<div><img width="800" height="450" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2021/10/hiring-in-search-marketing-800x450.jpg" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="Search marketing jobs" decoding="async" fetchpriority="high" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2021/10/hiring-in-search-marketing-800x450.jpg 800w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2021/10/hiring-in-search-marketing-600x338.jpg 600w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2021/10/hiring-in-search-marketing-200x113.jpg 200w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2021/10/hiring-in-search-marketing-768x432.jpg 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2021/10/hiring-in-search-marketing-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2021/10/hiring-in-search-marketing-150x84.jpg 150w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2021/10/hiring-in-search-marketing-550x310.jpg 550w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2021/10/hiring-in-search-marketing.jpg 1920w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" /></div>Land your next job in SEO or PPC. These brands and agencies are hiring to fill open search marketing positions right now.

<div><img width="800" height="450" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2021/10/hiring-in-search-marketing-800x450.jpg" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="Search marketing jobs" decoding="async" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2021/10/hiring-in-search-marketing-800x450.jpg 800w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2021/10/hiring-in-search-marketing-600x338.jpg 600w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2021/10/hiring-in-search-marketing-200x113.jpg 200w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2021/10/hiring-in-search-marketing-768x432.jpg 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2021/10/hiring-in-search-marketing-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2021/10/hiring-in-search-marketing-150x84.jpg 150w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2021/10/hiring-in-search-marketing-550x310.jpg 550w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2021/10/hiring-in-search-marketing.jpg 1920w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" /></div>
<p>Looking to take the next step in your search marketing career? </p>



<p>Below, you will find the latest SEO, PPC, and digital marketing jobs at brands and agencies. We also include positions from previous weeks that are still open.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-newest-seo-jobs">Newest SEO Jobs </h2>







<p><strong>(Provided to Search Engine Land by <a href="https://www.seojobs.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">SEOjobs.com</a>) </strong>


<ul class="has-dates has-excerpts wp-block-rss"><li class='wp-block-rss__item'><div class='wp-block-rss__item-title'><a href='https://www.seojobs.com/job/digital-marketing-assistant-remote-f5-logistics-marketing-consultants/'>Digital Marketing Assistant — Remote</a></div><time datetime="2026-05-21T21:44:35-04:00" class="wp-block-rss__item-publish-date">May 21, 2026</time> <div class="wp-block-rss__item-excerpt">The Role We need someone who can handle the day-to-day execution of our marketing operations across multiple clients. This is not a strategy role — it’s hands-on work. You’ll be publishing content, managing prospect lists, keeping local listings accurate, and making things run on time. You’ll work directly with the founder. Communication is in English, […]</div></li><li class='wp-block-rss__item'><div class='wp-block-rss__item-title'><a href='https://click.appcast.io/t/NuqSURV5CEFU-6gNTXP0qS4kIqK4CNCjrzHEZIvVRTRdXrMZulqC68sYkCca8M6Z2oIWTrwTdB4EGw3obI-uYw=='>Growth Marketer, Pipeline Development</a></div><time datetime="2026-05-21T21:40:02-04:00" class="wp-block-rss__item-publish-date">May 21, 2026</time> <div class="wp-block-rss__item-excerpt">Job Description Job Description Samba is a media intelligence company. We know what the world is watching, reading, and thinking about — in real time, at scale, across every screen. Our data exists with the consent of over a billion people, organized into the most complete picture of consumer attention ever built. The biggest brands […]</div></li><li class='wp-block-rss__item'><div class='wp-block-rss__item-title'><a href='https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdhXiB7-Bh6_ut8EfefmxIVpxeZgowUGes1_iijyNv9acCjyg/viewform?usp=header'>SEO/AEO Specialist</a></div><time datetime="2026-05-21T21:38:59-04:00" class="wp-block-rss__item-publish-date">May 21, 2026</time> <div class="wp-block-rss__item-excerpt">I’m the owner of Jaclyn Hope Design, a small web and SEO agency based near Seattle, WA. We produce high-quality, converting websites and solutions, with detailed SEO work on every site. Our clients are both service and product-based businesses. The majority are women entrepreneurs and business owners. We have a small team of designers and […]</div></li><li class='wp-block-rss__item'><div class='wp-block-rss__item-title'><a href='http://boards.greenhouse.io/cargurus/jobs/7093019'>Director, SEO (AI Engine Optimization)</a></div><time datetime="2026-05-18T10:24:52-04:00" class="wp-block-rss__item-publish-date">May 18, 2026</time> <div class="wp-block-rss__item-excerpt">Who we are At CarGurus (NASDAQ: CARG), our mission is to give people the power to reach their destination. We started as a small team of developers determined to bring trust and transparency to car shopping. Since then, our history of innovation and go-to-market acceleration has driven industry-leading growth. In fact, we’re the largest and […]</div></li><li class='wp-block-rss__item'><div class='wp-block-rss__item-title'><a href='http://onlineriver.pinpointhq.com/postings/7317851d-2c20-40c0-967e-5f33b0b2d2f9'>SEO Specialist</a></div><time datetime="2026-05-18T10:09:58-04:00" class="wp-block-rss__item-publish-date">May 18, 2026</time> <div class="wp-block-rss__item-excerpt">We are seeking a skilled and experienced Remote SEO Specialist to join our digital marketing team. In this role, you will be responsible for improving our website’s organic search rankings, driving increased traffic, and enhancing online visibility. The ideal candidate will have a deep understanding of SEO best practices, keyword research, on-page and off-page optimization, […]</div></li><li class='wp-block-rss__item'><div class='wp-block-rss__item-title'><a href='http://boards.greenhouse.io/scorpionenterprisesllc/jobs/5209703008'>Senior Data Analyst, SEO</a></div><time datetime="2026-05-17T17:55:22-04:00" class="wp-block-rss__item-publish-date">May 17, 2026</time> <div class="wp-block-rss__item-excerpt">About Us Scorpion is the leading provider of technology and services helping local businesses thrive. We do this by helping customers understand local market dynamics, make the most of their marketing, and deliver experiences their customers will love. We offer tools to know what’s going on with marketing, competitors, and customers. We offer a unique […]</div></li><li class='wp-block-rss__item'><div class='wp-block-rss__item-title'><a href='http://jobs.smartrecruiters.com/thelanguagebusinessltd/743999678049159'>Digital SEO Manager</a></div><time datetime="2026-05-17T17:55:06-04:00" class="wp-block-rss__item-publish-date">May 17, 2026</time> <div class="wp-block-rss__item-excerpt">Job Description Digital SEO Manager COMPANY BACKGROUNDOur client is successful eCommerce company with a large range of consumer good and brands that are recognised and sold across most of the world’s leading online platforms (Amazon, Google Shopping, eBay etc) JOB RESPONSIBILITIESTo manage all of their international website SEO campaigns, they wish to recruit a Digital […]</div></li><li class='wp-block-rss__item'><div class='wp-block-rss__item-title'><a href='http://boards.greenhouse.io/inspiraeducation/jobs/5190349008'>SEO Content Writer</a></div><time datetime="2026-05-17T17:35:28-04:00" class="wp-block-rss__item-publish-date">May 17, 2026</time> <div class="wp-block-rss__item-excerpt">About Inspira Education Inspira Education Group is one of the fastest-growing edtech startups in the US. We started with a simple mission to democratize access to high-quality coaching so that every student in the world has an equal opportunity to access the best opportunities.  As the world’s leading network of top admissions coaches in medical, […]</div></li><li class='wp-block-rss__item'><div class='wp-block-rss__item-title'><a href='http://boards.greenhouse.io/postman/jobs/7689499003'>SEO Manager</a></div><time datetime="2026-05-17T17:35:07-04:00" class="wp-block-rss__item-publish-date">May 17, 2026</time> <div class="wp-block-rss__item-excerpt">Who Are We? Postman is the world’s leading API platform, used by more than 45 million+ developers and 500,000 organizations, including 98% of the Fortune 500. Postman is helping developers and professionals across the globe build the API-first world by simplifying each step of the API lifecycle and streamlining collaboration—enabling users to create better APIs, […]</div></li><li class='wp-block-rss__item'><div class='wp-block-rss__item-title'><a href='http://ebhu.fa.us2.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/CandidateExperience/en/sites/CX/job/6208'>Digital Product Specialist</a></div><time datetime="2026-05-17T16:54:49-04:00" class="wp-block-rss__item-publish-date">May 17, 2026</time> <div class="wp-block-rss__item-excerpt">Description What we need:  The Digital Solutions Specialist is responsible for the coordination and execution of several items relating to the successful launch and ongoing maintenance of features and capabilities of Cetera’s digital platform, AdviceWorks. Reporting to the Managing Director, Digital Solutions, this role facilitates key deliverables relating to user acceptance testing, go to market planning, and ongoing platform support.  […]</div></li></ul>


<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-newest-ppc-and-paid-media-jobs">Newest PPC and paid media jobs</h2>



<p><strong>(Provided to Search Engine Land by <a href="https://www.ppcjobs.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">PPCjobs.com</a>) </strong>






<ul class="has-dates has-excerpts wp-block-rss"><li class='wp-block-rss__item'><div class='wp-block-rss__item-title'><a href='https://www.ppcjobs.com/job/icloud-growth-marketing-manager-apple/'>iCloud Growth Marketing Manager</a></div><time datetime="2026-05-22T09:55:03-04:00" class="wp-block-rss__item-publish-date">May 22, 2026</time> <div class="wp-block-rss__item-excerpt">Join the team that brings iCloud to life for millions of people every day. We’re looking for a Growth Marketing Manager to lead customer acquisition, engagement, and retention initiatives that improve the customer experience and drive business growth. In this role, you will partner with teams across marketing, product, engineering, analytics, design, business development, operations, […]</div></li><li class='wp-block-rss__item'><div class='wp-block-rss__item-title'><a href='https://www.ppcjobs.com/job/senior-analyst-seo-paid-search-ipg-mediabrands/'>Senior Analyst, SEO &amp; Paid Search</a></div><time datetime="2026-05-22T09:55:01-04:00" class="wp-block-rss__item-publish-date">May 22, 2026</time> <div class="wp-block-rss__item-excerpt">No detailed job description available from the API. View Original Job Posting</div></li><li class='wp-block-rss__item'><div class='wp-block-rss__item-title'><a href='https://www.ppcjobs.com/job/paid-media-manager-richmond-workshop-digital/'>Paid Media Manager (Richmond)</a></div><time datetime="2026-05-22T09:54:59-04:00" class="wp-block-rss__item-publish-date">May 22, 2026</time> <div class="wp-block-rss__item-excerpt">About the role Our Paid Media Managers are responsible for developing and executing handcrafted digital marketing strategies on paid search, display, and paid social advertising channels. While much of your work will be independent, there are also plenty of opportunities to collaborate with fellow analysts, mentor junior team members, and receive ongoing training. We need […]</div></li><li class='wp-block-rss__item'><div class='wp-block-rss__item-title'><a href='https://www.ppcjobs.com/job/growth-marketing-lead/'>Growth Marketing Lead</a></div><time datetime="2026-05-22T09:54:56-04:00" class="wp-block-rss__item-publish-date">May 22, 2026</time> <div class="wp-block-rss__item-excerpt">Description Role: Growth Marketing LeadLocation: London (Oxford Circus)    Hybrid: 2 days per week  Reports to: Director of Brand &amp; Marketing About Monument​We’re building something genuinely rare: a financial brand designed for the mass affluent – the professionals, entrepreneurs and ambitious savers that traditional banks have systematically underserved for decades. We exist to make managing wealth simpler, smarter and more […]</div></li><li class='wp-block-rss__item'><div class='wp-block-rss__item-title'><a href='https://www.ppcjobs.com/job/account-coordinator-sem-paid-search-groupm-canada/'>Account Coordinator – SEM (Paid Search)</a></div><time datetime="2026-05-22T09:54:53-04:00" class="wp-block-rss__item-publish-date">May 22, 2026</time> <div class="wp-block-rss__item-excerpt">Company Description GroupM is the leading global media investment management operation serving as the parent company to WPP media agencies including Mindshare, Wavemaker, and Mediacom – each global operations in their own right with leading market positions. GroupM’s primary purpose is to maximize performance of WPP’s media agencies by operating as leader and collaborator in […]</div></li></ul>


<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-other-roles-you-may-be-interested-in">Other roles you may be interested in</h2>



<p><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/4414063144/?alternateChannel=search&amp;eBP=NOT_ELIGIBLE_FOR_CHARGING&amp;refId=mf6sbrzf%2BVeRs3O8jmiISg%3D%3D&amp;trackingId=Z4PJTigyL%2FJTtgj3JdI87g%3D%3D&amp;trk=d_flagship3_search_srp_jobs">Senior Manager, Paid Search</a>, Talkiatry (Hybrid, New York, NY)</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li><strong>Salary:</strong> $150,000 &#8211; $180,000</li>



<li>Own and scale Talkiatry’s paid search program end-to-end, including forecasting, budgeting, pacing, bidding strategies, account structure, and creative testing for Google, Bing, and ZocDoc.</li>



<li>Develop and execute a rigorous testing roadmap, including ad copy, keyword strategy, landing page variants, and automation/algorithmic controls; quantify impact using sound experimental design.</li>
</ul>



<p><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/4415133016/?alternateChannel=search&amp;eBP=NOT_ELIGIBLE_FOR_CHARGING&amp;refId=mf6sbrzf%2BVeRs3O8jmiISg%3D%3D&amp;trackingId=JAdAqs7TrnMblW4zLrVjMw%3D%3D&amp;trk=d_flagship3_search_srp_jobs">Paid Digital Marketing Manager</a>, Pei Wei (Irving, Texas)</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Salary: $75,000 &#8211; $110,000</li>



<li>Develop and manage paid digital marketing strategies across multiple channels, including: Paid Search, Performance Max (PMAX), Meta Ads (Facebook &amp; Instagram)</li>



<li>Monitor, optimize, and scale campaigns based on performance KPIs including ROAS,CPA, conversions, traffic, impressions, engagement, and sales.</li>
</ul>



<p><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/4413342173/?alternateChannel=search&amp;eBP=NOT_ELIGIBLE_FOR_CHARGING&amp;refId=mf6sbrzf%2BVeRs3O8jmiISg%3D%3D&amp;trackingId=2%2FziglFvDI8if%2F%2BXDKIMWg%3D%3D&amp;trk=d_flagship3_search_srp_jobs">Paid Ads Manager</a>, Wiley (Remote)</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Salary: $81,200</li>



<li>Plan, schedule, and execute paid ads campaigns across platforms (e.g., Meta, LinkedIn, YouTube, Google, Bing), ensuring alignment with campaign objectives and budget allocations</li>



<li>Manage paid ads budgets, monitor performance, and optimize campaigns to meet cost-efficiency and revenue contribution targets</li>
</ul>



<p><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/4413461731/?alternateChannel=search&amp;eBP=NOT_ELIGIBLE_FOR_CHARGING&amp;refId=baKDaGV3WmfmVCrMRfYJXQ%3D%3D&amp;trackingId=Zq9AFOw1NGHTwEcbeu%2BALw%3D%3D&amp;trk=d_flagship3_search_srp_jobs&amp;lipi=urn%3Ali%3Apage%3Ad_flagship3_search_srp_jobs%3B%2F7DiGIsSSRqdcDQnRK86gg%3D%3D">Senior Search Marketing Manager</a>, Acadaca (Remote)</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Salary: $75,000 &#8211; $85,000</li>



<li><strong>Strategize &amp; Execute:</strong> Develop, launch, and manage comprehensive paid search, display, shopping, pmax, demand gen, youtube and ctv campaigns from conception to optimization, ensuring alignment with client business objectives.</li>



<li><strong>Performance Optimization: </strong>Proactively manage bids, budgets, and targeting to achieve and exceed key performance indicators (KPIs) such as Revenue and ROAS.</li>
</ul>



<p><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/4370701647/?alternateChannel=search&amp;eBP=NOT_ELIGIBLE_FOR_CHARGING&amp;refId=IS3g%2FUxfPK%2FyipATyKVH7Q%3D%3D&amp;trackingId=2pPzemzMfujgt5nZkErrEQ%3D%3D&amp;trk=d_flagship3_search_srp_jobs">Senior Manager, SEO/AEO</a>, ActiveCampaign (Remote)</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Salary: $140,500 &#8211; $193,200</li>



<li>Identify opportunities for technical improvements across the ActiveCampaign website, prioritize them based on their potential business impact, and collaborate with cross-functional stakeholders to implement them.</li>



<li>Pioneer LLM optimization and Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) by developing content strategies that ensure ActiveCampaign is the authoritative source material used by LLMs. </li>
</ul>



<p><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/4406243190/?alternateChannel=search&amp;eBP=NOT_ELIGIBLE_FOR_CHARGING&amp;refId=IS3g%2FUxfPK%2FyipATyKVH7Q%3D%3D&amp;trackingId=%2B612qIEpdNbYiK5UtiLJyg%3D%3D&amp;trk=d_flagship3_search_srp_jobs">SEO Marketing Manager</a>, Care.com (Hybrid, Dallas, TX)</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Salary: $85,000 &#8211; $95,000</li>



<li><strong>Organic Growth:</strong> Build and execute the SEO roadmap across technical, content, and off-page. Own the numbers: traffic, rankings, conversions. No handoffs, no excuses.</li>



<li><strong>AI-Optimized Search (AIO):</strong> Define and drive CARE.com&#8217;s strategy for visibility in AI-generated results — Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity, and whatever comes next. Optimize entity coverage, content structure, and schema to ensure we&#8217;re the answer, not just a result.</li>
</ul>



<p><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/4400426726/?alternateChannel=search&amp;eBP=NOT_ELIGIBLE_FOR_CHARGING&amp;refId=mKhdMGut708cIgFARHFvTw%3D%3D&amp;trackingId=0xfBW4o0ho6uPn7ZNOyhwg%3D%3D&amp;trk=d_flagship3_search_srp_jobs">SEO Manager</a>, Veracity Insurance Solutions, LLC, (Remote)</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li><strong>Salary: </strong>$100,000 &#8211; $135,000</li>



<li>Lead, coach, and develop a high-performing team of SEO Specialists</li>



<li>Set clear expectations, quality standards, workflows, and growth paths across the team</li>
</ul>



<p><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/4398577393/?alternateChannel=search&amp;eBP=NOT_ELIGIBLE_FOR_CHARGING&amp;refId=ttM1MlDxMtxo7nNAwl1irQ%3D%3D&amp;trackingId=T1IuftSh3q5KSTpVA%2B3%2BJw%3D%3D&amp;trk=d_flagship3_search_srp_jobs">Marketing, Social Media &amp; PR Manager</a>, PARTNERS Staffing (Fort Myers, FL)</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li><strong>Salary:</strong> $75,000 &#8211; $85,000</li>



<li>Develop and execute integrated marketing campaigns for shows, content releases, events, and brand initiatives</li>



<li>Identify target audiences and create strategies to grow reach and engagement</li>
</ul>



<p><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/4390343701/?alternateChannel=search&amp;eBP=NON_CHARGEABLE_CHANNEL&amp;refId=CY%2Bh0AN%2Fjk5sJsIWtW8bDA%3D%3D&amp;trackingId=NLoMNsqEoW3JK3oFWLjuMg%3D%3D&amp;trk=d_flagship3_search_srp_jobs">Senior Paid Media Manager</a>, Brightly Media Lab (Remote)</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li><strong>Salary:</strong> $70,000 &#8211; $100,000</li>



<li>Directly build, manage, and optimize campaigns within Google Ads, Microsoft Ads, and Facebook Ads (Meta).</li>



<li>Serve as the lead point of contact for your book of clients, taking full ownership of their success and growth.</li>
</ul>



<p><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/4389840651/?alternateChannel=search&amp;eBP=NON_CHARGEABLE_CHANNEL&amp;refId=W6UrnBoVDaWN2cD6K2D1ow%3D%3D&amp;trackingId=juG6fbKl07ZOt3wsZi52Gg%3D%3D&amp;trk=d_flagship3_search_srp_jobs">Paid Search Specialist</a>, Maui Jim Sunglasses (Peoria, IL)</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li><strong>Salary:</strong> $65,000 &#8211; $70,000</li>



<li>Plan, set up, and manage paid search, display, and shopping campaigns on Google Ads.</li>



