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Hydration and SEO: How it works and why it matters

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Hydration and SEO- How it works and why it matters

If your site runs on a framework like Next.js or Nuxt, hydration shapes how your pages become interactive, but it’s rarely explained in terms that matter to SEOs.

It’s more approachable than it sounds. Here’s what hydration is, how it works, where it affects SEO (and where it doesn’t), and how different frameworks handle it.

What is hydration?

Hydration is the process of JavaScript running in your browser “taking over” the static HTML built on the server, turning it into a page you can actually interact with.

Here’s the process:

  • The server builds complete, fully formed HTML and sends it to your browser. You see the content right away, but it isn’t interactive. The buttons don’t work yet, and nothing responds to clicks.
  • Hydration happens when the page’s framework (Next.js, Nuxt, SvelteKit, and others) finishes loading. It walks over the existing HTML, attaches event listeners, and reconnects the visible markup with the logic that makes it work.
  • After hydration, the page behaves like a normal interactive app.

Server-rendered HTML paints quickly, which is great for first impressions and often for Largest Contentful Paint (LCP). As the timeline below shows, traditional hydration means the page isn’t actually usable until hydration finishes.

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Hydration adds interactivity, not content

Hydration doesn’t add content to the page. The text, images, and layout already arrived from the server. It only adds behavior, wiring up the existing HTML so it can respond to you. Put simply, before hydration you can read the page, and after hydration you can use it.

You can see this side by side below. The only difference between the two pages is whether the button responds.

Don’t confuse hydration with the rendering pattern, which determines where and when the page is built. Server-side rendering (SSR), static site generation (SSG), and client-side rendering (CSR) each decide how much of the page arrives as finished HTML versus how much JavaScript builds later in the browser.

Because hydration runs on server-rendered (SSR) and static (SSG) pages, the content is already present in the initial HTML. Google can index that content from the initial HTML instead of relying on the render step, which is more reliable than a client-rendered blank shell.

When hydration becomes an SEO problem

Most of the time, hydration isn’t directly an SEO issue. It only becomes one when something breaks, usually a mismatch. This is when the server’s HTML and what the framework builds in the browser don’t agree.

A mismatch typically comes from one of a few sources:

  • Content rendered from a browser-only API that the server can’t access, like localStorage.
  • A value that changes between the server and client, such as new Date().
  • A third-party script or browser extension that alters the DOM before the framework hydrates it.
  • Invalid HTML that the browser rewrites in the background, producing a structure the framework didn’t expect.

In these cases, hydration can’t reconcile the two versions, so the framework throws out the mismatched part and re-renders it. The exact process depends on the framework.

Here, a <time> value from new Date() renders differently on the server and in the browser, forcing a re-render.

That creates problems on three fronts. The re-render makes the page feel sluggish (INP) and shifts the layout (CLS). It can also leave the page outright broken because event listeners may fail to attach, causing buttons and forms to stop working.

In severe cases, because Google may read the raw server HTML before rendering the JavaScript, it can index the version that’s about to be discarded, storing content visitors never actually see.

Developers can resolve these issues by fixing the underlying causes of the mismatches. For example, they can use valid HTML so the browser doesn’t rewrite it behind the scenes.

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How to spot hydration problems on a live site

Hydration errors aren’t as explicit on a live site as they are during development. Start by checking the browser’s Developer Tools console for hydration or JavaScript warnings, then use these additional checks:

  • Watch the page load for content that shifts, flickers, or stays unresponsive.
  • Run important templates through Google Search Console’s URL Inspection tool to see how the page is rendered.
  • Crawl in JavaScript-rendering mode (Screaming Frog, Sitebulb) to compare rendered output against raw HTML at scale.

How frameworks handle hydration

Modern frameworks take different approaches to hydration, including ways to reduce or skip it, to balance performance, interactivity, and JavaScript execution.

The most common approaches are:

  • Full hydration: The whole page hydrates in one go. It sounds simple, but it ships the most JavaScript and puts the most work on the main thread.
  • Partial hydration: Only the interactive bits (“islands”) hydrate. The static parts stay as plain HTML and never get touched. Astro’s islands architecture is built around this.
  • Progressive hydration: The page hydrates in pieces, either as sections scroll into view or on a schedule, instead of all at once. Angular’s incremental hydration works this way.

Two newer approaches sidestep hydration:

  • React Server Components: Some components render entirely on the server and ship zero JavaScript, so there’s nothing to hydrate on the client.
  • Resumability: It skips hydration completely. The page picks up exactly where the server left off, with no components re-running on load. Qwik does this. It’s also the newest of these approaches and the least battle-tested.

Here’s how they compare:

Technique What hydrates JavaScript shipped Example
Full hydration The entire page Most Next.js (Pages Router)
Partial hydration (islands) Only interactive components Less Astro
Progressive hydration The page, in pieces over time Same total, spread out Angular
React Server Components Nothing (for server-only parts) Less Next.js (App Router)
Resumability Nothing, hydration is skipped Least Qwik

What this means for your site

Most of the time, hydration isn’t an SEO problem. It only becomes one when the server’s HTML and the browser’s rendered version disagree.

Newer frameworks leave less room for that to happen because each generation ships less JavaScript and does less work in the browser. Still, the mismatches that do surface matter, especially when search engines index a version of the page your visitors never see.

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Used or cited: The two ways brands appear in AI search

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Used or cited: The two ways brands appear in AI search

Ranking within Google’s traditional search results provides diminishing returns. Ads, AI Overviews, and other search engine results page (SERP) features push organic links further down the page.

As the search landscape changes, how should brands adapt to ensure they’re represented in AI-powered responses?

The more you know about how AI engines use your brand’s information and when they cite it, the better you can use AI search to your advantage. With that knowledge, you can move beyond whether AI models know your brand and start developing your own AI visibility strategy.

Collapse of the click economy

It’s important for most brands to understand AI search and begin developing an AI SEO strategy as quickly as possible. While a full transformation from organic to AI search appears to be years away, AI SEO may eventually replace traditional SEO.

Google is already leaning heavily on AI search. As CEO Sundar Pichai said in an April article from The Verge: 

  • “Search had a strong quarter with AI experiences driving usage, queries at an all-time high, and 19% revenue growth.”

At the same time, users are adapting to AI search features. When users encounter an AI-powered summary in search results, they click a blue link just 8% of the time, a Pew Research study found. When they don’t encounter AI summaries, they click blue links 15% of the time.

Although AI search traffic is still limited, it tends to have a higher conversion rate than organic search traffic. AI traffic had a conversion rate of 11.4%, compared to 5.3% for organic search traffic, per a Similarweb study.

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Brand presence within AI engines: Usage vs. citation

Brands can exist in AI systems in two distinct ways: usage and citation.

AI engines ingest information about your brand and use it when responding to search queries. This is somewhat similar to how Google traditionally indexes pages before ranking and serving them in search results.

When AI engines use your content, they may also mention your brand as an unlinked citation. This can drive discovery and may prompt users to search for and engage with your brand.

Citation occurs when an AI engine directly references your brand as a source of information. This may be a link to your web page, a link to your social profile, or a clickable phone link that lets users call you.

Within OpenAI, usage and citation rely on separate technical levers. As OpenAI’s documentation explains, there are four distinct user agents, with OAI-SearchBot and GPTBot deployed separately. Other AI systems have similar controls and measures that point to the same distinction.

Why citations are only part of the AI visibility equation

AI engines often answer questions directly without necessarily citing web sources. This isn’t a new phenomenon. Before AI Overviews, Google tried something similar with featured snippets.

ChatGPT retrieves almost the exact same number of cited (~16.57) and uncited (~16.58) URLs to generate an average response, according to an Ahrefs study. Yet Reddit accounts for more than two-thirds (67.8%) of uncited URLs. As a result, comparing cited and uncited URLs is really a comparison between search results and Reddit API output.

This demonstrates that many AI systems are biased in the uncited information they provide to users. Certain platforms and websites are better than others at helping brands appear in AI answers. Brands that try to force themselves into AI models without understanding where those models source most of their information will be at a distinct disadvantage.

How to improve AI usage and citation for your brand

Start by tracking your brand’s status and progress over time. Run a representative selection of prompts through an AI visibility platform and examine the citation sources. Where do they land, and what does that tell you?

There are many emerging AI citation tracking platforms to choose from. Established platforms like Semrush and Ahrefs have also integrated AI tracking features.

Scale your tracking and research efforts as much as possible. This can be difficult because AI prompt tracking often relies on API calls and is more expensive than traditional search ranking tracking.

As long as your sample is broadly representative, most tracking platforms will pull multiple responses and calculate some type of average. Although the volume of data is smaller, it’s usually quite rich.

Don’t forget to read AI and data vendor studies. They’re valuable sources of information because they show where AI engines pull information from.

