<div><img width="1920" height="1097" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/01/google-trends-1920.jpg" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="" style="margin-bottom: 15px;" decoding="async" fetchpriority="high" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/01/google-trends-1920.jpg 1920w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/01/google-trends-1920-768x439.jpg 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/01/google-trends-1920-1536x878.jpg 1536w" sizes="(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px" /></div>Google credits its new audio and voice models in Gemini 3.1 Flash Live for the expansion.

<div><img width="1920" height="1097" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/01/google-trends-1920.jpg" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="" style="margin-bottom: 15px;" decoding="async" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/01/google-trends-1920.jpg 1920w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/01/google-trends-1920-768x439.jpg 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/01/google-trends-1920-1536x878.jpg 1536w" sizes="(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px" /></div>
<p>Today, Google <a href="https://blog.google/products-and-platforms/products/search/search-live-global-expansion/">released</a> Google Search Live globally where AI Mode is available, for these <a href="https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/16011537?hl=en&amp;co=GENIE.Platform%3DAndroid#:~:text=in%20Search.-,AI%20Mode%20availability,-AI%20Mode%20is">languages and regions</a>. This brings Search Live to more than 200 countries and territories.</p>



<p>Google credits its new audio and voice model, <a href="https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/models-and-research/gemini-models/gemini-3-1-flash-live">Gemini 3.1 Flash Live</a>, which it says &#8220;delivers even more natural and intuitive conversations.&#8221; The &#8220;new model is also inherently multilingual, which means that people around the world can now speak with Search in their preferred language,&#8221; Google added.</p>



<p><strong>How it works. </strong>To use Search Live, open the Google app on <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.googlequicksearchbox&amp;hl=en_US&amp;pli=1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Android</a> or <a href="https://apps.apple.com/us/app/google/id284815942" target="_blank" rel="noopener">iOS</a> and tap the Live icon under the Search bar. From there, you can ask your question out loud to get a helpful audio response, then continue the conversation with follow-up questions or dive deeper with helpful web links. If you want to ask about something in front of you, like how to install a new shelving unit, you can enable your camera to add visual context. This way, Search can see what your camera sees and offer helpful suggestions, plus links to more information on the web.</p>



<p>You can also access Search Live if you’re already pointing your camera with&nbsp;<a href="https://search.google/ways-to-search/lens/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Google Lens</a>&nbsp;— just tap the Live option at the bottom of the screen to have a real-time, back-and-forth conversation about what you see in the real world.</p>



<p id="h-"><strong>More. </strong>Last September, Google made Search Live with video <a href="https://searchengineland.com/google-search-live-launches-us-462535">available in the U.S</a>, prior to that, it was an <a href="https://searchengineland.com/google-launches-search-live-with-talk-and-listen-within-google-app-457224">opt in beta</a> and before that it was <a href="https://searchengineland.com/google-launches-search-live-with-talk-and-listen-within-google-app-457224">talk and listen</a>, without video.</p>



<p><strong>Why we care. </strong>This is another way users can have conversations with Google’s AI instead of typing queries. Answers could increasingly bypass traditional clicks, and further erode traffic to websites. The inclusion of links (citations at the bottom) means publishers and brands could still see some benefits, but most searchers likely will have little need or desire to click on those links or dig deeper after getting their answer.</p>


Today, Google released Google Search Live globally where AI Mode is available, for these languages and regions. This brings Search Live to more than 200 countries and territories.
Google credits its new audio and voice model, Gemini 3.1 Flash Live, which it says “delivers even more natural and intuitive conversations.” The “new model is also inherently multilingual, which means that people around the world can now speak with Search in their preferred language,” Google added.
How it works. To use Search Live, open the Google app on Android or iOS and tap the Live icon under the Search bar. From there, you can ask your question out loud to get a helpful audio response, then continue the conversation with follow-up questions or dive deeper with helpful web links. If you want to ask about something in front of you, like how to install a new shelving unit, you can enable your camera to add visual context. This way, Search can see what your camera sees and offer helpful suggestions, plus links to more information on the web.
You can also access Search Live if you’re already pointing your camera with Google Lens — just tap the Live option at the bottom of the screen to have a real-time, back-and-forth conversation about what you see in the real world.
More. Last September, Google made Search Live with video available in the U.S, prior to that, it was an opt in beta and before that it was talk and listen, without video.
Why we care. This is another way users can have conversations with Google’s AI instead of typing queries. Answers could increasingly bypass traditional clicks, and further erode traffic to websites. The inclusion of links (citations at the bottom) means publishers and brands could still see some benefits, but most searchers likely will have little need or desire to click on those links or dig deeper after getting their answer.

Google credits its new audio and voice models in Gemini 3.1 Flash Live for the expansion.

Google Search Live expands globally where AI Mode is available

<div><img width="1920" height="1080" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/ads-control-dashboard.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="Ads control dashboard" style="margin-bottom: 15px;" decoding="async" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/ads-control-dashboard.png 1920w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/ads-control-dashboard-768x432.png 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/ads-control-dashboard-1536x864.png 1536w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/ads-control-dashboard-1200x675.png 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px" /></div>Google’s Performance Max now includes customer-list exclusions, demographic insights, spend forecasts, and network segmentation.

<div><img width="1920" height="1080" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/ads-control-dashboard.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="Ads control dashboard" style="margin-bottom: 15px;" decoding="async" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/ads-control-dashboard.png 1920w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/ads-control-dashboard-768x432.png 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/ads-control-dashboard-1536x864.png 1536w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/ads-control-dashboard-1200x675.png 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px" /></div>
<p>Google is launching new Performance Max controls and reporting: audience exclusions, expanded reporting, and budget forecasting tools.</p>



<p><strong>What’s new.</strong> Google announced a mix of “steering updates” and “actionable insights” for PMax:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li><strong>First-party audience exclusions:</strong> You can exclude customer lists to shift spend toward net-new customer acquisition instead of repeat conversions.</li>



<li><strong>Budget reporting:</strong> A new in-platform report projects end-of-month spend and shows how daily budget changes impact performance.</li>



<li><strong>Full audience reporting:</strong> You get detailed breakdowns by demographics, including age and gender.</li>



<li><strong>Network segmentation:</strong> You can segment placement reports by network, now under <em>When and where ads showed</em>.</li>
</ul>



<p><strong>Why we care.</strong> These updates help address concerns about PMax’s lack of control and transparency. Exclusions help you avoid wasting spend on existing customers, while improved reporting gives you clearer signals for optimization, budgeting, and brand safety decisions.</p>



<p><strong>Google&#8217;s announcement.</strong> <a href="https://business.google.com/us/accelerate/resources/articles/new-performance-max-steering-and-reporting-updates-coming-in-2026/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">New Performance Max steering and reporting updates coming in 2026</a></p>



<p></p>


Google is launching new Performance Max controls and reporting: audience exclusions, expanded reporting, and budget forecasting tools.
What’s new. Google announced a mix of “steering updates” and “actionable insights” for PMax:
First-party audience exclusions: You can exclude customer lists to shift spend toward net-new customer acquisition instead of repeat conversions.
Budget reporting: A new in-platform report projects end-of-month spend and shows how daily budget changes impact performance.
Full audience reporting: You get detailed breakdowns by demographics, including age and gender.
Network segmentation: You can segment placement reports by network, now under When and where ads showed.
Why we care. These updates help address concerns about PMax’s lack of control and transparency. Exclusions help you avoid wasting spend on existing customers, while improved reporting gives you clearer signals for optimization, budgeting, and brand safety decisions.
Google’s announcement. New Performance Max steering and reporting updates coming in 2026

Google’s Performance Max now includes customer-list exclusions, demographic insights, spend forecasts, and network segmentation.

Google PMax gets new exclusions, expanded reporting features

<div><img width="1920" height="1080" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/human-vs-ai-traffic.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="Human vs AI traffic" style="margin-bottom: 15px;" decoding="async" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/human-vs-ai-traffic.png 1920w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/human-vs-ai-traffic-768x432.png 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/human-vs-ai-traffic-1536x864.png 1536w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/human-vs-ai-traffic-1200x675.png 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px" /></div>Automated traffic now exceeds human activity across the web. Machines aren't just indexing or scraping it. They're actively using it.