<li>Manage and optimize advertising budgets to achieve revenue and efficiency targets.</li>
</ul>



<p><em><strong>Note:</strong> We update this post weekly. So make sure to bookmark this page and check back.</em>


Looking to take the next step in your search marketing career? 
Below, you will find the latest SEO, PPC, and digital marketing jobs at brands and agencies. We also include positions from previous weeks that are still open.
Newest SEO Jobs 
(Provided to Search Engine Land by SEOjobs.com) 



Digital Marketing Assistant — Remote
May 21, 2026 
The Role We need someone who can handle the day-to-day execution of our marketing operations across multiple clients. This is not a strategy role — it’s hands-on work. You’ll be publishing content, managing prospect lists, keeping local listings accurate, and making things run on time. You’ll work directly with the founder. Communication is in English, […]

Growth Marketer, Pipeline Development
May 21, 2026 
Job Description Job Description Samba is a media intelligence company. We know what the world is watching, reading, and thinking about — in real time, at scale, across every screen. Our data exists with the consent of over a billion people, organized into the most complete picture of consumer attention ever built. The biggest brands […]

SEO/AEO Specialist
May 21, 2026 
I’m the owner of Jaclyn Hope Design, a small web and SEO agency based near Seattle, WA. We produce high-quality, converting websites and solutions, with detailed SEO work on every site. Our clients are both service and product-based businesses. The majority are women entrepreneurs and business owners. We have a small team of designers and […]

Director, SEO (AI Engine Optimization)
May 18, 2026 
Who we are At CarGurus (NASDAQ: CARG), our mission is to give people the power to reach their destination. We started as a small team of developers determined to bring trust and transparency to car shopping. Since then, our history of innovation and go-to-market acceleration has driven industry-leading growth. In fact, we’re the largest and […]

SEO Specialist
May 18, 2026 
We are seeking a skilled and experienced Remote SEO Specialist to join our digital marketing team. In this role, you will be responsible for improving our website’s organic search rankings, driving increased traffic, and enhancing online visibility. The ideal candidate will have a deep understanding of SEO best practices, keyword research, on-page and off-page optimization, […]

Senior Data Analyst, SEO
May 17, 2026 
About Us Scorpion is the leading provider of technology and services helping local businesses thrive. We do this by helping customers understand local market dynamics, make the most of their marketing, and deliver experiences their customers will love. We offer tools to know what’s going on with marketing, competitors, and customers. We offer a unique […]

Digital SEO Manager
May 17, 2026 
Job Description Digital SEO Manager COMPANY BACKGROUNDOur client is successful eCommerce company with a large range of consumer good and brands that are recognised and sold across most of the world’s leading online platforms (Amazon, Google Shopping, eBay etc) JOB RESPONSIBILITIESTo manage all of their international website SEO campaigns, they wish to recruit a Digital […]

SEO Content Writer
May 17, 2026 
About Inspira Education Inspira Education Group is one of the fastest-growing edtech startups in the US. We started with a simple mission to democratize access to high-quality coaching so that every student in the world has an equal opportunity to access the best opportunities.  As the world’s leading network of top admissions coaches in medical, […]

SEO Manager
May 17, 2026 
Who Are We? Postman is the world’s leading API platform, used by more than 45 million+ developers and 500,000 organizations, including 98% of the Fortune 500. Postman is helping developers and professionals across the globe build the API-first world by simplifying each step of the API lifecycle and streamlining collaboration—enabling users to create better APIs, […]

Digital Product Specialist
May 17, 2026 
Description What we need:  The Digital Solutions Specialist is responsible for the coordination and execution of several items relating to the successful launch and ongoing maintenance of features and capabilities of Cetera’s digital platform, AdviceWorks. Reporting to the Managing Director, Digital Solutions, this role facilitates key deliverables relating to user acceptance testing, go to market planning, and ongoing platform support.  […]

Newest PPC and paid media jobs
(Provided to Search Engine Land by PPCjobs.com) 







iCloud Growth Marketing Manager
May 22, 2026 
Join the team that brings iCloud to life for millions of people every day. We’re looking for a Growth Marketing Manager to lead customer acquisition, engagement, and retention initiatives that improve the customer experience and drive business growth. In this role, you will partner with teams across marketing, product, engineering, analytics, design, business development, operations, […]

Senior Analyst, SEO & Paid Search
May 22, 2026 
No detailed job description available from the API. View Original Job Posting

Paid Media Manager (Richmond)
May 22, 2026 
About the role Our Paid Media Managers are responsible for developing and executing handcrafted digital marketing strategies on paid search, display, and paid social advertising channels. While much of your work will be independent, there are also plenty of opportunities to collaborate with fellow analysts, mentor junior team members, and receive ongoing training. We need […]

Growth Marketing Lead
May 22, 2026 
Description Role: Growth Marketing LeadLocation: London (Oxford Circus)    Hybrid: 2 days per week  Reports to: Director of Brand & Marketing About Monument​We’re building something genuinely rare: a financial brand designed for the mass affluent – the professionals, entrepreneurs and ambitious savers that traditional banks have systematically underserved for decades. We exist to make managing wealth simpler, smarter and more […]

Account Coordinator – SEM (Paid Search)
May 22, 2026 
Company Description GroupM is the leading global media investment management operation serving as the parent company to WPP media agencies including Mindshare, Wavemaker, and Mediacom – each global operations in their own right with leading market positions. GroupM’s primary purpose is to maximize performance of WPP’s media agencies by operating as leader and collaborator in […]

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<div><img width="1920" height="1080" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/What-makes-a-brand-machine-readable-in-AI-search.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="What makes a brand machine-readable in AI search" decoding="async" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/What-makes-a-brand-machine-readable-in-AI-search.png 1920w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/What-makes-a-brand-machine-readable-in-AI-search-768x432.png 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/What-makes-a-brand-machine-readable-in-AI-search-1536x864.png 1536w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/What-makes-a-brand-machine-readable-in-AI-search-1200x675.png 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px" /></div>A review of 19 businesses found the same problem repeatedly: strong expertise buried in content AI systems can’t reliably interpret.

<div><img width="1920" height="1080" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/What-makes-a-brand-machine-readable-in-AI-search.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="What makes a brand machine-readable in AI search" decoding="async" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/What-makes-a-brand-machine-readable-in-AI-search.png 1920w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/What-makes-a-brand-machine-readable-in-AI-search-768x432.png 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/What-makes-a-brand-machine-readable-in-AI-search-1536x864.png 1536w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/What-makes-a-brand-machine-readable-in-AI-search-1200x675.png 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px" /></div>
<p>While auditing businesses across Prince Edward Island, I found the same problem repeatedly: companies with deep expertise were nearly invisible to AI systems because their knowledge wasn’t machine-readable.</p>



<p>Many were respected leaders in biotech, manufacturing, hospitality, agriculture, and retail. But critical business information was buried in PDFs, locked behind forms, trapped in vague marketing copy, or disconnected from structured data systems AI engines rely on to retrieve and verify information.</p>



<p>We’re entering an era where <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/people-and-organizational-performance/our-insights/the-state-of-organizations" target="_blank" rel="noopener">88% of organizations</a> are implementing AI, yet 86% of leaders say they aren’t prepared to integrate it into daily operations, according to McKinsey. </p>



<p>Many brands still treat AI visibility as an output problem. They celebrate appearing in a Gemini summary or ChatGPT response, without building the structured digital foundation that enables sustained visibility.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-ai-visibility-starts-before-the-llm-output">AI visibility starts before the LLM output</h2>



<p>If you’re optimizing for large language model (LLM) responses, you’re already too late. Appearing in an LLM&#8217;s output is a symptom of authority, not the source of it.</p>



<p>Nearly a quarter (22%) of B2B buyers now use generative AI for vendor research rather than traditional search, <a href="https://www.responsive.io/resources/whitepapers/inside-the-b2b-buyers-mind-2025">according to Responsive</a>. Traditional search engine volume will drop 50% by 2028 as AI chatbots and virtual agents become the primary answer engines, <a href="https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2023-12-14-gartner-predicts-fifty-percent-of-consumers-will-significantly-limit-their-interactions-with-social-media-by-2025">Gartner predicted</a>.</p>



<p>Discovery now occurs through synthesized answers rather than ranked URLs. But until you’re part of the Knowledge Graph as a verified node of ground truth, your visibility will be inconsistent and difficult to sustain.</p>



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<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-19-case-studies-reveal-about-the-importance-of-subject-matter-expertise-for-ai-search">What 19 case studies reveal about the importance of subject matter expertise for AI search</h2>



<p>AI engines prioritize extractable, structured entities over descriptive prose. Brands that chase ChatGPT mentions without structured data foundations are chasing temporary visibility. Brands that build structured entity relationships are the ones AI engines inevitably cite.</p>



<p>This shifts the focus of SEO roles from content marketer to information architect. As these case studies show, subject matter expertise remains one of the clearest signals AI systems can interpret.</p>



<figure class="wp-block-table"><table><tbody><tr><td><strong>Case No.</strong></td><td><strong>Entity</strong></td><td><strong>Industry</strong></td><td><strong>The discovery</strong></td><td><strong>The SME solution</strong></td></tr><tr><td><strong>1</strong></td><td>BioVectra</td><td>Biotech</td><td>Technical authority was trapped in corporate PDFs</td><td>Coded Current Good Manufacturing Practice (cGMP) data into atomic facts</td></tr><tr><td><strong>2</strong></td><td>Wyman&#8217;s</td><td>Food manufacturing</td><td>Sustainability was a story, not a data point</td><td>Structured supply chain via schema</td></tr><tr><td><strong>3</strong></td><td>Murphy Hospitality Group</td><td>Hospitality</td><td>Venue specifications were invisible to agentic search</td><td>Built event infrastructure logic</td></tr><tr><td><strong>4</strong></td><td>Invesco</td><td>FinTech</td><td>Compliance data was too opaque for retrieval-augmented generation (RAG)</td><td>Architected regulatory ground truth</td></tr><tr><td><strong>5</strong></td><td>Sekisui Diagnostics</td><td>MedTech</td><td>Had massive innovation but zero machine readability</td><td>Engineered diagnostic logic triples</td></tr><tr><td><strong>6</strong></td><td>StandardAero</td><td>Aerospace</td><td>Expertise was gated, as AI engines can&#8217;t fill forms</td><td>Mapped technical capability graphs</td></tr><tr><td><strong>7</strong></td><td>Samuel’s Coffee House</td><td>Cafe</td><td>Heritage and Wi-Fi specifications were un-indexable</td><td>Coded heritage and facility schema</td></tr><tr><td><strong>8</strong></td><td>The Montague Farm</td><td>Agriculture</td><td>Fourth generation trust was a handshake, not a bit</td><td>Linked data to provincial registries</td></tr><tr><td><strong>9</strong></td><td>North Shore Fisher</td><td>Fisheries</td><td>Anonymous lobster vs. verified vessel truth</td><td>Coded vessel-to-plate traceability</td></tr><tr><td><strong>10</strong></td><td>Prince Edward Island&nbsp; Preserve Co.</td><td>Artisanal</td><td>Supply chain was thin on information</td><td>Structured artisanal provenance</td></tr><tr><td><strong>11</strong></td><td>SomaDetect</td><td>SaaS</td><td>Sensor accuracy was buried in marketing fluff</td><td>Stripped narrative into atomic facts</td></tr><tr><td><strong>12</strong></td><td>Paytic</td><td>FinTech</td><td>Automation logic was hidden by compliance fog</td><td>Architected payment operations authority</td></tr><tr><td><strong>13</strong></td><td>COWS Inc.</td><td>Retail</td><td>Nostalgia was a machine-blind digital shadow</td><td>Mapped vertical production schema</td></tr><tr><td><strong>14</strong></td><td>Inn at Bay Fortune</td><td>Hospitality</td><td>Culinary provenance was invisible</td><td>Linked soil data to the diner plate schema</td></tr><tr><td><strong>15</strong></td><td>Maple Arc</td><td>Trades</td><td>30 years of reputation was 0% searchable</td><td>Hardened experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness (E-E-A-T) architecture.</td></tr><tr><td><strong>16</strong></td><td>AKA Energy Systems</td><td>CleanTech</td><td>Global specification sheets were invisible to AI buyers</td><td>Coded hybrid propulsion atomic facts</td></tr><tr><td><strong>17</strong></td><td>Upstreet Brewing</td><td>B Corp</td><td>B Corp impact was narrative, not verifiable</td><td>Structured impact-data triples</td></tr><tr><td><strong>18</strong></td><td>Village Pottery</td><td>Retail</td><td>50-year legacy had zero machine readability</td><td>Coded artisanal inventory schema</td></tr><tr><td><strong>19</strong></td><td>Prince Edward Island Brewing Co.</td><td>Venue</td><td>Venue capacity was computationally thin</td><td>Mapped infrastructure logic</td></tr></tbody></table></figure>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-why-seos-should-put-education-first">Why SEOs should put education first</h2>



<p>The business audit reveals that the most significant obstacle to AI readiness is an education gap. As such, both clients and SEOs must realize that the traditional SEO role is no longer sufficient. Instead, SEOs must become information architects.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-the-seo-must-become-the-sme">The SEO must become the SME</h3>



<p>You can’t architect what you don’t understand. This means SEOs must learn the business logic of their clients. For example, if you’re auditing a biotech firm, you must understand their compliance standards as thoroughly as their lead scientist does.</p>



<p>AI systems rely on structured context to generate reliable answers. If you feed AI systems vague marketing language, they’ll generate vague and potentially unreliable answers.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-the-client-must-become-data-ready">The client must become data-ready</h3>



<p>Organizations that prioritize data quality and governance are the only ones capable of activating AI-driven value. Our role as SEOs is to educate clients that their digital presence now shapes how AI systems retrieve and trust their brand.</p>



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<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-stop-chasing-the-symptom-of-ai-visibility">Stop chasing the symptom of AI visibility</h2>



<p>Appearing in a ChatGPT response is a secondary effect. The primary goal is being a verified node of authority in the Knowledge Graph. When you show up in the graph as a source of ground truth, you show up everywhere — Gemini, Claude, and whatever comes next.</p>



<p>Advances in AI will only continue to move faster. SEOs who refuse to deepen their knowledge base and clients who refuse to prioritize structured data readiness will lose visibility in AI-driven discovery systems.</p>


While auditing businesses across Prince Edward Island, I found the same problem repeatedly: companies with deep expertise were nearly invisible to AI systems because their knowledge wasn’t machine-readable.
Many were respected leaders in biotech, manufacturing, hospitality, agriculture, and retail. But critical business information was buried in PDFs, locked behind forms, trapped in vague marketing copy, or disconnected from structured data systems AI engines rely on to retrieve and verify information.
We’re entering an era where 88% of organizations are implementing AI, yet 86% of leaders say they aren’t prepared to integrate it into daily operations, according to McKinsey. 
Many brands still treat AI visibility as an output problem. They celebrate appearing in a Gemini summary or ChatGPT response, without building the structured digital foundation that enables sustained visibility.
AI visibility starts before the LLM output
If you’re optimizing for large language model (LLM) responses, you’re already too late. Appearing in an LLM’s output is a symptom of authority, not the source of it.
Nearly a quarter (22%) of B2B buyers now use generative AI for vendor research rather than traditional search, according to Responsive. Traditional search engine volume will drop 50% by 2028 as AI chatbots and virtual agents become the primary answer engines, Gartner predicted.
Discovery now occurs through synthesized answers rather than ranked URLs. But until you’re part of the Knowledge Graph as a verified node of ground truth, your visibility will be inconsistent and difficult to sustain.

  
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What 19 case studies reveal about the importance of subject matter expertise for AI search
AI engines prioritize extractable, structured entities over descriptive prose. Brands that chase ChatGPT mentions without structured data foundations are chasing temporary visibility. Brands that build structured entity relationships are the ones AI engines inevitably cite.
This shifts the focus of SEO roles from content marketer to information architect. As these case studies show, subject matter expertise remains one of the clearest signals AI systems can interpret.

Case No.EntityIndustryThe discoveryThe SME solution
1BioVectraBiotechTechnical authority was trapped in corporate PDFsCoded Current Good Manufacturing Practice (cGMP) data into atomic facts
2Wyman’sFood manufacturingSustainability was a story, not a data pointStructured supply chain via schema
3Murphy Hospitality GroupHospitalityVenue specifications were invisible to agentic searchBuilt event infrastructure logic
4InvescoFinTechCompliance data was too opaque for retrieval-augmented generation (RAG)Architected regulatory ground truth
5Sekisui DiagnosticsMedTechHad massive innovation but zero machine readabilityEngineered diagnostic logic triples
6StandardAeroAerospaceExpertise was gated, as AI engines can’t fill formsMapped technical capability graphs
7Samuel’s Coffee HouseCafeHeritage and Wi-Fi specifications were un-indexableCoded heritage and facility schema
8The Montague FarmAgricultureFourth generation trust was a handshake, not a bitLinked data to provincial registries
9North Shore FisherFisheriesAnonymous lobster vs. verified vessel truthCoded vessel-to-plate traceability
10Prince Edward Island  Preserve Co.ArtisanalSupply chain was thin on informationStructured artisanal provenance
11SomaDetectSaaSSensor accuracy was buried in marketing fluffStripped narrative into atomic facts
12PayticFinTechAutomation logic was hidden by compliance fogArchitected payment operations authority
13COWS Inc.RetailNostalgia was a machine-blind digital shadowMapped vertical production schema
14Inn at Bay FortuneHospitalityCulinary provenance was invisibleLinked soil data to the diner plate schema
15Maple ArcTrades30 years of reputation was 0% searchableHardened experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness (E-E-A-T) architecture.
16AKA Energy SystemsCleanTechGlobal specification sheets were invisible to AI buyersCoded hybrid propulsion atomic facts
17Upstreet BrewingB CorpB Corp impact was narrative, not verifiableStructured impact-data triples
18Village PotteryRetail50-year legacy had zero machine readabilityCoded artisanal inventory schema
19Prince Edward Island Brewing Co.VenueVenue capacity was computationally thinMapped infrastructure logic





Why SEOs should put education first
The business audit reveals that the most significant obstacle to AI readiness is an education gap. As such, both clients and SEOs must realize that the traditional SEO role is no longer sufficient. Instead, SEOs must become information architects.
The SEO must become the SME
You can’t architect what you don’t understand. This means SEOs must learn the business logic of their clients. For example, if you’re auditing a biotech firm, you must understand their compliance standards as thoroughly as their lead scientist does.
AI systems rely on structured context to generate reliable answers. If you feed AI systems vague marketing language, they’ll generate vague and potentially unreliable answers.
The client must become data-ready
Organizations that prioritize data quality and governance are the only ones capable of activating AI-driven value. Our role as SEOs is to educate clients that their digital presence now shapes how AI systems retrieve and trust their brand.

  
complete picture of your search visibility.
      
Start Free Trial
    
Get started with
Stop chasing the symptom of AI visibility
Appearing in a ChatGPT response is a secondary effect. The primary goal is being a verified node of authority in the Knowledge Graph. When you show up in the graph as a source of ground truth, you show up everywhere — Gemini, Claude, and whatever comes next.
Advances in AI will only continue to move faster. SEOs who refuse to deepen their knowledge base and clients who refuse to prioritize structured data readiness will lose visibility in AI-driven discovery systems.

A review of 19 businesses found the same problem repeatedly: strong expertise buried in content AI systems can’t reliably interpret.

What makes a brand machine-readable in AI search

<div><img width="1920" height="1080" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2025/12/chatgpt-ads-1920.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="ChatGPT ads" decoding="async" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2025/12/chatgpt-ads-1920.png 1920w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2025/12/chatgpt-ads-1920-768x432.png 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2025/12/chatgpt-ads-1920-1536x864.png 1536w" sizes="(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px" /></div>The latest ChatGPT Ads updates give advertisers more control over campaign pacing, location targeting, and ad engagement.

