Brave Search introduced a new AI answer engine called Answer with AI. It will produce AI-generated answers “synthesized” from multiple sources for any query. What is Answer with AI. Answer with AI, as the name suggests, uses AI to generate answers to queries directly in the search results. This new Brave Search feature appears above the organic search results. The format varies slightly, depending on the query type. At the bottom, Brave includes a section called Context, underneath which Brave links to the sources it used to generate its answer. Based on a small number of searches I conducted ..read more

Remember how painful iOS 14 was for performance marketers? An even more seismic change is looming, and way too many marketers are still unprepared. Yes, I’m talking about the impending death of third-party cookies. If you’re reading this article, this is probably the 1,000th time you’ve heard it mentioned. And that might be part of the problem: “the death of cookies” could now be one of those familiar phrases you skim over without understanding the depth of its ramifications. If you’re a little unclear on what kind of havoc “the death of cookies” is going to wreak in your campaigns, stay with ..read more

The rise of AI content creation has been a game-changer – for better or worse. On the one hand, you have benefits like: Improved efficiency. Powerful content ideation. Rapid research.  These efficiencies have allowed SEO programs to move faster and produced cost savings, added value and, in some cases, more revenue. On the other hand, you have issues like: Generic content. Poorly written text. Ineffective content.  These drawbacks can lead to a bad user experience, lost rankings or deindexing from the search results.  As more and more people eagerly adopt AI content tools ..read more

Paid search advertising revenues reached a new high in 2023 – though annual growth continues to slow, according to a new report. In total, search accounted for $88.8 billion of a record $225 billion in U.S. digital advertising revenues, according to the IAB Internet Advertising Revenue Report: Full Year 2023, conducted by PwC. That figure represents a $4.4 billion increase over 2022. Why we care. Paid search becomes more expensive and challenging every year, with less transparency. But advertisers continue to embrace paid search for one simple reason: it drives results for brands and bus ..read more

YouTube has introduced two new measures in its crackdown on ad blockers. There will either be:  Buffering issues. An error message saying “The following content is not available on this app.” Why we care. YouTube is doing all it can to ensure ads are seen by as many of its free users as possible. YouTube’s war on ad blockers will likely lead to disgruntled users who will abandon YouTube altogether. It’s either that or break down and pay for YouTube Premium to avoid excessive advertising. If the latter happens, YouTube will gain revenue, but ultimately that means advertisers will lose r ..read more

Google AdSense users can now choose to have Auto Ads show as “ad intents” through the platform (in addition to overlap and in-page formats).  What are ad intents. An ad intent is an “intent-driven format that places links and anchors into existing text and pages on your site related to your content,” according to Google.  Google doesn’t rely on third-party cookies for this new functionality.  What it looks like. Those links take the users interacting with it to a Google Search Result page containing both organic results and paid ads.  Here are examples Google shared: Ad in ..read more

Google Discover is an especially important source of organic traffic for publishers. This personalized feed, available within Google’s mobile app and mobile search homepage, offers users an engaging experience by recommending relevant content, even before they know exactly what they want to search for.  Google Discover is one of the fastest-growing sources of traffic for news websites, with some publishers reporting Discover traffic as higher than organic search traffic.  By tailoring your content to meet Google’s recommendations and user preferences, you can boost your website’s ch ..read more

The recent shift from “conversions” to “key events” in (GA4) represents a significant change that digital marketers, especially SEO professionals, need to understand and act on. This article explores the implications of this change and insights on how to leverage it to elevate your marketing reporting. Understanding key events in GA4 On March 21, I got an email from a former student who said he’d logged into Google Analytics 4 (GA4) that morning and saw, “Analytics conversions have been renamed key events.”  Google explained: “To distinguish conversions in Google Analytics from those in ..read more

Google Search Console has released a security update around user permissions and controls management where you can better manage the ownership tokens. Ownership tokens are used for when people verify your site in Search Console, Merchant Center and other Google products and sometimes people who had access in the past to your profiles no longer should. This update show make it easier to manage such access and remove those tokens and permissions when they are no longer needed. What Google said. Google wrote: We’re rolling out further improvements to Search Console’s user and permission ma ..read more

Technology news rag The Verge has published a 700-word article half-filled with content generated by Google Gemini and a heavy dose of sarcasm that has been outranking more in-depth, well-researched and arguably more helpful content written by humans at publications for the competitive query [best printer 2024]. Sound familiar? It should. We wrote about this exact same thing just over a year ago in How The Verge gamed Google with its ‘best printer 2023’ article. Why we care. Google has been telling us to write for people, not Google, a lot lately. This article will likely infuriate many brand ..read more