<div><img width="1920" height="1080" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/human-vs-ai-traffic.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="Human vs AI traffic" style="margin-bottom: 15px;" decoding="async" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/human-vs-ai-traffic.png 1920w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/human-vs-ai-traffic-768x432.png 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/human-vs-ai-traffic-1536x864.png 1536w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/human-vs-ai-traffic-1200x675.png 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px" /></div>
<p>Automated traffic grew 23.5% year over year in 2025 — about eight times faster than human traffic, which rose 3.1%, according to HUMAN Security’s State of AI Traffic report.</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>AI-driven traffic appears to be a major contributor to that growth, with average monthly volume increasing 187% year over year, while traffic from AI agents and agentic browsers (e.g., OpenAI’s Atlas, Perplexity’s Comet) grew nearly 8,000% year over year.</li>



<li>Automated traffic is defined in the report as: &#8220;All internet traffic generated by software systems rather than human users, including traditional automation such as search engine crawlers, monitoring bots, and conventional scraping tools, as well as AI-driven traffic.&#8221;</li>



<li>This report follows Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince&#8217;s prediction that <a href="https://searchengineland.com/bots-overtake-human-web-usage-2027-472109">bots could overtake human web usage by 2027</a>.</li>
</ul>



<p><strong>Why we care</strong>. Search is increasingly shaped by more than human queries, crawling, and indexing. AI agents now participate in discovery, comparison, and transactions — within Google’s evolving results and across AI-driven interfaces.</p>



<p><strong>The details</strong>. HUMAN groups AI-driven traffic into three broad categories:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Training crawlers collecting data for models. They still dominate at 67.5% of AI traffic, but their share is declining as scrapers and agents scale.</li>



<li>Real-time scrapers that feed AI search and answers. Scraper traffic grew nearly 600% in 2025, driven by AI-powered search and real-time answer engines.</li>



<li>Agentic AI systems that execute tasks autonomously. Smaller in share, but growing fastest and most disruptive.</li>
</ul>



<p><strong>AI agents behave more like users. </strong>These systems aren&#8217;t limited to reading content. They increasingly navigate funnels, log in, and transact. In 2025:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>77% of observed agent activity (requests) occurred on product and search pages.</li>



<li>Nearly 9% touched account-level interactions.</li>



<li>More than 2% reached checkout flows.</li>
</ul>



<p><strong>About the data</strong>. HUMAN analyzed more than one quadrillion interactions (requests/events) across its customer base in 2025, with aggregated, anonymized data from 2022 to 2025. It classified AI-driven traffic into training crawlers, AI scrapers, and agentic AI using user-agent strings, infrastructure signals, and observed behavior, noting limits in self-declared bot identity, which may undercount or misclassify some AI-driven activity.</p>



<p><strong>Bottom line. </strong>Traffic is becoming less purely human, and discovery is no longer confined to search engines. Optimization now means deciding which machines can access, interpret, and act on your content.</p>



<p><strong>The report.</strong> <a href="https://www.humansecurity.com/learn/resources/2026-state-of-ai-traffic-cyberthreat-benchmarks/">The 2026 State of AI Traffic &amp; Cyberthreat Benchmark Report</a></p>


Automated traffic grew 23.5% year over year in 2025 — about eight times faster than human traffic, which rose 3.1%, according to HUMAN Security’s State of AI Traffic report.
AI-driven traffic appears to be a major contributor to that growth, with average monthly volume increasing 187% year over year, while traffic from AI agents and agentic browsers (e.g., OpenAI’s Atlas, Perplexity’s Comet) grew nearly 8,000% year over year.
Automated traffic is defined in the report as: “All internet traffic generated by software systems rather than human users, including traditional automation such as search engine crawlers, monitoring bots, and conventional scraping tools, as well as AI-driven traffic.”
This report follows Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince’s prediction that bots could overtake human web usage by 2027.
Why we care. Search is increasingly shaped by more than human queries, crawling, and indexing. AI agents now participate in discovery, comparison, and transactions — within Google’s evolving results and across AI-driven interfaces.
The details. HUMAN groups AI-driven traffic into three broad categories:
Training crawlers collecting data for models. They still dominate at 67.5% of AI traffic, but their share is declining as scrapers and agents scale.
Real-time scrapers that feed AI search and answers. Scraper traffic grew nearly 600% in 2025, driven by AI-powered search and real-time answer engines.
Agentic AI systems that execute tasks autonomously. Smaller in share, but growing fastest and most disruptive.
AI agents behave more like users. These systems aren’t limited to reading content. They increasingly navigate funnels, log in, and transact. In 2025:
77% of observed agent activity (requests) occurred on product and search pages.
Nearly 9% touched account-level interactions.
More than 2% reached checkout flows.
About the data. HUMAN analyzed more than one quadrillion interactions (requests/events) across its customer base in 2025, with aggregated, anonymized data from 2022 to 2025. It classified AI-driven traffic into training crawlers, AI scrapers, and agentic AI using user-agent strings, infrastructure signals, and observed behavior, noting limits in self-declared bot identity, which may undercount or misclassify some AI-driven activity.
Bottom line. Traffic is becoming less purely human, and discovery is no longer confined to search engines. Optimization now means deciding which machines can access, interpret, and act on your content.
The report. The 2026 State of AI Traffic & Cyberthreat Benchmark Report

Automated traffic now exceeds human activity across the web. Machines aren't just indexing or scraping it. They're actively using it.

Automated traffic is growing 8x faster than human traffic: Report

<div><img width="1920" height="1080" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/Google-Agent.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="Google-Agent" style="margin-bottom: 15px;" decoding="async" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/Google-Agent.png 1920w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/Google-Agent-768x432.png 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/Google-Agent-1536x864.png 1536w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/Google-Agent-1200x675.png 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px" /></div>New user agent reveals when Google-hosted AI completes tasks like browsing or form fills, opening visibility into assisted user journeys.

<div><img width="1920" height="1080" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/Google-Agent.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="Google-Agent" style="margin-bottom: 15px;" decoding="async" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/Google-Agent.png 1920w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/Google-Agent-768x432.png 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/Google-Agent-1536x864.png 1536w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/Google-Agent-1200x675.png 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px" /></div>
<p>Google introduced a new user agent, called Google-Agent, that signals when AI agents act on users’ behalf, marking an early shift toward agent-driven web interactions.</p>



<p><strong>What happened</strong>. Google added Google-Agent to its list of user-triggered fetchers on March 20 and has begun a gradual rollout.</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>The Google-Agent user agent identifies requests made by AI agents running on Google infrastructure, including experimental tools like Project Mariner.</li>
</ul>



<p><strong>How it works</strong>. Google-Agent appears in HTTP requests when an AI agent visits a site to complete a user-initiated task.</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Example use cases include browsing pages, evaluating content, or taking actions such as submitting forms.</li>



<li>This differs from Googlebot and other crawlers, which run continuously in the background without direct user prompts.</li>
</ul>



<p><strong>IP ranges.</strong> Google shared the <a href="https://developers.google.com/crawling/docs/crawlers-fetchers/google-user-triggered-fetchers#google-agent" target="_blank" rel="noopener">IP ranges</a> for its desktop agent:</p>



<pre class="wp-block-preformatted">Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko; compatible; Google-Agent; +https://developers.google.com/crawling/docs/crawlers-fetchers/google-agent) Chrome/W.X.Y.Z Safari/537.36</pre>



<p>And the IP ranges for its mobile agent:</p>



<pre class="wp-block-preformatted">Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 6.0.1; Nexus 5X Build/MMB29P) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/W.X.Y.Z Mobile Safari/537.36 (compatible; Google-Agent; +https://developers.google.com/crawling/docs/crawlers-fetchers/google-agent)</pre>



<p><strong>Why we care</strong>. This lets you identify agent-driven traffic in server logs. You can now distinguish traditional crawl activity from visits triggered by real users through AI agents. That should help you track agent-assisted conversions, understand emerging user behavior, and prepare for agentic search.</p>



<p><strong>What they&#8217;re saying.</strong> According to <a href="https://developers.google.com/crawling/docs/changelog#added-the-google-agent-user-agent">Google&#8217;s announcement</a>: </p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>&#8220;The Google-Agent user agent is rolling out over the next few weeks, and will be used by Google agents hosted on Google infrastructure to navigate the web and perform actions upon user request.&#8221;</li>
</ul>