Continual monitoring and adaptation are key. Over time, you can place your brand within the sources AI engines rely on most heavily.

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Should you bother with traditional search rankings?

Yes, you should continue to pursue traditional search rankings, but not for the reasons you might think. The connection between organic ranking positions and performance has become much more nebulous.

However, Ahrefs research suggests a correlation between AI citations and Google ranking positions, at least for Google AI Overviews. A July 2025 study found that 76.1% of pages cited in AI Overviews ranked in Google’s top 10 organic search results. For AI Overviews, which may become a dominant force in AI search over the coming years, traditional rankings still seem to matter.

How AI Overview citations rank in the SERPs

AI engines rarely cite generic content that restates what other sources already say, an April study from Semrush found. Content that earns citations adds unique value.

This aligns with Google’s helpful content guidance, which encourages brands to publish original information. Producing content with a unique, trusted, and statistically grounded perspective can also help improve Google rankings.

Since many tactics for earning higher organic rankings can also earn AI citations, there’s no reason to abandon traditional SEO techniques and content strategies.

The growth of AI visibility and the fate of traditional SEO

Both usage and citation require continual tracking and analysis. To increase the likelihood that AI engines use your brand’s knowledge and content, get your brand into the sources each AI model relies on. To earn citations, stay crawlable, rank organically, and say something original.

Classic SEO still earns its keep because the techniques that win organic rankings often earn AI citations as well. Yet the returns are diminishing, and AI SEO may one day replace traditional SEO altogether. That’s still a long way off, so for now, keep ranking, start tracking, and pursue both.

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Google merchant listings support sale duration and product category

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Google has updated its merchant listing structured data to support sale duration and product category property. This is to more align the merchant listing structured data support within Google Search with Google Merchant Center feed support.

Sale duration. Google added a new section on “Sale duration” to the Merchant listing structured data help document. Google said, “this explains how to use the validFrom, validThrough, and priceValidUntil schema.org properties to set the effective range for sale prices, including best practices and examples for placement on either Offer or PriceSpecification nodes.” Google added this because it “aligns schema.org usage with the Merchant Center feed attribute sale_price_effective_date, providing clear instructions and best practices for merchants using structured data.”

Here is that new section:

Product category. Google also updated that document to include support for Product.category property.

Google wrote it has updated the Merchant listing documentation to detail how the Product.category property can be used with both Text and CategoryCode types. “This aligns with the Google Merchant Center feed specifications for the product_type and google_product_category attributes,” Google added. Google also said this is to “help merchants provide both merchant-defined and Google-defined category information within their schema.org markup, enhancing product information for Google Search and Shopping.”

Here is what was added:

Why we care. If you maintain merchant listing structured data for Google, these additions may be useful. Product category support can help Google understand more about the products you are feeding it, which may help with showing that product for more relevant queries. Google’s sale duration support can let you plan your product sales more effectively and efficiently when updating your merchant listing structured data.

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How to get the most from Microsoft Advertising campaigns

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How to get more from Microsoft Advertising than a campaign import

If you’re struggling to scale performance with Microsoft Advertising, you may be treating it as a place to replicate a strategy developed elsewhere.

Import can get you live fast. Performance comes from adding human judgment, Microsoft-specific structure, foundational measurement, controls tailored to your business needs, and a broad range of creative assets that help AI understand your products or services.

The strongest accounts share a common approach: Import is a starting point, visual creatives unlock more demand and better performance, and AI performs best when you give it the right structure, creative, measurement, and guardrails.

Here’s how to use Microsoft-specific mechanics to improve performance while avoiding common pitfalls.

Note: I’m a Microsoft employee, and this article was written as objectively as possible. I’ve also included hidden gems sourced from the community that highlight favorite features where relevant.

1. Start with import, but don’t stop there

Import is useful because it removes friction. It can bring over structure, assets, and settings from Google, Meta, or Pinterest so you can launch faster. The mistake is assuming a successful import means your Microsoft Advertising strategy is finished.

Imported campaigns preserve yesterday’s assumptions. Microsoft Advertising still requires decisions about budget, bidding, audiences, creative, measurement, reporting, and AI-powered opportunities.

Decide whether sync helps or holds you back

One of the most important import decisions is whether future changes from the source platform should continue syncing to Microsoft Advertising. If your goal is to mirror another platform, automatic sync may reduce overhead. If your goal is to build a Microsoft-specific strategy, automatic sync can quietly erase the optimizations you make after launch.

To access the full list of import settings, go to Manual import > Advanced settings. Review which settings should stay, which should change, and which Microsoft-specific opportunities weren’t part of the original structure.

Review budgets, bids, currency, and Microsoft-only options

Imported budgets may not reflect the opportunity or efficiency available, especially if you consolidate campaigns with ad-group-level controls. 

Imported bids may preserve assumptions from another platform instead of giving Microsoft Advertising room to optimize for its own auction dynamics, audiences, and conversion data.

Review Microsoft-specific settings after import

Import also can’t choose Microsoft-specific opportunities for you. Review these settings after launch:

  • LinkedIn profile targeting: Bid up or down, observe, and use LinkedIn profile data as a Performance Max audience signal. Microsoft supports Company, Industry, Job Function, and Seniority.
  • Ad-group-level scheduling and location targeting: Override campaign-level schedules and location targets at the ad group level. You have access to the same settings, including whether ads serve in the user’s time zone or the account’s time zone.
  • Impression-based remarketing: Target, exclude, or adjust bids based on someone seeing your ad. As long as there’s at least one Audience ads campaign or ad group in the source seed lists (up to 20), any campaign can target any other campaign (for example, search can target search). Impression-based remarketing doesn’t require an existing email list or pixel, and members can remain on the list for up to 30 days after a single impression.
  • Multimedia ads: Visual-heavy ads that occupy a unique position on the SERP and are eligible to serve in Copilot. They have their own auction and can appear on the same SERP as your text ad without competing against it. You can bid more aggressively for Multimedia ads and create them in standard search campaigns by selecting that ad type instead of responsive search ads (RSAs).
  • Cross-account portfolio bidding: If you need to launch a new account for the same brand, you can allow it to benefit from the conversion data of an existing account.
  • Microsoft Clarity: A free behavioral analytics tool that helps you understand how people and AI engage with your site. It can reveal whether landing pages create friction, are easy for people and AI to understand, and which grounding queries (the searches AI performs in the background) your site naturally appears for and whether they align with your target search terms.
  • Creative and editorial considerations: Microsoft has stricter advertising policies than many other platforms, but it also offers some unique capabilities, such as allowing exclamation points in headlines and disclaimers of up to 500 characters that don’t take up ad space. Note: If you enable disclaimers, your ads will only serve when the disclaimers can appear alongside them.

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2. Build the signal foundation before optimizing

Account-level settings may seem overly technical. In practice, they determine whether AI receives clean signals or learns from bad data. Settings like business attributes also let you communicate why customers should choose your business.

Verify conversion tracking and attribution before changing bids

The best bidding strategy can’t compensate for incomplete conversion data. Microsoft Advertising provides account-level settings that help ensure conversion and attribution data flow correctly, including:

  • Microsoft Click ID (MSCLID): Helps connect ad clicks to conversion activity.
  • View-through conversions: Help you correctly attribute the role of visual creatives in the path to conversion.
  • Simplified conversion setup: Enables intelligent conversion action creation.

Without verified tracking, it’s easy to blame bidding, keywords, audiences, or creative when the real problem is incomplete or inconsistent conversion data.

If your organization relies heavily on UTM parameters, validate how auto-tagging and manual tagging interact. The goal is clean reporting, not duplicated parameters or attribution confusion caused by mislabeling.

Treat creative inputs as signals

When enabled, Microsoft Advertising can use images from your landing pages to create more compelling, relevant ad experiences that better match a potential customer’s intent and context. If you have strong, well-maintained landing pages, this can improve creative asset coverage without having to manually build every image variation for every campaign type.

AI-optimized creative works best when your site already contains brand-safe, relevant, high-quality imagery. If your pages contain images you wouldn’t want appearing in ads, or if the imagery is sparse, text-heavy, or doesn’t represent the offer well, upload the assets you want the system to use. Auto-retrieved images reduce creative friction. They don’t replace creative strategy.

Use account-level negatives carefully

Account-level negatives help eliminate unwanted traffic patterns across your account. Microsoft supports phrase and exact match negatives. If you want to eliminate a root problem, a phrase match negative is likely the better option. For a specific search term, an exact match negative may work better. Neither negative match type accounts for close variants.

Use account-level negatives only for terms you’re confident shouldn’t serve anywhere in the account. Keep nuanced exclusions at the campaign or ad group level.

