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Showing posts from August, 2026

FTC Sues Amazon Over Alleged $20 Billion Advertising Surcharge Scheme via @sejournal, @brookeosmundson

FTC and 22 states sued Amazon over alleged changes to its ad auctions that the agency says overcharged advertisers by more than $20 billion. The post FTC Sues Amazon Over Alleged $20 Billion Advertising Surcharge Scheme appeared first on Search Engine Journal . from Search Engine Journal https://ift.tt/b20YL67

ChatGPT Is Now A “Very Large Online Search Engine” In The EU via @sejournal, @MattGSouthern

ChatGPT is now a very large online search engine under the EU Digital Services Act after OpenAI reported about 159.1 million average monthly search recipients. The post ChatGPT Is Now A “Very Large Online Search Engine” In The EU appeared first on Search Engine Journal . from Search Engine Journal https://ift.tt/xHJl2zW

Need Help with SEO for a Hospital

Hi! I have recently landed a client for finalizing its digital presence across different media platforms. What I am looking forward to is to rank it number one whenever someone searches about top hospitals in the locality. It should be on number one. The hospital doesn't rank anywhere near number one. I want SEO expert who can help me rank it within one month. The person should be Indian and I'm willing to discuss this further. The competitors do not have much of an SEO presence so this will be an easier task. Free to drop an email submitted by /u/Nickcoll [link] [comments] from The SEO Authority https://ift.tt/kveyMGC

How to vet?

I have a website that I made. It serves its purpose but I would imagine if I paid a professional I could get it to rank higher etc as well as doing gmb etc. My question is how do I vet anyone I would hire? I’m not trying to go to fiverr and all that jazz. submitted by /u/NoLamboBro [link] [comments] from The SEO Authority https://ift.tt/V3Y7gDE

Hew effective is Broken link linkbuilding in 2026?

I am at the link building stage of getting my website ranked. We started with 50 impressions per day and are now at almost 800 impressions per day in almost 2 months. What I've realised is in order to improve our position and get more clicks we'd need backlinks. I can't afford to buy backlinks at this time as I am just starting from scratch. Can someone suggest we can get backlinks without paying. Happy to invest effort if some link building techniques work but good backlinks are really expensive so I'd stay away from buying them. submitted by /u/Affectionate-Tea3834 [link] [comments] from The SEO Authority https://ift.tt/SbhA2WE

Google Making AI Overviews Into AI Mode Responses

Google Search has confirmed it is now pushing searchers into AI Mode from the AI Overview by default, without having to click the "Show more" button. The new AI Overview experience that Google is testing shows a much fuller AI answer, like you'd get in AI Mode, and loads the follow up "Ask anything" box by default submitted by /u/WebLinkr [link] [comments] from The SEO Authority https://ift.tt/qwtz9Mp

LinkArtemis- Backlink Tool

Can’t figure out how to post photos, but I’ve been trying to get a refund underneath their 30-day guarantee since the middle of July. Still no refund. If you’re going to try the service out, I would highly recommend against it. I’ll post the photos of my email back-and-forth with this company as soon as I can figure out how. submitted by /u/Substantial-Youth848 [link] [comments] from The SEO Authority https://ift.tt/v1hrEd2

Tester site niche ideas

Im looking to learn SEO by starting my own website and trying to rank it. Just wondering if anyone else has done this and could recommend any types of websites or niches that would be good for this? submitted by /u/Educational_Poet_421 [link] [comments] from The SEO Authority https://ift.tt/cD0jXCW

Is there a need for DataforSEO if Im already using ahrefs/Semrush?

Sorry if this is a stupid question but im new to this industry and still learning things. I keep coming across posts talking about DataforSEO and a lot of other tools, and not sure how people are using it and how it is different from ahrefs or Semrush? submitted by /u/zebdebleblol [link] [comments] from The SEO Authority https://ift.tt/Iz38uW6

I asked Claude

you're a SEO expert, 2w ago I published my new web app which target mainly devs, devops and electrical engineers, CS students of course and doing a bunch of queries on GCP logging analytics console , I realized that we doing good. In fact after filtering http request data, I made some stats per page, per country, per user agent and so on.Tthis is amazing, we are making an average 200 views per day without counting the cached views, in fact every page can be viewed completely offline after being loaded the first time. I have to mention: I've filtered everything: images,js files,icons,robots.txt,bots agents, every status except 200 and 301. I'm quite sure this is the real traffic because I parsed every request_url with a python script... So what you think am I missing something submitted by /u/medaladilmeliki [link] [comments] from The SEO Authority https://ift.tt/62dL1aW

When to switch focus from coverage to link building, and results from building in public?

Hi :) I have somewhat limited time to work on my site (15-20 hours a week) and I'm wondering what allocation of my time would be most produtive and at what stage. For context I'm building a website about PC components. Each component category gets its own hub and then I also do comparison pages for the matchups that has the most search demand. I have quite a lot of data on all the components, both to ensure the pages are not thin. As a minimum I cover all the same specs as all competitors and also use dataforseo to see what the intent of the users are to cover their questions. I also handle prices from multiple retailers as well and need to line up all their data as well This is quite time consuming, but I can do coverage faster and faster as I get reuseable components, better data sources and fill out globally unique product id's and such. So currently I'm up to having about 1200 pages indexed in about 2.5 months, and have basically 100% of pages indexed besides a...

