to prioritize comparison pages and case studies to shift visibility toward the decision stage.

Now, define who you’re measuring against.

In search, you’re competing for visibility against two key players:

Direct competitors: Companies selling similar solutions like Asana, ClickUp, Notion, and Trello
Indirect competitors: Review sites capturing the voice of the customer like G2 and industry publishers ranking for your keywords but not competing for customers like HubSpot and Zoho

Tracking them gives you the complete picture of who controls visibility in your market and where you can break through.

Step 2: Build Your Keyword & Prompt Libraries

Create a library of 200-500 queries that capture how people search in your category.

You need both keywords (what people search) and prompts (what people ask LLMs). Together, they reveal your search visibility spectrum.

Pull SEO Data First

Collect queries where you’re already visible to your audience.

Google Search Console (GSC) is a good starting point for this since it captures actual visibility through impressions.

Impressions show every time your brand appears in results, even when users don’t click.

Go to the “Queries” tab in the “Performance” report.

Click the “Impressions” column header to sort in descending order, and export this list of keywords.

GSC – Performance – Queries – Impressions

And if you’re running Google Ads, export your PPC keyword list and filter for terms with conversions or high CTR.

You can also repeat this process with tools like Semrush.

Open your Semrush Position Tracking project (or create one for your domain).

Scroll down to the “Top Keywords” section and click the “View all” button.

Position Tracking – Overview – Top keywords

Adjust the timeline to your preferred range before clicking “Export” to download the full keyword list.

Pro tip: Export all tracked keywords, not just the top money terms. A keyword with 20 monthly searches might seem irrelevant in isolation. But 50 of these collectively represent meaningful category visibility that SoV captures.

Layer in Competitor Intelligence

Besides your own data, track where competitors show up.

This tells you where to compete directly and where to claim ground that they’ve overlooked.

You can use Semrush’s Keyword Gap tool to find these opportunities.

Add your domain along with up to four competitors, then hit “Compare.”

Filter to the “Missing” section to find keywords with proven search demand that competitors have validated.

You need to build visibility for these terms.

For example, this project management tool could target keywords like “Gantt chart” and “project management software” to boost its SoV.

Dig deeper: How to Run a Competitor Traffic Analysis (9 Steps)

Build Your AI Prompt Library

After sourcing keywords, look at how people search for your category in AI tools.

Since AI search queries tend to be more conversational, they often mirror how people talk in community spaces.

Browse Reddit, Facebook groups, and Slack communities to see how your audience phrases their needs and pain points.

For example, this post reveals that agencies want project management tools that aren’t “too corporate or complex for creative teams.”

A question like that can translate directly into an AI prompt: “What’s the most user-friendly project management tool for small creative agencies?”

For decision-stage prompts, review sites G2 and Capterra (or those relevant to your industry) offer a lot of insights.

G2, for instance, lists popular alternatives for every tool.

This is a ready-made list of “[You] vs [Competitor]” and “alternative to [Competitor]” queries your buyers are likely running in AI search.

You can dig deeper with Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit to find prompts where competitors show up in AI answers, but you don’t.

Go to “Prompt Research” and add any of your core topics, like “agile project management.”

Click “Analyze” to get started.

The tool lists real prompts that generate AI responses for your category, such as “best productivity app” and “companies that use agile software development.”

Jot down the prompts relevant to your primary cluster.

Then, repeat for each of your 3-5 clusters.

Prompt Research – Agile project management – Prompts

Document Your Metadata

Finally, organize everything in a master spreadsheet with columns for:

Keyword/Prompt
Topic Cluster
Funnel Stage
Source (SEO/AI)

Once you’re done measuring SoV, this metadata will become your strategic lens.

Use it to decide which clusters to prioritize, which funnel stages are weak, and where SEO and AI visibility diverge.

Here’s what this looks like for the project management software:

Step 3: Calculate Your SoV

Your SoV equals your estimated traffic divided by the total traffic for all tracked brands, multiplied by 100.

Track both SEO and AI SoV to see the full picture of your brand’s visibility.

Calculate SEO Share of Voice

Start by checking your rankings for all the keywords in your tracking list. Track your competitors’ rankings for the same keyword set.

Each ranking position gets an average share of clicks, like position 1 getting roughly 27%.

This will help in estimating the traffic share per keyword.

Note: These benchmarks for organic search CTR shift over time. It’s also crucial to mention that organic CTRs have been declining as AI-generated answers absorb more clicks before users ever reach the results.

Multiply each keyword’s monthly search volume by the click-through rate for your ranking position to estimate your traffic for that duration.

Then, run the same calculation for each competitor.

Use this data to calculate your SoV.

Add up the estimated traffic across all keywords for each brand. Divide your total by the combined total for all tracked brands and multiply by 100.

This manual approach can be time-intensive, especially when tracking hundreds of keywords across multiple competitors.

Semrush handles this math automatically once you set up tracking correctly.

Go to Semrush Position Tracking and click “Create project.”

Enter your domain, target search engine, device type, and location.

The location setting matters for SoV tracking because search results vary by location.

If you set the location to the United States, but most of your customers are in New York, your SoV might look different than reality.

Pro tip: Start with country-level tracking to establish your baseline. Only segment by region later if local variations impact your business.

Then, click “Continue to Keywords” to manually add or import your keyword list.

Upload the CSV you made in Step 2 to preserve the data by cluster and funnel-stage categorization.

Then, press “Add keywords to campaign.”

Finally, click “Start Tracking” to begin data collection.

Once this setup is complete, Semrush starts collecting daily ranking data for every target keyword.

Check out the results in the “Share of Voice” tab under “Overview” in the Position Tracking dashboard.

Position Tracking – Backlinko – Share of Voice

You can also add up to four domains to see how you fare against others in the market.

Semrush tracks every brand’s rankings for your keyword set to aggregate the data into SoV percentages.

Important: While SoV is inherently relative and compares your visibility against others, who you choose as competitors shapes how you interpret your SoV.

Calculate AI Share of Voice

Your AI SoV shows how often LLMs cite your brand when answering questions in your category.

There’s no standardized way to manually measure AI SoV yet, but this two-step process gets you close:

Step 1: Run each prompt from your library through your AI tools of choice, such as ChatGPT, Claude, Google AI Mode, and any other AI tools your audience uses
Step 2: For each response, document every brand that appears — yours and your tracked competitors. Record whether each brand was mentioned, cited as a source, and whether the sentiment was positive, neutral, or negative.

Once you’ve tested all prompts, count how many times each brand appeared across all responses.

Divide each brand’s total mentions by the total number of prompts tested, and multiply by 100.