3. Use structure and controls to help AI perform

Microsoft Advertising gives you useful controls, but the goal isn’t to micromanage every lever. Give AI cleaner inputs, stronger guardrails, and fewer structural problems to solve. Use human judgment to guide the system.

Concentrate signals instead of fragmenting them

Ad-group-level location and ad schedule settings can reduce the need to create duplicate campaigns or split budgets across multiple accounts.

I’ve seen advertisers create separate campaigns solely to accommodate different geographies or schedules. In many cases, those settings can be managed at the ad group level, resulting in a simpler structure and more concentrated conversion volume.

That consolidation matters because automated bidding generally performs best with stronger, more consistent signals. A practical benchmark is to aim for at least 30 conversions in 30 days, where possible. That level of steady signal gives automated bidding a better chance of making stable decisions than a fragmented structure with thin conversion volume.

Use scheduling, location, and disclaimers as guardrails

Location targeting deserves review. Microsoft Advertising supports geographic targets, radius targeting, and exclusions, but city-, county-, metro-, or DMA-level strategies may be more practical than forcing ZIP codes.

If Microsoft doesn’t support a specific location target, it defaults to the next-highest level (for example, ZIP code to city or city to DMA). If you need narrow targeting, consider using exclusions.

Avoid unnecessary learning volatility

Large bid or budget changes can create performance volatility as the system adjusts. As a general rule, keeping bid or budget changes below 15% over a 14-day period can help reduce avoidable learning volatility. Larger changes may still be necessary, but make them intentionally rather than accidentally resetting the system’s learning rhythm.

Seasonality adjustments help when you expect a temporary conversion rate change because of a sale, event, promotion, or other short-term spike. Data exclusions help when conversion tracking breaks or reports misleading data you don’t want automated bidding to learn from. These tools aren’t bidding hacks. They protect automation from learning the wrong lesson.

Use conversion value rules whenever possible

The best way to communicate with the bidding algorithm is through conversion value rules grounded in accurate conversion tracking. They let you create if/then statements for devices, audiences, and locations to add a monetary amount to or multiply your conversion value.

Microsoft supports bid adjustments across audiences, devices, demographics, locations, and time. Multiple adjustments can compound. If a user qualifies for several categories at once, your bid may become more aggressive than intended.

Before adding another layer, ask whether you truly want to spend more to reach that audience, in that location, on that device, during that time. If you want the algorithm to understand value, meaningful conversion values and conversion value rules are usually stronger signals. If values aren’t reliable, CPA-oriented bidding with carefully chosen adjustments can still work.

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4. Use audiences, inventory, and creative to shape demand

Microsoft’s differentiated audiences, inventory, and creative formats can help you generate and shape new demand rather than only capture existing demand.

Use LinkedIn profile targeting intentionally

LinkedIn profile targeting remains one of the most unique audience capabilities in Microsoft Advertising. You can apply bid adjustments based on company, industry, job function, and seniority. 

Multiple targets within the same LinkedIn profile category act as “or” statements, while targeting across categories narrows the signal. A company target plus a seniority target is more restrictive than choosing two companies, which is useful when intentional and expensive when accidental because bid adjustments compound.

For B2B advertisers, this can be especially useful, but it isn’t limited to enterprise brands. Any business selling to specific professional audiences can use these signals to prioritize valuable traffic.

For example, if a brand is trying to reach someone traveling for work with local experiences or travel gear, it might bid up on someone with a “Business development” job function in an industry with a conference taking place in the next two to three weeks.

Build audiences from exposure, not just site visits

Traditional remarketing relies on someone visiting your website. Impression-based remarketing introduces another option: building audiences based on people who’ve been exposed to your advertising. 

A prospect may not click the first time they encounter your brand, particularly in formats such as Audience ads, Premium Streaming, or Multimedia ads. Impression-based remarketing lets you continue that conversation later rather than treating the initial exposure as a failed interaction. An impression can be the starting point for an audience strategy.

Reevaluate search partners and exclusions

Many advertisers disable search partners because they assume they behave like display network expansions on other platforms. Search partner inventory is still search inventory, and Microsoft provides publisher visibility, so you can evaluate it rather than reject it based on assumptions. 

Recent Microsoft studies have shown a 45% improvement in conversion rates and a 20% reduction in low-quality impressions tied specifically to Search Partner inventory, independent of advertiser optimization.

If specific publishers aren’t performing, use the available controls. You can manage unlimited exclusion lists at the MCC account level, and each list can exclude up to 2,500 URLs. If you need to protect a campaign’s ability to target a placement, such as when running Performance Max and Audience ads simultaneously, exclude domains surgically rather than cutting off useful inventory.

Use Multimedia ads to expand your SERP presence and build impression-based remarketing lists

Multimedia ads participate in their own auction and can appear in prominent visual placements on the search results page. A traditional search ad and a Multimedia Ad can both appear for the same brand, increasing your presence on the results page. 

Multimedia ads can be enabled at the campaign level, with ad-group-level decisions that help direct budget toward or away from the format.

They also matter because they can amplify your visual presence, serve as ads in Copilot, and qualify for impression-based remarketing. Their value isn’t limited to direct-click performance. They can connect search visibility, visual storytelling, and remarketing strategy.

Use Audience ads to expand reach

Audience ads (display, native, and video) can be a controlled way to expand reach, support full-funnel strategy, and build remarketing inputs that inform other parts of the account.

Audience ads support audience strategies, placement preferences, content category controls, and creative preview before launch. For organizations that require legal, brand, product, or executive approval, preview capability can simplify the review process.

Use creative and editorial details to reduce friction

Microsoft Advertising has editorial policies you should understand rather than assuming every platform evaluates ads the same way. Claims such as “best,” “number one,” or other superiority language need clear landing page support. 

Microsoft Advertising also allows some emphasis you might not expect, such as one exclamation point in headlines, but that flexibility doesn’t remove the need for substantiated claims and clean final URLs.

Editorial issues often get misdiagnosed as platform friction. In many cases, the issue is a specific asset rather than the entire ad, but final URL problems are more fundamental and can prevent an ad from serving.

Extensions and visual assets can also help brands communicate more value before users reach the landing page, especially in competitive categories where plain text may not provide enough differentiation.

5. Treat PMax, AI Max, and Copilot as AI opportunities with guardrails

Microsoft’s approach to AI is most useful when viewed as an augmentation rather than a replacement. Human-centered AI should enable thoughtful scale while preserving advertiser consent, transparency, and trust.

Know what Performance Max is designed to enable

Performance Max can be powerful, but it requires a different mindset from traditional campaign structures. Asset groups aren’t ad groups. There’s no asset-group-level equivalent to ad-group negatives, and you can’t force one asset group to take priority over another.

Performance Max is designed for AI-driven allocation. If strict control is your priority, traditional Search, Shopping, and Audience campaigns may provide clearer governance. The best way to influence Performance Max is through:

  • Strong audience signals: Include impression-based remarketing and LinkedIn profile targeting, which are unique to Microsoft.
  • Relevant creative: Copilot can pull creative from your landing page and adapt existing creative with tonal shifts, rewrites, or formatting improvements.
  • Thoughtful search themes: Including the same search themes as your exact match keywords makes it harder for Performance Max because exact match keywords take priority in the auction.
  • Meaningful conversion tracking: Ensure you have accurate conversion tracking and conversion values because Performance Max needs conversions to perform effectively.
  • Landing pages that clearly communicate the offer: Your landing page is a critical part of the matching and creative logic. If you don’t use clear language, the algorithm may struggle to identify which queries are a good match. It also makes it harder for people to do business with you.

If you run the same search theme as an exact match keyword, there’s a strong chance the exact match keyword will serve instead of the Performance Max campaign. Use search themes as testing grounds rather than duplicating exact match keywords.

Performance Max website URL reporting provides URL-level visibility into spend, clicks, impressions, and conversions. This gives you more to work with than impression-only reporting and can make automated campaign testing easier to justify.

Separate campaigns when budget separation matters

If budget separation matters, create distinct campaigns rather than forcing multiple business objectives into a single Performance Max campaign. Microsoft’s campaign capacity of 300 Performance Max campaigns, compared with Google’s 100, can be useful when meaningful budget priorities require separation.

For example, if you have two equally important products with drastically different tROAS goals, you wouldn’t want them to share budgets because there’s no way to specify which asset group or product should take priority. They’re better served in separate campaigns with distinct budgets and tROAS goals aligned to their margins.

The rule is simple: If related assets and audiences can share a budget, consolidate Performance Max campaigns to strengthen conversion volume. If budget separation matters, build that control at the campaign level instead of trying to force it through asset groups.

Evaluate AI Max and Copilot for new opportunities

AI Max now addresses many of the use cases that once made Dynamic Search ads valuable. If your goal is to let Microsoft AI better match queries, creative, and landing pages, AI Max may be the better place to focus your testing.

