Some of the biggest themes, developments and issues we talked about in 2025

Happy Holidays to all and thanks for your continued support!

Next week most of our content will move behind a paywall; please continue to support us by subscribing. We're thankful to all our readers and subscribers. And to

DOJ's Google Reckoning The US Department of Justice (DOJ) filed its Proposed Final Judgment in US v Google, which the company lost earlier this year. Here's

Google's Second Antitrust Trial Google's antitrust search trial got much more attention than its sibling adtech trial, which recently concluded in federal court in Virginia. To

AIOs: More Clicks than Snippets Google has repeatedly claimed searchers are responding positively to AI Overviews (AIOs) and that they're driving more engagement and clicks than if they

Please read this message about Near Media's future. Will Trump 'Pardon' Google? Just as Trump will now escape criminal liability, Google appears poised to avoid any

Bing Optimization = SearchGPT SEO? The Bing search index is a significant contributor to ChatGPT results, according to multiple sources (e.g., here, here) – although this comes as no surprise given

Please read this message about Near Media's future. Local SEO for SearchGPT Yesterday David conveyed his first impressions of SearchGPT, now integrated into ChatGPT. He concluded, "SearchGPT

Please read this message about Near Media's future. Meta's AI Search Engine Meta is reportedly building a new search engine for its "conversational assistant"

Apple's Slow AI Rollout Apple's vision of a "personal digital assistant" reportedly goes all the way back to 1987. It took a big leap

Raghavan Outfoxed I met Nick Fox years ago, when he gave me a short demo of what became AdWords Express. He was matter-of-fact and unassuming. Now he's Google&

Yes, Directories Matter In 2014 - 2015, "local citations" and "NAP consistency" were seen by many SEOs as critical to local search visibility. Since that time,

Is AI Search Rising? There's an ongoing debate about whether Google is seeing any usage erosion from social sites or AI. Survey data suggest yes, while behavioral data

Breaking Up Google In its filing in the remedies phase of Google's antitrust trial, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) confirmed it was considering asking the court to

Google Loyalty Drops 16 Positions Brand Keys' 2024 Top 100 Brand Loyalty Index is out. This is essentially a promotional tool for Brand Keys' consultancy and normally I

AI Organized Pages Go Live At Google I/O earlier this year Google Head of Search Liz Reid teased "AI Organized Pages," which as the name suggests use

Places Sites Land in North America The Places Sites carousel is one of Google's accommodations for the Digital Markets Act in Europe. It's an effort to

Local Review Solicitation Best Practices Reputation management platform GatherUp is out with a useful report about review solicitation best practices. (Mike was one of the co-founders but is no longer

Reddit the Search Engine The widely cited article "Google Search Is Dying" appeared in February 2022. It was really a discussion about Reddit as a search engine. Nearly

Google Badge of Shame Earlier this week Mike Blumenthal discovered that suspected review abuse in the UK can lead to a 30 day review ban. As a bonus it comes

Conversions: Email Still Kicks Ass Unbounce has released its latest Conversion Benchmarking Report (form required). The study contains data from 57 million conversions and 41 thousand landing pages. The median

Google's Legal Woes Mount In many ways Google has never been more successful or powerful; 2023 ad revenue was $238 billion. But the company has probably never been

Brand Building Critical for SEO Since the revelations from the Google antitrust trial and Search API leak, there's been renewed interest among search marketers in branding – for several

It's On: Yelp v. Google Yelp has arguably been Google's chief antagonist over the years. For example, it was Yelp's behind-the-scenes lobbying of European

The AIOpocalypse Hasn't Come The AIOpocalypse – the anticipated drop in traffic from Google's AI Overviews (AIOs) – hasn't materialized, at least not yet. During the

SearchGPT Uses Bing Index BrightEdge has done a fairly in-depth review of SearchGPT, including side-by-side comparisons with Perplexity and Google AI Overviews. The generally favorable analysis opines, "SearchGPT'

Local Is Key for SearchGPT My earlier hot take on SearchGPT is that it's pretty good already and could be used as a Google replacement for many/most

SearchGPT's Promising Start SearchGPT is already a credible challenger for Google – from the jump (as they say). As a paid subscriber I got access this morning, as I&

End of the Google Era? After the court's finding that Google had illegally exercised monopoly power to maintain search dominance and "earn monopoly profits" from paid

Google Monopoly Ruling: The Fallout Unless you've been in a coma, you know that Google was found this week to be an illegal monopoly in violation of the

Google Loses Antitrust Case Contrary to what you may understand, it's not illegal to be a monopoly in the US. Rather, it's illegal to abuse your

Google AIOs Depress Ad Clicks Based on an early analysis, Tinuiti found that AI Overviews depressed ad clicks on non-branded keyword mobile SERPs. This comes from their Q2 digital ads

SearchGPT: The Anti-Google Right after we published the newsletter Thursday, SearchGPT was announced. This comes after months of rumors and speculation (and disappointment). However, it's only available to

Apple Maps on the Web Apple has had a Mac desktop Maps application for years. But now Apple Maps is expanding to the web: Safari for the desktop (Mac) and

Google Abandons Cookie Deprecation A mixture of UK regulatory objections and ad-industry inertia/resistance has prompted Google to abandon third party cookie deprecation, after multiple delays and deferred deadlines. In

Study: Places Sites in Travel At Near Media we've been documenting the impact (or lack thereof) of Google's new DMA-SERP features (e.g., Places Sites) on

Blueprint for GBP Optimization Although Google has "disappeared" most AI Overviews (AIOs), they still represent a (potential) competitive challenge to content publishers. Local is one area that has