Old man needing help with SEO for small business

Hello. I'm the only employee of my small company in a large American city. I have a website and all the social media platforms. I want more people to come to my website. How do I do that? Money, specifically spending it, is not so much the focus. The focus is it working, and, in second place, not being taken advantage of. With AI hitting, I am reading that SEO needs to be specifically tailored with that in mind; plus the rate at which the game is changing due to AI. Generally speaking, I don't like the subscription model of things. Whether it's $200 a month to cut my lawn, or $1000 a month to do my books, or whatever. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind paying, but if the lawn is covered in snow for half the year, why am I paying you monthly to cut it? Ditto, everything else. If work is slow and I have barely any books to keep for months at a time, why am I paying? "But, but, but sir, you signed an agreement on annual terms, blah, blah, blah." I have read tha...

Website Traffic Problems and Website Design Concerns with Cloudflare Free Tier

Over the past few months, I’ve built a collection of simple static web tools, content archives, and utility sites. I’m currently looking to step up their UI/UX, drive actual traffic, and figure out realistic monetization routes for small-scale projects like these. Here are a few examples of what I’m working with: [Site 1 Name]: [https://speculativenaturalist.pages.dev/] [Site 2 Name]: [https://thoughtarchive-65m.pages.dev/](https://thoughtarchive-65m.pages.dev/) [Site 3 Name]: [https://hardwarecheck.pages.dev/](https://hardwarecheck.pages.dev/) [Site 4 Name]: [https://devcanvasprivacy-studio.pages.dev/](https://devcanvasprivacy-studio.pages.dev/) [Site 5 Name]: [https://mundanearchive.pages.dev/](https://mundanearchive.pages.dev/) Where I’m stuck: Traffic & SEO: Static .pages.dev sites are quick to deploy, but what are the best zero-budget ways to start getting steady organic traffic for niche tools/archives? Monetization Options: Aside from basic display ads (l...

OpenAI Is Adding Business Users Faster Than Anthropic. That May Matter More Than Valuation

New data shows the ChatGPT maker outpacing Anthropic among business customers, even as its rival remains the revenue leader. OpenAI’s newest model (GPT-5.6 Sol) is performing strongly, especially with developers. Anthropic’s latest (Fable 5) underperformed in real-world adoption, partly due to higher pricing and stricter data-retention rules. OpenAI aggressively cut prices on its newest models shortly after launch (one by 80%), making them more attractive for cost-conscious teams. Enterprise customers are proving highly willing to switch models as new releases drop — stickiness is lower than many expected. submitted by /u/WebLinkr [link] [comments] from The SEO Authority https://ift.tt/b6AvRBG

Website with good authority and metrics but never monetized. Where to sell?

Good morning, everyone. We have a website/platform in the IT niche that we’ve been building for a few years. It has decent authority (DR 55) and good organic visibility. Right now, we’re focused on a completely different niche and are considering selling it. Are there any platforms where we can list it? (I know Flippa requires confirmed revenue, and we’ve never monetized it.) submitted by /u/yonote [link] [comments] from The SEO Authority https://ift.tt/2wm3Urv

"No index" issue on new website.

Actually, during the development stage, we had set the “noindex” tag on all pages of the website. Now that development is complete, we want to index all the pages. However, for the pages where we previously set the “noindex” tag, even after changing the setting back to “index,” Google Search Console is still showing the “noindex” status. Why is this happening, and how can we resolve it? submitted by /u/mahidaluish [link] [comments] from The SEO Authority https://ift.tt/iV1CwrW

Links in GSC

How long does it take for new inbound links to appear in the links section of GSC? They are dofollow links that should be there at some point. And is there anyway to accelerate this? submitted by /u/bucky494 [link] [comments] from The SEO Authority https://ift.tt/CLfSw7d

Am I Making a Mistake Running Google Search Ads for Small Home-Service Businesses?

Can I stick with Google Search Ads instead of LSA if I run ads for small home-service businesses? My main ICP is smaller business owners, and I’m wondering if Search Ads are still a good option for them with a limited budget, or if LSA is basically the better choice for smaller home-service companies. submitted by /u/Zestyclose-Towel251 [link] [comments] from The SEO Authority https://ift.tt/9WBvoGU

Ecommerce SEO suggestions

I have almost 3 years of experience and want to get into Ecommerce SEO. What are the must have skills i should know before getting into Ecommerce? submitted by /u/Simply__Wandering [link] [comments] from The SEO Authority https://ift.tt/sICu4bx