That doesn’t mean you should abandon existing high-performing campaigns. It means you should be intentional about whether you’re investing in legacy dynamic functionality or AI-powered capabilities built on Microsoft’s latest technology.

Ads can appear in relevant Copilot experiences when Microsoft determines there’s clear commercial intent and the ad may help the user. Ads have served in Copilot since 2024. The goal isn’t to force ads into AI answers. It’s to preserve a useful experience for the user.

Copilot isn’t a separate campaign type you manually opt into. Performance Max, AI Max, exact, phrase, and broad match search campaigns, Multimedia ads, and Shopping ads are all eligible to serve in Copilot. Performance Max and AI Max have the easiest time serving in Copilot because they can adapt to AI-driven experiences.

Use generative AI as a creative workflow and diagnostic tool

Copilot can help you brainstorm, rewrite, refine, and adapt creative across workflows, including Performance Max, responsive search ads, Multimedia ads, Audience ads, and other campaign types where you need to adjust tone, rewrite copy, or develop stronger variations. Copilot doesn’t replace the marketer. It reduces friction between strategy and iteration.

Ad Studio can generate new creative assets and make adjustments such as background modifications, seasonal refinements, location-specific tailoring, and additional aspect ratios. Its best use isn’t replacing the brand team. It’s accelerating iteration once the overall creative strategy is established.

AI-generated assets can also help diagnose how clearly your site communicates. If the outputs accurately represent your business, your site is likely sending clearer signals. If they consistently miss the mark, your landing pages, messaging, or content structure may be confusing both AI systems and people. The Performance Max campaign generator can serve as a useful diagnostic shortcut for the same reason. 

6. Use reporting and Clarity to diagnose before blaming the auction

No amount of AI, bidding nuance, or audience strategy can compensate for poor measurement. Microsoft Advertising provides extensive reporting visibility, and you should use it before making media-only decisions.

Use transparent reporting to make better decisions

Microsoft provides visibility into every search term that generates a click as part of its transparency approach. That visibility can reveal whether a query is:

  • Genuinely wasteful: There’s no business case for targeting that search.
  • An AI-driven match: It may seem questionable until you examine the customer journey with behavioral analytics.
  • A landing page issue masquerading as a traffic problem: Before adding a negative keyword, evaluate post-click behavior to determine whether the landing page or conversion tracking is the real issue.

Use Microsoft Clarity before you make campaign changes

Microsoft Clarity answers an important question: What happens after the click? It can show whether users engage with the page, get confused, abandon forms, encounter technical issues, or complete actions that aren’t being tracked correctly.

Clarity should be part of your diagnostic process before making campaign changes.

  • If people arrive and get stuck, the issue may be the landing page experience.
  • If they complete the desired action but conversions don’t appear in Microsoft Advertising, the issue may be tracking.
  • If they arrive and immediately disengage, the issue may be creative alignment, traffic quality, or the offer itself.

Clarity can also help you understand how AI systems interact with your content, including the grounding queries that led AI systems to cite your domain and recommendations for improving citation opportunities.

If AI systems cite your domain as relevant, that can validate your content strategy. If they don’t, or if the queries reveal mismatches, that may point to gaps in how your content communicates its value.

Every click they win is a customer you lose.

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See who’s stealing your traffic

Apply Microsoft-specific optimizations

You can import existing campaign structures and assets while also taking advantage of Microsoft-specific capabilities. AI can play a central role, serve as an occasional assist, or be used selectively, though scaling becomes more difficult without some level of AI adoption.

Testing Microsoft Advertising doesn’t require a large investment, but it does require getting the fundamentals right, including conversion tracking, bid-to-budget ratios, and creative that reflects the channel’s visual nature.

When you get those fundamentals right, Microsoft Advertising offers search term transparency, GDPR-compliant impression-based audiences, and opportunities to reach people across the surfaces where they work, live, and play. 

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Google Search Console gains reporting on social and video platforms

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Google Search Console has released what it calls platform properties, which is a way to see how well your social and video content is performing within Google Search. Google will let you see the performance of your content on Instagram, TikTok, X and YouTube performs on Google Search.

More details. Google wrote, “Now, you can easily track which search terms lead people to your Instagram, TikTok, X and YouTube content on Search, and see exactly how your audience is interacting with your posts.” You can see this information within Google Search Console’s performance report, insights report and achievement sections.

  • Performance report: View your total clicks, impressions, and additional metrics. Filter and sort this data to see which specific posts and queries are driving the most traffic. If you prefer to analyze your performance using another tool you can export the data.
  • Insights report: View a high-level overview of your recent traffic trends, your top-performing posts, and how people discover your account on Google.
  • Achievements: Track your growth and celebrate milestones, such as reaching a new threshold for total clicks from Google Search in the last 28 days.

This is similar to the social channels details we had in the Search Console insights reports.

Here is a screenshot of my X account performance report:

Here is a screenshot from Google’s blog post of the insights report:

How to set it up. You will need to verify your platform property within your Google Search Console account, here is how to do that:

  • Open Search Console
  • Go to the Search Console verification page, or open the property selector dropdown anywhere in Search Console and click “Add property.”
  • Select one of the four available platforms: Instagram, Tiktok, X, YouTube.
  • Follow the onscreen verification steps to securely authorize the connection.

Slow rollout. Google said platform properties will roll out gradually over the coming weeks, so there is a chance you won’t see this yet. To learn more about platform properties and how to set them up, see Google’shelp center documentation. We actually saw Google publish this help document a few weeks ago, but then it was quickly removed.

Search profiles. This is different from the new search profiles feature, which actually has its own analytics.

Why we care. Previously, Google has not given us a real way to see how our content performs on domains/properties we do not own. But now, we are going to have access to see how our content performs of domains/properties we do not have developer access to. This is pretty cool and I am excited to see what we can learn from this.

Be the brand AI recommends.

See where your brand appears in AI search, where competitors are winning, and what it takes to become the answer AI recommends.

See your AI visibility

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Building a brand worth finding: Signals that fuel discovery

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Building a brand worth finding: Signals that fuel discovery

For most of the past decade, organic marketers have operated with a clear north star: visibility. Get on Page 1. Get in the featured snippet. Get seen.

That north star has now moved.

The question I put to the room at SMX Advanced on June 5 wasn’t, “How do you get found?” It was the even harder question: “How do you get chosen?”

In 2026, the answers are no longer the same, and the gap between them is where most brands lose ground.

In AI search, your reputation precedes you 

The complex, multi-touchpoint user journey of exploration, evaluation, and conversion has been dramatically compressed. A single AI prompt now does the same work that previously required a dozen searches, three Reddit threads, and a couple of comparison sites.

AI search doesn’t reward the brand that shouted the loudest in paid media or stuffed the most keywords into its metadata. Instead, it rewards the brand with the strongest reputation in the spaces that matter, the same spaces the user journey once encompassed. Reddit threads, comparison sites, and the like all get ingested by LLMs and blended into a single synthesized answer. 

AI search citation material

In other words, your brand is no longer just what you say it is. It’s how AI understands your brand, and the algorithm is reading everything everyone else has ever said about you.

Brand-owned content, across websites and social channels, will always be self-serving and promotional. AI looks for third-party validation to back up those claims.

This shift changes everything for organic marketers. Our job has gone beyond building visibility to building a brand that, once found, is correctly understood and ultimately chosen. Those are three distinct challenges, and they require three distinct strategies.

Be the brand AI recommends.

See where your brand appears in AI search, where competitors are winning, and what it takes to become the answer AI recommends.

See your AI visibility

Found: Be present in your audience’s actual search ecosystem

The first challenge is still about discoverability, but we now work with a much broader canvas than just Google. Consumers now discover brands across ChatGPT, Reddit, YouTube, TikTok, Google, Quora, LinkedIn, and, yes, word of mouth. There are dozens of entry points into the discovery ecosystem, and you need to be credibly present in the ones your specific audience actually uses.

This starts with understanding your audience’s sources of influence: the publications, platforms, communities, and voices they genuinely trust. The intersection of semantic relevance, domain authority, and audience affinity tells you which third-party properties are worth targeting. For one B2B audience, that might be Wired, Tom’s Guide, or a LinkedIn group that actively discusses vendors in a particular vertical. For another, it’s r/smallbusiness and a Substack newsletter with 40,000 subscribers.

Once you know where your audience spends time, you can create content and earn your spot in the conversation in those exact places. This is targeted, audience-first, performance-driven PR and organic strategy that puts your brand in the conversations already happening at the decision point.

The data underscores the importance of earned media. Across the top commercial sectors we analyzed, 93% of AI search citations come from third-party sources. If you’re only investing in content that sits on your own domain, you’re invisible to the systems now doing the heavy lifting of brand discovery.