Keep in mind: This calculation gives you a directional read instead of a live metric. AI responses vary by session, phrasing, location, and platform. That’s why it’s important to test regularly and track trends over time.

Measuring AI SoV manually for 20 prompts across three platforms is doable. Doing it for hundreds of prompts while tracking how recommendations shift week over week isn’t.

That’s what Semrush’s AI Visibility Toolkit is built for.

Go to the Brand Performance report in Semrush’s AI Visibility Toolkit.

Enter your domain and click “Analyze.”

Pick an AI platform between ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, or Perplexity.

Switch among these tools to identify any significant gaps in platform-specific LLM visibility.

Once the report is generated, you’ll see a pie chart visualizing the distribution of SoV for your competitors.

The tool tests hundreds of prompts related to your category across ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, and Perplexity to measure your AI SoV.

For each prompt, it analyzes AI responses for:

Brand mentions: How often your brand appears in the answer
Citations: Whether the AI links to your content as a source
Context: Whether mentions are positive, neutral, or negative

It aggregates this data across all tested prompts to calculate your percentage of total visibility.

You’ll also find a section comparing each competitor against a set of business drivers specific to your industry.

These drivers are the most frequently mentioned topics for your category.

Use this data to identify clusters where you’re stronger and weaker than your competitors.

Interpreting SEO vs AI Share of Voice

SEO share of voice measures organic traffic while AI share of voice tracks LLM mentions and citations.

These might not always align.

You can have a strong organic share of voice (ranking on top for many keywords) but a weak AI SoV if LLMs don’t find your content credible.

And brands with more credible content can win a bigger slice of AI SoV even without much visibility in organic search.

Here’s a simple matrix to understand your data:

	High AI SoV	Low AI SoV
High SEO SoV	You dominate both traditional and AI search. Maintain content freshness and expand into adjacent topics to defend your position.	You rank well, but LLMs don’t cite you. Implement content chunking to optimize your content for AI search and create citable assets to create credibility that LLMs value.
Low SEO SoV	AI tools cite your content even though you don’t rank at the top on organic search. Improve SEO fundamentals, including title tags, internal linking, site speed, and keyword optimization.	Focus on depth over breadth. Create a definitive, well-researched content resource for every core cluster. This is a good start for building visibility on both traditional and AI search.

Dig deeper: Learn more about building visibility in AI search with LLM seeding.

Step 4: Establish Your Baseline and Track Trends

The final step is turning your SoV numbers into an ongoing tracking system that informs decisions.

Create a baseline dashboard to capture three levels of detail:

Overall metrics: Are you gaining or losing ground overall?
Topic cluster performance: Which topics need more investment?
Funnel stage breakdown: Where in the buyer journey are you least visible?

Here’s what this could look like for the project management software:

Once your baseline is locked in, set your tracking cadence strategically.

A monthly frequency allows you to spot trends without the need for reacting to noise.

With quarterly deep dives, you can:

Analyze cluster-specific performance in detail
Correlate SoV changes with past campaigns
Adjust resource allocation based on what’s working

This rhythm prevents you from chasing short-term variations and missing critical shifts that impact your category.

Pro tip: Set up notifications in Semrush Position Tracking to get real-time alerts. You’re notified when SoV drops more than a certain threshold in any core cluster.

How to Improve Share of Voice

Not every fluctuation in your SoV requires action.

Here’s how to strategically diagnose gaps in your SoV and prioritize the right tactics to fix them.

1. Close Visibility Gaps

Clusters with <10% SoV mean you’re almost invisible.

This is especially damaging in decision-stage queries.

If you have less than 10% visibility when buyers search “best project management software,” you’re not in their consideration set.

At the same time, look for opportunities where competitors dominate, but you can compete.

For example, if your project management tool serves creative agencies but you have zero visibility for “project management for creative teams,” that’s your opening.

Potential Solutions

Diagnose the cause:

Search your weak clusters and compare what ranks against what you have

Check if you lack topic coverage, content depth, or basic optimization

Look at which competitors dominate and what formats they use

Build topical authority for major business themes.

Create one pillar page with multiple supporting articles.

Build backlinks to your pillar content to establish visibility across every query in that cluster.

For example, if we learn that the project management software needs to gain decision-stage visibility, we could prioritize comparison content.

Build pages targeting “[Your Brand] vs [Competitor]” and category buyer’s guides.

2. Solve Efficiency Problems

Compare your SoV to actual traffic.

A cluster like “what is project management” might give you a high SoV.

But if only 1% of that traffic converts, you’re likely burning money on the wrong audience.

You’re winning visibility in areas that don’t drive business outcomes. And competitors are capturing high-intent buyers.

Potential Solutions

Diagnose the cause:

Check if you’re ranking for awareness content when you need decision-stage visibility

Look at your traffic-to-conversion ratio by cluster

Identify if your content attracts the wrong audience (students vs. buyers)

Reallocate resources to high-intent clusters.

Instead of producing more awareness content, shift the budget to bottom-of-funnel content.

This includes comparison pages, case studies, and ROI calculators that target buyers ready to evaluate solutions.

Update existing comparison pages with current data and competitive intelligence.

3. Address Competitive Threats

Keep tabs on competitors gaining ground in your strong clusters.

If a competitor gains over 5% SoV in your strong clusters, it’s an early sign that they’re targeting your territory.

That gap can widen unless you respond to maintain your market share.

Diagnose the cause:

Analyze what new content or tactics they launched

Check if they’re winning on review sites, community platforms, or organic search

Identify if they’re capturing a format you’re missing (video, podcasts, tools)

The fix depends on where your competitors are winning.

If competitors actively feature on review sites, optimize your profiles. Run campaigns to source reviews from happy customers.

If they’re visible on community platforms, proactively engage in communities like Reddit and Slack.

Prioritize Based on Effort vs. Impact

Not all gaps matter equally.

Focus on opportunities that will actually move your revenue pipeline.

Start with high-impact, low-effort wins. Then invest in high-effort moves that compound over time.

	High Impact	Low Impact
Low Effort	Optimize content ranking #5-10 Claim existing review site profiles Update comparison pages with current data Claim industry directory profiles	Minor content refreshes on supporting pages Social engagement in established channels Guest commenting on industry blogs Newsletter mentions in partner publications
High Effort	Build authority in community spaces (Reddit, forums) Create comprehensive hub content for weak clusters Earn citations from AI-referenced sources Develop thought leadership for industry publications	Content for saturated topics without authority Channels where your audience isn’t active Platforms AI tools rarely reference Keywords outside category relevance

Making SoV Your 2026 North Star

Share of voice captures how often you show up across the fragmented platforms where buyers make decisions.

Get started by measuring your current SoV across SEO and AI search with the steps in this guide.