Fake Reviews Need Notice + Takedown Mike Blumenthal reported on a $5 million fine for a Washington-state plastic surgeon who had been faking reviews and using NDAs and payments to suppress

Study: 29% of Clicks Stay on Google On a recent Near Media podcast Rand Fishkin teased a new US-EU zero-click study. He's now released it. What it shows

Heavy AI Fans Use Google Less Google has repeatedly said users like AI Overviews. At least one survey seems to partly support that claim. But that survey also has bad

Product Search: More Problems for Big G Multiple surveys in the market (e.g., here, here) illustrate seemingly growing challenges for Google in retaining younger users (GenZ). A very recent

Overly 'SEO'd' Sites Appear to Suffer A new "winners and losers" study from Cyrus Shepard suggests that SEOs may need to rethink what he&

AI Overviews Make Search Worse That's the case being made by Jess Peck in her article, "How and Why Google Made its Own Product Worse." She

Apple Intelligence: Hot or Not? People appear to be split on the significance and potential impact of Apple Intelligence. Some found the WWDC announcements unimpressive and the much-anticipated integration of

Apple Intelligence: Better Siri + ChatGPT At Apple's WWDC event yesterday, as expected, the company announced numerous AI features and integrations, including ChatGPT. But it didn't lead

Survey: Search Frustrations Growing A new survey from Scorpion, conducted by Dynata (h/t SEL), paints a picture of growing user frustration with "search." The survey of 1,

The 'Why' Behind Citations' Decline It's now clear from the Search API documents leak that Google carefully tracks and grades clicks and links using clickstream

AIOs Not a Traffic Doomsday Weapon For roughly a year the search world has been anticipating a kind of traffic apocalypse, when AI Overviews (AIOs) rolled out. Several early studies

Google Rides the Clickstream The various exhibits from the recently concluded Google antitrust trial surprised many, delighted others and contradicted Google's repeated public statements about clicks and other

Reddit Colonizes Local I can see the future Atlantic headline now: "How Reddit Ruined Google." Reddit has been showing up more often and for more types of search

AI Overviews = More Traffic? Siege Media CEO Ross Hudgens initially predicted an "11% to 18% decrease in traffic from AI Overviews." That's much smaller than many

Google AI Overviews Backlash? Google is formally rolling out AI Overviews (SGE), on a limited basis, to US users this week and to other markets thereafter. CEO Sundar Pichai'

ChatGPT: Search Successor After anticipating a "search engine" and direct Google competitor, what OpenAI announced instead was ChatGPT-4o ("o" for "omni") – an improved voice

Google Ad-Price Manipulation Last week Google and the US Department of Justice (DOJ) presented closing arguments in the company's long-running antitrust case that focused on Google's

Google's Big Publisher Problem HouseFresh is back to warn us about how Google's favoritism of big brand sites is pushing out independent publishers. In February, the

OpenAI Search Imminent? There's been speculation that OpenAI is preparing a more direct search challenge to Google. That chatter intensified over the past few days, as the subdomain

Google: SGE Is Boosting Search On Google's earnings call, following its "blowout" Q1, the company was upbeat about SGE. CEO Sundar Pichai argued that including AI

Man vs. Money Machine If you haven't yet read Ed Zitron's incendiary article "The Man Who Killed Google Search" you've probably read

Meta.ai: Another Go at Local Last week Meta released its updated AI assistant (Meta.ai), also integrated into Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger. It's the latest consumer-facing

Paid Search Is Winning Last year was good for digital advertising, which grew more than 7% and brought in a total of $225 billion in the US. That's

Rethinking Content Strategy The question for many SEOs and content marketers going forward is: how much effort to put into content; how much can we integrate AI to expedite things?

Google's <30 Problem Contrary to early pronouncements, when ChatGPT came out, Google is in no danger of immediately being disrupted by AI. But there are worrying signs

Google: DMA Hurting Local Biz On Friday Google released some early information about the impact of its Digital Markets Act (DMA) compliance measures in Europe. (Mike and David were in

Google May Put AI Behind Paywall When Google changed Bard's name to Gemini and introduced Gemini Advanced in February, the company also rolled out a $20 per month

Rumor: SGE Will Launch at Google I/O Google has begun exposing SGE results to some users not enrolled in Google Labs. And there's new SEO speculation that

Maps & Search: Lists + Itineraries Google is further expanding the social and planning features of Maps. The company is adding new lists and list-making tools. Rolling out in roughly 40

SGE Is Coming for Brands Google has started to expose SGE results to users outside of Google Labs. There's been much hand-wringing in the SEO community over anticipated

Can Perplexity Succeed Where Others Failed? When OpenAI launched in 2022, many perceived an existential threat to Google. Bing quickly integrated AI chat into its search results and a host

Google Getting Too Much Credit? Seeking to clarify what he regards as a widespread misinterpretation of his earlier "traffic referral" study, SparkToro's Rand Fishkin published a

Perplexity Taps Yelp for Local Search Perplexity has integrated Yelp data (Fusion API) into its results for improved local answers. The API offers full access to Yelp's data

Zero-Click Search 3X on Mobile Two simultaneous reports provide a snapshot of the current state of the "open web," who's sending and who's receiving

Survey: 77% Look to Multiple Review Sites BrightLocal's 2024 consumer reviews survey report contains numerous interesting findings, though I can only discuss a few of them here. Overall,

Google Search Quality: Up or Down? Microsoft almost sold Bing to Apple in 2018. Reportedly, "search quality" at Bing was the obstacle. The consensus view is that Google&

Google DMA Changes: No Impact In anticipation of Digital Markets Act (DMA) enforcement in March, Google introduced new search-results features to comply within Europe. Google is one of six "

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.

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

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

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

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,

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

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

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

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.

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