<div><img width="1920" height="1080" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2025/12/chatgpt-ads-1920.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="ChatGPT ads" decoding="async" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2025/12/chatgpt-ads-1920.png 1920w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2025/12/chatgpt-ads-1920-768x432.png 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2025/12/chatgpt-ads-1920-1536x864.png 1536w" sizes="(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px" /></div>
<p>OpenAI is rolling out a fresh set of updates to its Ads Manager Beta, giving advertisers more control over campaign pacing, targeting, and reporting — while also quietly testing new ad experiences inside ChatGPT.</p>



<p>The latest updates signal continued investment in building out the platform’s advertising capabilities as OpenAI looks to make ChatGPT a more viable performance and brand advertising channel.</p>



<p id="h-what-s-new-in-ads-manager-beta"><strong>What’s new in Ads Manager Beta</strong>: </p>



<p><strong>Daily budgets arrive</strong>. Advertisers can now choose between a daily or lifetime budget when creating new campaigns.</p>



<p>For now, daily budgets are limited to newly created campaigns, but the addition gives marketers more flexibility over pacing and spend management — particularly useful for advertisers running always-on activity or testing campaigns with tighter controls.</p>



<p><strong>Expanded geo targeting</strong>. OpenAI is also introducing more granular location targeting options across the U.S.</p>



<p>Advertisers can now target campaigns by state, designated market area (DMA) and zip code</p>



<p>Targeting can be configured during campaign setup or adjusted later within campaign settings.</p>



<p>The update brings ChatGPT’s ad tools closer to the location controls advertisers are accustomed to on established platforms like Google and Meta, particularly for regional campaigns and local business targeting.</p>



<p><strong>Aggregate totals in reporting views</strong>. Ads Manager table views now display aggregate totals for key metrics including impressions, clicks and spend</p>



<p>Totals are available across campaign, ad group, and ad-level reporting views, making it easier for advertisers to quickly assess performance without exporting data.</p>



<p><strong>OpenAI begins testing new ChatGPT ad experiences</strong>. Alongside the Ads Manager updates, OpenAI confirmed it is beginning an early test of new ad experiences within ChatGPT.</p>



<p>A small subset of ads may now display dynamic calls-to-action (CTAs), including:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>“Shop Now”</li>



<li>“Book Now”</li>



<li>“Sign Up”</li>



<li>“Learn More”</li>
</ul>



<p>According to OpenAI, CTAs are automatically selected based on the ad creative and destination experience.</p>



<p>The company said advertiser controls for CTA selection could be explored in the future.</p>



<p>OpenAI described the feature as a lightweight enhancement intended to help users better understand and engage with ads appearing in ChatGPT.</p>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img decoding="async" width="1013" height="2048" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/chatgpt-ads-email-updates-1779364932-scaled.png" alt="" class="wp-image-478497" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/chatgpt-ads-email-updates-1779364932-scaled.png 1013w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/chatgpt-ads-email-updates-1779364932-768x1553.png 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/chatgpt-ads-email-updates-1779364932-760x1536.png 760w" sizes="(max-width: 1013px) 100vw, 1013px" /></figure>



<p id="h-why-we-care"><strong>Why we care</strong>. These updates signal that OpenAI is steadily building a more sophisticated and performance-oriented ad platform inside ChatGPT. Features like daily budgets and granular geo targeting give marketers greater control over spend and audience reach — capabilities that are considered essential on more mature advertising platforms.</p>



<p>The introduction of dynamic CTAs also suggests OpenAI is beginning to optimize ads for engagement and conversion actions, potentially opening the door to more performance-driven ad formats in the future. For brands experimenting with AI-native advertising, these updates indicate the platform is evolving beyond early-stage testing into a more viable media channel..</p>


OpenAI is rolling out a fresh set of updates to its Ads Manager Beta, giving advertisers more control over campaign pacing, targeting, and reporting — while also quietly testing new ad experiences inside ChatGPT.
The latest updates signal continued investment in building out the platform’s advertising capabilities as OpenAI looks to make ChatGPT a more viable performance and brand advertising channel.
What’s new in Ads Manager Beta: 
Daily budgets arrive. Advertisers can now choose between a daily or lifetime budget when creating new campaigns.
For now, daily budgets are limited to newly created campaigns, but the addition gives marketers more flexibility over pacing and spend management — particularly useful for advertisers running always-on activity or testing campaigns with tighter controls.
Expanded geo targeting. OpenAI is also introducing more granular location targeting options across the U.S.
Advertisers can now target campaigns by state, designated market area (DMA) and zip code
Targeting can be configured during campaign setup or adjusted later within campaign settings.
The update brings ChatGPT’s ad tools closer to the location controls advertisers are accustomed to on established platforms like Google and Meta, particularly for regional campaigns and local business targeting.
Aggregate totals in reporting views. Ads Manager table views now display aggregate totals for key metrics including impressions, clicks and spend
Totals are available across campaign, ad group, and ad-level reporting views, making it easier for advertisers to quickly assess performance without exporting data.
OpenAI begins testing new ChatGPT ad experiences. Alongside the Ads Manager updates, OpenAI confirmed it is beginning an early test of new ad experiences within ChatGPT.
A small subset of ads may now display dynamic calls-to-action (CTAs), including:
“Shop Now”
“Book Now”
“Sign Up”
“Learn More”
According to OpenAI, CTAs are automatically selected based on the ad creative and destination experience.
The company said advertiser controls for CTA selection could be explored in the future.
OpenAI described the feature as a lightweight enhancement intended to help users better understand and engage with ads appearing in ChatGPT.




Why we care. These updates signal that OpenAI is steadily building a more sophisticated and performance-oriented ad platform inside ChatGPT. Features like daily budgets and granular geo targeting give marketers greater control over spend and audience reach — capabilities that are considered essential on more mature advertising platforms.
The introduction of dynamic CTAs also suggests OpenAI is beginning to optimize ads for engagement and conversion actions, potentially opening the door to more performance-driven ad formats in the future. For brands experimenting with AI-native advertising, these updates indicate the platform is evolving beyond early-stage testing into a more viable media channel..

The latest ChatGPT Ads updates give advertisers more control over campaign pacing, location targeting, and ad engagement.

OpenAI expands Ads Manager Beta with new budgeting and geo targeting controls

<div><img width="1920" height="1080" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/Organic-traffic-is-still-worth-tracking-—-just-not-all-of-it.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="Organic traffic is still worth tracking — just not all of it" decoding="async" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/Organic-traffic-is-still-worth-tracking-—-just-not-all-of-it.png 1920w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/Organic-traffic-is-still-worth-tracking-—-just-not-all-of-it-768x432.png 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/Organic-traffic-is-still-worth-tracking-—-just-not-all-of-it-1536x864.png 1536w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/Organic-traffic-is-still-worth-tracking-—-just-not-all-of-it-1200x675.png 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px" /></div>Not every organic visit deserves equal weight anymore. Here’s how to focus SEO reporting on high-intent pages and business impact.

<div><img width="1920" height="1080" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/Organic-traffic-is-still-worth-tracking-—-just-not-all-of-it.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="Organic traffic is still worth tracking — just not all of it" decoding="async" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/Organic-traffic-is-still-worth-tracking-—-just-not-all-of-it.png 1920w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/Organic-traffic-is-still-worth-tracking-—-just-not-all-of-it-768x432.png 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/Organic-traffic-is-still-worth-tracking-—-just-not-all-of-it-1536x864.png 1536w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/Organic-traffic-is-still-worth-tracking-—-just-not-all-of-it-1200x675.png 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px" /></div>
<p>HubSpot changed the name of its flagship conference from <a href="https://searchengineland.com/hubspot-unbound-conference-473911">INBOUND to UNBOUND</a>. </p>



<p>This wasn’t a casual rebrand. It reflected a broader shift away from legacy <a href="https://searchengineland.com/guide/what-is-seo">SEO</a> strategies built around top-of-funnel traffic. Modern search is shifting closer to a zero-click environment:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>The click-through rate curve is collapsing. We know that <a href="https://sparktoro.com/blog/2024-zero-click-search-study-for-every-1000-us-google-searches-only-374-clicks-go-to-the-open-web-in-the-eu-its-360/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">roughly 60% of searches</a> now end without a single click to the open web.</li>



<li>The discovery layer has moved. Buyers are researching vendors directly inside LLMs like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google’s AI Mode before they click a traditional blue link.&nbsp;</li>



<li>Attribution has gone dark. The modern buyer journey is fragmented. Shoppers narrow down their options with AI search, and then check your brand in Google to verify. They only visit your website when they’re ready to convert.&nbsp;</li>
</ul>



<p>The metrics that made SEO look successful in 2018 are distorting today’s SEO reporting.&nbsp;That’s why it’s time to retire the obsession with traffic-based reporting as the primary leading indicator for content success.&nbsp;</p>



<p>We don&#8217;t need to stop tracking traffic entirely, but we have to radically change which types of traffic we present to marketing leadership.&nbsp;</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-the-problem-isn-t-organic-traffic-it-s-how-we-filter-it">The problem isn&#8217;t organic traffic, it&#8217;s how we filter it</h2>



<p>A <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/posts/peterrota_this-is-the-worst-seo-advice-ive-heard-in-share-7451285318579843072-H52m/?utm_source=social_share_send&amp;utm_medium=ios_app&amp;rcm=ACoAAAjOemoBsmGgXOOcFpcwGVG1B7IlDCvf8io&amp;utm_campaign=share_via" target="_blank" rel="noopener">LinkedIn discussion</a>, started by Peter Rota, ignited an explosive debate over whether we should retire organic traffic as an SEO metric entirely.&nbsp;</p>



<p>The industry consensus seems to land firmly in the middle: traffic isn&#8217;t obsolete, but it is dangerously incomplete when decoupled from intent and revenue.</p>



<p>Organic traffic isn’t a bad metric. But it’s a terrible standalone KPI.</p>



<p>Adam Heitzman <a href="https://searchengineland.com/retire-these-9-seo-metrics-before-they-derail-your-2026-strategy-469461">pointed out</a> in a recent breakdown of vanity metrics that organic traffic on its own lacks context. A drop in overall visitors isn&#8217;t necessarily a crisis if you’re shedding the right kind of visitors. If thousands of users bounce after reading a <a href="https://searchengineland.com/seo-great-normalization-463197">generic glossary FAQ in 3 seconds</a>, this isn’t helping your business.</p>



<p>Heitzman notes a perfect scenario for this: If an organization prunes low-intent informational fluff and doubles down on high-intent service pages, its overall traffic might drop by 20%. In the old days, that kind of traffic drop would trigger panic. But because the site is attracting more qualified buyers, organic revenue actually increases by 30%. The site gets fewer visitors overall, but those who convert more often.</p>



<p>When you stop treating a top-of-funnel blog post click and a pricing page click as equals, you can clear the noise out of your dashboard. And right now, clearing that noise is essential because top-of-funnel traffic is precisely what AI search is destroying.</p>



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<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-the-collapse-of-tofu-traffic-and-what-to-focus-on-instead">The collapse of TOFU traffic and what to focus on instead</h2>



<p><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:ugcPost:7456968894864584704/?commentUrn=urn%3Ali%3Acomment%3A%28ugcPost%3A7456968894864584704%2C7457046074948624384%29&amp;dashCommentUrn=urn%3Ali%3Afsd_comment%3A%287457046074948624384%2Curn%3Ali%3AugcPost%3A7456968894864584704%29" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Rand Fishkin nailed it</a> when he said top-of-funnel marketing was always done on rented land.&nbsp;</p>



<p>But today, the situation is even more extreme. </p>



<p>Buyers no longer want to visit your site to research a basic definition, compare simple features, or read a 2,000-word glossary post. They want to do that with instant answers, Reddit threads, TikTok, and LLMs.</p>



<p>Generic, consensus, informational traffic is going all the way to zero.</p>



<p>The irony is that SEO teams are still pouring the majority of their effort into the exact content types <a href="https://signal.zyppy.com/p/content-google-zero" target="_blank" rel="noopener">most susceptible to AI death</a>: long-form explainers, roundups, and FAQs.</p>



<p>If informational business blogging is dead, what is left on your site that is actually worth tracking?</p>



<p>You need to narrow your reporting down to the actual distribution moats — the high-intent transactional nodes that AI can’t easily replicate or bypass. Moving forward, there are really only four types of pages worth reporting organic traffic on:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li><strong>Homepage:</strong> <a href="https://www.siegemedia.com/strategy/ai-homepage-traffic-increase" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Siege Media found</a> that homepage traffic from LLMs is growing. When AI summaries recommend a brand, users often bypass the provided link, open a new tab, and search the brand name directly.</li>



<li><strong>Pricing pages:</strong> This is where buyers go when they are ready to transact. An AI can summarize your features and pricing plans, but buyers typically want to read the fine print and finalize the purchase from a vendor page they trust.&nbsp;</li>



<li><strong>Products and solutions pages:</strong> Task completion must happen where the consumer has the highest degree of confidence and trust. <a href="https://www.growth-memo.com/p/organic-rankings-vs-product-grids">Kevin Indig noted</a> that product grids are getting much higher CTRs than traditional organic listings for exactly this reason.</li>



<li><strong>Money content pages: </strong>Highly specific demo landing pages, original research reports, and bottom-of-funnel conversion points that influence pipeline and buying decisions.</li>
</ul>



<p>If your organic traffic reporting isn&#8217;t laser-focused on these four areas, you’re likely including too much noise.&nbsp;</p>



<p>There’s no point in measuring how many people walked past your store, rather than how many walked up to the register.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-how-this-works-in-practice">How this works in practice</h2>



<p>Here’s an example of how this might actually work for a B2B buyer shopping for a modern CX platform.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-1-ai-search-the-discovery-layer">1. AI search: The discovery layer</h3>



<p>The buyer might start off with a broad, long-tail search like [best cx ai solutions that support agents in real time], where the AI answer summary provides a list of options.&nbsp;</p>


<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="aligncenter size-full"><img decoding="async" width="1844" height="776" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/AI-search-The-discovery-layer.png" alt="AI search: The discovery layer" class="wp-image-478455" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/AI-search-The-discovery-layer.png 1844w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/AI-search-The-discovery-layer-768x323.png 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/AI-search-The-discovery-layer-1536x646.png 1536w" sizes="(max-width: 1844px) 100vw, 1844px" /></figure>
</div>


<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-2-google-search-the-verification-layer">2. Google Search: The verification layer</h3>



<p>This is where buyers dive deeper for comparison content, reviews, and feature pages to validate capabilities.&nbsp;</p>


<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="aligncenter size-full"><img decoding="async" width="1850" height="784" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/Google-Search-The-verification-layer.png" alt="Google Search: The verification layer" class="wp-image-478456" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/Google-Search-The-verification-layer.png 1850w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/Google-Search-The-verification-layer-768x325.png 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/Google-Search-The-verification-layer-1536x651.png 1536w" sizes="(max-width: 1850px) 100vw, 1850px" /></figure>
</div>


<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-3-dark-funnel-the-conversion-layer">3. Dark funnel: The conversion layer</h3>



<p>This is the most relevant type of organic traffic to report on. Typically, branded search at this layer sends visitors directly to your pricing page or demo request page.&nbsp;</p>


<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="aligncenter size-full"><img decoding="async" width="1890" height="600" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/Dark-funnel-The-conversion-layer.png" alt="Dark funnel: The conversion layer" class="wp-image-478457" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/Dark-funnel-The-conversion-layer.png 1890w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/Dark-funnel-The-conversion-layer-768x244.png 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/Dark-funnel-The-conversion-layer-1536x488.png 1536w" sizes="(max-width: 1890px) 100vw, 1890px" /></figure>
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<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-how-to-report-on-seo-when-attribution-goes-dark">How to report on SEO when attribution goes dark</h2>



<p>Trying to report 100% accurate, linear query data is a thing of the past. Between Google’s anonymized queries and the attribution black box of LLMs, fighting for exact click counts is a losing battle.</p>



<p>Instead of fighting the <a href="https://searchengineland.com/the-dark-seo-funnel-why-traffic-no-longer-proves-seo-success-470334">dark SEO funnel</a>, modern reporting needs to adapt to it.&nbsp;</p>



<p>As <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YEUGAib18Y" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Matthew Mellinger highlights</a>, the new reporting framework must be directional — identifying macro trends and shifts that prove business impact rather than hunting down every last click.</p>



<p>To make this shift, your dashboard needs two structural changes:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li><strong>Page-level over query-level reporting:</strong> Switch your focus from volatile query positions to page-level health and trends. Google Search Console already hides a massive fraction of your true query data, making keyword-level reporting fundamentally flawed. Page-level data tells a much cleaner story. By attributing revenue and key events directly to your high-intent landing pages, you can actually see what’s driving business value.</li>



<li><strong>Branded search as an AI proxy: </strong>When an LLM like Gemini or Perplexity recommends your brand, users rarely click a citation link. Instead, they open a new browser tab and search for your brand directly. Because of this, tracking a lift in branded search volume and direct traffic is a great proxy for measuring off-site AI visibility.</li>
</ul>



<p>If informational organic traffic is flat or dropping, it probably doesn’t matter as much. The goal is to isolate traffic reporting to main revenue pages, rather than cluttering up the data with blogs and resource pages.&nbsp;</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-ai-seo-metrics-that-hold-teams-accountable-and-keep-executives-bought-in">AI SEO metrics that hold teams accountable and keep executives bought in</h2>



<p>In an ideal world, it would be awesome to just &#8220;track revenue&#8221; and forget everything else. But we know marketing investments need to be justified. If classic KPIs like clicks, traffic, and rank tracking are facing an existential threat, what should we track instead?</p>



<p>The solution is to hold marketers accountable to <a href="https://youtu.be/pXNh0UYZ2C0?si=oU1vY7ll7vVRh6c8" target="_blank" rel="noopener">input metrics</a> — the strategic actions they can directly control — while completely redefining the lagging indicators to measure true AI visibility.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-input-metrics-what-you-can-control">Input metrics: What you can control</h3>



<p>These are the daily and weekly actions your team executes to build your distribution moat. Marketers should be held directly accountable for these inputs:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li><strong>Topical coverage:</strong> Are you answering the complex, multi-layered questions that LLMs generate around your core topics?</li>



<li><strong>Topic clustering with internal linking optimization: </strong>How well are your high-intent pages connected to build true topical authority?</li>



<li><strong>Promotion of those assets via other channels:</strong> Creating the content isn&#8217;t enough. How effectively is the team distributing it across social, newsletters, and communities?</li>



<li><strong>Velocity of content updates:</strong> Are you refreshing your cornerstone money pages quarterly? This is crucial for keeping AI systems fed with up-to-date data.</li>



<li><strong>Expansion with new content formats:</strong> Are you breaking out of the &#8220;text-only&#8221; trap by repurposing core concepts into YouTube videos, carousels, diagrams, and audio summaries?</li>
</ul>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-lagging-indicators-new-seo-kpis">Lagging indicators: New SEO KPIs</h3>



<p>While traditional rank tracking is dying, these are the new outcomes that prove your inputs are actually translating to visibility and business value:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li><strong>Branded search volume or branded clicks:</strong> This is your strongest proxy for AI search success, other than tracking referral traffic and conversions directly from AI sources.&nbsp;</li>



<li><strong>Self-reported attribution:</strong> Adding &#8220;How did you hear about us?&#8221; to your high-intent forms, with &#8220;AI Search / ChatGPT&#8221; explicitly listed as an option.</li>



<li><strong>Referral sessions and key event conversions from LLMs:</strong> Traffic specifically sourced and identifiable from AI interfaces.</li>



<li><strong>Third-party category coverage:</strong> Your presence and sentiment in trusted third-party &#8220;Best X software&#8221; listicles, analyst reports, and review sites — because these are the exact sources LLMs lean on heavily to construct their answers.</li>
</ul>



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<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-how-to-shift-the-c-suite-away-from-seo-traffic">How to shift the C-suite away from SEO traffic</h2>



<p>Start by creating an inventory of site pages and segmenting accordingly. Then, begin auditing your current dashboards. Retire vanity metrics gradually. Slowly introduce intent-segmented traffic and new AI visibility proxies alongside clicks and impressions. Over a few reporting cycles, shift your focus toward the new metrics and sunset the legacy metrics.&nbsp;</p>



<p>When you introduce new reporting, be transparent about why the change is necessary. Acknowledging AI Overviews, zero-click results, and the dark SEO funnel isn&#8217;t a concession — it’s demonstrating that you’re evolving with the reality of modern search.</p>

HubSpot changed the name of its flagship conference from INBOUND to UNBOUND. 
This wasn’t a casual rebrand. It reflected a broader shift away from legacy SEO strategies built around top-of-funnel traffic. Modern search is shifting closer to a zero-click environment:
The click-through rate curve is collapsing. We know that roughly 60% of searches now end without a single click to the open web.
The discovery layer has moved. Buyers are researching vendors directly inside LLMs like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google’s AI Mode before they click a traditional blue link. 
Attribution has gone dark. The modern buyer journey is fragmented. Shoppers narrow down their options with AI search, and then check your brand in Google to verify. They only visit your website when they’re ready to convert. 
The metrics that made SEO look successful in 2018 are distorting today’s SEO reporting. That’s why it’s time to retire the obsession with traffic-based reporting as the primary leading indicator for content success. 
We don’t need to stop tracking traffic entirely, but we have to radically change which types of traffic we present to marketing leadership. 
The problem isn’t organic traffic, it’s how we filter it
A LinkedIn discussion, started by Peter Rota, ignited an explosive debate over whether we should retire organic traffic as an SEO metric entirely. 
The industry consensus seems to land firmly in the middle: traffic isn’t obsolete, but it is dangerously incomplete when decoupled from intent and revenue.
Organic traffic isn’t a bad metric. But it’s a terrible standalone KPI.
Adam Heitzman pointed out in a recent breakdown of vanity metrics that organic traffic on its own lacks context. A drop in overall visitors isn’t necessarily a crisis if you’re shedding the right kind of visitors. If thousands of users bounce after reading a generic glossary FAQ in 3 seconds, this isn’t helping your business.
Heitzman notes a perfect scenario for this: If an organization prunes low-intent informational fluff and doubles down on high-intent service pages, its overall traffic might drop by 20%. In the old days, that kind of traffic drop would trigger panic. But because the site is attracting more qualified buyers, organic revenue actually increases by 30%. The site gets fewer visitors overall, but those who convert more often.
When you stop treating a top-of-funnel blog post click and a pricing page click as equals, you can clear the noise out of your dashboard. And right now, clearing that noise is essential because top-of-funnel traffic is precisely what AI search is destroying.