<p><strong>What to watch</strong>. Early volumes will be low as the rollout continues, but now is the time to establish a baseline. What to do:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Monitor logs for Google-Agent activity.</li>



<li>Make sure CDNs and WAFs aren’t blocking the published IP ranges.</li>



<li>Validate that key site actions, including forms and flows, work for automated agents.</li>
</ul>



<p><strong>Dig deeper.</strong> <a href="https://www.semrush.com/blog/google-ai-agent/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Google’s releasing Google-Agent: Here’s what to know</a></p>


Google introduced a new user agent, called Google-Agent, that signals when AI agents act on users’ behalf, marking an early shift toward agent-driven web interactions.
What happened. Google added Google-Agent to its list of user-triggered fetchers on March 20 and has begun a gradual rollout.
The Google-Agent user agent identifies requests made by AI agents running on Google infrastructure, including experimental tools like Project Mariner.
How it works. Google-Agent appears in HTTP requests when an AI agent visits a site to complete a user-initiated task.
Example use cases include browsing pages, evaluating content, or taking actions such as submitting forms.
This differs from Googlebot and other crawlers, which run continuously in the background without direct user prompts.
IP ranges. Google shared the IP ranges for its desktop agent:
Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko; compatible; Google-Agent; +https://developers.google.com/crawling/docs/crawlers-fetchers/google-agent) Chrome/W.X.Y.Z Safari/537.36
And the IP ranges for its mobile agent:
Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 6.0.1; Nexus 5X Build/MMB29P) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/W.X.Y.Z Mobile Safari/537.36 (compatible; Google-Agent; +https://developers.google.com/crawling/docs/crawlers-fetchers/google-agent)
Why we care. This lets you identify agent-driven traffic in server logs. You can now distinguish traditional crawl activity from visits triggered by real users through AI agents. That should help you track agent-assisted conversions, understand emerging user behavior, and prepare for agentic search.
What they’re saying. According to Google’s announcement: 
“The Google-Agent user agent is rolling out over the next few weeks, and will be used by Google agents hosted on Google infrastructure to navigate the web and perform actions upon user request.”
What to watch. Early volumes will be low as the rollout continues, but now is the time to establish a baseline. What to do:
Monitor logs for Google-Agent activity.
Make sure CDNs and WAFs aren’t blocking the published IP ranges.
Validate that key site actions, including forms and flows, work for automated agents.
Dig deeper. Google’s releasing Google-Agent: Here’s what to know

New user agent reveals when Google-hosted AI completes tasks like browsing or form fills, opening visibility into assisted user journeys.

Google-Agent user agent identifies AI agent traffic in server logs

<div><img width="1920" height="1080" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/ai-search-picks-winners-geo-strategy.jpg" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="AI Search Picks Winners Here&#039;s the GEO Strategy Behind It" style="margin-bottom: 15px;" decoding="async" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/ai-search-picks-winners-geo-strategy.jpg 1920w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/ai-search-picks-winners-geo-strategy-768x432.jpg 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/ai-search-picks-winners-geo-strategy-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/ai-search-picks-winners-geo-strategy-1200x675.jpg 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px" /></div>Join us April 1 for the first SMX Now, featuring iPullRank’s presentation: AI Search Picks Winners: Here’s the GEO Strategy Behind It.

<div><img width="1920" height="1080" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/ai-search-picks-winners-geo-strategy.jpg" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="AI Search Picks Winners Here&#039;s the GEO Strategy Behind It" style="margin-bottom: 15px;" decoding="async" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/ai-search-picks-winners-geo-strategy.jpg 1920w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/ai-search-picks-winners-geo-strategy-768x432.jpg 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/ai-search-picks-winners-geo-strategy-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/ai-search-picks-winners-geo-strategy-1200x675.jpg 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px" /></div>
<p>Visibility is no longer just about ranking. It depends on whether your content is discovered, evaluated, and selected in AI-driven search experiences. </p>



<p>We&#8217;re kicking off our new monthly <strong>SMX Now</strong> webinar series on April 1 at 1 p.m. ET with iPullRank’s Zach Chahalis, Patrick Schofield, and Garrett Sussman on how you must adapt.</p>



<p>The session introduces iPullRank’s Relevance Engineering (r19g) framework for executing Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) through an omnichannel content strategy. You’ll learn how AI search uses query fan-outs to discover and select sources, and how to structure content so it’s retrieved, surfaced, and cited.</p>



<p>It also emphasizes that GEO success isn’t universal. It requires testing, tailored strategies, and a three-tier measurement model spanning discovery, selection, and citation impact. </p>



<p class="has-text-align-center"><a href="https://www.bigmarker.com/third-door-media/ai-search-picks-winners-here-s-the-geo-strategy-behind-it?utm_bmcr_source=Editorial"><strong>Save your spot</strong></a></p>



<p><em>Search Engine Land is proud to be a media partner for iPullRank&#8217;s upcoming <a href="https://seoweek.org/">SEO Week</a> event.</em></p>


Visibility is no longer just about ranking. It depends on whether your content is discovered, evaluated, and selected in AI-driven search experiences. 
We’re kicking off our new monthly SMX Now webinar series on April 1 at 1 p.m. ET with iPullRank’s Zach Chahalis, Patrick Schofield, and Garrett Sussman on how you must adapt.
The session introduces iPullRank’s Relevance Engineering (r19g) framework for executing Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) through an omnichannel content strategy. You’ll learn how AI search uses query fan-outs to discover and select sources, and how to structure content so it’s retrieved, surfaced, and cited.
It also emphasizes that GEO success isn’t universal. It requires testing, tailored strategies, and a three-tier measurement model spanning discovery, selection, and citation impact. 
Save your spot
Search Engine Land is proud to be a media partner for iPullRank’s upcoming SEO Week event.

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<div><img width="1920" height="1080" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/The-parts-of-Performance-Max-you-can-actually-control.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="The parts of Performance Max you can actually control" style="margin-bottom: 15px;" decoding="async" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/The-parts-of-Performance-Max-you-can-actually-control.png 1920w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/The-parts-of-Performance-Max-you-can-actually-control-768x432.png 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/The-parts-of-Performance-Max-you-can-actually-control-1536x864.png 1536w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/The-parts-of-Performance-Max-you-can-actually-control-1200x675.png 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px" /></div>Focus on what you can control in Performance Max to reduce wasted spend and improve efficiency with search terms, placements, and targeting.


<div><img width="1920" height="1080" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/The-parts-of-Performance-Max-you-can-actually-control.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="The parts of Performance Max you can actually control" style="margin-bottom: 15px;" decoding="async" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/The-parts-of-Performance-Max-you-can-actually-control.png 1920w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/The-parts-of-Performance-Max-you-can-actually-control-768x432.png 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/The-parts-of-Performance-Max-you-can-actually-control-1536x864.png 1536w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/The-parts-of-Performance-Max-you-can-actually-control-1200x675.png 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px" /></div>
<p>While initially criticized as a black box, <a href="https://searchengineland.com/google-performance-max-431821">Performance Max</a> has evolved into a fairly critical campaign type. With each passing quarter, Google has introduced more functionality and visibility.</p>



<p>Additional reporting is helpful, but what matters is what you can actually act on. While you can’t control everything in Performance Max, there are specific levers that can have a meaningful impact on performance. Here are the parts of PMax you can control and how to use them effectively.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-control-what-you-can-search-terms-and-placements">Control what you can: Search terms and placements</h2>



<p>One of the most exciting updates in the last year to Performance Max has been the ability to add these campaign-level negative keywords.&nbsp;</p>



<p>In the past, you could contact Google to add these in. It was somewhat cumbersome and involved filling out an Excel doc, forwarding it to Google, and giving them permission to implement.&nbsp;</p>



<p>With the inclusion of the search terms report, we’re now able to select a keyword and quickly add it to the campaign-level negative keyword list, just as we can with a search or shopping campaign.</p>



<p>Another way to optimize PMax is to review and monitor the placements report. Most recently, Google has moved the <a href="https://searchengineland.com/google-ads-shows-pmax-placements-in-where-ads-showed-report-469527">Performance Max placements report</a> out of the reporting section of the Google Ads account and into the <em>Where ads have shown</em> section at the campaign level. While this makes analysis easier by removing additional steps, we still only have impression-level reporting on placements.&nbsp;</p>