Remove top Google search article

I may have come to the wrong place!? There is a news article on medium.com of an article, written anonymously about someone I know and I’m also included in the article, though my name is mentioned. Anyway the story is false and it’s a LONG story to explain but now it’s the top search on Google when I enter my friends name. How!??? And also how can I get removed as the top search. Lawyers are going to charge $20k for a cease. I don’t care if the story remains, how do I get it moved to like page 2 or 3 lol on google? submitted by /u/green_grapefruit_748 [link] [comments] from The SEO Authority https://ift.tt/HNstD68

Low traffic, zero niche recognition in YMYL (finance/insurance), and near-zero AdSense impressions (Blocksy + Autoptimize setup)

Hi everyone, I'm struggling with a multi-layered issue on my site oraultima.com and could really use some expert advice. My site focuses on a strict niche: insurance, mortgages, and banking (YMYL) . Here is my current setup and situation: Platform: WordPress with Classic Editor (no heavy page builders). Theme: Blocksy. Plugins/Setup: I use WPCode to inject the global AdSense script in the header. Status: No manual actions, no security issues, and clean green status in Google Search Console. The ads.txt file is properly configured and authorized. My Auto Ads configuration in AdSense: Overlay formats: Only "Anchor ads" are enabled (set to Bottom only ). Vignettes and Side-rail ads are turned off . In-page formats: "Banner ads" are enabled (with max ads per page set to 6, and options like "Find other ad placements on article pages" and "Optimize existing ads" checked). What I've already done regarding Autoptimize: I...

All my organic traffic and growth is gone after august 17th ? how about you ?

my new blog I started in late may this year, has been growing consistently in organic traffic and ai assistants, in a specific DYI niche, based on Wordpress and using AI for writing. but suddenly after the 17th august all is gone, i thought it's because of the problem GSC has in this day ( https://searchenginewatch.com/google-search-console-data-recovering-after-logging-issue/ ) but the drop is persisting. do you had the same issue after the 17 august? is it because of the ai ? or others ? any help ps: from the beginning i insert affiliate link (clickbank) for one product. gsc image: https://imgur.com/a/zyCpZPy submitted by /u/Greenzone51 [link] [comments] from The SEO Authority https://ift.tt/CIDaMJT

Dedicated to all domain hoarders out there

Me: "Hmm, let me get this cool one word domain" Domain hoarder that: "Ahem, this will be only $80.000 for this dot-com, ready for development" Me: "oh, I'm gonna choose this dot-org for $10" Domain hoarder: "OFFICER, ARREST THIS MAN!" ... \ whispers with a red face* "nobody gonna trust you – u will fall, crumble, and crawl back to me, and the price will be even higher"* submitted by /u/throwaway_010011t [link] [comments] from The SEO Authority https://ift.tt/pR9Ixm3

AI Mode Queries Are 3X Longer – Why Your Page Should Lead With The Answer via @sejournal, @gregjarboe

One year of AI Mode data shows people asking questions, not typing fragments, which is why the lead-first paragraph now beats the narrative arc. The post AI Mode Queries Are 3X Longer – Why Your Page Should Lead With The Answer appeared first on Search Engine Journal . from Search Engine Journal https://ift.tt/YR8IwVi

Yoast SEO automatically removing my meta titles & descriptions after publishing. What could be causing this?

Hey guys, I’m facing a really weird issue with Yoast SEO. Whenever I publish a blog on our websites, I add everything normally, including the content, images, SEO title and meta description. But after publishing, when I go back to edit/check the blog, the SEO title and meta description are completely gone, like they were never added. This is happening across 2-3 websites, not just one. I’m also noticing that some of these pages are getting deindexed by Google, so I’m wondering if this could be related. Could this be a Yoast bug/update, another plugin, theme, cache, or something else? Has anyone faced this before or knows what could be causing it? How can I troubleshoot this and make sure Yoast stops removing the metadata after publishing? submitted by /u/Cute_Inflation33 [link] [comments] from The SEO Authority https://ift.tt/qg52ntl

Microsoft Ads Is Removing Max CPC From New Campaigns via @sejournal, @brookeosmundson

Microsoft Advertising will remove Max CPC from new non-portfolio campaigns starting Oct. 1, shifting advertisers toward automated bidding controls and performance targets. The post Microsoft Ads Is Removing Max CPC From New Campaigns appeared first on Search Engine Journal . from Search Engine Journal https://ift.tt/Yj4bZR0

Looking to make a client pivot

Hi all. Up till this point I've been working exclusiveky with therapy practices on an hourly basis. Most can only afford 5-10 hours/week. At that anount, 6 months can pass and I've barely worked the equivalent of a month in a 9-5 job yet the client is frustrated that their clients aren't pouring in, despite crazy stats like 1000%increase in AI searches, 600%increase in clicks, 41 percent increase in search results amd googke showing their website 98 percent more than when i started. I try to explain the conceptualiization of hours but for them 6 months feels like 6 months, not a month of work. They can't afford to hire me based on results; that woukd require me to dig in for 3 or 4 months at 20-40 hours axweek on a clients to deliver faster what they need. I'd have to charge 4k-7k a month to make it even ckose to financially viable. So I need a new industry to turn to for cliebts who can pay based on results. Does anyone have a suggeatiin that would be a good p...

