Google’s Search Relations team recently pushed a simple but important point: tool-generated scores for technical SEO audits can be misleading. Martin Splitt laid it out in a Search Central Lightning Talk and offered a three-step framework that puts site context ahead of raw numbers. The takeaway? Tools are useful, but they’re not the whole story. […]
OpenAI has rolled out GPT-5.1 Instant and GPT-5.1 Thinking, two updates that nudge ChatGPT toward friendlier conversation and smarter reasoning. The new versions start arriving today for paid users and will reach free accounts afterward. The company says the changes respond to user requests for AI that feels more natural and more useful at the […]
Google has publicly defended its enforcement of site reputation abuse policies after the European Commission announced an investigation into whether the company unfairly demotes news publishers in search results. The company called the probe “misguided” and warned it could harm millions of European users. Pandu Nayak, Google’s Chief Scientist for Search, wrote the response. Background […]
There’s a quiet revolution unfolding in search ranking, and it comes with a neat, almost obvious idea: stop making models do work they don’t need to do. BlockRank, a new approach from Google DeepMind, does exactly that. It’s an evolution of in-context ranking (ICR) that makes sophisticated semantic search not just powerful, but practical for […]
Mozilla isn’t chasing the flashy new AI browsers. Instead, it’s quietly giving people a new choice inside the browser they already use. Firefox now lets users switch their search engine to Perplexity, an AI answer engine that returns conversational answers with citations rather than a list of links. What this change actually does Turn it […]
Google may have to shake up its search engine in the UK so people really get a choice over which search tool they use. This comes after the Competition and Markets Authority granted Google “strategic market status” under a new law that took effect in January. Sounds technical? Sure. But it could reshape how you […]
DNA sequencing has reshaped biomedical research. It’s how doctors track down rare hereditary disorders. It’s how tumor mutations get pinpointed, molecule by molecule. And when the pandemic hit, next-generation sequencing let labs around the world decode and monitor the SARS-CoV-2 genome almost in real time. Yet there’s been a snag: billions of genetic reads scattered […]
It’s not every day that the digital marketing landscape shifts beneath our feet. But here we are, standing on the cusp of Generative Engine Optimization, or GEO—what many are calling the next evolutionary leap beyond traditional SEO. If you’ve spent years chasing that number-one organic link, buckle up. The goalposts have moved, and this time, […]
New research from BrightEdge reveals an intriguing shift in how Google’s AI Overviews (AIO) lines up with traditional organic search results. The headline number is clear: 54% of AI Overviews citations match pages that already rank organically. That leaves 46% that don’t. So what does that actually mean for SEOs and publishers? Let’s unpack it. […]
A click. A snippet. A glimpse of an AI Overview at the top of search results—that’s the new battleground for attention. Everyone’s heard that schema markup can nudge search engines, but does its quality really move the needle on AI-powered snippets? To find out, we ran a simple, controlled experiment—and what unfolded was as clear […]