Pick the gap that costs you the most revenue, and strategize the best ways to close it.

Next step: Build your AI optimization gameplan to capture visibility in the fastest-growing search channel.

The post How to Calculate Share of Voice (+ Why it Matters for SEO) appeared first on Backlinko.

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The April 2026 SEO Update by Yoast recap

April 29, 2026/0 Comments/in Web Design News, Yoast SEO/by Dubado Solutions

Each month, we host an SEO update covering the latest in search and AI. During this month’s edition, our SEO experts Carolyn Shelby and Alex Moss, cover everything from the latest advances in Agentic AI to Google’s spam and core updates and why simply publishing more content is no longer enough and in many cases actively works against you. Read this recap for the highlights or watch the April 2026 SEO Update by Yoast to delve into the latest news.

Watch the full recap on YouTube to dive deeper into these topics, hear some examples and hear the answer to audience questions.

SEO and AI news from April 2026

Google introduces new AI agent signals and infrastructure

Google added a new Google-agent user agent, signaling more explicit support for AI-driven crawling and interaction. At the same time, proposals like WebMCP aim to standardize how AI agents interact with websites, while Google leadership suggests search is evolving into an AI agent manager.

Why it matters: The web is being restructured around agent access, not just human browsing.

Actionable takeaway:

Ensure your content is accessible and understandable for both traditional crawlers and emerging AI agents.

Google continues expanding AI capabilities and efficiency

Google introduced TurboQuant, a new approach to AI model compression that significantly improves efficiency. At the same time, Google is expanding task-based features in AI Mode and refining how users interact with AI-driven search experiences.

Why it matters: As AI becomes faster and more integrated, user expectations and search behavior will continue to shift.

Actionable takeaway:

Focus on making content easy to extract and act on within AI-driven workflows.

Structured data and documentation evolve for AI-first search

Google added AI bot labels to forum and Q&A structured data, helping distinguish between human and AI-generated contributions. Google also updated its documentation with “read more” deep link best practices.

Why it matters: Search engines are adapting their systems to better interpret and label AI-generated content.

Actionable takeaway:

Use structured data and clear linking practices to improve how your content is interpreted and displayed.

Core updates, spam policies, and enforcement continue to tighten

Google completed its March 2026 spam update and core update, while also introducing updates to spam policies addressing tactics like back button hijacking and improving spam reporting tools.

Why it matters: Enforcement is becoming more granular, targeting both technical manipulation and low-value content.

Actionable takeaway:

Review your site for outdated or risky tactics and ensure a strong focus on quality and user experience.

Platforms and tools expand AI-driven workflows

Elementor launched Angie, an agentic AI for WordPress, while Cloudflare introduced EmDash as a WordPress alternative and continued work on agent readiness standards.

Anthropic released Claude Design and previewed Mythos, while OpenAI tested an AdsBot and introduced a ChatGPT ad manager interface.

Why it matters: AI is increasingly embedded directly into content creation, workflows, and monetization systems.

Actionable takeaway:

Evaluate how AI tools fit into your content and operational workflows, not just your marketing strategy.

Authority, trust, and content quality remain central

Google reinforced that commodity content does not perform well, while broader analysis highlights the importance of authority, freshness, and first-party signals.

Why it matters: As AI systems synthesize answers, they rely more heavily on trusted, differentiated sources.

Actionable takeaway:

Invest in original, high-quality content and consistent brand signals across channels.

Measurement and reporting begin shifting toward AI visibility

Bing previewed AI Citation Share, and new dashboards are emerging that map how AI systems ground answers in source content. A temporary Google Search Console glitch also highlighted how dependent SEOs still are on traditional metrics.

Why it matters: Visibility is moving beyond rankings into citation, inclusion, and influence within AI-generated responses.

Actionable takeaway:

Start paying attention to how your content appears in AI systems, not just where it ranks.

Also in the news…

Several additional developments are worth watching:

Yoast news

Sign up for the next SEO Update by Yoast

The next SEO Update by Yoast is on May 21, 2026, at 4:00 PM CET (10:00 AM EST). Sign up to join the live discussion or get the recording.

The post The April 2026 SEO Update by Yoast recap appeared first on Yoast.

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Best Content Marketing Agencies of 2026

April 28, 2026/0 Comments/in Web Design/by Dubado Solutions

Key Takeaways

Content agencies often specialize in certain industries or subsets of content marketing, such as technical SEO or conversion-focused content.
Our list of some of the best content marketing brands in the business covers a range of services and specialties.
Check out their client lists and portfolios to see if their work aligns with your expectations and preferences.
Knowing what to look for in a content marketing company and the right questions to ask can help you identify the ones with the abilities and capacity to help you expand and improve your content strategy and reach your marketing goals.

The content world is changing, but people still know its value. A 2023 survey from the Content Marketing Institute showed that over three-fourths of marketers indicated that content marketing generates demand and leads.

This is no surprise when you realize 70 percent of people would prefer to learn about a company through an article rather than advertising.

Content marketing can generate huge amounts of traffic, leads, and sales for your business. If you’re a company looking to get started with content marketing, it can be tough to find the resources and expertise you need.

What kind of content do your customers want from you? Is that the same kind of content that creates revenue for your business? Today we’ll take a look at the best content marketing companies in the industry to help you answer those questions and more.

Agency	Best For	Ideal For	Notable Clients	Standout Approach
NP Digital	Immediate and consistent revenue growth	Broad (B2B, e-commerce, SaaS, finance)	CNN, Adobe, Western Union, SoFi	Revenue-focused content with technical SEO built into every campaign from the start
Seer Interactive	Big data search and content	Competitive industries like finance, banking, and mortgages	Asos, Intuit, SendGrid, Terminix	12,000GB proprietary data warehouse surfaces hidden customer trends competitors can’t see
Brainlabs	Technical SEO	Not specified	Formula 1, Estée Lauder, Capital One, Polaroid	Built on a team of mathematicians, scientists, and programmers driving data-backed automation and testing
Fractl	In-depth, research-heavy content	Research-intensive industries	Porch, Fanatics, Superdrug, Healthline	Research published in Harvard Business Review, The Economist, and the NYT, with a dedicated client growth division
Column Five	Data and content visualization	Not specified (broad enterprise client base)	Deloitte, JP Morgan, Dell, Harvard University	Visual storytelling specialists covering infographics, video, interactive motion graphics, and exhibition design
Single Grain	Conversion-driven content marketing	Businesses needing rapid turnaround or growth	Lyft, Warby Parker, Semrush, Nextiva	Entrepreneurial approach to flipping underperforming businesses through aggressive conversion optimization
The Content Bureau	B2B content marketing	Technology, venture capital, and financial sectors; global corporations	American Express, PayPal, Microsoft, Cisco	Woman-owned agency with 80 percent of staff at 10+ years tenure, offering premium, high-attention client service
Webprofits	Growing challenger brands	E-commerce, consumer, and retail brands scaling fast	Logitech, Philips, Nespresso, HP	“Fluid marketing” methodology blends digital strategy and performance marketing to find hidden growth opportunities
Siege Media	Scalable SEO content	Fortune 500 companies down to small startups	Zillow, Airbnb, TripAdvisor, Asana	Passive link generation through content, backed by a proprietary link management tool maintained monthly
Directive	Performance marketing for tech companies	Tech companies of all sizes	Amazon, Bill.com, Matillion, SentinelOne	Generated $10B+ in client revenue by acting as an embedded extension of in-house marketing teams