Decision Coverage: Why AI Recommends Some Brands And Not Others via @sejournal, @billhunt

AI doesn't recommend products, it recommends decisions. A SaaS case study shows why missing evidence, not weak authority, causes exclusion from AI recommendations. The post Decision Coverage: Why AI Recommends Some Brands And Not Others appeared first on Search Engine Journal . from Search Engine Journal https://ift.tt/kMPCL3o

Google Indexing Issue: .cy Domain Not Ranking for Exact Brand Name After 5+ Months

Hey SEO Family need your help 💪 In my agency we managed the SEO of more than 900+ websites with same WordPress and SEO configurations. Our .com websites always appear in Google when searching their unique brand names after 1-2 months of development but several .cy - .es - .net domain websites still do not rank for their exact brand names after more than 6 months. Google has indexed the pages, and results appear when we search the full domain. The brand names are unique, with effectively zero keyword difficulty. Each website has the brand name in the title, H1, content and metadata, and there are no apparent robots.txt, noindex, sitemap or canonical issues. Has anyone experienced significantly slower brand-name visibility specifically with .cy , .es , .net domains? Could this mainly be caused by limited external authority and brand signals, or is there something domain specific that we should investigate? submitted by /u/LOOPDIGITALMARKETING [link] [comm...

Internal Linking Advice

for mid-sized websites with around 100–200 pages. I optimize websites for meta tags and content, but when it comes to internal linking, my mind goes blank. I really need to improve my internal linking skills, so I’d love to know how you guys approach it. What do you think about when creating internal links? What tools do you use? This is how I currently do internal linking: I try to find a keyword or phrase related to the page I want to link to and naturally use that keyword as the anchor text. However, sometimes I can’t find a natural opportunity to use the target keyword or a relevant variation. How do you handle this? submitted by /u/EXCELANDACCESSEXPERT [link] [comments] from The SEO Authority https://ift.tt/U8xK5PG

Domain Authority vs Topical Authority

I know both these authorities are different, but both help in ranking is what I've understood. Having a Topical authority on a subject helps me in ranking for keywords on certain topics. So can we say that DA is to some extent influenced by TA? How far can TA take you when you have no DA and vice versa. Can TA over power DA? Is there a way to measure TA with some tool like Ahref? If given a Follow backlink with a good TA website would that add to DA? Note: Please do share some readable articles if you know off to refer. Mods sorry if I'm asking a very stupid question. Just learning stuff. submitted by /u/Affectionate-Tea3834 [link] [comments] from The SEO Authority https://ift.tt/VAGwl7F

Checked 100 old competitors in 2026: 85 are gone. Is niche publishing dead or reborn with AI?

So back in 2018 I started a small affiliate site. Did it for about 5 years—never made crazy money, just some decent side income—and eventually just abandoned it. Fast forward to now, I decided to get back into the exact same niche with a new domain, mostly because vibe coding with Claude made it stupidly easy to build actual web tools and calculators. Back then I couldn't code and couldn't afford devs, but now I can ship a working tool in like 20 minutes. I pulled up KeySearch to check on ~100 sites that were my main competitors back then. Honestly it’s a total ghost town: Around 80-85 of those domains don't even exist anymore. Fully deactivated. The few that are still live lost almost 95%+ of their traffic. Sites that used to pull 600k-700k monthly visits now get the same traffic as a 2-months-old blog. I know the old 2018 playbook (cheap product reviews for SEO) is long dead. But seeing the actual data still shocked me. Which brings me to my question for anyone s...

What in the hades happened to SEOQuake?

The UI has been updated, and they removed many features in their new version. There is no longer an SEOquake bar. I can't highlight domains (Overlay feature) in the SERP anymore. This was my power tool. Now I'm back to using the browser's find command. Any alternatives to highlighting domains in the SERP? submitted by /u/YogaPhotographer [link] [comments] from The SEO Authority https://ift.tt/DolasNc

Seeing huge click drop in google search console, but not in GA4 organic-google

I am seeing a huge click drop (~40%) in google search console since Aug 10 (3.6K -> 3.5K -> 3.2K -> 2.8K -> 2.3K), I see the rank went down as well. Strangely, the GA4 (traffic source - Google report) the number does not drop at all (4.5K -> 4.3K -> 4.1K -> 3.9K -> 4.1K, normal week-day pattern), my site is an app landing page, I verify the incoming user to the app using app log, confirm there is no drop. Is the Google search console data recently has issue? Or is there anything I missed? Any one experience the same? Thanks! submitted by /u/Due_Caramel3612 [link] [comments] from The SEO Authority https://ift.tt/63HokbF

One of the cheapest SEO wins you can make right now in the age of AI is to translate your website. My website increased impressions and clicks just by adding more locales.