<p>We can use this information to decide whether to add these placements as negative placements at the account level. This is found in <em>Tools &gt; Content suitability &gt; Advanced settings &gt; Excluded placements</em>.&nbsp;</p>



<p>While this isn’t ideal, there’s still useful insight we can glean from this report, such as ads appearing in kids’ programming or driving a high number of impressions from mobile apps.</p>



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<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-use-budget-signals-to-improve-efficiency">Use budget signals to improve efficiency</h2>



<p>Also located in the <em>When and where ads showed</em> section is the ad schedule. Even if you hadn’t selected an ad schedule when creating the campaign, Google automatically dayparts performance hourly. </p>



<p>Google typically recommends an open ad schedule, but if you have a limited budget, restricting your ad schedule during off-peak or non-converting hours is an excellent way to increase efficiency.&nbsp;</p>



<p>You can do this by creating a campaign-level ad schedule within <em>Campaigns &gt; Audiences, keywords, and content &gt; Ad schedule</em>. Make sure your Performance Max campaign is selected in the top left dropdown menu.</p>



<p><strong><em>Dig deeper: <a href="https://searchengineland.com/top-performance-max-optimization-tips-461913">Top Performance Max optimization tips for 2026</a></em></strong></p>



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<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-refine-targeting-with-the-right-constraints">Refine targeting with the right constraints</h2>



<p>Demographic exclusions are a relatively new feature at the campaign settings level for Performance Max. Unfortunately, reports for these campaigns are hard to obtain, limiting informed decisions on demographic exclusions.</p>



<p>This functionality is helpful if you’re aware of specific demographics that aren’t actively in the market for specific products or services. To make adjustments, go to <em>Campaign-level settings &gt; Other settings &gt; Demographic exclusions</em>. From here, you can turn on age or gender exclusions:</p>


<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="aligncenter size-full"><img decoding="async" width="912" height="286" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/Demographic-exclusions.png" alt="Demographic exclusions" class="wp-image-472530" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/Demographic-exclusions.png 912w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/Demographic-exclusions-768x241.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 912px) 100vw, 912px" /></figure>
</div>


<p>While PMax initially didn’t even provide device-level reporting, a new feature lets you opt out of serving on certain devices.</p>



<p>If you opt into all device targeting when launching a PMax campaign, you should periodically review device performance and adjust accordingly. This is best done by segmenting at the campaign or asset group level by device. Device-level data is extremely helpful for determining which device is better suited to reach your goal.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Likewise, if you almost always opt out of certain devices when launching a campaign, this data makes it easier to either launch with all device targeting enabled and monitor performance, or add a device you hadn’t initially added to see how it impacts performance. Device-level targeting is also available at the campaign level, under <em>Other settings.</em></p>


<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="aligncenter size-full"><img decoding="async" width="882" height="302" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/image-112.png" alt="Device settings" class="wp-image-472524" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/image-112.png 882w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/image-112-768x263.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 882px) 100vw, 882px" /></figure>
</div>


<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-improve-inputs-creative-and-ai-assets">Improve inputs: Creative and AI assets</h2>



<p>Ad assets play a large role in the display, YouTube, and Discover network performance of a PMax campaign. For many, there’s still a gap in producing high volumes of quality image and video creative.</p>



<p>While still evolving, AI assets are getting closer to filling these gaps — enabling us to more effectively target these additional networks. As newer iterations of LLMs emerge, this will become a primary way to generate video content and professional-looking images.</p>



<p>Google already offers generative AI image assets from shopping feed products that look relatively impressive. But we’re still a ways out from seeing high-quality AI-generated videos without the well-known glitches we typically see in this type of content.</p>



<p><strong><em>Dig deeper: <a href="https://searchengineland.com/how-to-reduce-low-quality-leads-from-performance-max-campaigns-468687">How to reduce low-quality leads from Performance Max campaigns</a></em></strong></p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-understand-the-limits-of-control-in-performance-max">Understand the limits of control in Performance Max</h2>



<p>The channel controls report gave more insight into where ads were serving. I have an unpopular opinion on this report. While helpful, there’s little we can do within the campaign to improve performance. Because of this, the report is frustrating.&nbsp;</p>



<p>We’ll likely see channel controls available within Performance Max in the near future — similar to what we already have in Demand Gen campaigns. For now, adjust creative and bids to sway volume within certain networks. To opt out of certain networks completely and focus on shopping, then a feed-only Performance Max campaign will do just that.</p>



<p>Performance Max is evolving from a black box to a critical asset in a marketer’s toolkit. The steady stream of new functionality, from campaign-level negative keywords to detailed placement and ad schedule reports, shows Google’s commitment to providing greater control.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Use these levers — strategic exclusions, device adjustments, and budget-aware scheduling — to move beyond set-it-and-forget-it and run Performance Max campaigns with precision and efficiency.</p>

While initially criticized as a black box, Performance Max has evolved into a fairly critical campaign type. With each passing quarter, Google has introduced more functionality and visibility.
Additional reporting is helpful, but what matters is what you can actually act on. While you can’t control everything in Performance Max, there are specific levers that can have a meaningful impact on performance. Here are the parts of PMax you can control and how to use them effectively.
Control what you can: Search terms and placements
One of the most exciting updates in the last year to Performance Max has been the ability to add these campaign-level negative keywords. 
In the past, you could contact Google to add these in. It was somewhat cumbersome and involved filling out an Excel doc, forwarding it to Google, and giving them permission to implement. 
With the inclusion of the search terms report, we’re now able to select a keyword and quickly add it to the campaign-level negative keyword list, just as we can with a search or shopping campaign.
Another way to optimize PMax is to review and monitor the placements report. Most recently, Google has moved the Performance Max placements report out of the reporting section of the Google Ads account and into the Where ads have shown section at the campaign level. While this makes analysis easier by removing additional steps, we still only have impression-level reporting on placements. 
We can use this information to decide whether to add these placements as negative placements at the account level. This is found in Tools > Content suitability > Advanced settings > Excluded placements. 
While this isn’t ideal, there’s still useful insight we can glean from this report, such as ads appearing in kids’ programming or driving a high number of impressions from mobile apps.

  
shows up.
      
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Get started with




Use budget signals to improve efficiency
Also located in the When and where ads showed section is the ad schedule. Even if you hadn’t selected an ad schedule when creating the campaign, Google automatically dayparts performance hourly. 
Google typically recommends an open ad schedule, but if you have a limited budget, restricting your ad schedule during off-peak or non-converting hours is an excellent way to increase efficiency. 
You can do this by creating a campaign-level ad schedule within Campaigns > Audiences, keywords, and content > Ad schedule. Make sure your Performance Max campaign is selected in the top left dropdown menu.
Dig deeper: Top Performance Max optimization tips for 2026
Get the newsletter search marketers rely on.
 
				
								
					MktoForms2.loadForm("https://app-sj02.marketo.com", "727-ZQE-044", 16298, function(form) {
						// form.onSubmit(function(){
						// });
						
						// form.onSuccess(function (values, followUpUrl) {
						// });
					});
				
			
See terms.
Refine targeting with the right constraints
Demographic exclusions are a relatively new feature at the campaign settings level for Performance Max. Unfortunately, reports for these campaigns are hard to obtain, limiting informed decisions on demographic exclusions.
This functionality is helpful if you’re aware of specific demographics that aren’t actively in the market for specific products or services. To make adjustments, go to Campaign-level settings > Other settings > Demographic exclusions. From here, you can turn on age or gender exclusions:




While PMax initially didn’t even provide device-level reporting, a new feature lets you opt out of serving on certain devices.
If you opt into all device targeting when launching a PMax campaign, you should periodically review device performance and adjust accordingly. This is best done by segmenting at the campaign or asset group level by device. Device-level data is extremely helpful for determining which device is better suited to reach your goal. 
Likewise, if you almost always opt out of certain devices when launching a campaign, this data makes it easier to either launch with all device targeting enabled and monitor performance, or add a device you hadn’t initially added to see how it impacts performance. Device-level targeting is also available at the campaign level, under Other settings.