Understood: Consistent signals across every surface

Getting found is necessary, but it’s not a standalone effort. If you’re getting found by machines, your brand is understood well enough to be surfaced.

LLMs go beyond crawling your website. They synthesize a consensus picture of your brand from everything about you that exists online: reviews, Reddit discussions, press coverage, YouTube commentary, Trustpilot ratings, forum threads, and more. If those signals conflict with what you’re saying about yourself, you have a problem.

A brand that claims premium positioning but has thousands of articles questioning whether it’s actually luxury, a history of heavy discounting, and a Trustpilot score of 1.3 isn’t going to be recommended by AI as a premium option, regardless of how well-crafted its homepage copy is. The algorithm has read the whole story, not just your version of it.

This means brand messaging consistency is now an SEO issue. Every piece of owned, earned, and paid content needs to reinforce the same core associations — because the model is building a cohesive picture from all of it. Conflicting signals confuse customers and actively suppress your AI visibility.

Digital PR plays a critical role here. It engineers the external narrative. Through strategic media placements, expert commentary, and search-informed coverage, you shape what journalists write about you and what the models learn about you. The query fan-out (the range of prompts a potential customer might use) requires positive, consistent answers across every touchpoint where an LLM might look.

Get the newsletter search marketers rely on.

See terms.

Chosen: Earning the trust signals that tip the decision

The third challenge is the hardest and arguably the most important. Trust has always been an SEO currency. As clicks decline and zero-click search becomes the norm, its importance has only grown.

Brand appearance in AI Overviews is most strongly correlated with branded web mentions (i.e., the number of times your brand is positively named across authoritative third-party sources), according to an Ahrefs study. This is essentially digital PR’s core output, and it is one of the most powerful levers available to organic marketers right now.

Based on the last 4,000 pieces of U.S.- and U.K.-based coverage we’ve driven for our clients, 91% of AI search citations include expert insight rather than branded content or product pages. This means expert-backed, editorially independent coverage is critical. That’s why your internal experts are your most valuable asset in the current landscape, and why brands investing in genuine thought leadership, original research, and data-backed studies are pulling ahead.

The three content formats consistently driving LLM feature inclusion are product roundups and listicles (getting your brand into trusted “best of” editorials), reliable data-backed research that journalists and LLMs cite as authoritative, and expert thought leadership that positions your people as the go-to voices in your category.

What doesn’t work (and what Google has explicitly flagged in its recent release of GEO guidelines) is seeking inauthentic mentions using methods like artificial link schemes, fake expert personas, and manufactured coverage. Models are increasingly adept at distinguishing genuine authority from manufactured signals, and the reputational downside of getting caught is severe.

None of this works as a one-time effort. Multiple studies, including research from Waseda University, have identified a correlation between AI brand visibility and content recency.

Brands that maintain a steady drumbeat of credible, expert-backed third-party coverage don’t just appear more often in AI responses. They appear more confidently.

Frequency and freshness of coverage both matter. It’s not enough to deliver a one-off PR campaign. This is a strategic investment that needs to be “always on.”

If AI can’t find you, customers won’t either.

Track your visibility across AI search, uncover missed opportunities, and grow your presence where customers are asking questions.

See your AI visibility

The framework in practice

When talking about brand discovery in 2026, three words are essential: 

  • Found: Map your audience’s real sources of influence and be credibly present there — across the fragmented ecosystem where discovery now happens.
  • Understood: Ensure that everything said about your brand tells a consistent story: one that matches how you want to be positioned and reinforces the associations that drive preference.
  • Chosen: Continuously generate genuine trust signals through earned coverage, expert commentary, and third-party validation so that when a human or a machine is deciding between you and a competitor, the weight of credible external evidence tips in your favor.

The brands winning in organic search right now haven’t cracked some new technical trick. They’ve built a reputation that’s genuinely worth recommending and made sure the machines know it. Stop chasing the algorithm and start building something worth finding.

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How To Make AEO and GEO Profitable 

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Key Takeaways

  • AI visibility and AI profitability are not the same thing. Most teams are growing one without building the other. 
  • The four most common failure modes are optimizing for mentions over conversions, measuring AI visibility like rankings, chasing tactics without a revenue connection, and running AEO/GEO in a silo. 
  • AI-referred visitors convert at 8.3 times the rate of traditional traffic, close 62 percent faster, and generate 7 times more revenue per visitor. Those numbers only hold if your conversion architecture is built to receive them. 
  • The highest-performing campaigns share four traits: retrieval-ready content, strong authority signals, multi-channel distribution, and conversion systems designed for low-click environments. 
  • You can start building toward profitability in 90 days without a full overhaul, but the phases have to run in order. 

You might be showing up in ChatGPT answers. Getting cited in Google’s AI Overviews. Watching your brand mentions climb across the web. 

And still not seeing it move the revenue needle. 

That’s the problem a lot of marketing teams are grappling with right now. AI visibility is growing. Profitability isn’t keeping pace. After analyzing more than 100 AEO and GEO campaigns at NP Digital, I can tell you the issue isn’t the strategy itself. Most teams are simply optimizing for the wrong outcomes. 

A bar chart talking about where buyers discover brands.

If you already know what AEO and GEO are and you’re ready to actually make money from them, this post is for you. I’m going to break down exactly where the profitability gap comes from, what the winning campaigns have in common, and how to build toward revenue, not just visibility. 

Why Most AEO/GEO Efforts Don’t Make Money

Getting cited is not the same as getting paid. That distinction sounds obvious, but most AEO/GEO programs are structured around the former and hope the latter follows automatically. It doesn’t. 

After auditing campaigns across industries, NP Digital identified four failure modes that consistently prevent AI visibility from converting into revenue. 

An infographic covering why most AEO and GEO efforts fail.

Optimizing for mentions and citations. Mentions don’t pay the bills; conversions do. If your entire AEO/GEO program is oriented around getting named in AI responses, you’re measuring a proxy, not an outcome. A citation that doesn’t connect to a conversion path is brand awareness you can’t prove. 

Measuring AI visibility like rankings. Citation volume tells you nothing about pipeline. Teams that treat AI mention counts the same way they used to track keyword rankings end up with  

dashboards full of activity metrics and no way to show leadership what any of it is worth. 

Chasing AI-specific tactics in isolation. Schema updates, prompt engineering, entity optimization do matter, but tactics without distribution don’t compound. Teams that bolt on AEO/GEO tactics without building content and authority infrastructure underneath them tend to see short-term citation spikes that fade quickly. 

Running AEO/GEO separately from revenue goals. This is the biggest one. Visibility disconnected from business outcomes is overhead. The teams getting budget approved for AI search have tied it to pipeline, not impressions. 

NP Digital data tells the story clearly. AI visibility index climbed to 133 across tracked brands, while the profitability outcomes index reached 174. The gap between those two numbers is the opportunity this post addresses. 

The Profitability Gap: What Changes When Buyers Use AI

Buyers who find you through AI tools are not the same as buyers who find you through traditional search. They arrive differently, they behave differently, and they convert differently. 

The traditional funnel started with discovery through search, a click-through to compare options, an early-stage arrival that needed nurturing, and multiple touchpoints before a decision. The AI-influenced funnel runs differently. Research happens inside AI tools. Buyers validate brands before they ever click. They arrive later, already informed, and convert faster when trust exists. 

That shift is an advantage, but only if your conversion architecture is built to receive it. 

NP Digital data across 40-plus B2B and B2C campaigns makes the opportunity concrete. AI-referred visitors convert at 5.97 percent. Traditional traffic converts at 0.72 percent. Time to conversion drops from eight days to three. Revenue per visitor rises from $2.56 to $18.04. 

A bar chart comparing different AI-referred visitors and what converst faster.

The volume is still small. AI traffic accounts for about 0.58 percent of total traffic but drives 5.09 percent of sales. Lifetime value is also stronger at $325, up from $271 for Google-referred traffic. 

The math works. But capturing those numbers requires a funnel built for visitors who arrive intent-driven rather than still in the research phase. 

What the Profitable Campaigns Have in Common

Across the campaigns NP Digital analyzed, the ones generating real pipeline from AI search shared four traits. These traits reinforce each other, which is why building them together matters. 

A graphic talking about what profitable campaigns have in common.

Content Built for Retrieval

The content types that drive both AI citations and conversions are high-intent formats that answer specific questions buyers ask when they’re close to a decision. Not top-of-funnel awareness pieces. 

Comparison pages and alternatives content convert AI-referred traffic at 6.8 percent, the highest of any page type NP Digital tracked. First-party research and original data earn citations because they can’t be replicated elsewhere; they become reference points AI engines return to repeatedly. Bottom-funnel educational content and FAQ frameworks round out the top performers. 