A good friend and I keep going back and forth on best SEO practices. I keep coming up with new ideas and hacks to maximize impressions, clicks, or CTR, and he keeps being skeptical and course-correcting whenever he feels I went too much. One of the suggestions I came up with a few weeks ago was translation. My website increased in pages. It went from 170 pages to around 500, and I added around 8 locales in the first wave, of course all translated by AI. The mistake that we picked up on in this operpation was to not properly set up the language picker in its html structure so it redirects the googlebots for more effective crawling, the pages were orphaned, but as soon as we fixed it, the pages got indexed properly and the impressions and clicks skyrocketted. I started seeing more foreign queries and I started seeing my best performing page being picked up by other locales and languages and over a few weeks, it started averaging 1000 impressions with +40 clicks every. Last week I went...

Finally started seeing some movement in Google after months of basically nothing

I’ve been working on a relatively new website, and honestly, SEO has probably been the most confusing part of the whole thing. I was writing content, fixing pages, changing titles and descriptions, and doing all the usual things people recommend. But for a while, it felt like I was doing all of that for absolutely nothing. Google had indexed some of my pages, but they were barely getting impressions, never mind clicks. I knew backlinks were probably part of the problem because my website basically had none. The annoying thing is that everyone tells you to “build quality backlinks,” but nobody really explains how a small website is supposed to do that without already having an audience or spending half the day sending emails that nobody answers. I tried some manual outreach, but it was painfully slow. Most people didn’t reply, and some wanted more money for one link than I was comfortable spending. Maybe outreach works well once you know exactly what you’re doing, but as a beginner, ...

What A Claude Watermark Can & Can’t Tell You About Authorship via @sejournal, @MattGSouthern

Anthropic plans to watermark Claude text. This article explains what a watermark can confirm and why not finding one doesn't mean the text isn't AI-generated. The post What A Claude Watermark Can & Can’t Tell You About Authorship appeared first on Search Engine Journal . from Search Engine Journal https://ift.tt/47W1y8p

Are SEOs actually paying $300+ a month for AI visibility tracking?

I've been doing more AEO work recently and testing various platforms for tracking brand visibility across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Google AI results etc. One thing I can't quite get my head around is the pricing. Once you start tracking a decent number of prompts, competitors and AI engines, some of these tools get expensive very quickly. And ultimately I'm mainly trying to answer: Does the brand appear? Which competitors appear instead? Which prompts are we weak for? What sources are the AI engines citing? Which URLs/domains keep getting referenced? Is visibility improving after we make changes? What did each AI engine actually say? I wanted this data for my own AEO work without worrying about prompt allowances, so we ended up putting together Llumo using a combination of open-source technology and functionality we're building ourselves. We've taken a BYOK approach. The platform itself is free. You add your own API keys and pay the underlying pro...

Decent traffic on Google vs no traffic on Bing

I started doing SEO for a website on both the platforms. While Google picked up in the first week itself, Bing has been weird with a few spikes with a couple of impressions on certain days and no traffic on most of the days. What can I do to get some traffic from Bing? submitted by /u/Affectionate-Tea3834 [link] [comments] from The SEO Authority https://ift.tt/bI6plS8

The GEO Trust Gap: SEOs Want The Data, But Not The Platforms Selling It via @sejournal, @DuaneForrester

Practitioners value AI visibility data highly and won't fund the platforms selling it. New survey data on what's actually blocking the category. The post The GEO Trust Gap: SEOs Want The Data, But Not The Platforms Selling It appeared first on Search Engine Journal . from Search Engine Journal https://ift.tt/oSOgpq7

Does this seem like a reasonable job duty list?

I've never done any sort of weekly reporting. Tracking, sure, but reporting every week seems dumb to me. It was recently given to me by a new manager that has no SEO experience whatsoever and I fear that they just had GPT put together a list for me. Is it just me, or does it seem like a lot of things I'll need to over explain and/or not always have opportunities for? Duties: Weekly Deliverables: Website Performance Dashboard SEO Performance Report: Organic traffic Keyword rankings Search Console performance Technical SEO issues Top-performing pages Recommended optimizations Website Page QA and Optimization Recommendations: each week, choose a new landing/website page on our website to audit and create recommendations on how to improve the page Monthly Deliverables: GEO Performance Report: AI Visibility AI citations Brand mentions Content opportunities for AI search Digital Marketing Performance Report (including campaigns) Conversion Funnel Analysis: Ide...

My domain expired and I don't have a backup. How do I rebuild it?

One of my domains expired a few months ago. The hosting provider send numerous emails, but unfortunately I didn't see them and now my website is gone. I contacted hosting immediately to explain the issue and to see if they had a backup available, but they do not. The website had about 2k organic traffic per month and I love to rebuild it as quickly as possible. I don't have a copy of the website or from any of the content I have written. What would be the best way to rebuild the most important pages of the website that drove most traffic? All advice is welcome! EDIT: I think I wasn't clear. I still own the domain name. The hosting was terminated, so all the website's contents are gone. submitted by /u/EntrepeNetherlands [link] [comments] from The SEO Authority https://ift.tt/80Bf5x7

