Brands, Links & Clicks Many of you have heard about or read an article from HouseFresh, a small product review site that tests air purifiers and related products. The company

Wither the SERP: Enter AI Search Research firm Gartner published a prediction: "By 2026, traditional search engine volume will drop 25%, with search marketing losing market share to AI

OpenAI Search to Challenge Google According to a story appearing in The Information yesterday, OpenAI is reportedly working on a new search engine that would be more directly competitive with

Google's Self-Disruption In 2009, 15 years ago, then Google employee Marissa Mayer described "the perfect search engine." She said, "It would be one that could

Bing Is the Past, Copilot Is the Future After more than a year of BingGPT, it's clear that the new experience is not going to take meaningful share

SGE Comes to Google Maps Just as Google is seemingly integrating AI into everything it does, last week the company said that AI is coming to Google Maps. "Simply

Google's DMA-Compliant SERP As Europe's Digital Markets Act (DMA) kicks in, the mostly US-based tech "gatekeepers" it seeks to regulate are rushing to comply.

Marketing Tools Are Just Tools When you see a ranking chart that looks like the one below, your first thought is that the SEO has gone south. Whether due to

Gemini Comes to Search Campaigns Google's path toward full automation of ad campaign creation and optimization took another step forward with the announcement that Google's Gemini

SGE: Failure to Launch? There have now been several studies of the impact of Google SGE on search results (BrightEdge, Authoritas, others). All conclude, with varying degrees of confidence, that

Where Is Google Business Profile Heading? With the recent demise of Google Business Profile (GBP) Websites and the sale of Google Domains, it raises once again the question of exactly

Study: Internal Links Drive Clicks Internal linking is a much-neglected ranking opportunity. A new study from Zyppy SEO shows us the data. Based an analysis of "23 million internal

Google Business Profile Websites Bite the Dust Earlier this week Google announced that as of March 1, Google Business Profile (GBP) Websites would be shut off and redirected to the

SGE Pushes Everything Else Down In the first really compelling study of the impact of SGE on the Google SERP, Authoritas examined results from 1,000 commercial keywords in the

Google LSA Scammers Are Winning Duct Cleaning scams in Local Service Ads (LSAs) are apparently just the tip of the iceberg. Carpet cleaners and plumbers, with large numbers of fake

Bard Feature 'Wish List' While it's clear SGE will definitely continue, Google isn't quite ready to make it generally available either. Its original December,

These are the 2023 articles, podcasts and videos you read, listened to and watched the most.

LSA Duct Cleaning Fraud Gets Real - Part 5 The consumer and business harms of the LSA Duct Cleaning scam are becoming more obvious. Google did remove one of the

AirBnB: Branding vs. Paid Search It's probably unfair to say Google's almost continuous algorithm updates, UI changes and the advent of SGE are part of a

SGE in 87% of Local SERPs We don't yet have much data on how users are responding to Google SGE: whether it drives clicks or creates more zero-click

LSA Scam Is Worse than We Thought - Part 4 We reported on the LSA scam of stealing reviews on a grand scale and ripping off customers with inflated quotes

Local Hours 'Definitely a Thing' At the end of last week, SterlingSky announced its testing had determined that business hours were a local new ranking signal in Google

The Gemini SERP This week, Google shelved its splashy in-person Gemini launch event in favor of blog posts and multiple videos showcasing the AI's advanced capabilities. One of

Local, Schema Review Abuses In fall of 2019 Google announced it would be ignoring "self-serving" review markup for local business schema and not show review stars in search

SMBs Won't Save X When Elon Musk bought Twitter in 2022, there was initial hope that he could improve the service. But, unless you're a Musk

How often do searchers rely on the Local Pack and Finder to answer their questions? LSA review hijacking abounds and why Google's review moderation is still failing.

Black Friday: Consumers Go Wild Fears about soft consumer spending on Black Friday proved unfounded. Driven by discounts, US shoppers opened their wallets and generated a record $9.8 billion

OpenAI: WTF Just Happened? No doubt many of you have followed the chaotic soap opera surrounding OpenAI's ouster of CEO Sam Altman and his reinstatement only days later.