Format is as important as topic. Lists and listicles account for 48 percent of AI citations in NP Digital’s research. Step-by-step guides come in at 17 percent. AI engines pull from content structured for easy parsing. Content not formatted for retrieval tends not to get retrieved. 

Strong Authority Signals

NP Digital scored six trust signals across ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, Claude, and Perplexity on a one-to-five scale. Third-party citations scored between 4.5 and 4.8, the single most consistent signal across every platform. Expert authorship scored between 4.0 and 4.6. 

AI engines reward signals that are difficult to manufacture: named, credentialed authors; external sources citing your content; consistent brand presence across multiple platforms. Publishing on your own site still matters, but earning coverage and mentions outside it is what drives citations. 

Multi-Channel Distribution

NP Digital tracked 75 brands across AI platforms and found a direct correlation between monthly publishing channels and AI visibility score. AI engines validate authority through repetition and consistency. Presence across YouTube, LinkedIn, Reddit, and PR channels signals to AI tools that your brand is real and relevant, not just self-published. 

A bar chart showing the top sources AI pulls from.

Conversion Architecture for Low-Click Environments

AI-referred visitors arrive pre-qualified. They’ve already done the research, compared options, and formed an opinion. A landing page designed for someone at the top of the funnel is the wrong tool for a visitor who’s already at the bottom. 

The brands capturing revenue from this traffic have built accordingly: fast pages, strong trust indicators placed prominently, simplified calls to action, bottom-funnel calculators and tools, and conversational paths that confirm a decision rather than explain a product category. 

A graphic showing the AI traffic conversion rate by different landing page types.

How to Measure AEO/GEO for Revenue, Not Just Visibility

The metrics most teams track are measuring the wrong thing. Rankings, raw traffic, click-through rate, AI mention counts, these are visibility metrics. They tell you whether people are seeing your brand. They don’t tell you whether it’s generating revenue. 

The teams getting AEO/GEO budgets renewed are the ones connecting citations to pipeline. That requires a different measurement stack. 

Stop tracking: raw rankings, organic traffic volume as a primary metric, click-through rate, AI mention counts, raw citation tracking, vanity impressions. 

Start tracking: influenced conversions, brand search lift, assisted pipeline, returning visitor quality, and conversion rate by intent source. 

NP Digital’s outcomes-first measurement framework organizes this into three tiers. At the foundation: visibility and influence signals, including brand search volume, share of voice, community engagement, and earned media. In the middle: demand signals, including multi-touch attribution, AI-driven lead scoring, behavioral intent, and consumption depth. At the top: business outcomes, including revenue, CAC:LTV ratio, retention, expansion, and advocacy. 

Build reporting from the bottom up. Track from the top down. The goal is a dashboard leadership reads as a business document, not a marketing activity report. 

NP Digital research shows how much KPI priorities have shifted. Leadership priority for rankings dropped from 88 to 63 between 2024 and 2026. Pipeline contribution rose from 23 to 70. Revenue growth held steady at 96 to 98. Your measurement framework needs to reflect where leadership attention already sits. 

A graphic comparing raknings and traffic over time.

A practical starting point: for every vanity metric on your current dashboard, add one outcome metric alongside it. That shift is often enough to change the budget conversation. 

The 90-Day Plan to Turn AEO/GEO Into Revenue

You don’t need to overhaul everything at once. You do need to run the phases in order. Each phase builds on the one before it, and skipping ahead consistently produces weaker results. 

Days 1 to 30: Audit and Fix the Foundation

Start by auditing your current AI visibility across ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews. Search your brand name and core topics. Note where you appear, where competitors appear instead, and where no one appears. Those gaps are your priority list. 

From there, identify high-intent content gaps where competitors are getting cited and you aren’t. Improve structured formatting across your highest-traffic pages with clear headers, FAQ sections, and concise direct answers. Strengthen author and entity signals. Clean up trust indicators including reviews, third-party citations, and brand consistency across platforms. Apply schema and retrieval-friendly formatting throughout. 

One consistent finding across NP Digital’s audits: brand authority, PR and mentions, and community visibility are almost always the lowest-scored areas. Start there before investing more in content production. 

Days 31 to 60: Create and Distribute for Profitability

Create the content types that drive both citations and conversions: comparison pages, original research and proprietary data, buyer guides, and FAQ expansions. These formats earn citations and convert the traffic those citations send. 

Distribute across LinkedIn, YouTube, PR placements, expert commentary opportunities, and community channels like Reddit. The goal is consistent presence across multiple ecosystems. AI engines validate authority through repetition across platforms, not just depth on your own site. 

Days 61 to 90: Optimize Conversion and Measurement

With the foundation fixed and the content layer built, optimize for what happens when AI-referred visitors arrive. 

Improve bottom-funnel UX for high-intent visitors. Add calculators, tools, and simplified calls to action. Optimize assisted conversion flows. On the measurement side, track influenced pipeline from AI-assisted traffic, compare conversion quality across platforms, and build an executive dashboard tied to revenue rather than visibility metrics. 

The window to establish AI search presence is real and won’t stay open indefinitely. The brands building this infrastructure now are accumulating authority signals that compound over time and become increasingly difficult for competitors to overcome. 

FAQs

How do you connect AEO/GEO to revenue? 

The connection runs through your measurement framework and your conversion architecture. On the measurement side, track influenced conversions, assisted pipeline, and brand search lift rather than citation counts. On the conversion side, build landing pages and CTAs designed for visitors who arrive already informed. AI-referred visitors are pre-qualified and need a fast path to a decision, not an introduction to your product category. 

What metrics should you track for AEO/GEO profitability?

Move away from rankings, raw traffic, and citation volume as primary KPIs. The metrics that connect to profit are influenced conversions, brand search lift, assisted pipeline, returning visitor quality, and conversion rate by intent source. Build toward a three-tier measurement stack: visibility and influence at the foundation, demand signals in the middle, and business outcomes at the top. 

What content converts best from AI-referred traffic? 

Comparison pages and alternatives content convert AI-referred traffic at 6.8 percent, the highest of any page type in NP Digital’s research. First-party research, bottom-funnel educational content, and FAQ frameworks also perform well. Format matters as much as topic. Lists and listicles account for 48 percent of AI citations because they’re structured for easy extraction. 

Conclusion

The winners in AI search don’t just focus on earning the most citations but make sure they can turn citations into pipeline. 

That requires connecting visibility to conversion architecture, measuring outcomes rather than activity, and building the content and authority signals that AI engines reward consistently over time. None of those things happen by accident. 

The brands doing this work now are building compounding advantages. Authority signals accumulate. Citation patterns stabilize. Conversion infrastructure improves with data. Starting later means starting behind. 

If you want support building an AEO/GEO strategy tied to revenue rather than just visibility, NP Digital’s team works through exactly this kind of profitability infrastructure with clients. 

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SMX Now: Build better site architecture for SEO, AI, and users

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Beyond navigation advanced architecture and AI

Advanced architecture is no longer just technical structure. It determines whether your content can be found, understood, and surfaced by search engines and AI systems.

Our next SMX Now on July 15 features Shari Thurow, co-founder, information scientist, and search director at the Information Architecture Gateway. She’ll explain how advanced architecture works and where most AI, SEO, and site development workflows fall short.

The session introduces a five-phase framework Thurow has tested through decades of client work with organizations including Microsoft, Google Cloud, Abbott Laboratories, CVS Pharmacy, WebMD, Sony Music, the Library of Congress, Best Buy, and Merriam-Webster. You’ll learn how architecture decisions shape labeling systems, wayfinding networks, taxonomy, wireframes, and AI access to valuable content.

It also challenges long-standing misconceptions, including the three-click rule, the idea that taxonomy is only a hierarchy, and the belief that AI can generate effective wireframes without a deeper architectural model.

You’ll leave with a practical framework for building sites that communicate more clearly with users, search engines, and human-centered AI systems.

Save your spot

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Got an old website? Update it and refresh your SEO

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Has your website seen better days, and are you looking to restore it to its former glory? Look no further. We will help you get your site up to today’s standards and make that splash online. We cover all the key areas you need to consider. Feel free to skip the steps that are already up to date, but be honest with yourself about what work still needs to be done. Your website only gets a millisecond to make a first impression, so let’s make the most of it. Now it’s time to peek under the hood, brush off the dust on those pages, and refresh your content.

Table of contents

Key takeaways

  • Consider making big changes to your old website first, such as updating the domain or CMS.
  • Check and update your CMS, plugins, and data privacy setup to meet modern standards.
  • Refresh your content and keyword research to ensure relevance and improve SEO performance.
  • Evaluate technical aspects like mobile-friendliness, core web vitals, and accessibility for better user experience.
  • Use the Yoast SEO plugin to streamline the process of updating your old website and maintain its performance.