Am I underpaid? $46K SEO account manager in Austin, 3 clients solo

Hey guys, I’m trying to figure out if I’m underpaid at my current agency, and whether my experience justifies asking for a raise. I make $46K a year with no college degree. I’ve got 3–4 years of freelance experience behind me, but this job taught me a LOT — it’s my first agency. Here I handle backlink management (we outsource the actual building), gap keyword research, training interns and assistants, local GBP optimization, page optimizations, content optimizations, Bing updates, Yelp optimizations, content briefs, and content writing — all of it across 3 clients, on my own. Before this I had some paid ads experience (freelance, never agency, but I’m decent at it), plus GA4 and GTM setup skills. I’m in Austin, TX. The other account manager has a master’s and I don’t, so part of me wonders if I’m being ungrateful even asking. We both carry the same load though. I graduate October 9th with a bachelor’s in marketing, which I’m hoping strengthens my case. And honestly, the stress is s...

need a feedback on website seo and performance structure

I’ve recently been working on optimizing my website to improve its organic search visibility and user experience. Could someone take a quick look and suggest how I can improve page performance and technical SEO? Any constructive feedback would be greatly appreciated! Here is the link to my site: https://byasna.com/ submitted by /u/asnadigitalmarketer [link] [comments] from The SEO Authority https://ift.tt/PJc4bs1

Profike views way up, but searches are not.

Hi all. My client's profile views on Google Business Profile are up over 300 percent this month, but his searches have only increased by two according to Google Business Profile's Report. I'm trying to understand this; the only thing that's changed is SEO. If searches have barely gone up, how are his views up so much, and what are some possible reasons? Thank you. submitted by /u/Kalaian [link] [comments] from The SEO Authority https://ift.tt/SN5nP8H

Sudden click collapse (impressions stable) starting exact date, no manual action/security issue — what am I missing?

Site: kuwaitcalculator.com free Kuwait-expat resource site, 65 pages indexed, been growing steadily since May. The pattern: Clicks dropped sharply starting Aug 2, while impressions stayed relatively intact. E.g. one query went from real clicks to 0 clicks / 787 impressions overnight. Multiple queries show the same shape still getting impressions at similar positions, but CTR collapsed to near-zero across a big chunk of them. as soon as adsense was approved , all went down , am i doing somehing wrong ? What I've ruled out so far: Security Issues: clean Manual Actions: clean Core Web Vitals: not enough data either way Actual live search results: pulled a few queries manually, site shows up normally, no weird snippet, no warning badge Page indexing report shows 65 indexed 77 not-indexed, with the not-indexed pages mostly falling under "Page with redirect" (old .html URLs 301'ing to clean URLs expected behavior, not an error) and a handful of genuine stale 404s...

With Google prioritizing AI Overviews and user-centric content, what SEO strategies are actually driving sustainable traffic for you right now?

SEO has shifted drastically over the past couple of years. Between major algorithm updates, the rise of zero-click searches, and AI-generated answers taking up top real estate on Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs), traditional keyword-stuffing and generic blog posts just don't cut it anymore I’d love to know what is working for fellow SEOs, agencies, and site owners in 2026: * E-E-A-T & Branding: Are you focusing more on personal branding, expert quotes, and first-hand experience to stand out? * Technical & UX: How much focus are you shifting toward site speed, structured data, and conversational search optimization? * Backlinks: Is traditional link building losing its potency compared to digital PR and brand mentions? * Alternative Channels: Are you actively diversifying into forums (like Reddit/Quora), YouTube, or social platforms to capture search intent outside of Google? What strategies have helped your rankings survive (or thrive), and what old tactics have you co...

After years of ranking, competitor takes over most keywords using hundreds of AI written articles

Ultra niche site and not many competitors. Been ranking first for most keywords since 2015. Recently 3 year old competitor started ramping up SEO game. Past couple of months released hundreds of low effort AI articles. Didn't think much of it. They have 10-15 articles published on some days, super low effort even the AI prompt wasn't given much thought. Whats the best defense strategy here? Would ramping up the blog with better articles being us back up in the rankings? I can't believe Google considers the bullshit they put out as authority. submitted by /u/Rondooooo [link] [comments] from The SEO Authority https://ift.tt/HMDJ8jh

Can a website be penalized forever?

Quick context: A friend of mine had a decent DA website - 26 which she created 7-8 years back. She initially focused on it and eventually lost interest as SEO was too hard for her. Focused on Psychology today listings. Last year, someone injected Malware into her website which looked somewhat like a Captcha kind of a pop up. However I checked her Search Console and since there were just 1-2 impressions a day max and probably Google's crawlers didn't crawl the website there wasn't any manual action. I've recently started publishing articles for her however the maximum impressions she has gotten are 50 a day. There is definitely an uptick in traffic but not enough impressions. There are more than 50 pages on the website. What can I do so that she gets more impressions? Can this be a consequence of her website being marked by Google as Spam? Any steps I can troubleshoot this? submitted by /u/Affectionate-Tea3834 [link] [comments] from The S...