1. NP Digital – Best for Immediate and Consistent Revenue Growth

NP Digital is my content marketing company. We created NP Digital in 2017 to serve the millions of people who needed help with their content marketing to grow revenue.

Rankings are important, but many marketers still focus obsessively on keywords and content that doesn’t lead to revenue. I’ve always focused on helping readers build a business that generates traffic, leads, and, most importantly, revenue. So we have a big focus on developing high-quality content that ranks high and converts visitors into customers by aligning with user intent.

Today, we’re one of the top content marketing brands in the business. a powerhouse global agency with one of the top 100 blog destinations in the world.

Another thing that’s different about NP Digital is the fact that we incorporate technical SEO into our content marketing planning. SEO — technical, on-page, off-page, local, etc.— it’s always a package deal with content marketing. Our status as one of the top SEO agencies means you get the best of both worlds.

We stay on top of Google’s updates and algorithms and adjust our strategies accordingly. This means the content we create for our clients automatically performs well with Google. here’s no extra work required.

NP Digital is my way of helping everyone achieve the revenue and growth they deserve in their business.

NP Digital’s client list includes:

CNN
Adobe
Western Union
Brightside Health
SoFi
LiquidWeb
ConnectWise
ModKat

2. Seer Interactive – Best for Big Data Search and Content

Wil Reynolds founded Seer Interactive, which got its start as a search engine optimization company. What makes Seer one of the best content marketing companies on our list is its focus and emphasis on big data.

Using a combination of in-house and third-party tools, they’ve built a massive data warehouse with almost 12,000 gigabytes of data they can analyze to identify new, hidden, and unexpected customer trends.

If you’re in a competitive or cutthroat industry (e.g., finance, banking, or mortgages), this data is what you need to stay ahead of your competitors.

With Seer Interactive, their approach is SEO-heavy. That should be an important priority for every company, whether you’re big or small, but not every company is ready for Big Data.

Seer Interactive’s client list includes:

Asos
Intuit
SendGrid
Terminix
Think Company
Time Inc.

3. Brainlabs – Best for Technical SEO

Brainlabs was founded by Daniel Gilbert in 2012. Understanding that marketing was becoming all about data, he took the unusual tactic of hiring mathematicians, scientists and programmers to support automation and data-driven insights.

His approach paid off: Since 2020, the agency has expanded its services by acquiring other marketing companies, including the SEO-focused Distilled, a leader in the space.

Today Brainlabs is known as one of the top content marketing agencies for technical SEO and helping companies evolve in an increasingly competitive SEO landscape. They are constantly experimenting and testing to improve conversion rates.

Brainlabs’ client list includes:

Formula 1
Estée Lauder
Capital One
Polaroid

4. Fractl – Best for In-Depth, Research-Heavy Content

Fractl is a research-heavy, data-driven content marketing company. They’re focused on rapid, organic growth that’s driven by content marketing, data journalism, digital PR, and search engine optimization.

Research makes Fractl unique.

They’re always researching industry-related topics, and they share their understanding of the art and science behind newsworthy content. They share their research in top publications, leading market resources, scientific journals, and authoritative conferences around the world.

Their research has been published in MarketingProfs, TNW, The Economist, Time, the Harvard Business Review, the New York Times, Pub Con, and many other publications and journals.

If you’re in a research-heavy industry and you’re looking for a high-growth content marketing company, Fractl is a good choice. Aside from being one of the best content marketing brands, they’re one of the few companies that have a division dedicated to client growth.

Fractl’s client list includes:

Sapio
Porch
Fanatics
Travelmath
College Finance
Alcohol.org
NVISION
Superdrug

5. Column Five – Best for Data and Content Visualization

Column Five describes itself as a creative content agency. They’re primarily focused on the visual side of content marketing — storytelling, design, data visualization, video, interactive motion graphics, even exhibition design.

They are most known for their “child of the 90s” viral video on behalf of Internet Explorer, which launched their reputation as one of the best content marketing brands out there.

As a content creation company, Column Five is focused primarily on content strategy, content creation, and content distribution. They rely on a simultaneous mix of organic and paid distribution channels to draw attention to client content.

The company mantra is “the best story wins,” showing their commitment to developing great content that delivers big results. It specializes in content that is “inherently newsworthy,” making it more likely to get traffic, links, and media attention.

The Column Five client list includes:

Deloitte
Cornell University
Harvard University
J.P Morgan
MetLife
ASPCA
The World Bank
Charles Schwab
Dell
eBay
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Zendesk

6. Single Grain – Best for Conversion-Driven Content Marketing

In 2014, entrepreneur and leading marketing expert Eric Siu made a big gamble. He bought a failing SEO agency for less than the cost of a cappuccino — $2. This wasn’t the first time he’d made a seemingly risky bet — in the past he led the growth strategy for an online education company when it had just a few months of cash left in the bank.

“A month into it, the CEO pulls me aside,” Siu recalls, “and he’s like, ‘Eric, you know, 48 people, their families, they’re riding on your shoulders right now, and if you can’t hit numbers in the next month, we’re gonna have to let you go.’”

Did I mention he was just 25 years old at the time?

Eric leveraged his marketing know-how and entrepreneurial outlook to turn Single Grain around and take it to where it is today: solidly among the ranks of the best content marketing brands out there.

Eric Siu and the Single Grain team can do for your business what they do best: turn it around. They know how to turn a faltering business into a successful one with an approach of optimizing for conversions and focusing on rapid growth.

Single Grain’s client list includes:

WineDeals
Nextiva
Peet’s Coffee
Semrush
Warby Parker
Crunchbase
Lyft

7. The Content Bureau – Best for B2B Content Marketing

The Content Bureau bills itself as a premier B2B content marketing company. This agency is woman-owned, 100 percent virtual, and their team is 90 percent female, of which a third are women of color. The Content Bureau focuses its attention on the technology, venture capital, and financial sectors, working almost exclusively with global corporations that rely on them year-round.