Improve inputs: Creative and AI assets
Ad assets play a large role in the display, YouTube, and Discover network performance of a PMax campaign. For many, there’s still a gap in producing high volumes of quality image and video creative.
While still evolving, AI assets are getting closer to filling these gaps — enabling us to more effectively target these additional networks. As newer iterations of LLMs emerge, this will become a primary way to generate video content and professional-looking images.
Google already offers generative AI image assets from shopping feed products that look relatively impressive. But we’re still a ways out from seeing high-quality AI-generated videos without the well-known glitches we typically see in this type of content.
Dig deeper: How to reduce low-quality leads from Performance Max campaigns
Understand the limits of control in Performance Max
The channel controls report gave more insight into where ads were serving. I have an unpopular opinion on this report. While helpful, there’s little we can do within the campaign to improve performance. Because of this, the report is frustrating. 
We’ll likely see channel controls available within Performance Max in the near future — similar to what we already have in Demand Gen campaigns. For now, adjust creative and bids to sway volume within certain networks. To opt out of certain networks completely and focus on shopping, then a feed-only Performance Max campaign will do just that.
Performance Max is evolving from a black box to a critical asset in a marketer’s toolkit. The steady stream of new functionality, from campaign-level negative keywords to detailed placement and ad schedule reports, shows Google’s commitment to providing greater control. 
Use these levers — strategic exclusions, device adjustments, and budget-aware scheduling — to move beyond set-it-and-forget-it and run Performance Max campaigns with precision and efficiency.

Focus on what you can control in Performance Max to reduce wasted spend and improve efficiency with search terms, placements, and targeting.

The parts of Performance Max you can actually control

<div><img width="1920" height="1080" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/parasite-seo.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="Parasite SEO" style="margin-bottom: 15px;" decoding="async" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/parasite-seo.png 1920w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/parasite-seo-768x432.png 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/parasite-seo-1536x864.png 1536w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/parasite-seo-1200x675.png 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px" /></div>Google calls it site reputation abuse: legacy news brands, fake bylines, casino links, layoffs, and deindexing in a search spam scheme.

<div><img width="1920" height="1080" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/parasite-seo.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="Parasite SEO" style="margin-bottom: 15px;" decoding="async" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/parasite-seo.png 1920w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/parasite-seo-768x432.png 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/parasite-seo-1536x864.png 1536w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/parasite-seo-1200x675.png 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px" /></div>
<p>A company called Clickout Media is being called out for buying trusted news and niche sites, replacing them with AI-generated gambling content, and abandoning them after Google penalties. Some call this “parasite SEO,” but to me it sounds more like large-scale search spam.</p>



<p><strong>What’s happening</strong>. The company acquired sports, gaming, and tech sites, then rapidly shifted them from editorial coverage to casino and crypto content, PressGazette reported.</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li> Sites were stripped of original reporting, filled with AI-written articles, and used to push offshore gambling links, according to former employees.</li>
</ul>



<p><strong>How it works</strong>. The strategy relies on buying domains with existing authority, then exploiting their ability to rank in Google. Content typically followed a pattern:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Legitimate coverage continues briefly to preserve credibility</li>



<li>Gambling content is introduced and scaled</li>



<li>AI-generated articles and fake author profiles replace human writers</li>



<li>Revenue comes from affiliate deals with casino operators, sometimes tied to player losses</li>
</ul>



<p><strong>The impact</strong>. Several previously active publications now appear deindexed, with layoffs and closures following. In some cases, even charity websites were repurposed to host gambling content.</p>



<p><strong>What they&#8217;re saying</strong>. Google prohibits publishing content at scale for the primary purpose of manipulating rankings. It refers to extreme cases like this as “site reputation abuse,” a violation that can trigger manual actions and removal from Google&#8217;s index and search results.</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>“While we aren’t able to comment on a specific site’s ranking on Search, our policies prohibit publishing content at scale for the primary purpose of manipulating search rankings,” Google said about this case.</li>
</ul>



<p><strong>Why we care</strong>. This isn’t SEO in any meaningful sense. It’s reputation abuse designed to game rankings at scale.</p>



<p><strong>The report.</strong> <a href="https://pressgazette.co.uk/news/the-seo-parasites-buying-exploiting-and-ultimately-killing-online-newsbrands/">The SEO parasites buying, exploiting and ultimately killing online newsbrands</a> by Rob Waugh at PressGazette.</p>


A company called Clickout Media is being called out for buying trusted news and niche sites, replacing them with AI-generated gambling content, and abandoning them after Google penalties. Some call this “parasite SEO,” but to me it sounds more like large-scale search spam.
What’s happening. The company acquired sports, gaming, and tech sites, then rapidly shifted them from editorial coverage to casino and crypto content, PressGazette reported.
 Sites were stripped of original reporting, filled with AI-written articles, and used to push offshore gambling links, according to former employees.
How it works. The strategy relies on buying domains with existing authority, then exploiting their ability to rank in Google. Content typically followed a pattern:
Legitimate coverage continues briefly to preserve credibility
Gambling content is introduced and scaled
AI-generated articles and fake author profiles replace human writers
Revenue comes from affiliate deals with casino operators, sometimes tied to player losses
The impact. Several previously active publications now appear deindexed, with layoffs and closures following. In some cases, even charity websites were repurposed to host gambling content.
What they’re saying. Google prohibits publishing content at scale for the primary purpose of manipulating rankings. It refers to extreme cases like this as “site reputation abuse,” a violation that can trigger manual actions and removal from Google’s index and search results.
“While we aren’t able to comment on a specific site’s ranking on Search, our policies prohibit publishing content at scale for the primary purpose of manipulating search rankings,” Google said about this case.
Why we care. This isn’t SEO in any meaningful sense. It’s reputation abuse designed to game rankings at scale.
The report. The SEO parasites buying, exploiting and ultimately killing online newsbrands by Rob Waugh at PressGazette.

Google calls it site reputation abuse: legacy news brands, fake bylines, casino links, layoffs, and deindexing in a search spam scheme.

Report: Clickout Media turned news sites into AI gambling hubs

<div><img width="1920" height="1086" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/How-to-use-first-party-data-to-find-high-impact-content-ideas.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="How to use first-party data to find high-impact content ideas" style="margin-bottom: 15px;" decoding="async" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/How-to-use-first-party-data-to-find-high-impact-content-ideas.png 1920w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/How-to-use-first-party-data-to-find-high-impact-content-ideas-768x434.png 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/How-to-use-first-party-data-to-find-high-impact-content-ideas-1536x869.png 1536w" sizes="(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px" /></div>Turn internal data into content your competitors can’t replicate, from site search insights to sales conversations and support tickets.


<div><img width="1920" height="1086" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/How-to-use-first-party-data-to-find-high-impact-content-ideas.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="How to use first-party data to find high-impact content ideas" style="margin-bottom: 15px;" decoding="async" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/How-to-use-first-party-data-to-find-high-impact-content-ideas.png 1920w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/How-to-use-first-party-data-to-find-high-impact-content-ideas-768x434.png 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/How-to-use-first-party-data-to-find-high-impact-content-ideas-1536x869.png 1536w" sizes="(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px" /></div>
<p>Like it or not, everyone is fishing in the same pond. As content marketers and <a href="https://searchengineland.com/guide/what-is-seo">SEO</a> practitioners, we all have the same subscriptions to Semrush and other SEO tools, giving us access to the same data as our competitors. </p>



<p>If we all have the same tools, aren’t we just writing the same content?</p>



<p>There’s a better way. </p>



<p>You may be sitting on a wealth of data about your target audience and your existing customers, and you don’t even know it. These insights are invisible to your competitors, yet they’re unread, unanalyzed, and underutilized by the marketing team.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-the-problem-third-party-tools-can-create-an-over-commoditized-content-echo-chamber">The problem: Third-party tools can create an over-commoditized content echo chamber</h2>



<p>While SEO toolsets are invaluable (and I’ll always be using one, pretty much daily, for the rest of my career), they aren’t a failsafe way to ensure you’re creating the best content for your audience. These tools measure existing search demand through their own data, giving the best estimate of keyword traffic and search results.</p>



<p>However, when these aren’t viewed through the lens of your own customers, the result can be content that’s oversaturated in your market, overwhelming anyone looking for help or answers online.</p>



<p>When your content isn’t unique to your current or target audience, your organization and its offerings may get lost in the sea of SEOs and content strategists at your competitor organizations, who are trying to follow the same best practices and strategy.</p>