Competitor copied my site and built 190k backlinks

So I run an informational website purely as a hobby, just for fun of course. It doesn't generate any money (but there's real potential in the form of lead generation). I recently discovered another website that clearly copied my overall layout, article titles, sections, and site structure. Of course I don't own the design, but it's clear they were influenced by my website I have backlinks (I never reached out to anyone) from industry professionals and journalists because they found the information on my website interesting. I looked up their website on an SEO analytics tool, and they have over 190,000 spammy backlinks in under half a year The strange part is that... I can tell they're trying to turn it into a legitimate informational website, since they've reached out to industry professionals for articles. So this doesn't seem like some low-effort spammy website. This person is clearly putting in some elbow grease to try to... "outperform" me in...

Change target Keyword to longtail for programmatic SEO pages

I was too ambitious when I set up a programmatic SEO campaign and went for a keyword set the site has no chance to rank for in the next years probably. I want to change the focus to a long tail set which is way more likely to work as it is already ranking without being optimized for it. I need advice on the slug change. Should I keep the slug and just optimize the rest or is it okay to change the slug and redirect more than 100 pages. I am just worried that it would have a bad effect as it is for so many pages. submitted by /u/LeoOverflow [link] [comments] from The SEO Authority https://ift.tt/uboGsI6

I Helped Scale Google Ads To Billions – Here’s How I’d Build An AI Search Strategy Today

Impression share ran the auction years. Citation share runs this one. A 90-day sprint for measuring and winning AI search visibility. The post I Helped Scale Google Ads To Billions – Here’s How I’d Build An AI Search Strategy Today appeared first on Search Engine Journal . from Search Engine Journal https://ift.tt/L0Sa4fA

is it even possible for a foreigner to get indexed on baidu/sogou or is it just a waste of time

i tried to add my website at baidu: i was able to create account using my real phone number(not chinese, i got a call from robot that said sms code in my native language) but to add website i need to fill out a lot of details like real chinese name and phone number. like, adding my real foreinger data - no problem, but it seems that there is no form for it(they wanna only chinese info) sogou - its not even possible to enter non chinese phone number to create account. maybe its worth trying to create acc using third party services (wechat/qq/other) but idk submitted by /u/ComprehensiveBag8846 [link] [comments] from The SEO Authority https://ift.tt/FmPcHuC

The Future Of Discoverability

Articles alone stopped being a viable product. A discoverability framework for publishers: passive, active, owned – plus the intent-led journalism that gets you there. The post The Future Of Discoverability appeared first on Search Engine Journal . from Search Engine Journal https://ift.tt/dorNEXR

Has anyone else noticed this with Google Business Profile posts?

While reviewing a client's July Google Business Profile performance, we noticed something interesting. On the days we published a Google Business Profile post, profile interactions consistently increased compared to surrounding days. Two of those days recorded 26 and 34 interactions, making them among the highest engagement days of the month. Obviously this isn't enough to prove that GBP posts improve rankings. There are too many variables involved. But it does make me wonder whether regular posting encourages more users who already discover your profile to engage with it. Has anyone else tracked this over several months? Have you tracked this yourself, or do your GBP posts have little to no impact on profile interactions? submitted by /u/curiousone-890 [link] [comments] from The SEO Authority https://ift.tt/JKLSpHw

What Top Stories Inside AI Overviews Means For Publishers And Brands In 2026 And Beyond via @sejournal, @gregjarboe

Most publishers think robots.txt keeps them out of AI Overviews. It doesn't. John Shehata's data shows what the wrong setting actually costs newsrooms. The post What Top Stories Inside AI Overviews Means For Publishers And Brands In 2026 And Beyond appeared first on Search Engine Journal . from Search Engine Journal https://ift.tt/qulmsWp

Otterly says a competitor has "100% likelihood to buy." From 15 prompts over 14 days. How are you defending numbers like this to clients?

Was poking at Otterly and exported a full brand report for a random SaaS to see what a client would actually receive. 10 pages. Some things that stopped me: - Page 5 has a "Likelihood to buy" column. Semrush 100%. Writesonic 92%. No idea where that comes from. Sample was 15 prompts over 14 days. - One competitor had 1 mention total and got reported as "1% share of voice." One observation, printed as a percentage. - The brand I ran it for is invisible, so pages 3, 4 and 9 are just columns of zeros. "Top 10 prompts by brand mentions" - all 0. - One heading literally reads "My top 0 URLs". - It lists the prompts but never shows what ChatGPT actually said. So there's nothing in the document a client could check. Not dunking on Otterly specifically, every tool I've looked at does roughly the same thing. But it got me wondering about the day-one problem: a new client is invisible by definition, that's why they hired you. So th...

AI assistants cite my site 10,000+ times a month. It sends me almost no traffic. My data after 12 weeks of optimizing for AEO.