Many of their clients are long-term, stable clients who prefer their premium approach, exclusive attention, and veteran workforce; 80 percent of their team have been with The Content Bureau for 10+ years.

As an organization, they give their clients lots of handholding; they’re open and transparent with each of their clients, and they deliver amazing service with their extraordinary content.

The Content Bureau’s client list includes:

American Express
PayPal
Royal Bank of Canada
ADP
Unilever
Magento
Microsoft
Cisco
Atlassian

8. Webprofits – Best for Growing Brands

Webprofits is the content marketing and advertising company that was co-founded by Sujan Patel and Alex Cleanthous. Their company focuses on challenger brands in the e-commerce, consumer, and retail space that want to grow their business fast. They’ve refined their process based on real-life, in-the-trenches experience.

In fact, Patel doesn’t think of Web Profits as an agency. He calls it a marketing “hit squad,” a team of specialists who understand your business inside and out.

What makes Web Profits one of the top content marketing companies? They use a unique “fluid marketing” approach, which combines digital strategy with performance marketing. This enables its team of experts to identify hidden correlations and connections that can point to exciting opportunities for content marketing.

This makes the Web Profits team uniquely qualified to serve challenger brands that want to make a big impact.

Web Profits’ client list includes:

Logitech
Philips
Nespresso
Swarovski
HP
LG Electronics

9. Siege Media – Best for Scalable Content

Siege Media prides itself on taking a “scientific approach” to scaling SEO-focused content. The agency works with a wide range of companies, from established Fortune 500 businesses to small startups.

The focus of the business is on link-building. Siege Media creates content that serves as passive link generators, a tactic they say is more effective than manual outreach. Their formula results in high-impact content that produces instant results—and it’s a cost-efficient tactic, too.

Siege’s superpower is a proprietary solution for link management. Siege maintains the tool for its clients on a monthly basis, ensuring that websites are always aligned with overall goals and updates.

This commitment to innovation and leveraging technology for content marketing makes Siege one of the best content marketing companies for the future.

Siege Media’s client list includes:

Zillow
Quicken Loans
Inuit Mint
Shutterfly
Airbnb
Healthline
Casper
TripAdvisor
Asana
ZenDesk

10. Directive – Best for Performance Marketing for Tech Companies

CEO Garrett Mehrguth founded Directive when he was just 21, focusing on SEO. Today it works with some of the world’s most prominent tech companies, helping them become more discoverable in a dynamic and often challenging industry. Since its founding, it’s generated more than $10 billion in revenue.

The agency uses a unique data-driven methodology to generate quality leads organically across the marketing funnel. The team prefers to act as a partner rather than a vendor, serving as an extension of its clients’ in-house marketing teams.

Directive’s client list includes:

Amazon
Bill.com
Matillion
Sumo Logic
Eden Health
Vyond
Brooklyn Solarworks
ActivePDF
SentinelOne

4 Characteristics that Make a Great Content Marketing Company

A good content marketing company will have no problem demonstrating that they have the expertise and the resources they need to make your campaign a success. These are some qualities to expect in a high-quality content marketing agency.

1: A Stable Team of Content Creators

Content mills produce poorly written filler content that’s mainly written for search engines. Not only is that a short-sighted approach, but Google’s algorithm is more likely to ding sites that use it—especially now that it is incorporating AI.

The best content marketing companies have a roster of regular and consistent writers on their team. Stable writers are skilled at writing, grammar, logical consistency, and storytelling. These writers can draw your readers in, creating content that moves people towards a specific goal or objective that you have in mind.

These writers don’t need a lot of babysitting, and they’re able to figure things out, to a certain extent, on their own. They’re dependable, and they’re able to match your brand voice.

When you contact a content marketing company, you’ll want to ask them questions about how they run their business.

How many writers do you have on staff?
Are they freelance or W-2? Do you use a mix of both?
How many of your writers are full-time? Part-time?
How do you manage your team of writers?
How many years of experience does the average writer on your team have?

When you ask companies these questions, listen to their answers carefully. Look for any inconsistencies or red flags. If you spot any, bring them up immediately and ask for an answer.

2: Access to Publishers and Influencers

According to Derek Halpern, founder of Social Triggers, you should be spending 20 percent of your time on content creation and 80 percent of your time on content promotion. The content marketing companies you work with are no different. If you’re investing a significant amount of time and money in creating an amazing piece of content, you should be spending 4x as much time on promotion to make sure your target audience sees it.

When you’re working with a content marketing company, they should already have a list of influencers and publishers in their address book. They should also have strong connections and relationships with the right people, so they’re reasonably sure they can drive traffic to your content.

3: Specialized Knowledge About Your Industry

In an ideal world, your content marketing provider has a significant amount of experience in your space, or the ability to connect with experts who do. At a minimum, you’ll want to ensure that the content marketing company you choose can write credibly about the topics that are relevant to your business.

The more specialized the content, the more important these criteria are for your business.

Industries like healthcare, engineering, or finance require large amounts of specialized experience. It’s unrealistic to expect an inexperienced company to write credibly about a highly technical topic.

Specialization requires specialists. The more technical your business, the more important it is to hire a content marketing company with experience and expertise in your field.

4: Content Analysis and Measurement

When you’re investing in the services of a content marketing company, you’ll want to see the numbers. The agency should be able to provide you with a detailed breakdown that includes data outlining your performance as well as the KPIs, metrics, and sentiment surrounding your content.

This information should give you the answers to the following questions:

Does this content move us closer to our campaign goals?
Does this piece of content (e.g., blog post, whitepaper, e-book, infographic) lead to enough conversions?
How far are people reading into your content?
Where in our flywheel are we losing customers?
What do we need to change/optimize to improve our conversion rates?
Which content marketing opportunities are we missing, and where?

Creating content isn’t enough. The content marketing company you choose should provide you with the actionable data you need and a comprehensive strategy to create profitable content for your business.

What To Expect From a Great Content Marketing Company

Top content marketing agencies are able to get you up to speed on their processes and provide you with a consistent and comprehensive set of deliverables. These deliverables ensure that your content marketing campaigns stay on track and that you’re able to achieve the consistent results you need.