Google Local Goes Vegetarian Google is now highlighting vegetarian dishes at restaurants that don't necessarily identify as vegan or vegetarian. Obviously Google is attempting to help non-meat eaters

Awaiting the New Yahoo Search At the recent SMX Next event Senior VP and General Manager of Yahoo Search Brian Provost said that the site's new search experience

Google to Personalize Rankings At the recent BrightonSEO conference in San Diego, Google spokesperson Danny Sullivan said there were major changes coming to search – beyond the volatility of the past

NYC Orthopedist fined $100k for fake reviews, "reputation management" company manipulates Google Product Experts to get reviews removed, solution for the SAB location bug at hand?

Can the 'AI Pin' Replace the iPhone? The short answer is "no." But Humane's new AI-powered wearable "pin" is an impressive hardware

GPT vs. Search: Battle of UIs Google has been "the front door to the internet" since the early 2000s. But a decade from now, perhaps sooner, search (as

Google Maps Updates - Bloat or Value? Last week Google announced several new features were now available in Google Maps including Immersive View, more EV charging station information, an updated

After nearly 3 years of uninterrupted output and 133 podcasts, Near Media will be taking a short hiatus through November 1. We'll resume publishing on November 3. Will

Plug-ins and Personalized Search Before Apple bought Siri in 2010, its CEO Dag Kittlaus envisioned his digital assistant eliminating the need for a "middle man" (Google) by linking

Local Falcon's New AI Recommendations Local rank tracker Local Falcon just rolled out a new AI-based feature, which CEO David Hunter believes is unique among Local SEO tools.

Agencies: ChatGPT Now #2 Most Used Tool There are multiple "state of digital agencies" survey reports (e.g., Vendasta, CallRail), including one we did but haven't

Google Tried to 'Kneecap' Spotlight The Google antitrust trial started a month ago. And while the war in Israel has now "pushed it off the front page,

Apple Users Prefer Google Maps 2:1 BrightLocal released its second "Local Business Discovery and Trust Report," polling 1,100 on a range of questions, including how many

Google's Call History has a checkered past including cancellation but its now back, The FTC claims that review platforms have perverse incentives to allow fake reviews, we agree and Apple Maps has updated their local Insights

MSFT: 'Google Blocked Bing' Earlier this week Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella testifed at the Google antitrust trial. The irony of the companies' role reversal should be lost

Apple Search Redux Google's antitrust trial seemed to clearly establish that Apple isn't going to build its own search engine (and never took it seriously). But

Google's Listings Clean-up Over the past two years, suspensions have been a big percentage of GBP Forum requests, especially for service area businesses (SAB). Google required re-verification, including

Google @25: Iconoclast to Idolater Google began in 1998 as an idealistic company with huge ambition: "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and

ChatGPT Finds Its Voice ChatGPT is now a true virtual assistant. It can understand images and speak to you using one of several very human sounding synthetic voices. The image

Ex-Googler: Clicks Affect Rankings Google has always maintained it doesn't use behavioral signals such as clicks or dwell time in search rankings. And it has called such claims

Bard+ Arrives with Extensions After a couple of months with no updates, yesterday Google rolled out Bard Extensions (similar to ChatGPT plug-ins). Bard extensions were first announced at Google I/

Local SGE's Manic Episode   Last week SEO Andy Simpson discovered a Local SGE snapshot with two carousel results and a whole lot of thumbnails. The query was "

Amazon Search Upgrades Answer Google Amazon dominates product search. And Google has been battling back for several years with a range of strategies and tactics: more product results, visual search

US: Google 'Weaponized' Search Defaults The US v. Google has kicked off, with the US Department of Justice (DOJ) arguing Google used default search deals as an anti-competitive

'One and Done' Policy Will Be Global Google has rolled out a new policy and process for reinstatement of suspended listings in Europe. When a business is suspended