I run a streaming-availability site focused on Asian markets, 12 weeks old. Instead of fighting for traditional SERPs against IMDb and the big aggregators, I optimized for AI answers from day one. Sharing the numbers because the results surprised me in both directions. What the data shows (Microsoft Clarity AI visibility + my own referral logs): Rank #1 cited source in my niche's query set, with 65 percent share of all page citations. Ahead of Netflix's own domain and the big aggregators for those queries. 10,000+ Copilot citations in 30 days, plus growing ChatGPT and Gemini citations. Direct referral traffic from all of that: a fraction of one percent of sessions. The assistants answer with my data and the user never visits. What actually got the citations, in order of impact as far as I can tell: Country-specific long-tail pages. "Where to watch X in Pakistan" beats "where to watch X" because nobody authoritative covers the specific version. Comp...

Open Knowledge Format v0.2 Adds A Trust Layer – No AI Agent Reads It Yet via @sejournal, @slobodanmanic

No agent reads your OKF bundle. Write one anyway: v0.2's provenance and staleness fields expose every claim your website cannot defend. The post Open Knowledge Format v0.2 Adds A Trust Layer – No AI Agent Reads It Yet appeared first on Search Engine Journal . from Search Engine Journal https://ift.tt/qWxJLOH

Advice On A Project

Hey everyone, I'm building a tool in the SEO field. It generates monthly client reports automatically. You enter your numbers and what you did that month, it writes the full professional report and exports a PDF. The advice I want is, if a tool like this saved you 2-3 hours per client per month on report writing, would $28/month feel fair, too expensive, or too cheap? And what would make you actually pay for it versus just using ChatGPT? I appreciate the comments in advance, thanks! submitted by /u/VertexTheDreadLord [link] [comments] from The SEO Authority https://ift.tt/aObWdiU

SEO beginner: Can I rank a website using mostly AI? What tools would you recommend?

I'm a complete SEO beginner and want to rank a new website, but I'd like AI to do as much of the work as possible. Is it realistic to handle almost the entire SEO process with AI (e.g. ChatGPT agents and other tools), while I mainly review the results? I'm looking for a workflow that covers everything: Keyword research Competitor analysis Topical maps Content briefs Writing & optimization Internal linking Technical SEO Publishing Rank tracking If you were starting from scratch today, which AI + SEO tools would you use, and what would your end-to-end workflow look like? Is anyone already doing this successfully? submitted by /u/Suspicious-Good-4492 [link] [comments] from The SEO Authority https://ift.tt/iE0UWy6

Question around using a subdomain

Hi community, I have a question I wanted to pose. I am the owner of a teaching company called thedegreegap.com, and I am building out a PSEO subject X location matrix for local tutoring inquiries. My actual website, thedegreegap.com, is where operations happen and online tutoring occurs. I built the study.thedegreegap.com to run as my lead funnel, but I am not sure how feasible this is. I run in a quite competitive space, so I am finding it hard to rank study.thedegreegap.com at the moment. It took me a year and a half to build up the domain authority of thedegreegap.com and to rank for those terms. I've been running this for three months, and my impressions are at 450 a day, which is a gradual increase, but it's still ranking on page three or four at the moment, even for long-tail terms. I am wondering if I should move this whole website to thedegreegap.com and have it run on there. The only issue that I am finding is that it's built on the Hugo framework, and I don...

Are certain website/business models types no longer worth pursuing due to Google AI summaries?

Anecdotally, it seems like certain websites are more likely to be hurt by AI summaries. For example, anything educational or instructional, e.g., repair guides. If these sites rely on traffic for advertising revenue, it seems like it's going to be substantially harder if not impossible for them to survive. Google's AI summaries will just tell people what they need to know (even if inaccurate) and most people will move on without going to the website. Other sites that offer a product or service (e.g., e-commerce) where you need to actually visit the site seem less at risk. Curious what others think. submitted by /u/y0nkers [link] [comments] from The SEO Authority https://ift.tt/fx73LVW

What are things pages? How to verify if a page is thin?

Mods please don't mark this as low quality because Thin page is a term everyone uses but no one knows what it is. I'm new to SEO and have been researching thin pages as it's widely used but everywhere I get vague/subjective answers. Some of the thin page definitions: Low word count Duplicate content Affiliate pages Auto generated text Doorway pages Questions: If I add more words in an article does that make it a better page? If yes what's the range? Most of the people are using LLMs to create content so it can never be duplicated. A lot of people here say that their AI generated pages are ranking pretty good. How do you make the auto generated pages look human generated? Any specifications? For instance: Like we link back the source Focus on internal linking Do these 2 things make the auto generated content look human generated? I'm looking to understand this a little objectively like how to go about this subjective definition. Thanks in advanc...

Would You Still Invest in PBNs in 2026?

I own 450+ PBNs across multiple niches and run my own SEO agency. Building links has never really been the challenge for me, and neither has growing organic traffic for client websites. But lately, I've been questioning my own strategy. Instead of expanding my PBN network, would it make more sense to invest that time into growing real organic traffic on the sites I already own and turn them into authority websites? If you had to choose, would you rather own hundreds of PBNs or a smaller portfolio of websites with genuine traffic and brand value? I'd genuinely love to hear what experienced SEOs think. Has anyone here made that shift? submitted by /u/shareetariq [link] [comments] from The SEO Authority https://ift.tt/lWm8pSa