To do this, your content marketing provider should provide you with onboarding guidance and specific deliverables throughout the pre-launch, launch, and post-launch phases of your campaign. These should include:

Content samples demonstrating your knowledge and expertise
The information and materials (e.g., credentials, existing content) they need from you to get started
A statement of work and a list of deliverables (e.g., 14 2,500-word articles each month, edits included)
Their process (if they’re not working with you and yours)
Projected campaign milestones, timelines, and calendars
Your point-of-contact, including their name, and contact information
Hours of availability
The best way to communicate (e.g., Slack, email, phone, chat, or text)
Expectations from you
Their process, policies, and procedures
Analysis and reports, including business goals, objectives, KPIs, metrics, strategy, tactics, and risks
Content audits
Consistent updates on your campaign performance
Regular (weekly or monthly) calls to discuss performance
Consistently updated due dates and delivery timelines
Monthly debrief to discuss successes and failures

Here are some additional details you should also expect from your content marketing providers:

Good boundaries (including the ability to say no)
Prompt and clear feedback
Accurate information on various parts of your campaign, including financial, campaign, and performance data

The best content marketing companies ask a lot of questions. They make sure to provide you with the upfront information you need to vet their company and make an informed decision. Once you’ve decided to move forward, they ask you for all of the information and materials they’ll need to produce the results you want.

FAQs

What makes good content marketing?

Good content marketing is different for every business, but in general, it involves creating well-written content that provides valuable information for your target market. It also draws in qualified leads and converts them into customers at a rate that justifies your investment.

How do you track content marketing results?

Tracking content marketing results involves setting clear goals, identifying key performance indicators (KPIs) such as website traffic, inquiries, and conversion rates to use as metrics, and monitoring the results. Most content marketing agencies use analytics tools to track and measure results.

How do you optimize for content marketing?

Optimizing for content marketing involves several steps. First, research who your target audience is and their needs. This will guide you toward topics for content development that can answer their questions and provide valuable information. Incorporate SEO to ensure your content ranks high on search engine results pages and brings in organic traffic. Finally, analyze the results to refine content topics, formats, and overall strategy.

Which content marketing agency is best for B2B companies?

B2B companies should look for agencies that focus on long-form content, SEO, and lead generation. The best partners understand how to create content that nurtures prospects over time, not just drives traffic. Agencies with strong experience in SaaS or professional services tend to perform best here.

Which content marketing company is best for small businesses?

Small businesses need agencies that balance quality with cost. Look for teams that offer flexible packages or project-based work instead of large retainers. The goal is to get consistent, high-quality content without overcommitting your budget early on.

Which agency is best for SEO-driven content?

You want an agency that combines content creation with keyword research and technical SEO. Firms that focus heavily on search performance will build content designed to rank, not just read well. Check for proven results in organic traffic growth and rankings.

Should you hire a specialized content agency or a full-service marketing agency?

Specialized agencies go deeper into content strategy and production. Full-service agencies connect content to SEO, paid media, and conversion optimization, which can drive better overall results. If content is your main bottleneck, go specialized. If growth is the goal, full-service often wins.

How do you choose the right content marketing agency?

Start with their results. Look for case studies showing traffic growth, lead generation, or revenue impact. Then review their content quality and process. The best agencies have a clear system for research, creation, and optimization.

Conclusion

Content marketing produces more leads and revenue than traditional marketing methods. If you’re looking for a good content marketing company to help you get started, it can be tough. Use this list to identify the companies that are a good fit for your business.

With this post, you should have a pretty good idea of the questions to ask, what to expect, and how to select the right content marketing provider.

Invest the right amount of effort with the right company, and your content marketing will grow faster than you expect. It’s tough in the beginning, but it will take effort, push through, and keep creating really helpful content, even if it’s hard.

You’ll see consistent revenue growth once customers realize that you’re serious about helping them solve their problems. Content marketing is the best way to show them that you understand, and you can help. With this said, combining with other disciplines is the best way to unlock your content’s true potential. Check out my lists of the best CRO agencies and top social media agencies for more information.

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Why more content is no longer a reliable way to grow SEO

April 28, 2026/0 Comments/in Search Engine Land, Web Design News/by Dubado Solutions

One of the most dependable ways to grow organic visibility was to publish more content. Expanding into the long tail and creating pages around different variations of a topic often led to steady traffic growth.

Many SEO teams still operate with this mindset. Content calendars are built around search volume targets, and growth is often equated with how much new content is produced. The problem is the results no longer reflect the effort.

In many cases, adding more pages doesn’t lead to increased visibility and can even dilute overall performance. Large content libraries are harder to maintain, compete internally, and often result in fewer pages surfacing in search results.

The challenge is no longer producing more content, but understanding why much of it fails to contribute to visibility.

Why content volume worked for SEO

For a long time, increasing content volume was a rational and effective strategy. Search engines relied heavily on keyword matching and topical coverage, which meant expanding into the long tail created more opportunities to capture demand.

Competition was also significantly lower, and many queries had limited high-quality results, so publishing across a wide range of keyword variations often led to quick visibility gains. In this environment, covering more topics translated directly into increased traffic.

Publishing frequency also helped strengthen domain authority. Sites that consistently added new content signaled freshness and relevance, which improved their ability to compete in search results.

This approach was further amplified by programmatic SEO. By creating scalable templates and targeting large keyword sets, companies generated thousands of pages and captured traffic at scale.

Most importantly, this strategy worked because it aligned with how search engines evaluated content at the time. Expanding coverage increased the likelihood of ranking, and more pages meant more opportunities to be discovered.

However, the conditions that made this approach effective have changed. As search ecosystems have evolved and competition has increased, the relationship between content volume and visibility has become less predictable.

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Why this model is breaking down

Content saturation

Most commercially relevant topics now have dozens of established pages competing for the same queries, many with years of accumulated links and behavioral data.

A new page enters this environment at a disadvantage because the keyword spaces it targets are already consolidated around results with existing authority and signal history.

Diminishing returns

As sites expand into adjacent keyword variations, search engines increasingly route similar queries to the same URL rather than distributing traffic across multiple pages.

This shows up in Google Search Console as two or three URLs splitting impressions on identical queries — neither ranking strongly because neither has consolidated authority. The intent overlap that content teams treat as coverage, Google treats as redundancy.

Changes in search experience

AI Overviews now appear across a significant and growing share of informational queries. Google has confirmed continued expansion of the feature across search types and markets. Informational content is the most affected by this shift, and it’s also the type most volume strategies produce.

A site with a large number of blog articles is therefore more exposed than one focused on a smaller set of transactional pages. More ranked pages don’t produce proportional traffic when an increasing share of visible positions no longer generate a click.

Indexing limits

Google’s budget documentation states directly that low-value URLs drain crawl activity away from pages that matter. At scale, thin or redundant content is deprioritized — meaning a significant percentage of a site’s published pages may never meaningfully enter search competition regardless of how much continues to be added.