  
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The collapse of TOFU traffic and what to focus on instead
Rand Fishkin nailed it when he said top-of-funnel marketing was always done on rented land. 
But today, the situation is even more extreme. 
Buyers no longer want to visit your site to research a basic definition, compare simple features, or read a 2,000-word glossary post. They want to do that with instant answers, Reddit threads, TikTok, and LLMs.
Generic, consensus, informational traffic is going all the way to zero.
The irony is that SEO teams are still pouring the majority of their effort into the exact content types most susceptible to AI death: long-form explainers, roundups, and FAQs.
If informational business blogging is dead, what is left on your site that is actually worth tracking?
You need to narrow your reporting down to the actual distribution moats — the high-intent transactional nodes that AI can’t easily replicate or bypass. Moving forward, there are really only four types of pages worth reporting organic traffic on:
Homepage: Siege Media found that homepage traffic from LLMs is growing. When AI summaries recommend a brand, users often bypass the provided link, open a new tab, and search the brand name directly.
Pricing pages: This is where buyers go when they are ready to transact. An AI can summarize your features and pricing plans, but buyers typically want to read the fine print and finalize the purchase from a vendor page they trust. 
Products and solutions pages: Task completion must happen where the consumer has the highest degree of confidence and trust. Kevin Indig noted that product grids are getting much higher CTRs than traditional organic listings for exactly this reason.
Money content pages: Highly specific demo landing pages, original research reports, and bottom-of-funnel conversion points that influence pipeline and buying decisions.
If your organic traffic reporting isn’t laser-focused on these four areas, you’re likely including too much noise. 
There’s no point in measuring how many people walked past your store, rather than how many walked up to the register.
How this works in practice
Here’s an example of how this might actually work for a B2B buyer shopping for a modern CX platform.
1. AI search: The discovery layer
The buyer might start off with a broad, long-tail search like [best cx ai solutions that support agents in real time], where the AI answer summary provides a list of options. 




2. Google Search: The verification layer
This is where buyers dive deeper for comparison content, reviews, and feature pages to validate capabilities. 




3. Dark funnel: The conversion layer
This is the most relevant type of organic traffic to report on. Typically, branded search at this layer sends visitors directly to your pricing page or demo request page. 





	
	
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How to report on SEO when attribution goes dark
Trying to report 100% accurate, linear query data is a thing of the past. Between Google’s anonymized queries and the attribution black box of LLMs, fighting for exact click counts is a losing battle.
Instead of fighting the dark SEO funnel, modern reporting needs to adapt to it. 
As Matthew Mellinger highlights, the new reporting framework must be directional — identifying macro trends and shifts that prove business impact rather than hunting down every last click.
To make this shift, your dashboard needs two structural changes:
Page-level over query-level reporting: Switch your focus from volatile query positions to page-level health and trends. Google Search Console already hides a massive fraction of your true query data, making keyword-level reporting fundamentally flawed. Page-level data tells a much cleaner story. By attributing revenue and key events directly to your high-intent landing pages, you can actually see what’s driving business value.
Branded search as an AI proxy: When an LLM like Gemini or Perplexity recommends your brand, users rarely click a citation link. Instead, they open a new browser tab and search for your brand directly. Because of this, tracking a lift in branded search volume and direct traffic is a great proxy for measuring off-site AI visibility.
If informational organic traffic is flat or dropping, it probably doesn’t matter as much. The goal is to isolate traffic reporting to main revenue pages, rather than cluttering up the data with blogs and resource pages. 
AI SEO metrics that hold teams accountable and keep executives bought in
In an ideal world, it would be awesome to just “track revenue” and forget everything else. But we know marketing investments need to be justified. If classic KPIs like clicks, traffic, and rank tracking are facing an existential threat, what should we track instead?
The solution is to hold marketers accountable to input metrics — the strategic actions they can directly control — while completely redefining the lagging indicators to measure true AI visibility.
Input metrics: What you can control
These are the daily and weekly actions your team executes to build your distribution moat. Marketers should be held directly accountable for these inputs:
Topical coverage: Are you answering the complex, multi-layered questions that LLMs generate around your core topics?
Topic clustering with internal linking optimization: How well are your high-intent pages connected to build true topical authority?
Promotion of those assets via other channels: Creating the content isn’t enough. How effectively is the team distributing it across social, newsletters, and communities?
Velocity of content updates: Are you refreshing your cornerstone money pages quarterly? This is crucial for keeping AI systems fed with up-to-date data.
Expansion with new content formats: Are you breaking out of the “text-only” trap by repurposing core concepts into YouTube videos, carousels, diagrams, and audio summaries?
Lagging indicators: New SEO KPIs
While traditional rank tracking is dying, these are the new outcomes that prove your inputs are actually translating to visibility and business value:
Branded search volume or branded clicks: This is your strongest proxy for AI search success, other than tracking referral traffic and conversions directly from AI sources. 
Self-reported attribution: Adding “How did you hear about us?” to your high-intent forms, with “AI Search / ChatGPT” explicitly listed as an option.
Referral sessions and key event conversions from LLMs: Traffic specifically sourced and identifiable from AI interfaces.
Third-party category coverage: Your presence and sentiment in trusted third-party “Best X software” listicles, analyst reports, and review sites — because these are the exact sources LLMs lean on heavily to construct their answers.

  
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How to shift the C-suite away from SEO traffic
Start by creating an inventory of site pages and segmenting accordingly. Then, begin auditing your current dashboards. Retire vanity metrics gradually. Slowly introduce intent-segmented traffic and new AI visibility proxies alongside clicks and impressions. Over a few reporting cycles, shift your focus toward the new metrics and sunset the legacy metrics. 
When you introduce new reporting, be transparent about why the change is necessary. Acknowledging AI Overviews, zero-click results, and the dark SEO funnel isn’t a concession — it’s demonstrating that you’re evolving with the reality of modern search.

Not every organic visit deserves equal weight anymore. Here’s how to focus SEO reporting on high-intent pages and business impact.

Organic traffic is still worth tracking — just not all of it

<div><img width="1920" height="1080" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/google-velocity.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="Google velocity" decoding="async" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/google-velocity.png 1920w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/google-velocity-768x432.png 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/google-velocity-1536x864.png 1536w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/google-velocity-1200x675.png 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px" /></div>Google I/O 2026 felt like a victory lap. Here's what the conversations behind the demos actually revealed.

<div><img width="1920" height="1080" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/google-velocity.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="Google velocity" decoding="async" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/google-velocity.png 1920w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/google-velocity-768x432.png 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/google-velocity-1536x864.png 1536w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/google-velocity-1200x675.png 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px" /></div>
<p>For a first-time attendee, Google I/O’s energetic, optimistic atmosphere felt almost like a coronation.</p>



<p>Last year’s bets are now growth pillars because they worked. Ask Maps became the playbook for rolling out Ask YouTube. Gemini 3.5 Flash powers Antigravity — think Claude Code, but Google — and Googlers are already using it to build the features demoed on stage.</p>



<p>Everything shipped fast, and everything felt confident.</p>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img decoding="async" width="1999" height="1500" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/ask-youtube-google-io.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-478484" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/ask-youtube-google-io.jpg 1999w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/ask-youtube-google-io-768x576.jpg 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/ask-youtube-google-io-1536x1153.jpg 1536w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/ask-youtube-google-io-900x675.jpg 900w" sizes="(max-width: 1999px) 100vw, 1999px" /></figure>



<p>There was something for everyone. </p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Gemini Omni, which was compared to Nano Banana but for video (I have <a href="https://youtu.be/8nCukt5FWkE">bizarre proof</a>). </li>



<li>Smart glasses are making a comeback. </li>



<li>Video game-like experiences that can be prompted and played in real time. </li>



<li>Workspace can now talk documents into existence. </li>



<li>Google Maps images can be turned into surrealistic fever dreams via prompting (I asked what the use case was, and it sounded more like a solution looking for a problem: Hollywood studios could forgo shooting on location?). </li>



<li>I even have Gemma running on my phone so I can converse with a smaller model on an airplane. (P.S. American Airlines now has free Wi-Fi, so I&#8217;m good.)</li>
</ul>



<p>But I haven&#8217;t even gotten to the part that&#8217;s most curious.</p>



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<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-gemini-is-becoming-more-like-search-search-is-becoming-more-like-gemini">Gemini is becoming more like Search. Search is becoming more like Gemini.</h2>



<p>There are now features across both products that serve the same intent: monitoring the web and proactively notifying you when something relevant appears.</p>



<p>In Search, it’s information agents. In Gemini, it’s Spark or Daily Brief. The overlap is obvious.</p>



<p>So I asked one of the product managers directly: “How are you thinking about long-term feature management and the bloat of utilities that largely overlap?”</p>



<p>The answer: “Right now, it’s all about velocity.”</p>



<p>They’re shipping relentlessly. Three other PMs behind flagship I/O features said the same thing. Every one of those features was started and shipped this year, in 2026. That was mind-blowing.</p>



<p>The PM added: “The way velocity is achieved is less managerial overhead.”</p>



<p>I took that to mean: get on the board now and figure it out later.</p>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img decoding="async" width="1999" height="1500" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/shipping-at-relentless-pace-google-io.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-478485" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/shipping-at-relentless-pace-google-io.jpg 1999w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/shipping-at-relentless-pace-google-io-768x576.jpg 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/shipping-at-relentless-pace-google-io-1536x1153.jpg 1536w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/shipping-at-relentless-pace-google-io-900x675.jpg 900w" sizes="(max-width: 1999px) 100vw, 1999px" /></figure>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-once-you-see-it-you-can-t-unsee-it">Once you see it, you can&#8217;t unsee it</h2>



<p>With that framing, the rest of the day looked different. I saw plenty of impressive demos, but kept wondering: what do I actually do with these next?</p>



<p>I now have Gemma on my phone, but one of the developers couldn’t offer much of a day-to-day use case. I got a demo of AI Mode’s monitoring capabilities by prompting “keep me updated” and saw how the pieces connected. But when I asked a follow-up — “How will I manage these alerts alongside everything else? What happens when they go stale?” — there wasn’t an answer. Granted, it’s still a demo, but the non-answer was telling.</p>



<p>The second-order effects of many of these features don’t seem fully considered. It gave me the sense that engineers dogfood these models from the command line, not the front end.</p>



<p>One small but revealing example: as of this writing, I still can’t delete old Gemini chats in the web browser, even though I can in the Mac app.</p>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img decoding="async" width="820" height="882" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/gemini-old-chats.png" alt="" class="wp-image-478486" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/gemini-old-chats.png 820w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/gemini-old-chats-768x826.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px" /></figure>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-universal-cart-the-feature-that-got-everyone-talking">Universal Cart: The feature that got everyone talking</h2>



<p>One feature that came up repeatedly in conversations with both engineers and users was <a href="https://searchengineland.com/google-search-universal-cart-expands-ucp-and-ap2-477989">Universal Cart</a>, Google’s new cross-surface shopping protocol.</p>



<p>When people asked what I thought, I said: “If you’re Google, you should be very excited, because if this gets adopted, you own more of the end-to-end experience. If you’re everyone else, you’re probably worried.”</p>



<p>That didn’t seem to concern the group I spoke with, many of whom felt oddly detached from the growing anti-AI sentiment in the U.S.</p>



<p>Later, I spoke with an SEO professional at a large ecommerce brand already implementing Universal Cart. When I mentioned the velocity comment, they said: “That sounds like what we experienced during implementation. It feels rushed.”</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-the-ai-content-guidelines-paradox">The AI content guidelines paradox</h2>



<p>The velocity-over-oversight mindset also helps explain why <a href="https://searchengineland.com/google-ai-search-guidance-naive-self-serving-478432">Google&#8217;s AI content guidelines have been so controversial</a>.</p>



<p>Four days before I/O, Google’s Search quality team <a href="https://searchengineland.com/google-publishes-guide-on-optimizing-for-generative-ai-features-477671?__cf_chl_tk=CdnsOaUkQdn8OCq11Vk3.G612A4sjH9vreF4JY2ypSY-1779456648-1.0.1.1-0n2zFD9_i4QpZvPvS1H0.lQHL3yXZuwD5xLsqA58c3I">told publishers to “write for humans, not AI.”</a> Then the AI agent team took the stage and demonstrated a future where Google’s own agents browse, interpret, transact on, and generate content across the web.</p>



<p>If the future is increasingly AI Mode — with agents building, fetching, and acting on users’ behalf — the guidance to publishers starts to ring hollow.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-why-this-matters-for-the-web-ecosystem">Why this matters for the web ecosystem</h2>



<p>I don’t want to diminish the work these engineers are doing. I told them that directly. As someone building products for search and for our clients, I empathize. You mostly hear criticism, not praise.</p>



<p>But I can’t help wondering what happens when all these overlapping features — the bloat, the inability to delete, manage, or reconcile things cleanly — become technical debt that has to be unwound. Right now, the AI playbook seems to be: feature utilization first, fix it later.</p>



<p>Still, I honestly respect that a company as large and established as Google is moving this fast, and I’m genuinely excited to see how some of this plays out. With their cash flow and their ability to manufacture their own TPU chips, they can afford to place multiple bets and see what sticks.</p>



<p>I wanted to keep talking with that PM, but we were unceremoniously kicked out of the area.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-the-bright-spots-are-real">The bright spots are real</h2>



<p>Google reported that last quarter saw an all-time high in search queries. They’re taking authentication and provenance seriously, with SynthID expanding into Search and Chrome, new adoption partners like OpenAI, and C2PA content credential verification for crawl.</p>



<p>Those are meaningful steps forward.</p>



<p>But this pace will likely create unintended consequences. My hope is that the rush to move fast doesn’t further destabilize an already-rattled web ecosystem by breaking too many things along the way.</p>



<p>All of this is to say: it’s an exciting time to be in search.</p>



<p><strong>Dig deeper. </strong>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li><a href="https://searchengineland.com/googles-new-intelligent-search-box-its-biggest-change-to-the-search-box-in-25-years-477968">Google’s new intelligent Search box – its biggest change to the search box in 25 years</a></li>



<li><a href="https://searchengineland.com/google-search-now-powered-by-gemini-3-5-flash-477975">Google Search now powered by Gemini 3.5 Flash</a></li>



<li><a href="https://searchengineland.com/google-search-gains-information-agents-and-improved-agentic-experiences-477979">Google Search gains information agents and improved agentic experiences</a></li>



<li><a href="https://searchengineland.com/google-lets-you-build-your-own-app-within-google-search-with-agentic-coding-477985">Google lets you build your own app within Google Search with agentic coding</a></li>
</ul>


For a first-time attendee, Google I/O’s energetic, optimistic atmosphere felt almost like a coronation.
Last year’s bets are now growth pillars because they worked. Ask Maps became the playbook for rolling out Ask YouTube. Gemini 3.5 Flash powers Antigravity — think Claude Code, but Google — and Googlers are already using it to build the features demoed on stage.
Everything shipped fast, and everything felt confident.




There was something for everyone. 
Gemini Omni, which was compared to Nano Banana but for video (I have bizarre proof). 
Smart glasses are making a comeback. 
Video game-like experiences that can be prompted and played in real time. 
Workspace can now talk documents into existence. 
Google Maps images can be turned into surrealistic fever dreams via prompting (I asked what the use case was, and it sounded more like a solution looking for a problem: Hollywood studios could forgo shooting on location?). 
I even have Gemma running on my phone so I can converse with a smaller model on an airplane. (P.S. American Airlines now has free Wi-Fi, so I’m good.)
But I haven’t even gotten to the part that’s most curious.
complete picture of your search visibility.
      
Start Free Trial
    
Get started with
Gemini is becoming more like Search. Search is becoming more like Gemini.
There are now features across both products that serve the same intent: monitoring the web and proactively notifying you when something relevant appears.
In Search, it’s information agents. In Gemini, it’s Spark or Daily Brief. The overlap is obvious.
So I asked one of the product managers directly: “How are you thinking about long-term feature management and the bloat of utilities that largely overlap?”
The answer: “Right now, it’s all about velocity.”
They’re shipping relentlessly. Three other PMs behind flagship I/O features said the same thing. Every one of those features was started and shipped this year, in 2026. That was mind-blowing.
The PM added: “The way velocity is achieved is less managerial overhead.”
I took that to mean: get on the board now and figure it out later.




Once you see it, you can’t unsee it
With that framing, the rest of the day looked different. I saw plenty of impressive demos, but kept wondering: what do I actually do with these next?
I now have Gemma on my phone, but one of the developers couldn’t offer much of a day-to-day use case. I got a demo of AI Mode’s monitoring capabilities by prompting “keep me updated” and saw how the pieces connected. But when I asked a follow-up — “How will I manage these alerts alongside everything else? What happens when they go stale?” — there wasn’t an answer. Granted, it’s still a demo, but the non-answer was telling.
The second-order effects of many of these features don’t seem fully considered. It gave me the sense that engineers dogfood these models from the command line, not the front end.
One small but revealing example: as of this writing, I still can’t delete old Gemini chats in the web browser, even though I can in the Mac app.




Universal Cart: The feature that got everyone talking
One feature that came up repeatedly in conversations with both engineers and users was Universal Cart, Google’s new cross-surface shopping protocol.
When people asked what I thought, I said: “If you’re Google, you should be very excited, because if this gets adopted, you own more of the end-to-end experience. If you’re everyone else, you’re probably worried.”
That didn’t seem to concern the group I spoke with, many of whom felt oddly detached from the growing anti-AI sentiment in the U.S.
Later, I spoke with an SEO professional at a large ecommerce brand already implementing Universal Cart. When I mentioned the velocity comment, they said: “That sounds like what we experienced during implementation. It feels rushed.”
The AI content guidelines paradox
The velocity-over-oversight mindset also helps explain why Google’s AI content guidelines have been so controversial.
Four days before I/O, Google’s Search quality team told publishers to “write for humans, not AI.” Then the AI agent team took the stage and demonstrated a future where Google’s own agents browse, interpret, transact on, and generate content across the web.
If the future is increasingly AI Mode — with agents building, fetching, and acting on users’ behalf — the guidance to publishers starts to ring hollow.
Why this matters for the web ecosystem
I don’t want to diminish the work these engineers are doing. I told them that directly. As someone building products for search and for our clients, I empathize. You mostly hear criticism, not praise.
But I can’t help wondering what happens when all these overlapping features — the bloat, the inability to delete, manage, or reconcile things cleanly — become technical debt that has to be unwound. Right now, the AI playbook seems to be: feature utilization first, fix it later.
Still, I honestly respect that a company as large and established as Google is moving this fast, and I’m genuinely excited to see how some of this plays out. With their cash flow and their ability to manufacture their own TPU chips, they can afford to place multiple bets and see what sticks.
I wanted to keep talking with that PM, but we were unceremoniously kicked out of the area.
The bright spots are real
Google reported that last quarter saw an all-time high in search queries. They’re taking authentication and provenance seriously, with SynthID expanding into Search and Chrome, new adoption partners like OpenAI, and C2PA content credential verification for crawl.
Those are meaningful steps forward.
But this pace will likely create unintended consequences. My hope is that the rush to move fast doesn’t further destabilize an already-rattled web ecosystem by breaking too many things along the way.
All of this is to say: it’s an exciting time to be in search.
Dig deeper. 