Check your site’s set-up

Want to make any big changes? Do that first

Before we delve into the depths of your old website, it’s worth considering any major changes you want to make. Maybe you’ve always wanted to change your domain name or your URL structure, but it was too much work when everything was up and running. Or perhaps you could benefit from switching to a different CMS or hosting provider. If you do want to make sitewide changes, you’ll be far better off planning this from the start.

Old or new domain?

You will have registered your domain when your website was still live, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s still available now. Check whether your old domain is still yours or available. If it’s not, you’ll need to choose another one. This can give you a chance to start over fresh with a whole new website.

When you’re looking to get a new domain, consider how you want to build your website. You can hire someone to custom-build a website for you. But if you want to save on costs, website builders like Wix and WordPress let you create a website without coding. Although both allow you to create websites yourself, we recommend WordPress if you want the option to grow and alter your website beyond what the available templates offer.

There are also AI builders to consider when creating a new website. For example, Bluehost’s AI Website Builder generates your website by giving a prompt and answering a few follow-up questions. A quick way to get back online, with hosting, a domain, and even human support included if needed.

Bear in mind that changing your domain name comes with several drawbacks:

  • If your website was popular in the past, you will probably have built up some domain authority. Meaning that people know your brand name and can have (positive) associations with it. So when you change your domain name, you’ll lose any domain authority you’ve gained previously.
  • Your old URLs will no longer work, and you’ll need to plan to migrate your content to your new domain. This can be a lot of work, so don’t underestimate it!

Are your CMS and plugins up to date?

The next thing you’ll want to check is whether your CMS is up to date. Depending on how old your site is, that could mean all kinds of things. As new possibilities arise in web development, a good CMS will adopt these and implement them for you (mostly) automatically. So it’s well worth updating your CMS as a first step! Make sure to back up your site and test the changes first, though.

The impact of out-of-date plugins really depends on which plugins you have installed. But whichever plugins you use, you should check these too. The same goes for themes; they can stop working if they’re too old or no longer supported. Online, the older your technology is, the more vulnerable it is to hacking, so make sure to update what you plan to use and remove unnecessary plugins.

Tip: If you’re using WordPress, go to the Site Health section, located under Tools > Site Health in the backend. This will give an overview of what needs to be done to get your website healthy again.

Check your robots.txt / indexing settings

Noindexing a page means you block search engines from indexing it and showing it in their search results. Some people prefer to noindex their site while they make big changes to it, to avoid leaving users with a bad impression. But you shouldn’t really play around with this unless you know what you’re doing. I would also not recommend doing this if you still get a decent amount of traffic to your site.

To noindex your site, you’ll need to update your robots.txt file. If you’re a Yoast SEO user, you can manage your indexing in your configuration settings without ever touching your robots.txt file. An easier way to update your site behind the scenes is by using the LightStart plugin.

Check your data privacy set up

If your site has been around for a few years, there’s a good chance your data privacy setup doesn’t meet modern standards. For instance, if your site uses cookies to track user behavior, it’s now a legal requirement to ask users for permission in most regions worldwide. Similarly, if you have user data stored on your site, you absolutely need to ensure it’s stored securely and used in a legally compliant way. If that data is old user data, the safest option is probably just to delete it all.

Check your content

Refresh your keyword research

When it comes to updating the content on your old website, refreshing your keyword research is a good place to start. The words people use in their search queries change over time, so the longer your content has been out of action, the more likely it is that you need to do this. When checking your keywords, you should see whether you’re still using the most suitable ones for your site and audience, and whether you can still compete for those rankings.

Also, you should take AI search into account when researching how to update your content. AI search is now an undeniable part of people’s online search behavior, whether it’s Google presenting users with an AI overview or people using AI models like ChatGPT and Gemini. So make sure to optimize for AI search as part of your SEO efforts.

Does your content need updating?

It’s important to update your old posts and pages to keep them fresh and relevant. Old content can face various issues:

  • Is the quality still good enough? Is there room to improve the content by applying the E-E-A-T principles?
  • Is your information still accurate and up to date? Are there new insights that you could add to the content?
  • Do the external and internal links still work? Do the meta description or SEO title need updating?

Take a look at each page, and be critical. What could be improved? Do you really need to keep each page? Will you need to rewrite the whole thing, or will some small adjustments be enough? It could take a while to get through all of your content. Make sure to start with your most important pages first.

Check your internal linking and site structure

Making sure your content is high-quality and well-optimized is only half the story. It needs to be findable too. By linking related pages, you make your content easier for your users to find. And on top of that, if you make sure your most important pages get the most internal links, it helps Google get a better idea of your site structure. As a result, those central pages (which we call cornerstone content) are likely to rank higher in search results!

Check the technical SEO

Mobile-friendly is essential

Most people are using their phones or other mobile devices to access the internet. As a result, Google switched to mobile-first indexing years ago. This means that if your site doesn’t work well on mobile, this can impact your overall visibility in search. Responsive site design and proper mobile usability testing are more of a requirement now than a nice extra. Make sure everything works, and that it looks good on all kinds of screen sizes. Don’t treat the desktop version of your website as the default.

Core Web Vitals and page experience

Back in the days of dial-up internet, you always had to wait patiently for pages to load. But that’s a thing of the past; pages that load quickly are a basic expectation nowadays. Loading quickly isn’t the only consideration, because your pages need to actually work well once they’ve loaded. Google has a ranking factor to measure things like this. So you need to make sure you’re meeting expectations for aspects such as:

  • Loading performance (how fast does stuff appear on the screen?)
  • Responsiveness (how fast does the page react to user input?)
  • Visual stability (does stuff move around on the screen while loading?)

The details behind these factors are quite technical, but it’s worth delving into these Core Web Vitals to make sure your technical SEO isn’t holding you back.

Check your media usage

Another thing that changes over time is the best practice for using images and videos on your site. Nowadays, most users expect high-quality images that load quickly, too. Make sure to optimize and properly tag them before mindlessly adding them to your page. When it comes to video, these can increase your visibility on platforms such as YouTube and social media. They also tell search agents that the content on your page is rich and valuable, so make sure to get going with a proper video strategy for your site and other platforms.

Accessibility

For most websites, accessibility is an afterthought. Which is a big shame, as this also means you’re missing out on a whole group of potential customers. Don’t just consider how you experience a website; also accommodate the needs of different types of visitors. Accessibility means making small adjustments and additions that let everyone enjoy your content. You don’t need to redesign everything; there are simple improvements you can make, such as adding alt text to your images.

Structured data

If you want to have the best-looking search results in Google, you’ll need to start adding structured data to your site. Structured data is a way of telling Google about the context or purpose of different types of content. You can label your news items as news, for example, and Google can identify that and add your content to its News section. Or you could label your products using structured data and have a chance of getting listed in Google’s Shopping results. Structured data helps AI search engines and chatbots better understand your site. There are loads of ways structured data can boost your content, so give it a try!

Start publishing and sharing

Check your robots.txt / indexing settings (again)

Give your indexing a final check and make sure the pages you want Google to index are crawlable. You can start by checking your robots.txt or your indexing settings. Google Search Console can be a great help at this point. Submit your sitemap. This will let Google know your site is ready for indexing again, and help it understand what’s changed. Search Console will flag any crawl errors, so you can easily check whether everything is set up correctly.

Start (re)publishing and sharing content

And now for the final step in updating your old site: start publishing content again! Publishing content regularly and sharing it on social media will help you to build awareness of your site. Plus, you might gain some new fans and followers! If your social media pages are outdated, give them a refresh to let people know your site is back and ready to welcome them!

Update your site’s SEO with Yoast

As you can see, there’s a lot to check when updating SEO and refreshing your old website. Once you’ve restored your site to its former glory, make sure you maintain it and your SEO. Otherwise, in a few years, you might be doing this all over again. Luckily, our Yoast SEO plugin can help you update and maintain your old site, too!

Refresh your website with Yoast SEO Premium

Get Yoast SEO Premium and get feedback on your content, access to our SEO training and helpful tools to clean up your site!

Get Yoast SEO Premium Only $118.80 / year (ex VAT)

The post Got an old website? Update it and refresh your SEO appeared first on Yoast.

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How to Analyze Your Backlinks With the Ubersuggest Backlink Checker

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Key Takeaways

  • More than two-thirds of SEOs (67.5 percent) say backlinks have a big impact on search rankings, and 59 percent expect that influence to grow.
  • The Neil Patel Backlink Checker now lives inside Ubersuggest, so your backlink analysis and the rest of your SEO research happen on one platform.
  • The Backlinks Overview report gives you a site’s domain authority, total backlinks, referring domains, and performance over time at a glance.
  • Backlink Opportunity lets you compare your profile against up to five competitors and identify specific sites worth pursuing for your own outreach.
  • Pair backlink data with the Traffic Overview and Top Pages reports to see which of your URLs earn the most links, then create more content in that direction.