<p>It’s time to better utilize your own data to implement content campaigns that drive interest from the very audience that’s already shown a proven interest.</p>



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<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-first-party-data-actually-is">What first-party data actually is</h2>



<p>For the purposes of this article and marketing content creation, first-party data is any data from current, potential, or past customers that’s only accessible internally. The top “5 goldmines” where I’ve consistently found nuggets of content foundations and insight are:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li><strong>Internal site search queries:</strong> What visitors couldn’t find on your site, but keep searching for.</li>



<li><strong>Sales call transcripts:</strong> The exact language and questions prospects say before they buy.</li>



<li><strong>CRM data:</strong> Spotting patterns in deal stages, objections, and lost deals.</li>



<li><strong>Support tickets:</strong> The issues and questions your product or service keeps failing to answer, leading to frustrated customers.</li>



<li><strong>Email replies and metrics:</strong> What the audience actually responds to versus what they ignore.</li>
</ul>



<p>These five areas are a great place to start collecting and utilizing first-party data to its full potential.</p>



<p><strong><em>Dig deeper: <a href="https://searchengineland.com/data-gathering-seo-444037">How to harness the power of data gathering for SEO</a></em></strong></p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-why-this-data-wins">Why this data wins</h2>



<p>This data is key to better, more-targeted content marketing for three reasons.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-it-s-proprietary">It’s proprietary</h3>



<p>This data is confidential and only available to your internal team. Often, it’s not even accessible to everyone and may require favors from data analysts or web developers to pull. That’s what makes it so unique. Competitors can’t find or replicate it, no matter what SEO tools they have.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-it-reflects-real-buyer-language">It reflects real buyer language</h3>



<p>This relates to the <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9794110/#notes1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">“curse of knowledge” cognitive bias</a>, where you know so much about a topic that you assume others do as well. One of my favorite examples is the “facial tissue” market. You may know facial tissue as “Kleenex,” even though that’s technically a brand name for a type of facial tissue.&nbsp;</p>



<p>With many consumers using a competitor’s brand name colloquially, how do competitors refer to their own product? Because most people likely aren’t searching “facial tissue” with the intent to buy, it’s up to manufacturers to determine the language their audience uses to find alternatives.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Even though employees at XYZ Tissue Co. know the product is technically “facial tissue,” that doesn’t mean their customers do.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-it-maps-to-your-full-marketing-funnel">It maps to your full marketing funnel</h3>



<p>While third-party keyword data usually skews to the top of the funnel, first-party data captures mid- and bottom-funnel content gaps that drive conversions and brand loyalty, not just traffic.&nbsp;</p>



<div class="nl-inline-form border py-2 px-1 my-2">
	
	<div class="row align-items-center nl-inline-container">
		<div class="col-12 col-lg-3 col-xl-4 pe-md-0 pb-2 pb-lg-0">
			<p class="inline-form-text text-center mb-0">Get the newsletter search marketers rely on.</p>
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			<p class="text-center mb-0" style="font-size: .75rem;"><a class="nl-terms" href="https://searchengineland.com/termsofuse" target="_blank" aria-label="opens in a new tab">See terms.</a></p>
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<hr class="wp-block-separator has-text-color has-cyan-bluish-gray-color has-css-opacity has-cyan-bluish-gray-background-color has-background"/>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-how-to-get-content-ideas-from-first-party-data-the-specifics">How to get content ideas from first-party data: The specifics</h2>



<p>We know these data sources are valuable. So, how do we use them? Let’s break it down.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-internal-site-search">Internal site search</h3>



<p>Site search is one of my favorite sources of insight and inspiration. It’s active, ongoing, real-time data showing how your target audience is trying to interact and engage with you through internal site search. No matter what the data looks like, it can hold a wealth of information about what content your users expect to find on your website.</p>



<p>If you don’t have site search on your website, you can create it using <a href="https://programmablesearchengine.google.com/about/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Google’s programmable site search feature</a>. While it will provide internal site search data, it may also display ads or external results on users’ results pages.</p>



<p>To use site search effectively, export the queries monthly, clean the data to remove spam, then cluster by theme (such as product collections or service offerings). Finally, run it through keyword research tools to flag anything with high keyword volume and low competition that’s missing from your site.</p>



<p><strong>Bonus:</strong> For products or services your customers are searching for that don’t exist, it might be useful to send that data to the R&amp;D department for potential new offerings to consider.</p>



<p><strong><em>Dig deeper: <a href="https://searchengineland.com/enterprise-seo-internal-site-search-competitive-edge-430036">Why internal site search can be your competitive edge in enterprise SEO</a></em></strong></p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-sales-calls-and-crm-data">Sales calls and CRM data</h3>



<p>Use a service like Gong, Chorus, or manual transcriptions from sales calls and CRM data to look for recurring needs, questions, and objections across customers from all stages of the purchasing funnel.</p>



<p>If, for instance, you see continued resistance to your enterprise SaaS analytics platform due to the long onboarding process, consider creating a time-bound, step-by-step guide that makes it painless for anyone to switch analytics platforms. This can be great collateral for the sales team to address popular objections.</p>



<p>In the CRM, you can also filter lost deals by reason. For instance, finding “went with competitor” + common objection could lead to a comparison or differentiation article that highlights your features vs. the competitors you keep losing deals to.</p>



<p>Besides reviewing the data, ask the sales team directly on a call or email about their most common objections. Because they’re constantly in communication with potential customers, they’ll likely know immediately the top objections they receive regularly.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-support-tickets">Support tickets</h3>



<p>The support team can also be an invaluable resource. In addition to asking the support team directly what problems they solve for customers on a daily basis, look in your customer support ticket queue and dashboard to find old and new tickets with recurring issues (your top 10 most common complaints are probably content gaps you need to address ASAP).</p>



<p>An explainer blog post, knowledge base article, or PDF guide that tackles the issue from an actionable angle can not only give you more content to promote, but also help the support team with materials to share with your customers.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-email-replies-and-metrics">Email replies and metrics</h3>



<p>Depending on the industry, your email lists’ reply inboxes may be exploding with valuable customer data. At a supplements company I worked at, we regularly received customer responses to our email marketing campaigns. They asked questions about products, gave suggestions, and even offered enthusiastic reviews we could feature on our website.</p>



<p>You can also look at the metrics.&nbsp;</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>If your monthly newsletter is the highest-performing email, should you increase it to a biweekly newsletter?&nbsp;</li>



<li>If your product features never get high conversions, is that because of the content, or are they more interested in value-focused blog posts and videos?</li>
</ul>



<p><strong><em>Dig deeper: <a href="https://searchengineland.com/seo-ai-visibility-they-ask-you-answer-469387">How to apply ‘They Ask, You Answer’ to SEO and AI visibility</a></em></strong></p>



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<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-the-first-party-advantage">The first-party advantage</h2>



<p>Don’t take your first-party data for granted. Build automated pipelines for report generation, conversation follow-ups, and content creation from these sources to build momentum around the topics your audience most wants to hear.</p>



<p>While competitors can copy your articles, they can never copy your customer conversations. Try it out this week: audit a first-party data source and see what content ideas you can find.</p>

Like it or not, everyone is fishing in the same pond. As content marketers and SEO practitioners, we all have the same subscriptions to Semrush and other SEO tools, giving us access to the same data as our competitors. 
If we all have the same tools, aren’t we just writing the same content?
There’s a better way. 
You may be sitting on a wealth of data about your target audience and your existing customers, and you don’t even know it. These insights are invisible to your competitors, yet they’re unread, unanalyzed, and underutilized by the marketing team.
The problem: Third-party tools can create an over-commoditized content echo chamber
While SEO toolsets are invaluable (and I’ll always be using one, pretty much daily, for the rest of my career), they aren’t a failsafe way to ensure you’re creating the best content for your audience. These tools measure existing search demand through their own data, giving the best estimate of keyword traffic and search results.
However, when these aren’t viewed through the lens of your own customers, the result can be content that’s oversaturated in your market, overwhelming anyone looking for help or answers online.
When your content isn’t unique to your current or target audience, your organization and its offerings may get lost in the sea of SEOs and content strategists at your competitor organizations, who are trying to follow the same best practices and strategy.
It’s time to better utilize your own data to implement content campaigns that drive interest from the very audience that’s already shown a proven interest.

  
shows up.
      