Google’s new intelligent Search box – its biggest change to the search box in 25 years
Google Search now powered by Gemini 3.5 Flash
Google Search gains information agents and improved agentic experiences
Google lets you build your own app within Google Search with agentic coding

Google I/O 2026 felt like a victory lap. Here's what the conversations behind the demos actually revealed.

Velocity: What the Googlers not on stage said at I/O 2026

<div><img width="1920" height="1080" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/‘Fix-everything-is-the-wrong-SEO-strategy.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="‘Fix everything’ is the wrong SEO strategy" decoding="async" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/‘Fix-everything-is-the-wrong-SEO-strategy.png 1920w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/‘Fix-everything-is-the-wrong-SEO-strategy-768x432.png 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/‘Fix-everything-is-the-wrong-SEO-strategy-1536x864.png 1536w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/‘Fix-everything-is-the-wrong-SEO-strategy-1200x675.png 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px" /></div>Audit tools flag everything equally, but SEO success depends on prioritization. Focus on the changes that actually drive growth.


<div><img width="1920" height="1080" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/‘Fix-everything-is-the-wrong-SEO-strategy.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="‘Fix everything’ is the wrong SEO strategy" decoding="async" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/‘Fix-everything-is-the-wrong-SEO-strategy.png 1920w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/‘Fix-everything-is-the-wrong-SEO-strategy-768x432.png 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/‘Fix-everything-is-the-wrong-SEO-strategy-1536x864.png 1536w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/‘Fix-everything-is-the-wrong-SEO-strategy-1200x675.png 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px" /></div>
<p>Every <a href="https://searchengineland.com/guide/what-is-seo">SEO</a> knows the feeling: You open your audit tool and it hands you 847 issues. Broken links. Crawl errors. Pages with duplicate titles. Missing alt tags. Core Web Vitals flagged in yellow. And somewhere deep in that spreadsheet, a voice whispers, “Fix it all, or you’ll never rank.”</p>



<p>But here’s what you should know: That voice is lying to you.</p>



<p>The “fix everything” approach is one of the most widespread and quietly damaging habits in SEO. It feels productive. You’re closing tickets, working through the backlog, and watching that audit score inch upward. But traffic isn’t moving. Conversions are flat. And six months later, you’ll ask yourself why all that hard work didn’t pay off.</p>



<p>The answer? You confused activity with impact.</p>



<p>If you’ve ever closed out a sprint feeling productive, only to open Google Search Console and find nothing moved, this article is for you.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-the-tool-isn-t-your-boss">The tool isn’t your boss</h2>



<p>SEO tools are extraordinary at finding problems. They can audit thousands of pages in minutes, flag every minor HTML hiccup, and track Core Web Vitals down to the millisecond. All of this is useful.</p>



<p>But here’s the dangerous part: These tools create the impression that every flag is a ranking problem that needs solving. A missing H1 tag on a low-traffic page gets the same red warning icon as a noindex tag on your homepage. There’s no column for “this actually matters.”</p>



<p>Google&#8217;s own John Mueller has said that <a href="https://searchengineland.com/google-search-seo-tools-scores-430771">scores from third-party SEO tools simply aren&#8217;t used for ranking</a>, and that includes Lighthouse. When asked about headings specifically, Mueller noted that &#8220;our systems aren&#8217;t too picky, and we&#8217;ll try to work with the HTML as we find it.&#8221;&nbsp;</p>



<p>That&#8217;s not a green light to ignore your site structure, but it is a clear signal that tool scores and ranking reality are two very different things.</p>



<p>The real problem isn’t that audit tools flag issues. It’s that they don’t tell you which issues actually affect your bottom line. So teams default to a simple, flawed belief: More fixes equal more results. But they don’t.</p>



<p><strong><em>Dig deeper: <a href="https://searchengineland.com/technical-seo-focus-471824">Where to focus technical SEO when you can’t do it all</a></em></strong>



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<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-the-hidden-cost-nobody-talks-about-opportunity-cost">The hidden cost nobody talks about: Opportunity cost</h2>



<p>Every hour your dev team spends fixing 200 legacy 404s is an hour they&#8217;re <strong>not </strong>spending on a new product comparison page. Every sprint you dedicate to shaving 0.2 seconds off an already-fast page is a sprint you&#8217;re <strong>not </strong>spending on refreshing the content that&#8217;s sitting at position 11 waiting to break onto page one.</p>



<p>This is opportunity cost, and it&#8217;s the silent killer of SEO programs.</p>



<p><a href="https://searchengineland.com/technical-seo-focus-471824">Up to 67%</a> of in-house SEO teams cite non-SEO dev tasks as the biggest reason technical fixes don&#8217;t get made. Dev bandwidth is a scarce resource. When you spend it on low-impact cleanup work, you&#8217;re not just wasting time. You&#8217;re actively choosing not to do something that could drive real growth.</p>



<p>Think about what gets pushed to the bottom of the list while you&#8217;re playing clean up:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>New content targeting high-intent keywords your competitors are ranking for.</li>



<li>Refreshing and expanding pages already on page one (the highest-ROI content work available).</li>



<li>Building strategic internal links from your most authoritative pages.</li>



<li>Improving conversion paths on the pages that actually bring in revenue.</li>
</ul>



<p>You end up with a technically cleaner site and flat traffic. Busy SEO feels good. However, it doesn&#8217;t grow anything.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-not-all-seo-problems-are-created-equal-context-changes-everything">Not all SEO problems are created equal — context changes everything</h2>



<p>Look at the top 10 results for any competitive keyword right now. A significant number of those sites have imperfect Core Web Vitals. They have redirect chains and minor duplicate content. But they still rank, because they are authoritative and answer the user&#8217;s question better than anyone else.</p>



<p>Google rewards relevance and user satisfaction. It doesn&#8217;t reward flawlessness.</p>



<p>That said, this is not an argument for ignoring your technical foundation. There&#8217;s a real difference between issues that block growth and issues that are just noise. The challenge is knowing which is which.</p>



<p>Here’s a useful mental model: Triage every issue through four filters before it earns a spot on your roadmap.</p>


<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="aligncenter size-full"><img decoding="async" width="1536" height="1024" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/The-four-filter-mental-model.png" alt="The four-filter mental model" class="wp-image-478443" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/The-four-filter-mental-model.png 1536w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/The-four-filter-mental-model-768x512.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1536px) 100vw, 1536px" /></figure>
</div>


<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li><strong>Impact</strong>: How much traffic, revenue, or visibility is actually at stake?</li>



<li><strong>Reach</strong>: How many high-value pages does this affect?</li>



<li><strong>Effort</strong>: What does it cost your team to fix this?</li>



<li><strong>Risk</strong>: Is there a crawlability, compliance, or UX risk if it goes unfixed?</li>
</ul>



<p>Run your audit output through those four questions, and you&#8217;ll eliminate roughly 70% of your to-do list. Every item that falls off the list is unlikely to be worth your time.</p>



<p><strong><em>Dig deeper: <a href="https://searchengineland.com/prioritize-technical-seo-fixes-business-impact-477385">How to prioritize technical SEO fixes by business impact</a></em></strong>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-strategic-neglect-what-s-actually-ok-to-leave-alone">Strategic neglect: What&#8217;s actually OK to leave alone</h2>



<p>This concept might make you uncomfortable, and understandably so. But &#8220;strategic neglect&#8221; isn&#8217;t laziness. Rather, it&#8217;s a deliberate trade-off, choosing <strong>not</strong> to fix certain SEO issues so you can free up capacity for higher-leverage work.</p>



<p>Here&#8217;s what you can usually deprioritize without meaningful consequence:</p>



<p>Technical issues that rarely move the needle:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Non-indexable, low-traffic legacy URLs with minor errors.</li>



<li>Redirect chains that don&#8217;t materially affect link equity or UX.</li>



<li>Minor HTML validation issues, non-critical JavaScript errors, and cosmetic Lighthouse warnings.</li>



<li>Core Web Vitals micro-optimizations once you&#8217;ve already hit &#8220;good&#8221; thresholds on your key page templates.</li>
</ul>



<p>Content problems that aren&#8217;t worth the resources:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Thin or outdated posts on non-strategic topics getting zero traffic.</li>



<li>Old press releases and announcements with no ongoing value.</li>



<li>Low-volume, low-intent blog posts that don&#8217;t support a topic cluster or conversion goal.</li>
</ul>



<p>The question to ask about any piece of content or technical issue is simple: Is fixing this serving my audience or my business goals? If the honest answer is “no” or &#8220;barely,&#8221; let it go.</p>



<p>Now, there are real exceptions. Broad remediation is absolutely warranted when you&#8217;re dealing with systemic problems: massive indexation issues, a site migration, broken navigation affecting the whole site, or anything that touches compliance or security. Those are blockers. Fix blockers. Ignore polish.</p>



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<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-high-performing-seo-teams-focus-on">What high-performing SEO teams focus on</h2>



<p>The best SEO teams don&#8217;t start with the audit. They start with the business.</p>



<p>They ask, “Which pages and queries are actually driving conversions, leads, and revenue?” Then those pages get the attention. Everything else gets triaged accordingly.</p>



<p>Applying the Pareto Principle to SEO means focusing on the <a href="https://searchengineland.com/seo-prioritization-how-to-focus-on-what-moves-the-needle-452482">20% of your work that drives 80% of your outcomes</a>, and in practice, that usually means a pretty short list of high-leverage plays.</p>



<p>Here&#8217;s where the outsized results actually come from:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li><strong>Defend and improve your page-one performers:</strong> These pages are already doing the work. A targeted content refresh, CTR optimization, and a few well-placed internal links can significantly compound their performance.</li>



<li><strong>Lift your mid-tier rankings:</strong> Pages sitting in positions 11-30 are among your biggest untapped opportunities. They&#8217;re close, often a content upgrade and a link push away from page one. This is where a focused sprint pays off disproportionately.</li>



<li><strong>Build or expand topic clusters:</strong> Comprehensive coverage of a topic signals expertise and relevance to Google. One well-researched pillar post can anchor and lift an entire cluster of supporting content.</li>



<li><strong>Fix true technical blockers:</strong> Crawlability issues, broken canonicals, indexation failures, mobile usability problems, and server reliability genuinely limit your ability to compete and deserve priority attention. The key is distinguishing between what&#8217;s blocking your growth and what&#8217;s merely untidy.</li>
</ul>



<p><strong><em>Dig deeper: <a href="https://searchengineland.com/strengthen-buy-in-technical-seo-work-477708">4 ways to strengthen buy-in for technical SEO work</a></em></strong>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-a-smarter-framework-the-impact-effort-matrix">A smarter framework: The impact/effort matrix</h2>



<p>If you want a practical tool for cutting through audit noise, the impact/effort matrix is your best friend. Plot every SEO task in your backlog against two axes: How much impact will this produce, and how much effort does it require?</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li><strong>High-impact, low-effort:</strong> Do these SEO tasks immediately. Title and meta improvements on key pages, adding internal links from authoritative URLs, and targeted refreshes of content ranking on page two are all good examples.</li>



<li><strong>High-impact, high-effort:</strong> Plan carefully and resource properly. Site architecture overhauls, major migrations, and performance fixes on core page templates.</li>



<li><strong>Low-impact, low-effort:</strong> Opportunistic only. Do these tasks when you have genuine spare capacity.</li>



<li><strong>Low-impact, high-effort:</strong> Avoid. These tasks are the time sinks that kill momentum and morale.</li>
</ul>



<p>Pair the impact/effort matrix with a business-first roadmap. Use Google Search Console, your analytics data, and CRM data to prioritize by revenue contribution and upside potential. Your SEO roadmap should reflect what matters to the business, not just what the audit tool happened to flag.</p>



<p><a href="https://searchengineland.com/guide/cost-of-reactive-seo">Reactive SEO</a> that responds to every flag without strategic prioritization quietly erodes your team&#8217;s ability to focus on growth. The teams winning in search are the ones treating it as a proactive, business-aligned strategy rather than a maintenance checklist.</p>



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<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-your-audit-score-isn-t-your-seo-strategy">Your audit score isn’t your SEO strategy</h2>



<p>Your boss doesn&#8217;t care if your audit score went from 68 to 94. They care whether traffic and conversions are moving in the right direction.</p>



<p>SEO performance is driven by a handful of high-impact levers: great content, intent alignment, smart internal linking, and fixing true technical blockers. Everything else is noise, and treating noise like a signal is costing you the time and resources you need to actually grow.</p>

Every SEO knows the feeling: You open your audit tool and it hands you 847 issues. Broken links. Crawl errors. Pages with duplicate titles. Missing alt tags. Core Web Vitals flagged in yellow. And somewhere deep in that spreadsheet, a voice whispers, “Fix it all, or you’ll never rank.”
But here’s what you should know: That voice is lying to you.
The “fix everything” approach is one of the most widespread and quietly damaging habits in SEO. It feels productive. You’re closing tickets, working through the backlog, and watching that audit score inch upward. But traffic isn’t moving. Conversions are flat. And six months later, you’ll ask yourself why all that hard work didn’t pay off.
The answer? You confused activity with impact.
If you’ve ever closed out a sprint feeling productive, only to open Google Search Console and find nothing moved, this article is for you.
The tool isn’t your boss
SEO tools are extraordinary at finding problems. They can audit thousands of pages in minutes, flag every minor HTML hiccup, and track Core Web Vitals down to the millisecond. All of this is useful.
But here’s the dangerous part: These tools create the impression that every flag is a ranking problem that needs solving. A missing H1 tag on a low-traffic page gets the same red warning icon as a noindex tag on your homepage. There’s no column for “this actually matters.”
Google’s own John Mueller has said that scores from third-party SEO tools simply aren’t used for ranking, and that includes Lighthouse. When asked about headings specifically, Mueller noted that “our systems aren’t too picky, and we’ll try to work with the HTML as we find it.” 
That’s not a green light to ignore your site structure, but it is a clear signal that tool scores and ranking reality are two very different things.
The real problem isn’t that audit tools flag issues. It’s that they don’t tell you which issues actually affect your bottom line. So teams default to a simple, flawed belief: More fixes equal more results. But they don’t.
Dig deeper: Where to focus technical SEO when you can’t do it all




  
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The hidden cost nobody talks about: Opportunity cost
Every hour your dev team spends fixing 200 legacy 404s is an hour they’re not spending on a new product comparison page. Every sprint you dedicate to shaving 0.2 seconds off an already-fast page is a sprint you’re not spending on refreshing the content that’s sitting at position 11 waiting to break onto page one.
This is opportunity cost, and it’s the silent killer of SEO programs.
Up to 67% of in-house SEO teams cite non-SEO dev tasks as the biggest reason technical fixes don’t get made. Dev bandwidth is a scarce resource. When you spend it on low-impact cleanup work, you’re not just wasting time. You’re actively choosing not to do something that could drive real growth.
Think about what gets pushed to the bottom of the list while you’re playing clean up:
New content targeting high-intent keywords your competitors are ranking for.
Refreshing and expanding pages already on page one (the highest-ROI content work available).
Building strategic internal links from your most authoritative pages.
Improving conversion paths on the pages that actually bring in revenue.
You end up with a technically cleaner site and flat traffic. Busy SEO feels good. However, it doesn’t grow anything.
Not all SEO problems are created equal — context changes everything
Look at the top 10 results for any competitive keyword right now. A significant number of those sites have imperfect Core Web Vitals. They have redirect chains and minor duplicate content. But they still rank, because they are authoritative and answer the user’s question better than anyone else.
Google rewards relevance and user satisfaction. It doesn’t reward flawlessness.
That said, this is not an argument for ignoring your technical foundation. There’s a real difference between issues that block growth and issues that are just noise. The challenge is knowing which is which.
Here’s a useful mental model: Triage every issue through four filters before it earns a spot on your roadmap.





Impact: How much traffic, revenue, or visibility is actually at stake?
Reach: How many high-value pages does this affect?
Effort: What does it cost your team to fix this?
Risk: Is there a crawlability, compliance, or UX risk if it goes unfixed?
Run your audit output through those four questions, and you’ll eliminate roughly 70% of your to-do list. Every item that falls off the list is unlikely to be worth your time.
Dig deeper: How to prioritize technical SEO fixes by business impact



Strategic neglect: What’s actually OK to leave alone
This concept might make you uncomfortable, and understandably so. But “strategic neglect” isn’t laziness. Rather, it’s a deliberate trade-off, choosing not to fix certain SEO issues so you can free up capacity for higher-leverage work.
Here’s what you can usually deprioritize without meaningful consequence:
Technical issues that rarely move the needle:
Non-indexable, low-traffic legacy URLs with minor errors.
Redirect chains that don’t materially affect link equity or UX.
Minor HTML validation issues, non-critical JavaScript errors, and cosmetic Lighthouse warnings.
Core Web Vitals micro-optimizations once you’ve already hit “good” thresholds on your key page templates.
Content problems that aren’t worth the resources:
Thin or outdated posts on non-strategic topics getting zero traffic.
Old press releases and announcements with no ongoing value.
Low-volume, low-intent blog posts that don’t support a topic cluster or conversion goal.
The question to ask about any piece of content or technical issue is simple: Is fixing this serving my audience or my business goals? If the honest answer is “no” or “barely,” let it go.
Now, there are real exceptions. Broad remediation is absolutely warranted when you’re dealing with systemic problems: massive indexation issues, a site migration, broken navigation affecting the whole site, or anything that touches compliance or security. Those are blockers. Fix blockers. Ignore polish.
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See terms.
		
What high-performing SEO teams focus on
The best SEO teams don’t start with the audit. They start with the business.
They ask, “Which pages and queries are actually driving conversions, leads, and revenue?” Then those pages get the attention. Everything else gets triaged accordingly.
Applying the Pareto Principle to SEO means focusing on the 20% of your work that drives 80% of your outcomes, and in practice, that usually means a pretty short list of high-leverage plays.
Here’s where the outsized results actually come from:
Defend and improve your page-one performers: These pages are already doing the work. A targeted content refresh, CTR optimization, and a few well-placed internal links can significantly compound their performance.
Lift your mid-tier rankings: Pages sitting in positions 11-30 are among your biggest untapped opportunities. They’re close, often a content upgrade and a link push away from page one. This is where a focused sprint pays off disproportionately.
Build or expand topic clusters: Comprehensive coverage of a topic signals expertise and relevance to Google. One well-researched pillar post can anchor and lift an entire cluster of supporting content.
Fix true technical blockers: Crawlability issues, broken canonicals, indexation failures, mobile usability problems, and server reliability genuinely limit your ability to compete and deserve priority attention. The key is distinguishing between what’s blocking your growth and what’s merely untidy.
Dig deeper: 4 ways to strengthen buy-in for technical SEO work



A smarter framework: The impact/effort matrix
If you want a practical tool for cutting through audit noise, the impact/effort matrix is your best friend. Plot every SEO task in your backlog against two axes: How much impact will this produce, and how much effort does it require?
High-impact, low-effort: Do these SEO tasks immediately. Title and meta improvements on key pages, adding internal links from authoritative URLs, and targeted refreshes of content ranking on page two are all good examples.
High-impact, high-effort: Plan carefully and resource properly. Site architecture overhauls, major migrations, and performance fixes on core page templates.
Low-impact, low-effort: Opportunistic only. Do these tasks when you have genuine spare capacity.
Low-impact, high-effort: Avoid. These tasks are the time sinks that kill momentum and morale.
Pair the impact/effort matrix with a business-first roadmap. Use Google Search Console, your analytics data, and CRM data to prioritize by revenue contribution and upside potential. Your SEO roadmap should reflect what matters to the business, not just what the audit tool happened to flag.
Reactive SEO that responds to every flag without strategic prioritization quietly erodes your team’s ability to focus on growth. The teams winning in search are the ones treating it as a proactive, business-aligned strategy rather than a maintenance checklist.

  
complete picture of your search visibility.
      