How important are backlinks to your online business? 

According to research from uSERP, 67.5 percent of the SEOs interviewed believe they have a ‘big impact’ on their search engine rankings.

Pie chart showing that 67.5 percent of SEOs believe backlinks have a “big impact” on search engine rankings

Source: https://userp.io/link-building/state-of-backlinks-for-seo/

An overwhelming majority (85 percent) believe backlinks have a major influence on their brand authority, while 47.5 percent say building backlinks is every bit as important as content strategy. Additionally, 59 percent say they expect backlinks to have a greater impact in the future.

Plenty of other surveys demonstrate the importance of backlinks, which leads me to a question: Given how pivotal backlinks are to your online success, how do you view them, and how do you track your site’s performance?

Fortunately, the Neil Patel Backlink Checker is now part of Ubersuggest. It’s a top-notch backlink tool that helps you understand how to generate quality backlinks and analyze your site’s performance. It all lives within the platform you’re already using to conduct the rest of your SEO research.

Let’s walk through how the tool works and the best ways to use it for your business goals.

How Ubersuggest’s Backlinks Tool Works

When you first log in to Ubersuggest, look at the left-hand menu. You’ll see all features organized by category. Scroll down to the Link Building section, and click Backlink Overview.

Screenshot of Ubersuggest’s Backlinks Overview page

Enter the domain whose backlinks you want to analyze, and then choose the type of report you want. There are two types of reports you can pull up:

  1. URL: This report pulls backlink information only for that specific URL.
  2. Domain: This report pulls all backlink information for that domain, including any subdomains. This option typically gives you the highest backlink count.

Hit Search, and Ubersuggest will get to work.

Once the search completes, you’ll see a backlinks report that shows you the Domain Authority and backlink profile at a glance. You’ll even be able to see the domain’s backlink performance over time. 

Ubersuggest’s backlink profile for neilpatel.com, showing a ranking of “Amazing” across the board for domain authority, referring domains, and backlinks

This report quickly gives you a high-level overview of a site’s backlink performance. Here, you’ll see the number of backlinks you have, and you can analyze their Domain Authority.

As you scroll down, you’ll see a list of individual backlinks. This list shows the linking site’s Domain Authority and Spam Score, helping you instantly filter between good and bad links and spot broken backlink strategies.

You’ll even see the anchor text the linking site has used to link your content. This is a good way to gauge whether links are just random and spammy or actually provide searchers with helpful guidance.

A list of individual backlinks for neilpatel.com, displaying the linking sites’ domain authority, spam score, and page authority. You can also see the anchor text used for the backlink, as well as when it was first and last seen.

Backlinks Overview alone provides a lot of data, but the Neil Patel Backlink Checker can do more. Dig into its link analysis capabilities, and you’ll see how deeper data and granular metrics enable more complex strategies.  

Link Analysis From Your Backlinks Report In Ubersuggest

The list section of our backlinks report is where we can work from to do our more in-depth analysis. By default, our list of URLs shows one link per domain to make the report more useful. That way, if someone links to you 100 times, you’ll see the best link from that site.

If you want to see all 100 links coming from the same site, unclick the “one link per domain” button under the Advanced Filters tab.

If the URL or domain you just pulled up has a lot of backlinks, you’ll see thousands and thousands of links and can comb over each one during your analysis.

Here’s a deeper look at the data you’re provided for each link:

  1. Source Page Title & URL: What is the title of the page linking to the URL/domain you looked up?
  2. Target Page: This is where the link is pointing to. If you look up a URL, it will point to that specific URL. If you look up a domain, you can see where its link is pointing to on that domain.
  3. Domain Authority: How authoritative is the linking site? The higher the number, the better.
  4. Page Authority: How authoritative is the linking page? The higher the number, the better.
  5. Spam Score: A Moz score that shows whether a link is spammy. The higher the percentage, the more likely the link is spam.
  6. Anchor Text: Does the link contain any keywords? You can easily see this through the anchor text column.
  7. First Seen: When did we first find this link?
  8. Last Seen: When did we last crawl and find this link?
Ubersuggest table displaying backlink data for various web pages, including columns for source page URL, domain authority, page authority, spam score, anchor text, and first and last seen dates

When you are looking for specific link opportunities, especially when doing competitor analysis in Ubersuggest, you may want to use the advanced filters to find the best link opportunities.

Screenshot displaying the Neil Patel Backlink Checker’s advanced filters within Ubersuggest. 

Here’s how the advanced filters work:

  • Search Box: In the box, you can type in any keyword or phrase, and it will pull any URLs, titles, or anchor text that contain any of those words. That way, you can find what you are looking for faster.
  • Zone: If you want to only include or exclude links with certain domain extensions, such as .net, .com, .com.br, .co.uk, etc., you can do so with zone filtering.
  • Referring Domain: If you want to include or exclude links coming from a specific domain, this is the filtering option you can use.
  • Anchor: If you want to find links by a specific anchor text, or exclude links with a specific anchor text, you can do so with this filtering option.
  • New/Lost Toggle: Filter links by whether they were newly gained or recently lost.
  • Link Type Toggle: Filter results to include all links, follow links, or nofollow links.

Finally, if you want to slice and dice the data in more advanced ways, you can always click the Export to CSV button and play around with the data if you’re a spreadsheet wizard.

Finding Backlink Opportunities With Ubersuggest

Once you take a look at your backlink profile in Ubersuggest, you can navigate to Backlink Opportunity on the left-hand menu to start shaping your strategy.

On this page, you enter your target domain and run a comparison report against up to five of your competitors. 

Screenshot of Ubersuggest’s Backlink Opportunities page showing how you can compare your domain’s backlink profile against up to five competitors.

As with the Overview report, you can toggle your search type between Domain and URL. The URL option searches for the exact URL and compares it against the exact URL of a particular competitor page. This helps take a closer look at a page’s performance against a competitor for the same keyword or topic. 

Once you hit Search, you get a list of backlinks ranked highest to lowest by domain authority. You’ll also see the referring domain and which of your competitors they’re linking to.

Screenshot of Ubersuggest’s Backlink Opportunities report, organized by referring domain.

You have the choice of viewing this report by Referring Domain or Backlink. Switching to the Backlink view gives you more granular insight into each link. It also reveals each backlink’s Page Authority score, helping you evaluate link quality and prioritize outreach to strong pages within strong domains.

Screenshot of Ubersuggest’s Backlink Opportunities report, organized by referring domain.

Strategize Smarter by Analyzing Traffic

Under the Traffic Overview heading, you get organic keywords and monthly organic traffic, domain authority, and backlinks, including nofollow links.

Screenshot of the Traffic Overview report from Ubersuggest for neilpatel.com.

Ubersuggest also has a Top Pages by Traffic feature.

If you aren’t familiar with the Top Pages report, it shows the most popular pages for any domain.

A list of the top-performing pages by traffic for neilpatel.com.

You’ll notice that you can see how many visitors go to each URL, and if you click on View All under Est. Visits, you’ll see a list of keywords that are driving traffic to that URL.

If you click View All under backlinks, you will see all the URLs linking to that page.

A list of all the domains backlinking to neilpatel.com’s website traffic checker page.

Using this feature, you can see which types of pages link to your content. You can also see the anchor text they’re using and visit the page to get an idea of the topics being discussed around your brand.

That’ll give you an idea of which sites to target for backlinks. You can even use this data for general information on which business verticals find your content useful (in case you need to “backdoor” competitive search terms or topics).

FAQs

How many backlinks does my website have?

The exact number depends on your domain’s age, content, and outreach. Run your URL through Ubersuggest to see the number of backlinks and key backlink profile performance metrics in seconds.

How do I find backlinks to my website?

Use Ubersuggest or Google Search Console. Both pull your full backlink profile, including the anchor text and authority score, so you can see which links carry real weight.

How do I check the backlinks of my competitors?

Drop a competitor’s URL into Ubersuggest’s backlinks report. You’ll get a list of every site linking to them, which doubles as a target list for your own outreach.

How do I disavow backlinks?

If you find spammy or bad links pointing to your site, submit them to Google via the Disavow Tool. Use it sparingly, though, as removing legitimate links can tank your rankings.

Conclusion

I hope you enjoyed the full tour of the Neil Patel Backlink Checker. Now, Ubersuggest users can access it as one of the platform’s many features, making it so much easier to do all your backlink and other SEO research in one place. 

You can look up as many domains and URLs as you want, whether you’re checking in on your site’s performance or tracking competitors with Ubersuggest.

Head over to Ubersuggest and start typing in domains and URLs. I put a lot of time, energy, and money into building this tool, so I hope you enjoy it and use it to see some real results in your business.

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