Dig deeper: The authority era: How AI is reshaping what ranks in search

The hidden mechanics behind content saturation

What’s less understood is how content libraries behave at scale. These are system-level problems that compound over time and are difficult to reverse.

Content debt

Every page published creates an ongoing obligation. It needs to be monitored for ranking decay, updated when information changes, evaluated periodically for pruning or consolidation, and factored into crawl allocation. These costs are rarely accounted for at the point of creation.

At low volumes, this is manageable. At scale, it becomes a compounding liability. A site with 2,000 articles isn’t sitting on 2,000 assets, it’s managing 2,000 maintenance commitments that depreciate at different rates.

Editorial resources that could strengthen existing high-performing pages are instead absorbed by keeping a growing library from becoming a liability.

The true cost of a volume-driven content strategy only becomes visible 18 to 24 months after the investment, when maintenance demands begin to outpace the capacity to meet them.

Crawl inefficiency and cannibalization

Google allocates a finite crawl budget to each domain. When a site scales content volume without proportional gains in quality or authority, Googlebot distributes that budget across a larger number of pages, many of which offer limited signal value. The result is that high-value pages are crawled less frequently, indexed less reliably, and are slower to reflect updates.

This creates a compounding problem for sites with important transactional or evergreen pages that depend on frequent re-crawling to stay current and competitive. Beyond crawl distribution, similar pages targeting overlapping intent compete for the same ranking positions internally.

Search engines consolidate these signals rather than rewarding each page individually, meaning two pages targeting near-identical queries often perform worse combined than one authoritative page targeting both would perform alone.

Topical authority dilution

Search engines evaluate whether a site is a genuinely deep and trustworthy resource within a defined topic space. Expanding into a wide range of loosely related subtopics can erode this signal rather than strengthen it.

A site with 40 tightly interconnected, substantive pieces on a specific topic will consistently outperform one with 400 surface-level articles spread across adjacent themes. The depth and coherence of coverage within a defined area are what build the authority signal that drives durable rankings.

Pursuing breadth at the expense of depth fragments that signal, making it harder for search engines to assign clear expertise to the domain on any individual topic, even the ones the site knows best.

Weak content and behavioral signals

Search engines use behavioral data such as dwell time, return-to-search rates, and click-through rates as quality signals at both the page and domain levels.

When a site publishes high volumes of content that users engage with poorly, those signals accumulate and begin to affect how search engines evaluate the domain as a whole. This creates a negative reinforcement loop that’s difficult to detect and slow to reverse.

Weak pages actively contribute to lower domain-level quality assessments, affecting the performance of pages that would otherwise rank well. More mediocre content compounds. Each low-engagement publish incrementally reduces the baseline trust that search engines extend to the domain’s better work.

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The rise of citation-driven visibility

The goal of SEO has traditionally been to rank. Increasingly, the more valuable outcome is to be cited or referenced in AI-generated summaries, pulled into knowledge panels, or sourced by other publishers as a primary reference. These two outcomes require fundamentally different content strategies.

LLMs and AI Overviews are selective about which sources they draw from. The selection is weighted toward pages with strong E-E-A-T signals, high specificity, and clear authoritativeness within a defined domain.

A site that has published hundreds of generic articles covering a topic broadly is less likely to be treated as a primary source than a site that has published fewer, more definitive pieces with clear depth and original perspective.

Volume doesn’t increase citation probability — it may actively reduce it by signaling that the domain is a generalist content producer rather than a reliable primary reference.

The long tail is saturated

The accessible long tail that drove content volume strategies for the better part of a decade no longer exists in the same form. Between 2010 and 2020, there were genuinely underserved keyword opportunities across most industries.

Today, in most commercial verticals, every remotely valuable query has multiple established pages competing for it, especially from high-authority domains with years of accumulated signals.

New content entering this environment doesn’t find open space. It enters a war of attrition against incumbents with advantages it can’t easily overcome. The marginal SEO return on a new article targeting a long-tail keyword is a fraction of what it was five years ago.

The economics only justify creation when there’s a genuinely differentiated angle, a proprietary data point, or a perspective that exists on your page that other pages can’t offer. A keyword existing is no longer a sufficient reason to publish.

At scale, these factors turn content growth into diminishing returns rather than compounding gains. The library becomes harder to maintain, harder for search engines to evaluate clearly, and harder to extract meaningful visibility from — regardless of how much is added to it.

Dig deeper: How to keep your content fresh in the age of AI

How to shift from content volume to impact

The implication is to change what publishing is for.

Volume targets made sense when more pages meant more opportunities. In the current environment, they measure the wrong thing. The more useful question isn’t how much content a team is producing, but how much of what already exists is actively contributing to visibility, and what is quietly working against it.

For most sites, that audit reveals the same pattern. A relatively small number of pages generate the majority of organic traffic. A larger number generates little to none, and a significant portion actively drains crawl allocation, fragments topical authority, or dilutes the behavioral signals that stronger pages depend on.

You need to move from expansion to consolidation. Existing pages that cover overlapping intent are stronger merged than competing. Thin pages that rank for nothing and engage no one are more valuable removed than retained.

The energy going into producing new content at volume is often better spent deepening the pages that already have authority and signal history behind them.

New content earns its place when it:

Addresses something genuinely unaddressed.
Offers a perspective that existing pages can’t.
Targets an intent the site currently lacks.

In practice, this means retiring a few default assumptions:

That publishing for every keyword variation is coverage.
That indexing is the same as performance.
That output volume is a proxy for strategic progress.

None of these were ever true measures of content effectiveness. They were convenient ones.

Dig deeper: Content strategy in 2026: What actually changed (and what didn’t)

A new model for content-driven growth

The replacement for volume isn’t simply better content. It’s a different definition of what content is trying to achieve.

Depth over breadth

Focus coverage on a smaller number of topics and develop them thoroughly. A single piece that addresses a topic with specificity, original perspective, and clear authorial expertise will outperform multiple pieces covering adjacent variations of the same theme.

Depth is what builds authority signals, drives engagement, and increases citation potential. Prioritize what the site can say with the most credibility.

Distribution as a multiplier

Allocate more effort to distribution. Publishing less creates capacity to deliver strong content to the right audiences. Distribution is a core part of SEO performance in a citation-driven environment.

Being citation-worthy

Create content that can serve as a primary source. Focus on clear points of view, verifiable expertise, and specific insights that other pages can’t replicate.

The goal is to be referenced in AI-generated summaries, cited by other publishers, and included in the knowledge systems search engines rely on.

Dig deeper: Content alone isn’t enough: Why SEO now requires distribution

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The uncomfortable truth

Sites that rely on frequency and broad coverage are being outperformed by sites that are clearly authoritative on a defined topic, consistently useful to a specific audience, and structured in a way that search systems can evaluate with confidence.