Google's Day in Court There have been a dizzying array of antitrust claims against Google in Europe and the US. In the US, Google currently faces two active

Does Yahoo Directory 2.0 Make Sense? The venerable Yahoo Directory shut down, after nearly 20 years, in 2014. It was a victim of exploding online content and an ascendant

People Not Using ChatGPT to 'Search' When ChatGPT launched it was immediately seen as a "Google killer." However, that has not come to pass. In fact,

Google's 'Naïve' SEO Advice Google has long promoted the idea that you should create content for people (e.g., Helpful Content Update) and not for its

Deduping GBP Profiles: There's a Form for That! Google Maps' knowledge graph includes 200 million business listings and captures them from multiple trusted data suppliers and other

Europe's DSA Forcing Change Europe's Digital Services Act (DSA) passed in early 2022; now it's taking effect. A companion to the Digital Markets Act,

TikTok 'Search Ads Toggle' After months of testing with an expanding group of advertisers, TikTik has officially rolled out search ads, called "Search Ads Toggle." The

European regulations are compelling Google to improve Google Business Profile support.

Has BingGPT Failed? When Microsoft announced integration of ChatGPT into Bing this February, the company proclaimed it was "reinventing search." The positive coverage and buzz was a PR

SGE While Browsing Earlier this week, Google announced a number of SGE upgrades, including a new feature called "SGE While Browsing." (Bing has something similar.) To access SGE

GBP Support Using Gig Workers Google has long attempted to reduce or eliminate costs from Google Business Profile Support. We have written up Google's newest effort to try

AI Summaries the Future of Reviews? E-commerce site Newegg introduced AI-generated review summaries (h/t SEL). And Amazon is doing something similar. Newegg is using ChatGPT to extract highlights from

Google's Antitrust Trial Set Earlier this week, a California judge denied Google's summary judgment motion in the $5 billion Chrome "incognito" browser tracking lawsuit.

EU DSA to influence Maps moderation, Google LSAs add new categories, Google Maps listings hijacked again (and again).

ChatGPT Beats Google in Blind Test In blind testing, users appear to prefer ChatGPT search results over Google by almost 2:1. Those are the findings of the test'

Finally, Links in Google SGE Perhaps the loudest criticism of Google SGE has been its failure to cite sources for content that appears in the "AI Snapshot." (Links

GBP's New Policies & Guidelines Google sent out an email today announcing simplified policies and guidelines. Translated from Google speak: We are now actually telling you what the

Meta's Image Makeover   Meta is back. Not long ago, the company was reeling from Apple's privacy changes, a bad bet on the metaverse, the rise of

Google Search Ads Up, Bing's Billion Chats Google and Microsoft announced quarterly earnings yesterday and both beat Wall Street expectations. With $74.6 billion in total revenue, Google

Product Search Shifting Driven by Prime loyalty, Amazon has been the dominant product search site for most consumers, followed by Google. While that remains true, there's some interesting

Can AI Save Siri?   According to a Bloomberg report, Apple has been working on its own generative AI to catch up ro everybody else. Known internally as "Ajax,"

Apple Maps Momentum Last week we discussed the growth of Apple Maps and estimated its iPhone user market share at 37% (others have larger estimates). This week a number of

Fast, Cheap Content For months we've been debating the impact of generative AI on search. Some marketers argue AI will "revolutionize the SERPs." That's

Local: Bing in Fourth Place Monday we published a preliminary analysis of Apple Maps traffic vs. Google for local search/discovery. Mike's conclusion was that roughly 37% of

Google SGE Usage Decline? When Google SGE launched I was super excited (as they say) because I believe that the SERP is broken. But now I mostly don't

Is Apple Maps Driving Traffic? In late 2021 it became obvious that Apple Maps had become a much more powerful discovery tool that could deliver traffic to businesses. The rollout

Cage Match: Twitter vs. Threads By now you've read about or signed up for Threads, Meta's Twitter clone. Threads officially launched yesterday in 100 countries, though