Start Free Trial
    
Get started with




What first-party data actually is
For the purposes of this article and marketing content creation, first-party data is any data from current, potential, or past customers that’s only accessible internally. The top “5 goldmines” where I’ve consistently found nuggets of content foundations and insight are:
Internal site search queries: What visitors couldn’t find on your site, but keep searching for.
Sales call transcripts: The exact language and questions prospects say before they buy.
CRM data: Spotting patterns in deal stages, objections, and lost deals.
Support tickets: The issues and questions your product or service keeps failing to answer, leading to frustrated customers.
Email replies and metrics: What the audience actually responds to versus what they ignore.
These five areas are a great place to start collecting and utilizing first-party data to its full potential.
Dig deeper: How to harness the power of data gathering for SEO
Why this data wins
This data is key to better, more-targeted content marketing for three reasons.
It’s proprietary
This data is confidential and only available to your internal team. Often, it’s not even accessible to everyone and may require favors from data analysts or web developers to pull. That’s what makes it so unique. Competitors can’t find or replicate it, no matter what SEO tools they have.
It reflects real buyer language
This relates to the “curse of knowledge” cognitive bias, where you know so much about a topic that you assume others do as well. One of my favorite examples is the “facial tissue” market. You may know facial tissue as “Kleenex,” even though that’s technically a brand name for a type of facial tissue. 
With many consumers using a competitor’s brand name colloquially, how do competitors refer to their own product? Because most people likely aren’t searching “facial tissue” with the intent to buy, it’s up to manufacturers to determine the language their audience uses to find alternatives. 
Even though employees at XYZ Tissue Co. know the product is technically “facial tissue,” that doesn’t mean their customers do.
It maps to your full marketing funnel
While third-party keyword data usually skews to the top of the funnel, first-party data captures mid- and bottom-funnel content gaps that drive conversions and brand loyalty, not just traffic. 
Get the newsletter search marketers rely on.
 
				
								
					MktoForms2.loadForm("https://app-sj02.marketo.com", "727-ZQE-044", 16298, function(form) {
						// form.onSubmit(function(){
						// });
						
						// form.onSuccess(function (values, followUpUrl) {
						// });
					});
				
			
See terms.
How to get content ideas from first-party data: The specifics
We know these data sources are valuable. So, how do we use them? Let’s break it down.
Internal site search
Site search is one of my favorite sources of insight and inspiration. It’s active, ongoing, real-time data showing how your target audience is trying to interact and engage with you through internal site search. No matter what the data looks like, it can hold a wealth of information about what content your users expect to find on your website.
If you don’t have site search on your website, you can create it using Google’s programmable site search feature. While it will provide internal site search data, it may also display ads or external results on users’ results pages.
To use site search effectively, export the queries monthly, clean the data to remove spam, then cluster by theme (such as product collections or service offerings). Finally, run it through keyword research tools to flag anything with high keyword volume and low competition that’s missing from your site.
Bonus: For products or services your customers are searching for that don’t exist, it might be useful to send that data to the R&D department for potential new offerings to consider.
Dig deeper: Why internal site search can be your competitive edge in enterprise SEO
Sales calls and CRM data
Use a service like Gong, Chorus, or manual transcriptions from sales calls and CRM data to look for recurring needs, questions, and objections across customers from all stages of the purchasing funnel.
If, for instance, you see continued resistance to your enterprise SaaS analytics platform due to the long onboarding process, consider creating a time-bound, step-by-step guide that makes it painless for anyone to switch analytics platforms. This can be great collateral for the sales team to address popular objections.
In the CRM, you can also filter lost deals by reason. For instance, finding “went with competitor” + common objection could lead to a comparison or differentiation article that highlights your features vs. the competitors you keep losing deals to.
Besides reviewing the data, ask the sales team directly on a call or email about their most common objections. Because they’re constantly in communication with potential customers, they’ll likely know immediately the top objections they receive regularly.
Support tickets
The support team can also be an invaluable resource. In addition to asking the support team directly what problems they solve for customers on a daily basis, look in your customer support ticket queue and dashboard to find old and new tickets with recurring issues (your top 10 most common complaints are probably content gaps you need to address ASAP).
An explainer blog post, knowledge base article, or PDF guide that tackles the issue from an actionable angle can not only give you more content to promote, but also help the support team with materials to share with your customers.
Email replies and metrics
Depending on the industry, your email lists’ reply inboxes may be exploding with valuable customer data. At a supplements company I worked at, we regularly received customer responses to our email marketing campaigns. They asked questions about products, gave suggestions, and even offered enthusiastic reviews we could feature on our website.
You can also look at the metrics. 
If your monthly newsletter is the highest-performing email, should you increase it to a biweekly newsletter? 
If your product features never get high conversions, is that because of the content, or are they more interested in value-focused blog posts and videos?
Dig deeper: How to apply ‘They Ask, You Answer’ to SEO and AI visibility

  
complete picture of your search visibility.
      
Start Free Trial
    
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The first-party advantage
Don’t take your first-party data for granted. Build automated pipelines for report generation, conversation follow-ups, and content creation from these sources to build momentum around the topics your audience most wants to hear.
While competitors can copy your articles, they can never copy your customer conversations. Try it out this week: audit a first-party data source and see what content ideas you can find.

Turn internal data into content your competitors can’t replicate, from site search insights to sales conversations and support tickets.

How to use first-party data to find high-impact content ideas

<div><img width="1920" height="1080" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/qa-forum-content-cards.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="Q&amp;A forum content cards" style="margin-bottom: 15px;" decoding="async" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/qa-forum-content-cards.png 1920w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/qa-forum-content-cards-768x432.png 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/qa-forum-content-cards-1536x864.png 1536w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/qa-forum-content-cards-1200x675.png 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px" /></div>Forum and Q&#038;A publishers can now clarify reply totals, quoted material, and AI use so Google better interprets discussions.

<div><img width="1920" height="1080" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/qa-forum-content-cards.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="Q&amp;A forum content cards" style="margin-bottom: 15px;" decoding="async" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/qa-forum-content-cards.png 1920w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/qa-forum-content-cards-768x432.png 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/qa-forum-content-cards-1536x864.png 1536w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/qa-forum-content-cards-1200x675.png 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px" /></div>
<p>Google expanded its structured data support for forum and Q&amp;A pages, adding properties that help you signal reply threads, quoted content, and whether content is human- or machine-generated. The update aims to reduce how Google misreads discussion and Q&amp;A content.</p>



<p><strong>What changed</strong>. Google’s QAPage docs now support <code>commentCount</code> and <code>digitalSourceType</code>. DiscussionForumPosting docs now support <code>sharedContent</code> plus the same <code>commentCount</code> and <code>digitalSourceType</code>. </p>



<p><strong>The details</strong>. In Q&amp;A markup, you can use <code>commentCount</code> on questions, answers, and comments to show total comments even if not fully marked up. <code>answerCount + commentCount</code> should equal total replies of any type.</p>



<p><strong>How it works</strong>. <code>digitalSourceType</code> lets you flag whether content comes from a trained model or simpler automation. Use <code>TrainedAlgorithmicMediaDigitalSource</code> for LLM-style output and <code>AlgorithmicMediaDigitalSource</code> for simpler bots. If omitted, Google assumes human-generated content.</p>



<p><strong>What’s new for forums</strong>. <code>sharedContent</code> lets you mark the primary item shared in a post. Google accepts <code>WebPage</code>, <code>ImageObject</code>, <code>VideoObject</code>, and referenced <code>DiscussionForumPosting</code> or <code>Comment</code>, including quotes or reposts.</p>



<p><strong>Why we care. </strong>This gives you more precise control over how Google reads modern community content — especially forum-heavy sites, support communities, UGC platforms, and Q&amp;A sections. Google can better distinguish answers from comments, count partial threads across pagination, and identify when a post mainly shares a link, image, video, or quoted reply.</p>



<p><strong>The documentation.</strong> It was <a href="https://developers.google.com/search/updates#added-new-supported-properties-for-discussion-forum-and-qa-page-markup" target="_blank" rel="noopener">updated March 24</a>.</p>


Google expanded its structured data support for forum and Q&A pages, adding properties that help you signal reply threads, quoted content, and whether content is human- or machine-generated. The update aims to reduce how Google misreads discussion and Q&A content.
What changed. Google’s QAPage docs now support commentCount and digitalSourceType. DiscussionForumPosting docs now support sharedContent plus the same commentCount and digitalSourceType. 
The details. In Q&A markup, you can use commentCount on questions, answers, and comments to show total comments even if not fully marked up. answerCount + commentCount should equal total replies of any type.
How it works. digitalSourceType lets you flag whether content comes from a trained model or simpler automation. Use TrainedAlgorithmicMediaDigitalSource for LLM-style output and AlgorithmicMediaDigitalSource for simpler bots. If omitted, Google assumes human-generated content.
What’s new for forums. sharedContent lets you mark the primary item shared in a post. Google accepts WebPage, ImageObject, VideoObject, and referenced DiscussionForumPosting or Comment, including quotes or reposts.
Why we care. This gives you more precise control over how Google reads modern community content — especially forum-heavy sites, support communities, UGC platforms, and Q&A sections. Google can better distinguish answers from comments, count partial threads across pagination, and identify when a post mainly shares a link, image, video, or quoted reply.
The documentation. It was updated March 24.