Start Free Trial
    
Get started with
Your audit score isn’t your SEO strategy
Your boss doesn’t care if your audit score went from 68 to 94. They care whether traffic and conversions are moving in the right direction.
SEO performance is driven by a handful of high-impact levers: great content, intent alignment, smart internal linking, and fixing true technical blockers. Everything else is noise, and treating noise like a signal is costing you the time and resources you need to actually grow.

Audit tools flag everything equally, but SEO success depends on prioritization. Focus on the changes that actually drive growth.

‘Fix everything’ is the wrong SEO strategy

<div><img width="1938" height="1080" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/google-ai-search-guidance.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="Google AI search guidance" decoding="async" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/google-ai-search-guidance.png 1938w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/google-ai-search-guidance-768x428.png 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/google-ai-search-guidance-1536x856.png 1536w" sizes="(max-width: 1938px) 100vw, 1938px" /></div>Here's why you should take all of Google's latest guidance on optimizing for AI search with a grain of salt.

<div><img width="1938" height="1080" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/google-ai-search-guidance.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="Google AI search guidance" decoding="async" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/google-ai-search-guidance.png 1938w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/google-ai-search-guidance-768x428.png 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/google-ai-search-guidance-1536x856.png 1536w" sizes="(max-width: 1938px) 100vw, 1938px" /></div>
<p>Every time Google ships a new Search Central document, two camps in our industry move at the speed of light. The first camp screenshots their favorite paragraph, posts it to LinkedIn with “SEE? IT’S JUST SEO” in the caption, and goes back to doing exactly what they were already doing. The second camp screenshots a different paragraph and posts it with “see, here’s the proof they’re lying to us.” Both camps treat Google’s guidance like scripture, depending on which verse confirms what they already believed.</p>



<p>Google’s recently updated guide on <a href="https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/ai-optimization-guide" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Optimizing your website for generative AI features on Google Search</a> was a feast for the first camp. The <em>“it’s just SEO”</em> folks ate well that week. AEO and GEO got declared “still SEO.” Chunking got dismissed. llms.txt got dissed. Rewriting for AI got nullified. If you’ve spent the last two years on LinkedIn telling everyone that nothing has changed, Google handed you a gold star and a victory lap.</p>



<p>But I want to remind everyone of something the first camp likes to forget: two years ago, we held thousands of pages of Google’s internal Search ranking documentation in our hands. <a href="https://ipullrank.com/google-algo-leak" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The leaked Content Warehouse documents</a> showed, in Google’s own words, how the public guidance and the internal reality diverge. The same company that publicly insisted certain signals didn’t exist had them named, weighted, and documented inside their own engineering wiki. That wasn’t a leak from an enemy of search. That was Google’s own engineering documentation, and it showed exactly how much we should trust public guidance about what is and isn’t important.</p>



<p>I’m not saying every line of Google’s new guide is a lie. I am saying that Google has a long, well-documented history of nudging the industry in directions that benefit Google first and the open web&nbsp;<em>maybe</em>. It’s to Google’s benefit for SEOs to remain the janitors of the web cleaning up technical debt, formatting structured data, and politely waiting for the next algorithm update rather than evolving into a discipline that operates across multiple platforms and influences how content is engineered for systems Google does not control.</p>



<p>As I <a href="https://ipullrank.com/misinformation-about-chunking" target="_blank" rel="noopener">argued in my refutation of the misinformation about chunking</a>, the influence Google has spent two decades accumulating is finally fragmenting. Competitive AI platforms are stealing attention. Referral traffic is shrinking. Investment is moving to channels Google doesn’t own. The leverage Google had to define what “good content” means is weaker than it has been in twenty years — and you can hear it in how protective the language has gotten.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-meanwhile-in-redmond">Meanwhile, in Redmond</h2>



<p>For a clean contrast, look at what’s been coming out of Bing.</p>



<p>Krishna Madhavan and his team have spent the last several months publishing posts that read like the opposite of Google’s guide. Keep in mind that there is near parity in both platforms’ offerings.</p>



<p>Where Google’s posture is “trust us, keep doing what you were doing,” Bing has been publicly explaining how their index is changing, what grounding actually requires, and giving publishers tools to measure how their content participates in AI answers.</p>



<p>In <a href="https://blogs.bing.com/search/February-2026/Elevating-the-Role-of-Grounding-on-the-AI-Web" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Elevating the Role of Grounding on the AI Web</a>, Jordi Ribas openly names what’s happening: agents are doing the browsing now, they’re drawn to structured and verifiable content, and a new optimization discipline called Generative Engine Optimization is emerging in response. No dismissive air quotes. No “it’s all still SEO.” They just call it what it is.</p>



<p><a href="https://blogs.bing.com/webmaster/February-2026/Introducing-AI-Performance-in-Bing-Webmaster-Tools-Public-Preview" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Introducing AI Performance in Bing Webmaster Tools</a> goes further. It is, in Microsoft’s own words, “an early step toward Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) tooling in Bing Webmaster Tools.” Citations across Copilot and Bing’s AI summaries. Page-level citation activity and  Grounding queries, you know, the actual phrases AI used when retrieving your content. The thing every working AI Search practitioner has been asking for, Bing shipped it.</p>



<p>Then, in <a href="https://blogs.bing.com/search/May-2026/Evolving-role-of-the-index-From-ranking-pages-to-supporting-answers" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Evolving role of the index: From ranking pages to supporting answers</a>, Krishna’s team explains in plain detail that “the unit of value shifts from documents to groundable information — discrete, supportable facts with clear provenance.” They state directly that “chunking/transformations must preserve meaning and claims used in the answer.” They acknowledge that the metrics, the unit of analysis, and the responsibility of the system have all changed.</p>



<p>Read those three posts in order, then go re-read Google’s “mythbusting” section. You will struggle to believe you’re reading documents about the same technology.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-going-point-by-point">Going point by point</h2>



<p>With that framing, let’s walk through Google’s claims.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-is-seo-still-relevant-for-generative-ai-search"><strong>“Is SEO still relevant for generative AI search?”</strong></h3>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
<p>&#8220;What about &#8216;AEO&#8217; and &#8216;GEO&#8217;? &#8216;AEO&#8217; stands for &#8216;answer engine optimization&#8217; and &#8216;GEO&#8217; for &#8216;generative engine optimization&#8217;. These are both terms you may see used to describe work specifically focused on improving visibility in AI search experiences. From Google Search&#8217;s perspective, optimizing for generative AI search is optimizing for the search experience, and thus still SEO.&#8221;</p>
</blockquote>



<p>“It’s just SEO” is naive, and it’s naive for the same reason it has been naive every previous time someone trotted it out.</p>



<p>SEO as a discipline is not a list of tactics. It’s a mindset, a set of organizational expectations, a budget line, and a reporting structure. SEOs have been trying to expand that mindset for years to bring in content engineering, to influence product, to own technical architecture, to participate in video, brand, and design. We mostly haven’t won those fights, because the org charts in most companies treat SEO as a downstream cleanup function.</p>



<p>This is also the same trick the industry has played on us for fifteen years. Mobile was “just SEO.” Voice was “just SEO.” Schema was “just SEO.” AMP was “just SEO,” and we ate years of implementation work for a system Google quietly deprecated. Every time a new surface appears, the discipline absorbs the work, and every time, the line item that pays for it doesn’t grow proportionally. Folding AI Search into “SEO” isn’t a clarification. It’s the continuation of a pattern that has been excellent for Google and lousy for the people doing the work.</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li><strong>The skill set has diverged whether the title has or not.</strong> The traditional SEO toolkit is keyword research, technical auditing, internal linking, structured data, content optimization tools, link building, and rank tracking. The work of AI Search adds information retrieval theory, vector distance measurement, RAG pipeline analysis, content engineering at the passage level, agent and protocol design (MCP, A2A, UCP, ACP), brand citation tracking across LLM platforms, and synthesis evaluation. There is overlap. There is also vast surface area that has never appeared in any SEO job description ever written. Pretending the skill set is the same is how organizations underhire for the actual problem.</li>



<li><strong>The audience changed, too.</strong> Traditional SEO optimizes for one machine and the humans clicking its results. AI Search optimizes for a retrieval system, a synthesis pipeline, possibly an agentic browser, and a human reading an answer that may not contain a link to your site at all. Those are different consumers with different criteria, different measurement, and different reporting. Pretending the audience hasn’t changed is how you end up running the wrong tactics against the wrong KPIs for the wrong stakeholders.</li>



<li><strong>The strategic cost of “just SEO” is concrete.</strong> When a brand asks “how do we show up in ChatGPT?” and you treat that as an SEO problem, you start optimizing pages and chasing indexing. The actual answer often has very little to do with your website. It involves your presence in Wikipedia, Reddit, third-party publications, and the licensed data partners that feed model training and grounding. That isn’t on-page work. That is brand, PR, third-party data, and information architecture across the open web. An SEO budget rarely funds that work. A GEO or AEO budget can.</li>
</ul>



<p>When AI Search lands in an organization with a different name, it gets different expectations and a different budget. It gets cross-functional sponsorship. It gets executive attention. It gets the cross-discipline collaboration SEOs have been requesting since I started in this industry two decades ago. “AEO” and “GEO” are not magical incantations, but the labels create the room SEO has not been able to create for itself.</p>



<p>Meanwhile, the practitioners doing this work keep getting handed more responsibility. More platforms to optimize for. More systems to understand. More research papers to read. More tooling to build. None of that comes with new headcount or higher salaries when leadership sees it as “still SEO.” Google reframing this work as the same old discipline isn’t a neutral observation. It is the rhetorical move that keeps the work uncompensated.</p>



<p>And note: Google itself doesn’t actually run on “it’s just Search.” AI Mode, AI Overviews, and classic ranking are different systems run by different teams on different infrastructure with different evaluation criteria.&nbsp;<a href="https://ipullrank.com/google-algo-leak">The leaked Content Warehouse docs</a>&nbsp;made those distinctions visible. Their public posture flattens the inside of their own org for the benefit of the outside narrative. We don’t have to accept the flattening.</p>



<p>That’s what “it’s just SEO” actually delivers to organizations: more scope, same budget, no new authority. That’s a fantastic outcome for the platforms that benefit from our unpaid labor. It is a terrible outcome for the people doing the work.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-non-commodity-content">Non-commodity content</h3>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
<p>&#8220;Create valuable, non-commodity content for your audience&#8221;</p>
</blockquote>



<p>This part is fine. Make good, unique content with a real point of view. Nobody serious disagrees. Moving on.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-llms-txt-files-and-other-special-markup">llms.txt files and other &#8216;special&#8217; markup</h3>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
<p>&#8220;You don&#8217;t need to create new machine readable files, AI text files, markup, or Markdown to appear in generative AI search.&#8221;</p>
</blockquote>



<p>True for Google. Also missing the point.</p>



<p>llms.txt is genuinely useful for Claude and a handful of other systems that have explicitly committed to reading it. Anthropic has documentation suggesting it. There are observable benefits to publishing it in environments where it’s actually consumed. Telling people to ignore it because Google doesn’t read it is exactly the kind of single-platform myopia I keep pointing at. Google’s guide describes one ecosystem. Your strategy needs to account for several.</p>



<p>The honest version of this guidance would be: “Google doesn’t process llms.txt in any special way. Other systems may. Make your own call.” Instead, Google quietly conflates “we don’t use it” with “you don’t need it.”</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-chunking-content">&#8216;Chunking&#8217; content</h3>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
<p>&#8220;There&#8217;s no requirement to break your content into tiny pieces for AI to better understand it. Google systems are able to understand the nuance of multiple topics on a page and show the relevant piece to users.&#8221;</p>
</blockquote>



<p>I <a href="https://ipullrank.com/misinformation-about-chunking" target="_blank" rel="noopener">wrote 4,500 words on this</a> in January and I’d rather not relitigate the whole thing here. The short version is this: chunking is what RAG systems <em>do</em> to your content, whether you optimize for it or not. The question is whether your content survives the chunking process with its meaning intact, or whether it shatters into incoherent fragments. The vector math doesn’t care about Google’s preferences. A passage that focuses on one idea will, in nearly every measurable case, retrieve better than a passage that tries to cover three.</p>



<p>Bing acknowledges this directly: “chunking/transformations must preserve meaning and claims used in the answer.” Google’s own&nbsp;<a href="https://research.google/blog/muvera-making-multi-vector-retrieval-as-fast-as-single-vector-search/">MUVERA research</a>, their work on&nbsp;<a href="https://blog.google/products-and-platforms/products/search/search-on/">passage indexing</a>, their patents on pairwise passage selection — none of it is consistent with the guidance that chunking doesn’t matter. The systems retrieve passages. Treat your passages like they matter, because the systems do.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-rewriting-content-just-for-ai-systems">Rewriting content just for AI systems</h3>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
<p>&#8220;You don&#8217;t need to write in a specific way just for generative AI search. AI systems can understand synonyms and general meanings of what someone is seeking, in order to connect them with content that might not use the same precise words. This means you don&#8217;t have to worry that you don&#8217;t have enough &#8216;long-tail&#8217; keywords or haven&#8217;t captured every variation of how someone might seek content like yours.&#8221;</p>
</blockquote>



<p>This is the line that bothers me most, because it is antithetical to how these systems actually decide what to use.</p>



<p>A retrieval system selects passages by computing vector distance against the query embedding. A synthesis pipeline then performs pairwise comparisons between candidate passages to decide which ones get sent to the model. The system is not “understanding” your content in the human sense — it’s computing a similarity score, ranking by it, and making committed selections. Specificity, entity salience, semantic coherence, and structural clarity all show up in those scores. Write loose, generic, multi-topic prose and your passages lose those comparisons to passages that are tight, specific, and self-contained.</p>



<p>“Just write naturally for humans” sounds like good advice until you realize the systems have a measurable preference, and you can win or lose on the margins by writing for both. We have empirical evidence that adjusting passages improves their retrieval scores. We have access to public APIs that let us verify this on the content we publish. The guidance to ignore all of that and trust the systems to figure it out is asking you to compete with one hand tied behind your back.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-seo-best-practices-still-help-they-just-don-t-cover-the-whole-map">SEO best practices still help. They just don&#8217;t cover the whole map.</h2>



<p>I want to be careful here because this discourse gets reduced to extremes:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>SEO best practices help.</li>



<li>Technical structure matters. </li>



<li>Crawlability matters. </li>



<li>Page experience matters. </li>



<li>Unique, non-commodity content matters. </li>



<li>None of that is going anywhere.</li>
</ul>



<p>But “SEO best practices” was always shorthand for “what Google likes.” That was a fine proxy when Google was 90% of the traffic, and the rest didn’t matter. It is not a fine proxy in a world where ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Copilot, Gemini, and a long tail of vertical agents are all making their own retrieval decisions on different infrastructure with different priorities. Some of those systems use Bing as their grounding layer. Some build their own indices. Some lean on llms.txt. Some don’t. Some are shipping webmaster tooling. Some are publishing the math behind their retrieval. The shared layer is shrinking, and the surface area you have to actually optimize is growing.</p>



<p>The thing Google’s guide doesn’t say — because it can’t — is that the systems competing with Google have different opinions, different infrastructure, and different incentives. Optimizing for all of them at once requires a broader practice than what’s described in any Search Central document. That practice is being built right now, in public, by people who refuse to accept that the only opinion that counts is Google’s.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-a-new-world-a-lot-of-opinions">A new world, a lot of opinions</h2>



<p>Google’s guidance on AI Search is one opinion. It is the opinion of the company with the most to lose from a multi-platform world. Read it. Take what is useful. Apply it where it applies. Don’t mistake it for the truth.</p>



<p>The truth is that we are in a new world. The infrastructure for how information is retrieved and presented is being rewritten across multiple platforms simultaneously, and the consensus we once had about how to optimize it no longer exists. Bing is publishing what they’re doing. Anthropic is publishing what they’re doing. The research community is publishing what they’re doing. Google is publishing what it wants you to do.</p>



<p>That last one is not the same as the others. Treat it accordingly.</p>



<p><em>This article was originally published on <a href="https://ipullrank.com/google-ai-search-guidance" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the iPullRank blog</a> and is republished with permission.</em><br><br><br>