GDPR Gets Some Teeth Meta (née Facebook) built its ad model on massive, largely surreptitious data collection, which fueled highly personalized ad targeting. That capability and model are now in

FTC's New Fake Reviews Rule The FTC has been refining its fake review policy, as part of its endorsement guidelines and forthcoming rules. The guidelines indicate what types

Perspectives on Google's Struggle Google has been battling the perception its SERP quality is in decline, filled with ads and "SEO chum." Google's Helpful

GBP: 3 Videos Now in Default View We reported several weeks ago that Google was starting to display a single video on Google Business Profiles in mobile search results. In

Cost of Fake Reviews: $24B In its blog post announcing litigation against alleged review fraudster Ethan Hu, Google cited an FTC report stating consumers wasted "$125 on average each

How Facebook F'd Up Waze Deal Roughly a decade has passed since Google bought Waze for more than $1 billion. Waze co-founder Noam Bardin tells the fascinating story

Teen TikTok Inspires 1-Star Barrage Marketing today can be a complex and volatile proposition for local business owners. A case-in-point involves a nail salon in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania that is reportedly

Google AI Feature Dump Google this week released a barrage of AI-driven updates to Search, Shopping and Maps. The company started by reiterating all the things you can do with

Fake Review Summaries Amazon may be in denial about how counterfeiting and review fraud are long-term threats to its brand. According to a recent US-UK consumer survey, 84% of shoppers

Google Finally Focused on Fake LSA Reviews? Google has missed a huge opportunity with Local Service Ads (LSAs) to clean up both local listings and reviews. Within a vetted and

Study: Localized Stories Drive Links Most content marketers publish studies and data for the purpose of lead-generation, press coverage or both. Often they use PR pros to target publications with

Vision Pro 'Feels Like the Future' Whether or not Apple's Vision Pro actually sells next year or is succeeded by more affordable headsets, it appears Apple

Starting today the Monday edition of the newsletter will be written by Mike Blumenthal and have a more tactical focus on GBP and local search. If you have any feedback,

No AI for 70% of Google Queries? Google's SGE has three or four modes: auto-generated AI Snapshots, "manual" AI (push to "Generate"), an AI

Social Beating SEO for B2B The top B2B marketing challenges, according to a new US-based survey (form) from WPromote and Ascend2, are: 1) improving CX, 2) proving digital marketing ROI,

SGE: The New Local Pack Google opened the gates to its AI Search Generative Experience (SGE). There's much to say and we'll provide more analysis soon.

Google Ads: AI Everywhere All at Once The subtext of Google I/O was about convincing investors the company wasn't going to be bested by AI competitors. Search-related

Was Neeva Doomed from the Start? Neeva is shutting down its search engine. The news came out this weekend in an email and blog post from founders Sridhar Ramaswamy and

LocalGPT Is No Google Killer  Earlier this week I gained access to ChatGPT beta features web browsing and plug-ins. Plug-ins are like Chrome extensions and bring their full datasets (presumably)

Disappearing Local Pack Appearances of the Local Pack again seem to be in decline. We've written about this in the past but local SEOs continue to raise the

84% Wary of Amazon Reviews There's an unacknowledged trust crisis online and one manifestation is fake reviews. We've been tracking growing skepticism about reviews, which is

New Twitter CEO Is a 'WEF' Twitter's new CEO is Linda Yaccarino. Until this week, she was chair of global advertising at NBCU. She appears to

Where's 'Dogpile for AI'? Remember "metasearch" from the late '90s? Sites like Dogpile and Metacrawler displayed results for the same query from multiple

Google's 'Snackable' Magi   Google's I/O developer conference starts Wednesday. It will be chock-a-block with AI-related announcements. Among them, it's anticipated that

Bing Beating Google Never mind the fact that Bing's revival is entirely based on third party technology, Microsoft is now out-innovating Google in search. And while Bing has

AI's Impact on Jobs A week ago Box CEO Drew Houston announced the company was laying off 500 employees as it frees up headcount for AI hires. This