Forum and Q&A publishers can now clarify reply totals, quoted material, and AI use so Google better interprets discussions.

Google updates structured data for forum and Q&A content

<div><img width="1920" height="1080" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/How-GSCs-branded-query-filter-changes-SEO-reporting-and-performance-analysis.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="How GSC’s branded query filter changes SEO reporting and performance analysis" style="margin-bottom: 15px;" decoding="async" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/How-GSCs-branded-query-filter-changes-SEO-reporting-and-performance-analysis.png 1920w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/How-GSCs-branded-query-filter-changes-SEO-reporting-and-performance-analysis-768x432.png 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/How-GSCs-branded-query-filter-changes-SEO-reporting-and-performance-analysis-1536x864.png 1536w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/03/How-GSCs-branded-query-filter-changes-SEO-reporting-and-performance-analysis-1200x675.png 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px" /></div>Learn how Google Search Console’s branded query filtering helps you track awareness, diagnose drops, and measure true SEO impact.

In November 2025, Google solved a persistent SEO reporting challenge: separating branded from non-branded search performance directly in Google Search Console (GSC). The feature is now fully rolled out to eligible properties.
For years, we’ve relied on regular expression (regex) filters, custom dashboards like Looker Studio, or third-party tools — approaches that were often inconsistent and difficult to maintain. Now, GSC’s branded query filter brings that capability natively into one of the most widely used organic reporting platforms.
With this shift, a key gap in SEO reporting becomes easier to address — along with some of the assumptions behind it. Brand demand and discovery can now be evaluated independently, improving performance interpretation and enabling clearer, more defensible reporting grounded in first-party data.
How GSC’s branded query filter works
At its core, the feature does exactly what it promises. It automatically filters queries into:
Branded queries (queries containing recognized brand terms).
Non-branded queries (all remaining discovery queries).
Source: Google Search Central



The filter appears directly in:
Performance > Search results > + Add filter > Query.
Query groups.
API-accessible data exports.
Together, these features enable:
Grouping queries by topic or intent.
Filtering those groups by branded versus non-branded.
Building layered reports without external processing.
Dig deeper: Google expands Search Console branded queries filter to all eligible sites

  
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Why branded vs. non-branded reporting has been inconsistent
Separating branded from non-branded search performance isn’t new. What’s changed is how practical it is to do consistently.
Historically, we’ve built this segmentation manually using:
Regex rules in GSC performance reports.
Keyword tagging in third-party rank-tracking tools.
Custom dashboards pulling from GA4 or BigQuery.
Query classification via exports.
These approaches worked, but they were fragile and difficult to maintain at scale. Common challenges included:
Character limits on regexes.
International sites with language variants.
Misspellings that would slip through.
No shared standard for what counts as a branded term.
Without a consistent framework, segmentation varied by team, tool, and implementation — making it difficult to rely on as a repeatable reporting practice. When data is difficult to access, it doesn’t shape everyday decisions.
GSC’s branded query filter doesn’t make third-party tools obsolete. They remain valuable for competitor brand analysis. GSC becomes the authoritative source for first-party branded performance, while cross-tool comparison shifts from a workaround to a validation step.
The center of gravity shifts back to GSC — right where we want it.
Why SEO performance looks different when you split the data
Branded traffic is both a signal of brand awareness and a high-converting traffic source. It also skews performance when blended with non-branded data.
Without segmentation, reporting often leads to misleading narratives:
“Our organic CTR is improving” (driven mostly by branded growth).
“I’m seeing rankings as stable” (while non-branded discovery is declining or vice versa).
“Traffic was flat year-over-year” (masking rising/declining brand demand).
These patterns make it difficult to understand what’s actually driving performance.
Separating branded and non-branded data allows you to distinguish between brand demand and discovery and evaluate each on its own terms. It also makes it easier to answer key questions:
Are we growing brand demand or non-branded reach?
Is our content strategy increasing non-branded visibility?
If nothing else, is the current strategy working as it should be?
Dig deeper: SEO analytics: How to interpret SEO data and anomalies
How branded vs. non-branded data reveals what’s really happening
Measuring brand health
Branded search trends are among the clearest signals of brand awareness and trust. Monitoring organic performance for branded terms can surface gaps and opportunities across other channels.




For example, using a regex filter to isolate branded performance, this ecommerce property shows clear year-over-year declines over the last three months. That raises important questions:
Has search demand for the primary branded term increased or decreased?
Was paid search spend for branded terms adjusted?
Are there social, video, or PR opportunities that aren’t being fully leveraged?




In this case, further analysis using tools like Keyword Planner (via Google Ads), Google Trends, and third-party keyword platforms showed a 12% year-over-year decline in branded search demand. That contributed to a 32% decrease in branded clicks.
There are additional factors worth exploring — including paid spend and brand sentiment — but isolating branded performance helps pinpoint where to investigate next.
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See terms.
Interpreting performance correctly
Non-branded queries typically drive the majority of organic traffic, while branded queries make up a smaller share but convert at significantly higher rates. These differences reflect user intent.
Searches that include a brand name are usually navigational or transactional, while non-branded queries signal discovery.
As a result, impressions, clicks, CTR, and conversions behave differently across branded and non-branded segments.
Searches that include a brand name often indicate intent to visit that brand’s website (see the ecommerce property CTR comparison chart below). Because of this, branded queries are considered bottom-of-funnel and more likely to convert.




Efficiency, strategy, and measuring discovery
Non-branded performance remains the clearest proxy for:
Topical authority.
Content effectiveness.
Organic discovery and reach.
Tracking non-branded visibility separately allows teams to answer:
Are we reaching new users?
Is our content strategy expanding keyword footprints?
Did recent core algorithm updates, which typically create keyword volatility, impact non-branded traffic?




In the ecommerce example above, non-branded impressions dropped sharply around Sept. 12, 2025 — a period when performance should have been trending upward heading into back-to-school, Halloween, and the holiday season.
In this case, the decline was not tied to SEO strategy. Instead, non-branded impressions dipped following Google’s retirement of the &num=100 parameter in Search Console reporting in mid-September 2025.
Because branded queries typically rank higher, they were less affected by this change, making the issue harder to detect in blended data.
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More than a feature: A shift in SEO measurement
Most SEO teams already separate branded and non-branded performance, but consistency has been the challenge.
With native segmentation now built into GSC, achieving that consistency becomes far easier. What once required workarounds can now be done directly within the primary reporting interface.
It’s easy to view the branded query filter as just another GSC feature. In reality, it represents something larger:
Standardized brand classification.
Native segmentation inside first-party data.
More consistent and reliable SEO reporting.
Stronger ties between SEO and broader marketing performance.
This shift changes how SEO work gets done. Teams gain clearer visibility into brand demand trends and discovery performance, and can spend less time reconciling discrepancies across tools and more time interpreting results.
As adoption grows, branded versus non-branded reporting will likely become the default rather than an advanced, custom setup. Reporting becomes more consistent, and performance narratives are easier to support with shared data.
If you’re focused on driving impact, the opportunity is to move beyond reconciling data and toward more confident, consistent interpretation and communication.

Learn how Google Search Console’s branded query filtering helps you track awareness, diagnose drops, and measure true SEO impact.

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