Every time Google ships a new Search Central document, two camps in our industry move at the speed of light. The first camp screenshots their favorite paragraph, posts it to LinkedIn with “SEE? IT’S JUST SEO” in the caption, and goes back to doing exactly what they were already doing. The second camp screenshots a different paragraph and posts it with “see, here’s the proof they’re lying to us.” Both camps treat Google’s guidance like scripture, depending on which verse confirms what they already believed.
Google’s recently updated guide on Optimizing your website for generative AI features on Google Search was a feast for the first camp. The “it’s just SEO” folks ate well that week. AEO and GEO got declared “still SEO.” Chunking got dismissed. llms.txt got dissed. Rewriting for AI got nullified. If you’ve spent the last two years on LinkedIn telling everyone that nothing has changed, Google handed you a gold star and a victory lap.
But I want to remind everyone of something the first camp likes to forget: two years ago, we held thousands of pages of Google’s internal Search ranking documentation in our hands. The leaked Content Warehouse documents showed, in Google’s own words, how the public guidance and the internal reality diverge. The same company that publicly insisted certain signals didn’t exist had them named, weighted, and documented inside their own engineering wiki. That wasn’t a leak from an enemy of search. That was Google’s own engineering documentation, and it showed exactly how much we should trust public guidance about what is and isn’t important.
I’m not saying every line of Google’s new guide is a lie. I am saying that Google has a long, well-documented history of nudging the industry in directions that benefit Google first and the open web maybe. It’s to Google’s benefit for SEOs to remain the janitors of the web cleaning up technical debt, formatting structured data, and politely waiting for the next algorithm update rather than evolving into a discipline that operates across multiple platforms and influences how content is engineered for systems Google does not control.
As I argued in my refutation of the misinformation about chunking, the influence Google has spent two decades accumulating is finally fragmenting. Competitive AI platforms are stealing attention. Referral traffic is shrinking. Investment is moving to channels Google doesn’t own. The leverage Google had to define what “good content” means is weaker than it has been in twenty years — and you can hear it in how protective the language has gotten.
Meanwhile, in Redmond
For a clean contrast, look at what’s been coming out of Bing.
Krishna Madhavan and his team have spent the last several months publishing posts that read like the opposite of Google’s guide. Keep in mind that there is near parity in both platforms’ offerings.
Where Google’s posture is “trust us, keep doing what you were doing,” Bing has been publicly explaining how their index is changing, what grounding actually requires, and giving publishers tools to measure how their content participates in AI answers.
In Elevating the Role of Grounding on the AI Web, Jordi Ribas openly names what’s happening: agents are doing the browsing now, they’re drawn to structured and verifiable content, and a new optimization discipline called Generative Engine Optimization is emerging in response. No dismissive air quotes. No “it’s all still SEO.” They just call it what it is.
Introducing AI Performance in Bing Webmaster Tools goes further. It is, in Microsoft’s own words, “an early step toward Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) tooling in Bing Webmaster Tools.” Citations across Copilot and Bing’s AI summaries. Page-level citation activity and  Grounding queries, you know, the actual phrases AI used when retrieving your content. The thing every working AI Search practitioner has been asking for, Bing shipped it.
Then, in Evolving role of the index: From ranking pages to supporting answers, Krishna’s team explains in plain detail that “the unit of value shifts from documents to groundable information — discrete, supportable facts with clear provenance.” They state directly that “chunking/transformations must preserve meaning and claims used in the answer.” They acknowledge that the metrics, the unit of analysis, and the responsibility of the system have all changed.
Read those three posts in order, then go re-read Google’s “mythbusting” section. You will struggle to believe you’re reading documents about the same technology.
Going point by point
With that framing, let’s walk through Google’s claims.
“Is SEO still relevant for generative AI search?”
“What about ‘AEO’ and ‘GEO’? ‘AEO’ stands for ‘answer engine optimization’ and ‘GEO’ for ‘generative engine optimization’. These are both terms you may see used to describe work specifically focused on improving visibility in AI search experiences. From Google Search’s perspective, optimizing for generative AI search is optimizing for the search experience, and thus still SEO.”
“It’s just SEO” is naive, and it’s naive for the same reason it has been naive every previous time someone trotted it out.
SEO as a discipline is not a list of tactics. It’s a mindset, a set of organizational expectations, a budget line, and a reporting structure. SEOs have been trying to expand that mindset for years to bring in content engineering, to influence product, to own technical architecture, to participate in video, brand, and design. We mostly haven’t won those fights, because the org charts in most companies treat SEO as a downstream cleanup function.
This is also the same trick the industry has played on us for fifteen years. Mobile was “just SEO.” Voice was “just SEO.” Schema was “just SEO.” AMP was “just SEO,” and we ate years of implementation work for a system Google quietly deprecated. Every time a new surface appears, the discipline absorbs the work, and every time, the line item that pays for it doesn’t grow proportionally. Folding AI Search into “SEO” isn’t a clarification. It’s the continuation of a pattern that has been excellent for Google and lousy for the people doing the work.
The skill set has diverged whether the title has or not. The traditional SEO toolkit is keyword research, technical auditing, internal linking, structured data, content optimization tools, link building, and rank tracking. The work of AI Search adds information retrieval theory, vector distance measurement, RAG pipeline analysis, content engineering at the passage level, agent and protocol design (MCP, A2A, UCP, ACP), brand citation tracking across LLM platforms, and synthesis evaluation. There is overlap. There is also vast surface area that has never appeared in any SEO job description ever written. Pretending the skill set is the same is how organizations underhire for the actual problem.
The audience changed, too. Traditional SEO optimizes for one machine and the humans clicking its results. AI Search optimizes for a retrieval system, a synthesis pipeline, possibly an agentic browser, and a human reading an answer that may not contain a link to your site at all. Those are different consumers with different criteria, different measurement, and different reporting. Pretending the audience hasn’t changed is how you end up running the wrong tactics against the wrong KPIs for the wrong stakeholders.
The strategic cost of “just SEO” is concrete. When a brand asks “how do we show up in ChatGPT?” and you treat that as an SEO problem, you start optimizing pages and chasing indexing. The actual answer often has very little to do with your website. It involves your presence in Wikipedia, Reddit, third-party publications, and the licensed data partners that feed model training and grounding. That isn’t on-page work. That is brand, PR, third-party data, and information architecture across the open web. An SEO budget rarely funds that work. A GEO or AEO budget can.
When AI Search lands in an organization with a different name, it gets different expectations and a different budget. It gets cross-functional sponsorship. It gets executive attention. It gets the cross-discipline collaboration SEOs have been requesting since I started in this industry two decades ago. “AEO” and “GEO” are not magical incantations, but the labels create the room SEO has not been able to create for itself.
Meanwhile, the practitioners doing this work keep getting handed more responsibility. More platforms to optimize for. More systems to understand. More research papers to read. More tooling to build. None of that comes with new headcount or higher salaries when leadership sees it as “still SEO.” Google reframing this work as the same old discipline isn’t a neutral observation. It is the rhetorical move that keeps the work uncompensated.
And note: Google itself doesn’t actually run on “it’s just Search.” AI Mode, AI Overviews, and classic ranking are different systems run by different teams on different infrastructure with different evaluation criteria. The leaked Content Warehouse docs made those distinctions visible. Their public posture flattens the inside of their own org for the benefit of the outside narrative. We don’t have to accept the flattening.
That’s what “it’s just SEO” actually delivers to organizations: more scope, same budget, no new authority. That’s a fantastic outcome for the platforms that benefit from our unpaid labor. It is a terrible outcome for the people doing the work.
Non-commodity content
“Create valuable, non-commodity content for your audience”
This part is fine. Make good, unique content with a real point of view. Nobody serious disagrees. Moving on.
llms.txt files and other ‘special’ markup
“You don’t need to create new machine readable files, AI text files, markup, or Markdown to appear in generative AI search.”
True for Google. Also missing the point.
llms.txt is genuinely useful for Claude and a handful of other systems that have explicitly committed to reading it. Anthropic has documentation suggesting it. There are observable benefits to publishing it in environments where it’s actually consumed. Telling people to ignore it because Google doesn’t read it is exactly the kind of single-platform myopia I keep pointing at. Google’s guide describes one ecosystem. Your strategy needs to account for several.
The honest version of this guidance would be: “Google doesn’t process llms.txt in any special way. Other systems may. Make your own call.” Instead, Google quietly conflates “we don’t use it” with “you don’t need it.”
‘Chunking’ content
“There’s no requirement to break your content into tiny pieces for AI to better understand it. Google systems are able to understand the nuance of multiple topics on a page and show the relevant piece to users.”
I wrote 4,500 words on this in January and I’d rather not relitigate the whole thing here. The short version is this: chunking is what RAG systems do to your content, whether you optimize for it or not. The question is whether your content survives the chunking process with its meaning intact, or whether it shatters into incoherent fragments. The vector math doesn’t care about Google’s preferences. A passage that focuses on one idea will, in nearly every measurable case, retrieve better than a passage that tries to cover three.
Bing acknowledges this directly: “chunking/transformations must preserve meaning and claims used in the answer.” Google’s own MUVERA research, their work on passage indexing, their patents on pairwise passage selection — none of it is consistent with the guidance that chunking doesn’t matter. The systems retrieve passages. Treat your passages like they matter, because the systems do.
Rewriting content just for AI systems
“You don’t need to write in a specific way just for generative AI search. AI systems can understand synonyms and general meanings of what someone is seeking, in order to connect them with content that might not use the same precise words. This means you don’t have to worry that you don’t have enough ‘long-tail’ keywords or haven’t captured every variation of how someone might seek content like yours.”
This is the line that bothers me most, because it is antithetical to how these systems actually decide what to use.
A retrieval system selects passages by computing vector distance against the query embedding. A synthesis pipeline then performs pairwise comparisons between candidate passages to decide which ones get sent to the model. The system is not “understanding” your content in the human sense — it’s computing a similarity score, ranking by it, and making committed selections. Specificity, entity salience, semantic coherence, and structural clarity all show up in those scores. Write loose, generic, multi-topic prose and your passages lose those comparisons to passages that are tight, specific, and self-contained.
“Just write naturally for humans” sounds like good advice until you realize the systems have a measurable preference, and you can win or lose on the margins by writing for both. We have empirical evidence that adjusting passages improves their retrieval scores. We have access to public APIs that let us verify this on the content we publish. The guidance to ignore all of that and trust the systems to figure it out is asking you to compete with one hand tied behind your back.
SEO best practices still help. They just don’t cover the whole map.
I want to be careful here because this discourse gets reduced to extremes:
SEO best practices help.
Technical structure matters. 
Crawlability matters. 
Page experience matters. 
Unique, non-commodity content matters. 
None of that is going anywhere.
But “SEO best practices” was always shorthand for “what Google likes.” That was a fine proxy when Google was 90% of the traffic, and the rest didn’t matter. It is not a fine proxy in a world where ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Copilot, Gemini, and a long tail of vertical agents are all making their own retrieval decisions on different infrastructure with different priorities. Some of those systems use Bing as their grounding layer. Some build their own indices. Some lean on llms.txt. Some don’t. Some are shipping webmaster tooling. Some are publishing the math behind their retrieval. The shared layer is shrinking, and the surface area you have to actually optimize is growing.
The thing Google’s guide doesn’t say — because it can’t — is that the systems competing with Google have different opinions, different infrastructure, and different incentives. Optimizing for all of them at once requires a broader practice than what’s described in any Search Central document. That practice is being built right now, in public, by people who refuse to accept that the only opinion that counts is Google’s.
A new world, a lot of opinions
Google’s guidance on AI Search is one opinion. It is the opinion of the company with the most to lose from a multi-platform world. Read it. Take what is useful. Apply it where it applies. Don’t mistake it for the truth.
The truth is that we are in a new world. The infrastructure for how information is retrieved and presented is being rewritten across multiple platforms simultaneously, and the consensus we once had about how to optimize it no longer exists. Bing is publishing what they’re doing. Anthropic is publishing what they’re doing. The research community is publishing what they’re doing. Google is publishing what it wants you to do.
That last one is not the same as the others. Treat it accordingly.
This article was originally published on the iPullRank blog and is republished with permission.

Here's why you should take all of Google's latest guidance on optimizing for AI search with a grain of salt.

Google’s AI search guidance is naive and self-serving

<div><img width="1920" height="1080" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/ai-force-multiplier.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="AI force multiplier" decoding="async" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/ai-force-multiplier.png 1920w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/ai-force-multiplier-768x432.png 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/ai-force-multiplier-1536x864.png 1536w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/ai-force-multiplier-1200x675.png 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px" /></div>Stop losing revenue to missed opportunities. Here's how strategic automation cuts costs, captures leads, and speeds response times.

<div><img width="1920" height="1080" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/ai-force-multiplier.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="AI force multiplier" decoding="async" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/ai-force-multiplier.png 1920w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/ai-force-multiplier-768x432.png 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/ai-force-multiplier-1536x864.png 1536w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/ai-force-multiplier-1200x675.png 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px" /></div>
<p>I’ve attended many AI conferences and training events over the past few years. I’ve seen people doing innovative work, but I’ve also seen many spinning their wheels.</p>



<p>After working hands-on with AI automation across multiple businesses, I’ve done both. So I want to share what I’ve learned to help you avoid wasting time, energy, and money — and instead use AI strategically to increase revenue and reduce expenses.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-many-ai-projects-never-create-real-value">Many AI projects never create real value</h2>



<p>More often than not, I see entrepreneurs reinventing the wheel with AI. I’ve lost count of how many people I’ve seen brag about using AI to build a new CRM when hundreds of solid platforms already exist. It makes no sense to build a new CRM when existing platforms already offer nearly every feature you need — and have full development teams keeping them updated and running smoothly.</p>



<p>The same goes for apps and software that are just clones of existing tools. I’ve made that mistake myself, but the reality is no one needs another version of the same tool that already exists a hundred times over.</p>



<p>Now, there are a few rare cases where building an app or software platform makes sense — mainly when you can launch it quickly and offer a proprietary approach. That could include a unique formula or algorithm, a specific process, or access to exclusive data. In other words, it needs to be something core to how you do business.</p>



<p>Otherwise, you risk spending time and money on technology that doesn’t materially improve the business.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-strategic-ai-is-the-real-competitive-advantage">Strategic AI is the real competitive advantage</h2>



<p>The businesses seeing the strongest results from AI are using it to solve measurable operational problems.</p>



<p>The key is to apply it in ways that directly improve revenue and productivity.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-how-ai-can-directly-increase-revenue">How AI can directly increase revenue</h3>



<p>For example, you might use AI to build a highly targeted prospect list and automate outreach to move leads into your marketing funnel. You can even take it further by using AI for part — or all — of the sales process. Many companies are already doing this and generating fresh, targeted leads on autopilot every day.</p>



<p>This is a highly effective, scalable way to increase revenue at a fraction of the cost of hiring people to do the work. There’s one caveat: you need to be certain your company can handle the increase in business. While this creates an opportunity to scale, it also means more people will be affected if you drop the ball — and that can damage your reputation quickly.</p>



<p>Implementation still requires oversight, testing, and operational discipline. Poorly implemented AI can create just as many problems as it solves.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-ai-can-reduce-time-and-operational-costs">AI can reduce time and operational costs</h3>



<p>Another approach is to use AI to handle your workload more efficiently, reducing both time and costs. One way I’ve used it is to quickly analyze market conditions so I can make more accurate pricing decisions when buying and selling properties. </p>



<p>This is where AI really shines. It can compile, analyze, and generate insights from large datasets far faster than a person can manually, while surfacing patterns and opportunities that might otherwise be missed.</p>



<p>Using AI this way helps me identify the deals that make the most sense and make accurate offers faster than my competitors, which can be the difference between winning a deal and losing it.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-one-simple-ai-workflow-that-saves-hours">One simple AI workflow that saves hours</h3>



<p>Another smart approach I’ve seen came from the PR firm I work with. They use AI to monitor their clients’ media interview calendars, and once an interview is completed, the system automatically finds the Zoom recording, sends it for transcription, and queues an email with the video and transcript to the journalist.</p>



<p>This saves the firm roughly 30 minutes per interview and delivers everything within minutes, rather than waiting for an employee to handle it. Beyond the time and cost savings, it also makes the publicity far more valuable to journalists by making their job faster and easier.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-other-high-impact-ways-to-use-ai">Other high-impact ways to use AI</h3>



<p>There are many other strategic ways to use AI to measurably improve revenue and productivity. Some of the ways I’ve helped entrepreneurs do this include:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>AI virtual phone assistants answering calls 24/7.</li>



<li>Smart website widgets/chat assistants trained specifically on your business.</li>



<li>Appointment booking.</li>



<li>Missed call recovery.</li>



<li>Other implementations that improve response time and customer experience.</li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-ai-is-only-effective-when-used-strategically">AI is only effective when used strategically</h2>



<p>One of the biggest opportunities I see right now is helping service businesses stop losing revenue from missed opportunities.</p>



<p>Most small businesses don’t need another complicated platform or custom AI app. What they need is a system that responds faster than they can manually. That might be an AI-powered phone assistant answering calls and booking appointments 24/7, or a website assistant trained on the business that can answer questions and capture leads instantly. Used strategically, AI becomes less about replacing people and more about making sure opportunities stop slipping through the cracks.</p>



<p>Businesses that implement AI effectively will likely outperform competitors that are slower to improve operational efficiency and response times.</p>



<p>The most effective AI implementations are usually the least flashy. They solve specific operational problems: reducing missed calls, improving response times, accelerating analysis, qualifying leads faster, or eliminating repetitive administrative work.</p>



<p>If an AI system doesn’t measurably improve revenue, efficiency, customer experience, or decision-making, it’s worth questioning whether it needs to exist at all.</p>



<p>Using AI this way creates a major opportunity to get ahead and outperform slower-moving competitors.</p>



<p>So the only question is: will you invest the time to use AI strategically?</p>


I’ve attended many AI conferences and training events over the past few years. I’ve seen people doing innovative work, but I’ve also seen many spinning their wheels.
After working hands-on with AI automation across multiple businesses, I’ve done both. So I want to share what I’ve learned to help you avoid wasting time, energy, and money — and instead use AI strategically to increase revenue and reduce expenses.
Many AI projects never create real value
More often than not, I see entrepreneurs reinventing the wheel with AI. I’ve lost count of how many people I’ve seen brag about using AI to build a new CRM when hundreds of solid platforms already exist. It makes no sense to build a new CRM when existing platforms already offer nearly every feature you need — and have full development teams keeping them updated and running smoothly.
The same goes for apps and software that are just clones of existing tools. I’ve made that mistake myself, but the reality is no one needs another version of the same tool that already exists a hundred times over.
Now, there are a few rare cases where building an app or software platform makes sense — mainly when you can launch it quickly and offer a proprietary approach. That could include a unique formula or algorithm, a specific process, or access to exclusive data. In other words, it needs to be something core to how you do business.
Otherwise, you risk spending time and money on technology that doesn’t materially improve the business.
Strategic AI is the real competitive advantage
The businesses seeing the strongest results from AI are using it to solve measurable operational problems.
The key is to apply it in ways that directly improve revenue and productivity.
How AI can directly increase revenue
For example, you might use AI to build a highly targeted prospect list and automate outreach to move leads into your marketing funnel. You can even take it further by using AI for part — or all — of the sales process. Many companies are already doing this and generating fresh, targeted leads on autopilot every day.
This is a highly effective, scalable way to increase revenue at a fraction of the cost of hiring people to do the work. There’s one caveat: you need to be certain your company can handle the increase in business. While this creates an opportunity to scale, it also means more people will be affected if you drop the ball — and that can damage your reputation quickly.
Implementation still requires oversight, testing, and operational discipline. Poorly implemented AI can create just as many problems as it solves.
AI can reduce time and operational costs
Another approach is to use AI to handle your workload more efficiently, reducing both time and costs. One way I’ve used it is to quickly analyze market conditions so I can make more accurate pricing decisions when buying and selling properties. 
This is where AI really shines. It can compile, analyze, and generate insights from large datasets far faster than a person can manually, while surfacing patterns and opportunities that might otherwise be missed.
Using AI this way helps me identify the deals that make the most sense and make accurate offers faster than my competitors, which can be the difference between winning a deal and losing it.
One simple AI workflow that saves hours
Another smart approach I’ve seen came from the PR firm I work with. They use AI to monitor their clients’ media interview calendars, and once an interview is completed, the system automatically finds the Zoom recording, sends it for transcription, and queues an email with the video and transcript to the journalist.
This saves the firm roughly 30 minutes per interview and delivers everything within minutes, rather than waiting for an employee to handle it. Beyond the time and cost savings, it also makes the publicity far more valuable to journalists by making their job faster and easier.
Other high-impact ways to use AI
There are many other strategic ways to use AI to measurably improve revenue and productivity. Some of the ways I’ve helped entrepreneurs do this include:
AI virtual phone assistants answering calls 24/7.
Smart website widgets/chat assistants trained specifically on your business.
Appointment booking.
Missed call recovery.
Other implementations that improve response time and customer experience.
AI is only effective when used strategically
One of the biggest opportunities I see right now is helping service businesses stop losing revenue from missed opportunities.
Most small businesses don’t need another complicated platform or custom AI app. What they need is a system that responds faster than they can manually. That might be an AI-powered phone assistant answering calls and booking appointments 24/7, or a website assistant trained on the business that can answer questions and capture leads instantly. Used strategically, AI becomes less about replacing people and more about making sure opportunities stop slipping through the cracks.
Businesses that implement AI effectively will likely outperform competitors that are slower to improve operational efficiency and response times.
The most effective AI implementations are usually the least flashy. They solve specific operational problems: reducing missed calls, improving response times, accelerating analysis, qualifying leads faster, or eliminating repetitive administrative work.
If an AI system doesn’t measurably improve revenue, efficiency, customer experience, or decision-making, it’s worth questioning whether it needs to exist at all.
Using AI this way creates a major opportunity to get ahead and outperform slower-moving competitors.
So the only question is: will you invest the time to use AI strategically?

Stop losing revenue to missed opportunities. Here's how strategic automation cuts costs, captures leads, and speeds response times.

Yes, you need to use AI, but you need to use it strategically

<div><img width="800" height="457" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/12/google-core-update-1920-800x457.jpg" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="" decoding="async" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/12/google-core-update-1920-800x457.jpg 800w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/12/google-core-update-1920-592x338.jpg 592w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/12/google-core-update-1920-198x113.jpg 198w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/12/google-core-update-1920-768x439.jpg 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/12/google-core-update-1920-1536x878.jpg 1536w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/12/google-core-update-1920.jpg 1920w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" /></div>This is the second Google core update of 2026, following the March 2026 core update.