Content Farms: The Next Generation NewsGuard, a site that rates the credibility of information websites, found a range of publications (49) in multiple languages producing content "entirely or mostly

Social Traffic Mislabeled "Direct" A new study by SparkToro concludes that a considerable percentage of website traffic coming from social media sites is often mischaracterized as "direct&

Search + AI Drive Google, MSFT Earnings Both Google and Microsoft reported positive earnings yesterday. Microsoft beat expectations with ~$53B, while Google posted $69.8B in total revenue. For Microsoft, overall

Amazon F(ai)ke Reviews One of the primary use cases for Amazon has been product reviews. This is well established by consumer surveys. And reviews are obviously a major

Peak SMB for GBP? Like other large tech companies publishing "economic impact" reports, Google's is mostly PR. Published annually since 2009, it argues the company'

SanFranciscoGPT At Near Media, we don't equally agree on how disruptive AI will be to local search. I'm probably the most bullish of the three of

'Panicked' Google Readies Magi By now you've read or read coverage of the NY Times article yesterday that says Google is "panicking" over AI

Google Throttling Local Packs? What's happening with the Local Pack? Last year, Moz and LocalSEOGuide noticed a drop Local Pack frequency, from 40% and 42% of SERPs to

Bargle Uses Yelp for Local Results Miriam Ellis at Moz compares local results from Google and Bard and finds Bard wanting. Beyond critiquing the quality of results, her article is

Google's Post-Cookie Manifesto Victor Wong is sincere when he says that Google's Privacy Sandbox initiative is trying to solve the cookie problem for publishers, consumers and

Just Bargle It Google + Bard = Bargle. Google will be integrating Bard into the SERP. That's according to an interview of CEO Sundar Pichai in the WSJ, part of

Search Movement Afoot There's some evidence that Bing has grown usage modestly since the introduction of BingGPT. However its share vs. Google appears largely unchanged according to other

Bard, Google Assistant to Merge Google's tentative rollout of Bard hurt the perception of Google's technology leadership. So CEO Sundar Pichai is now doing PR interviews.

Google: 20% More Fake Reviews in 2022 Earlier this week we discussed how review attacks are becoming more creative. Jason Brown is documenting many of these cases, including how hotels

Fake Positive Review Attacks? Ever heard of a "5-star review attack"? A hostile party posts obviously fake 5-star reviews -- in order to make a business look bad?

Google 'Online Conversion Local Ads' Michel Van Luijtelaar of GMBapi.com brought our attention to what he/Google is calling "online-conversion Local Ads." These units can

Local Ranking Factors 2023 Whitespark just published the 2023 version of the Local Search Ranking Factors study (LSRF). There's a lot there to digest. We'll discuss

AI Everywhere All at Once   Microsoft is all-in on AI. Seemingly, it's everywhere, all at once. This week Adobe introduced Firefly, a set of generative AI tools for

Whither the Local Pack? After the EU's Digital Markets Act (DMA) passed a year ago, we began to speculate about the impact it could have on Google local

TikTok Ban: What Happens Now? Roughly two years of negotiations between the US government and TikTok have come to an impasse. The US is (again) demanding divestiture but China is

ChatGPT-4 Est Arrivé Yesterday OpenAI released ChatGPT-4, which represents a leap ahead compared to version 3.5. It's multimodal, meaning it can understand and produce images and video

GoWalla Take Two Local social networking (or social cityguide) app GoWalla is back. GoWalla was originally Foursquare's primary competitor. Both launched in 2009. Foursquare survives today, albeit in

MSFT: BingGPT Is Working It's been roughly a month since the introduction of BingGPT. And this week Microsoft's Yusuf Mehdi announced that the search engine had

Her Is Here An Israeli start-up Chat.D-ID has combined ChatGPT with an AI avatar that you can actually talk to and who will talk back. Pictured below, it is

Ask Jeeves, Gist & Phind The "conversational search" model embodied by Ask Jeeves in its early days may represent the future of search/discovery. Rather than indexing documents,