Prioritize depth, clarity of expertise, and consistency within a focused topic area. Treat each published page as a long-term asset that requires ongoing maintenance, evaluation, and improvement.

The content factory model is no longer effective. The approach that replaces it requires more effort, stronger editorial standards, and a higher bar for what gets published.

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How to measure paid social’s impact on PPC

April 28, 2026/0 Comments/in Search Engine Land, Web Design News/by Dubado Solutions

If your paid social campaigns aren’t converting, you may be undervaluing their impact. Your brand’s exposure on social media can influence other parts of your marketing that platform metrics don’t capture.

Here’s how to design and measure a test to understand how paid social influences your other marketing channels, including PPC.

Step 1: Determine your hypothesis

Start with what you want to learn, then define a hypothesis you can realistically evaluate with your data.

For example, this is a common hypothesis for measuring paid search lift from social traffic:

Search lift hypothesis: Increasing spend on social media will increase brand search volume and overall PPC CTRs.
Logic:
- Social ads build brand awareness. As more people become familiar with our brand, they will search for it more often when making research and purchase decisions.
- As more people are exposed to our brand, they will increasingly click on our PPC ads regardless of their search term (i.e., increasing non-brand and brand CTRs).
- People exposed multiple times to our brand will have a higher trust factor in our products, and therefore, our conversion rates will increase.
Measurement:
- Impression and click volume for our branded terms.
- CTR changes for brand and non-brand terms.
- Conversion rate changes for brand and non-brand terms.

Your hypothesis could have a different scope, such as measuring paid and organic lift from social spend or an increase in direct traffic.

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Step 2: The test

The next step is to set up the test parameters. Generally, measuring before and after a change is a mistake, as seasonality or other factors can affect your test results.

The most common test setup is a geographic split. In this test, we’ll increase social spend for only a set of geographies. Then we’ll examine the PPC data for the geographies where we ran the test and compare them with areas where we did not.

As you choose geographies, you’ll want to control for other variables that may affect your test. Here are some common issues that companies have run into and need to control for in their tests and measurements:

You sponsor a sports team, and they’re playing during your test.
- If the game is regionally televised, this can dramatically affect your test results.
You’re running TV commercials in only certain regions.
You choose experimental geographies with many out-of-region commuters, such as New York City, and include New Jersey and Connecticut in your control group.
- In these instances, grouping a region and its surrounding commuter areas together, and placing other cities with similar characteristics, such as Chicago and Philadelphia, in a different group, can help balance these tests. (Note: in this example, we’re splitting New Jersey in half.)
Seasonal or local events. Large conferences, festivals, or major weather events can affect your data.

Your control and experimental groups should be statistically similar across factors such as income levels, and urban versus rural regions.

As you set up and measure your test, consider your budget. If you increase social spend and expect higher clicks and conversions for your PPC campaigns, ensure you have the budget to capture the increased demand.

Examine your impression share and impression share lost to budget before and after the test to ensure budget limits won’t severely impact your results.

Dig deeper: Why PPC tests in 2026 call for nuance, not winners

Step 3: The measurement

Measurement can go from very simple to extremely complex.

At a simple level, you can compare platform data to see how your data changed. In this case, a Google Ads report shows how pausing social spending and influencer campaigns across all social platforms (TikTok, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, etc.) affects performance.

For this test, pausing social spending yielded mixed results for conversion rates. As brand searches decreased, conversion rates in some regions increased, while in others they fell.

However, what was consistent was a dramatic drop in conversions.

You can get more sophisticated in your testing. Depending on your analytics setup, some companies want to measure touchpoint differences for their conversions. Others will want to measure overlap rates between social and paid search visitors, or examine attribution touchpoints and models.

Before you set up your test, ensure you have the measurement capabilities needed to understand and interpret the results.

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Step 4: Evaluation beyond the test criteria

As you run various tests, you want to measure the results against your hypothesis. However, it’s useful to list other variables worth evaluating beyond your test criteria.

This is where search consoles, analytics tools, CRM, internal data, and even the paid and organic report can come into play.

In one example, a company was running a test to see whether pausing several advertising channels, from social media to TV ads, would dramatically change its brand search volume. They hypothesized that their brand was so well known in the marketplace that they could cut back on several forms of brand advertising and reallocate that budget to other channels and non-brand advertising.

While the simple paid and organic report in Google Ads won’t tell you the full story about in-store revenue and direct traffic changes, it can serve as a signal to form an overall picture of a very complex test.

They had recently launched a new product line, and that line continued to see a large increase in traffic during the test. However, their most common brand terms saw significant declines from the test. This was a year-over-year comparison across a set of geographies, rather than a period-to-period comparison, to help correct for the increase in holiday traffic that would have occurred during the previous period.

The results were by far the most dramatic I’ve ever seen in this type of test, to the point it was clear other variables had to be in play that could affect the test.

This takes you to the sniff test. Rely on your experience with data to make common sense adjustments. If you look at the data and it just doesn’t seem right, ask yourself whether this makes sense, if it’s a math quirk (common with low data), or if other unforeseen variables are in play.

In this example, no one believed the results should be this dramatic. The company stopped running the test and began an internal evaluation of its organic presence, including Google’s recent updates, changes to AI Overviews, AI engagement, and other factors affecting its web presence beyond its usual marketing channels.

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What to do with your social impact tests

The test setup is simple:

Determine your hypothesis.
Decide how you will test. The easiest setup is a geographic split.
Make sure you can measure the results.
Launch the tests.
Evaluate the metrics for your hypothesis.
Examine other metrics for insight or additional testing ideas.

For some companies, Facebook and other social channels are their top conversion channels, and these tests won’t be applicable. For others, social media advertising results often look poor when evaluated in isolation.

In these examples, the companies were already running many social media campaigns, so the test was to reduce social media spend. If you don’t run much social media, your test will be to increase your social media spend to see how it affects your data.

I’ve seen a lot of these tests, and the results are highly inconsistent across companies. Many companies will increase their social media spend and see little change in their data. Others will increase their spend and see a nice lift in overall performance. These are tests you need to run yourself, as your results will vary by company.

Running geographic split tests in your social media campaigns and then measuring the results on paid or organic search traffic can give you insights into how to leverage social media campaigns for other marketing channels.

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The SEO Update by Yoast – May 2026

April 28, 2026/0 Comments/in Web Design News, Yoast SEO/by Dubado Solutions

The SEO Update by Yoast – May 2026

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21 May 2026

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Join Carolyn Shelby and Alex Moss as they unpack the most important SEO news, algorithm shifts, and industry developments – so you can focus on what actually moves the needle.