<div><img width="800" height="457" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/12/google-core-update-1920-800x457.jpg" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="" decoding="async" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/12/google-core-update-1920-800x457.jpg 800w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/12/google-core-update-1920-592x338.jpg 592w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/12/google-core-update-1920-198x113.jpg 198w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/12/google-core-update-1920-768x439.jpg 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/12/google-core-update-1920-1536x878.jpg 1536w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/12/google-core-update-1920.jpg 1920w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" /></div>
<p>Google released the May 2026 core update today, the company&nbsp;<a href="https://status.search.google.com/incidents/wdAXJk6LRRihEjpzEeWE" target="_blank" rel="noopener">announced</a>.</p>



<p>This is Google’s second core update of 2026. It follows the <a href="https://searchengineland.com/google-march-2026-core-update-rolling-out-now-472759">March 2026 core update</a>, the <a href="https://searchengineland.com/google-releases-march-2026-spam-update-472411">March 2026 spam update</a>, and the <a href="https://searchengineland.com/google-releases-discover-core-update-february-2026-468308">February 2026 Discover update</a>.</p>



<p><strong>What Google is saying</strong>. Google updated its <a href="https://status.search.google.com/incidents/wdAXJk6LRRihEjpzEeWE">Search Status Das</a><a href="https://status.search.google.com/incidents/wdAXJk6LRRihEjpzEeWE" target="_blank" rel="noopener">h</a><a href="https://status.search.google.com/incidents/wdAXJk6LRRihEjpzEeWE">board</a> to state:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Released the May 2026 core update. The rollout may take up to 2 weeks to complete.</li>
</ul>



<p>Google posted on <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/posts/googlesearchcentral_google-search-status-dashboard-activity-7463253451183951873-SdbR" target="_blank" rel="noopener">LinkedIn</a> saying:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>&#8220;This is a regular update designed to better surface relevant, satisfying content for searchers from all types of sites. The rollout may take up to 2 weeks to complete.&#8221;</li>
</ul>



<p><strong>About core updates.</strong> Core updates typically roll out multiple times each year. They introduce broad, significant changes to Google’s search algorithms and systems, which is why Google announces them.</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Google also releases some&nbsp;<a href="https://searchengineland.com/google-confirms-it-releases-smaller-core-updates-it-does-not-announce-465947">smaller, unannounced core updates</a>.</li>



<li>It has been a long time since the last core update. Many expected Google to roll out <a href="https://www.seroundtable.com/google-core-updates-more-often-38569.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">core updates more frequently</a>, but that didn’t happen.</li>
</ul>



<p><strong>What to do if you are hit.&nbsp;</strong>Google didn’t share new guidance specific to the May 2026 core update. However, Google has previously offered advice on what to consider if a core update negatively impacts your site:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>There aren’t specific actions you can take to recover. A negative rankings impact may not mean anything is wrong with your pages.</li>



<li>Google provided a list of&nbsp;<a href="https://searchengineland.com/google-advice-on-improving-your-sites-ranking-for-future-core-ranking-update-320184">questions to consider if your site is hit by a core update</a>.</li>



<li>You may see some recovery between core updates, but the biggest changes tend to follow another core update.</li>
</ul>



<p>In short: write helpful content for people, not for search engines.</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>“There’s nothing new or special that creators need to do for this update as long as they’ve been making satisfying content meant for people. For those that might not be ranking as well, we strongly encourage reading our&nbsp;<a href="https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/creating-helpful-content" target="_blank" rel="noopener">creating helpful, reliable, people-first content</a>&nbsp;help page,” Google said previously.</li>
</ul>



<p>For more details on Google core updates, you can read&nbsp;<a href="https://developers.google.com/search/updates/core-updates" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Google’s documentation</a>.</p>



<p><strong>Previous core updates.&nbsp;</strong>Here’s a timeline and our coverage of recent core updates:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>The <a href="https://searchengineland.com/google-march-2026-core-update-rolling-out-now-472759">March 2026 core update</a> was on March 27 and ended on <a href="https://searchengineland.com/google-march-2026-core-update-rollout-is-now-complete-473883">April 8</a>. </li>



<li>The&nbsp;<a href="https://searchengineland.com/google-december-2025-core-update-rolling-out-now-465852">December 2025 core update</a>&nbsp;was on Dec 11 and ended on&nbsp;<a href="https://searchengineland.com/google-december-2025-core-update-rollout-is-now-complete-466362">Dec. 29</a>.</li>



<li>The&nbsp;<a href="https://searchengineland.com/google-june-2025-core-update-rolling-out-now-457731">June 2025 core update</a>&nbsp;was on June 30 and ended on&nbsp;<a href="https://searchengineland.com/google-june-2025-core-update-rollout-is-now-complete-458617">July 17</a>.</li>



<li>The <a href="https://searchengineland.com/google-march-2025-core-update-rolling-out-now-453253">March 2025 core update</a> was on Mar. 13 and ended on <a href="https://searchengineland.com/google-march-2025-core-update-rollout-is-now-complete-453364">Mar. 27</a>.</li>
</ul>



<p><strong>Why we care.&nbsp;</strong>With any core update, you often see significant volatility in Google search results and rankings. These updates may improve visibility for your site or your clients’ sites, but you may also see fluctuations or declines in rankings and organic traffic. We hope this update rewards your efforts and drives strong traffic and conversions.</p>



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Google released the May 2026 core update today, the company announced.
This is Google’s second core update of 2026. It follows the March 2026 core update, the March 2026 spam update, and the February 2026 Discover update.
What Google is saying. Google updated its Search Status Dashboard to state:
Released the May 2026 core update. The rollout may take up to 2 weeks to complete.
Google posted on LinkedIn saying:
“This is a regular update designed to better surface relevant, satisfying content for searchers from all types of sites. The rollout may take up to 2 weeks to complete.”
About core updates. Core updates typically roll out multiple times each year. They introduce broad, significant changes to Google’s search algorithms and systems, which is why Google announces them.
Google also releases some smaller, unannounced core updates.
It has been a long time since the last core update. Many expected Google to roll out core updates more frequently, but that didn’t happen.
What to do if you are hit. Google didn’t share new guidance specific to the May 2026 core update. However, Google has previously offered advice on what to consider if a core update negatively impacts your site:
There aren’t specific actions you can take to recover. A negative rankings impact may not mean anything is wrong with your pages.
Google provided a list of questions to consider if your site is hit by a core update.
You may see some recovery between core updates, but the biggest changes tend to follow another core update.
In short: write helpful content for people, not for search engines.
“There’s nothing new or special that creators need to do for this update as long as they’ve been making satisfying content meant for people. For those that might not be ranking as well, we strongly encourage reading our creating helpful, reliable, people-first content help page,” Google said previously.
For more details on Google core updates, you can read Google’s documentation.
Previous core updates. Here’s a timeline and our coverage of recent core updates:
The March 2026 core update was on March 27 and ended on April 8. 
The December 2025 core update was on Dec 11 and ended on Dec. 29.
The June 2025 core update was on June 30 and ended on July 17.
The March 2025 core update was on Mar. 13 and ended on Mar. 27.
Why we care. With any core update, you often see significant volatility in Google search results and rankings. These updates may improve visibility for your site or your clients’ sites, but you may also see fluctuations or declines in rankings and organic traffic. We hope this update rewards your efforts and drives strong traffic and conversions.
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This is the second Google core update of 2026, following the March 2026 core update.

Google May 2026 core update rolling out now

<div><img width="1920" height="1080" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/How-signal-decay-hurts-your-top-of-funnel-performance.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="How signal decay hurts your top-of-funnel performance" decoding="async" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/How-signal-decay-hurts-your-top-of-funnel-performance.png 1920w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/How-signal-decay-hurts-your-top-of-funnel-performance-768x432.png 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/How-signal-decay-hurts-your-top-of-funnel-performance-1536x864.png 1536w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/How-signal-decay-hurts-your-top-of-funnel-performance-1200x675.png 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px" /></div>The campaigns introducing customers to your brand may be getting the least credit for revenue. Here’s how to recover lost conversion signals.

<div><img width="1920" height="1080" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/How-signal-decay-hurts-your-top-of-funnel-performance.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="How signal decay hurts your top-of-funnel performance" decoding="async" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/How-signal-decay-hurts-your-top-of-funnel-performance.png 1920w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/How-signal-decay-hurts-your-top-of-funnel-performance-768x432.png 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/How-signal-decay-hurts-your-top-of-funnel-performance-1536x864.png 1536w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/How-signal-decay-hurts-your-top-of-funnel-performance-1200x675.png 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px" /></div>
<p>Conversion signals are disappearing from your marketing data, and it’s probably costing your business money. </p>



<p>Ad blockers, aggressive privacy laws, cookie deprecation, and a host of other converging factors have combined to mask significant conversion data, costing businesses up to <a href="http://www.deloittedigital.com/content/dam/digital/global/legacy/documents/offerings/offering-20221104-deloitte-digital-signal-loss-report-part-1.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">$203 million in revenue</a> annually, according to one Deloitte study. </p>



<p>For most brands, the path from discovery to purchase is no longer clear.</p>



<p>This signal decay is more than an annoying data quirk. Left unchecked, it can make it harder for new customers to discover your brand. </p>



<p>Most marketers don’t realize they’re making decisions based on incomplete data. Instead, they see top-of-funnel campaigns that aren’t pulling their weight and reallocate those budgets elsewhere.</p>



<p>The algorithm inevitably responds by pulling traffic back further, investment continues to shrink, new customer acquisition dries up, and suddenly, a brand is in a downward spiral that’s difficult to correct.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>



<p>The solution to avoiding the negative feedback loop isn’t better creative or larger budgets. Instead, data hygiene will be the competitive advantage in 2026. By feeding better information to Google’s hungry algorithm, you’ll transform your top-of-funnel activities and drive new customers through their purchase journey.&nbsp;</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-why-signal-loss-hurts-discovery-channels-first">Why signal loss hurts discovery channels first</h2>



<p>YouTube often sits near the top of the funnel, where attribution is weakest, and budget scrutiny is highest. That makes it one of the easiest channels to cut when performance data looks incomplete, even though it plays an important role in product discovery and brand research. </p>



<p>According to <a href="https://blog.youtube/news-and-events/youtube-creator-partnerships-newfronts-2026/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Google research</a>:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>“YouTube is the No. 1 platform viewers turn to when they want to research, vet, or make a decision about a brand or product.” </li>
</ul>



<p>Despite this popularity, conversion signal decay has an outsized impact on YouTube’s perceived performance as a marketing channel. It’s often the first touchpoint for product discovery, but users then leave the platform to make purchases, breaking the signal chain. </p>



<p>Google’s own advertising tools underreport YouTube’s true marketing impact by <a href="https://www.haus.io/blog/do-youtube-ads-perform-lessons-from-190-incrementality-tests" target="_blank" rel="noopener">70% or more</a>, a Haus Research study found. Fortunately, advertisers can recover some of those missing signals with a better measurement setup, making it easier to more fairly evaluate YouTube and other discovery channels.</p>



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<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-closing-the-cross-device-gap-with-enhanced-conversions">Closing the cross-device gap with enhanced conversions</h2>



<p>You’ve probably watched TV while holding your phone in your hand. You’ve also probably seen a commercial on TV, looked up the product on your phone, and then made the purchase on your desktop three days later. This new device-spanning purchase journey is a common way to buy, but it’s also impossible to track under the standard cookie-based tagging that most brands still rely on to measure conversions.</p>



<p>Enhanced conversions help close that gap. They add a layer of hashed first-party data, like an email address or phone number, to every captured conversion. Google then securely matches that hashed data against its own user information to connect the conversion to an ad interaction.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>



<p>Including enhanced conversions in your analytics unlocks insights into purchase journeys that began on YouTube and continued off the platform to the final purchase. Without this information, you’d never really understand how effective YouTube is at driving conversions down the line.&nbsp;</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-training-the-algorithm-with-offline-conversions">Training the algorithm with offline conversions</h2>



<p>Here’s another scenario you’ve probably experienced: You see a YouTube Ad for a high-ticket item you’ve thought about purchasing, like a car or a new piece of furniture. It costs more than you’re comfortable spending online, so you close the ad, pick up the phone, and call the seller directly. Cookie-based tagging has no way to track these valuable conversions back to their source.</p>



<p>This tracking blind spot also applies to lead-generation campaigns because standard conversion tracking cannot provide insight into the full path from completed form to purchase. This is the gap offline conversions fill.</p>



<p>Offline conversions connect customer relationship management software and call data back to Google. This data layer trains the algorithm on which leads actually close rather than just tracking who filled out a form and disappeared. With this information, smart bidding can then optimize for revenue outcomes rather than just top-of-funnel actions.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>



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<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-defining-new-top-of-funnel-signals-with-micro-conversions">Defining new top-of-funnel signals with micro conversions</h2>



<p>Enhanced conversions and offline tracking recover existing signals you haven’t had the ability to see before. However, sometimes top-of-funnel activities like YouTube don’t generate enough conversion data for the algorithm to learn from. In those instances, micro conversions can feed the algorithm the data it needs to optimize your ads.</p>



<p>Micro conversions send intermediate signals — such as watching half of a video, adding a product to cart, or lingering on a landing page — into campaigns that wouldn’t otherwise generate enough purchase-level data to effectively optimize. You can weight these signals as primary or secondary, depending on where the campaign sits in the funnel. Engagement signals like view times might feed prospecting data, while add-to-carts inform remarketing.</p>



<p>Without these intermediate signals, it becomes much harder to separate productive upper-funnel activity from wasted spend. Micro conversions will enable you to treat your top-of-funnel activities like any other campaign and make data-backed decisions on what’s really working.&nbsp;</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-recovering-lost-signals-with-google-tag-gateway">Recovering lost signals with Google Tag Gateway</h2>



<p>The final piece of the data-hygiene puzzle is recovering conversion signals that get blocked before they ever reach Google. Browsers like Safari and Firefox aggressively restrict third-party tracking, which contributes to the massive signal decay found in online purchases.</p>



<p>Google recently introduced a new tool, Google Tag Gateway (GTG), that can help you reclaim some of this lost data. GTG is a server-side technology that loads tracking tags from your website’s domain rather than Google’s. The gateway acts as a proxy, converting third-party requests into first-party requests, thereby bypassing some ad blockers.</p>



<p><a href="https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/16214371?hl=en">Google reports</a> that GTG users “saw an 11% uplift in signals” over advertisers who did not use the technology. GTG also offers advertisers important secondary benefits, including faster page load speeds, which improve Google&#8217;s landing page experience score and can lower costs per click.</p>



<p>While server-side tracking may sound like it’s difficult to implement, setting up GTG is actually a straightforward process if you&#8217;re on a content delivery network like Cloudflare.</p>



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<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-your-data-infrastructure-is-your-competitive-advantage">Your data infrastructure is your competitive advantage</h2>



<p>Every brand selling online today is affected by conversion signal decay. Most won’t recognize the real problem: Cross-device browsing, offline conversions, ad blockers, and low top-of-funnel signal volume are combining to distort our view of actual purchase behavior.</p>



<p>With inaccurate data in hand, most will respond by changing creative directions, reducing budget, or — even worse — cutting channels like YouTube that are secretly driving discovery. The downward spiral begins.</p>



<p>The advertisers that will win in 2026 won’t work around the edges. Instead, they’ll implement sophisticated data-hygiene layers that feed all that lost data back into Google’s algorithm, effectively outsmarting their competitors.</p>



<p>If you want to run more successful ads this year, focus on fixing your data first. Everything else will quickly follow.</p>

Conversion signals are disappearing from your marketing data, and it’s probably costing your business money. 
Ad blockers, aggressive privacy laws, cookie deprecation, and a host of other converging factors have combined to mask significant conversion data, costing businesses up to $203 million in revenue annually, according to one Deloitte study. 
For most brands, the path from discovery to purchase is no longer clear.
This signal decay is more than an annoying data quirk. Left unchecked, it can make it harder for new customers to discover your brand. 
Most marketers don’t realize they’re making decisions based on incomplete data. Instead, they see top-of-funnel campaigns that aren’t pulling their weight and reallocate those budgets elsewhere.
The algorithm inevitably responds by pulling traffic back further, investment continues to shrink, new customer acquisition dries up, and suddenly, a brand is in a downward spiral that’s difficult to correct.  
The solution to avoiding the negative feedback loop isn’t better creative or larger budgets. Instead, data hygiene will be the competitive advantage in 2026. By feeding better information to Google’s hungry algorithm, you’ll transform your top-of-funnel activities and drive new customers through their purchase journey. 
Why signal loss hurts discovery channels first
YouTube often sits near the top of the funnel, where attribution is weakest, and budget scrutiny is highest. That makes it one of the easiest channels to cut when performance data looks incomplete, even though it plays an important role in product discovery and brand research. 
According to Google research:
“YouTube is the No. 1 platform viewers turn to when they want to research, vet, or make a decision about a brand or product.” 
Despite this popularity, conversion signal decay has an outsized impact on YouTube’s perceived performance as a marketing channel. It’s often the first touchpoint for product discovery, but users then leave the platform to make purchases, breaking the signal chain. 
Google’s own advertising tools underreport YouTube’s true marketing impact by 70% or more, a Haus Research study found. Fortunately, advertisers can recover some of those missing signals with a better measurement setup, making it easier to more fairly evaluate YouTube and other discovery channels.

  
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Closing the cross-device gap with enhanced conversions
You’ve probably watched TV while holding your phone in your hand. You’ve also probably seen a commercial on TV, looked up the product on your phone, and then made the purchase on your desktop three days later. This new device-spanning purchase journey is a common way to buy, but it’s also impossible to track under the standard cookie-based tagging that most brands still rely on to measure conversions.
Enhanced conversions help close that gap. They add a layer of hashed first-party data, like an email address or phone number, to every captured conversion. Google then securely matches that hashed data against its own user information to connect the conversion to an ad interaction.  
Including enhanced conversions in your analytics unlocks insights into purchase journeys that began on YouTube and continued off the platform to the final purchase. Without this information, you’d never really understand how effective YouTube is at driving conversions down the line. 
Training the algorithm with offline conversions
Here’s another scenario you’ve probably experienced: You see a YouTube Ad for a high-ticket item you’ve thought about purchasing, like a car or a new piece of furniture. It costs more than you’re comfortable spending online, so you close the ad, pick up the phone, and call the seller directly. Cookie-based tagging has no way to track these valuable conversions back to their source.
This tracking blind spot also applies to lead-generation campaigns because standard conversion tracking cannot provide insight into the full path from completed form to purchase. This is the gap offline conversions fill.
Offline conversions connect customer relationship management software and call data back to Google. This data layer trains the algorithm on which leads actually close rather than just tracking who filled out a form and disappeared. With this information, smart bidding can then optimize for revenue outcomes rather than just top-of-funnel actions.  
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Defining new top-of-funnel signals with micro conversions
Enhanced conversions and offline tracking recover existing signals you haven’t had the ability to see before. However, sometimes top-of-funnel activities like YouTube don’t generate enough conversion data for the algorithm to learn from. In those instances, micro conversions can feed the algorithm the data it needs to optimize your ads.
Micro conversions send intermediate signals — such as watching half of a video, adding a product to cart, or lingering on a landing page — into campaigns that wouldn’t otherwise generate enough purchase-level data to effectively optimize. You can weight these signals as primary or secondary, depending on where the campaign sits in the funnel. Engagement signals like view times might feed prospecting data, while add-to-carts inform remarketing.
Without these intermediate signals, it becomes much harder to separate productive upper-funnel activity from wasted spend. Micro conversions will enable you to treat your top-of-funnel activities like any other campaign and make data-backed decisions on what’s really working. 
Recovering lost signals with Google Tag Gateway
The final piece of the data-hygiene puzzle is recovering conversion signals that get blocked before they ever reach Google. Browsers like Safari and Firefox aggressively restrict third-party tracking, which contributes to the massive signal decay found in online purchases.
Google recently introduced a new tool, Google Tag Gateway (GTG), that can help you reclaim some of this lost data. GTG is a server-side technology that loads tracking tags from your website’s domain rather than Google’s. The gateway acts as a proxy, converting third-party requests into first-party requests, thereby bypassing some ad blockers.
Google reports that GTG users “saw an 11% uplift in signals” over advertisers who did not use the technology. GTG also offers advertisers important secondary benefits, including faster page load speeds, which improve Google’s landing page experience score and can lower costs per click.
While server-side tracking may sound like it’s difficult to implement, setting up GTG is actually a straightforward process if you’re on a content delivery network like Cloudflare.

  
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Your data infrastructure is your competitive advantage
Every brand selling online today is affected by conversion signal decay. Most won’t recognize the real problem: Cross-device browsing, offline conversions, ad blockers, and low top-of-funnel signal volume are combining to distort our view of actual purchase behavior.
With inaccurate data in hand, most will respond by changing creative directions, reducing budget, or — even worse — cutting channels like YouTube that are secretly driving discovery. The downward spiral begins.
The advertisers that will win in 2026 won’t work around the edges. Instead, they’ll implement sophisticated data-hygiene layers that feed all that lost data back into Google’s algorithm, effectively outsmarting their competitors.
If you want to run more successful ads this year, focus on fixing your data first. Everything else will quickly follow.

The campaigns introducing customers to your brand may be getting the least credit for revenue. Here’s how to recover lost conversion signals.

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Read the Latest Trends and Headlines in Digital Marketing.

Here are some of the latest headlines on digital marketing insights, search, and ecommerce:

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