Author: Ryuzaki

Google’s AI Mode is increasingly citing Google itself — and often sending users back to another Google search, according to new SE Ranking research. Why we care. AI search is meant to surface the best sources on the web. If Google increasingly cites itself, you may see fewer direct links and less traffic as more users stay inside Google. The details. Google.com was the most cited source in AI Mode answers, accounting for 17.42% of all citations, SE Ranking found. That makes Google.com the most referenced domain — more than the next six domains combined: YouTube, Facebook, Reddit, Amazon, Indeed,…

Google’s Liz Reid, VP and head of Search, drew a clearer line between Google Search and Gemini but said it’s still unclear whether the products will converge, diverge further, or be superseded. The big picture. Reid said Search is an information product focused on helping people connect with the web, while Gemini is centered more on assisting with productivity and creation. She added that the boundaries are fluid, especially as AI products evolve quickly and agentic experiences reshape how people use the internet. What she’s saying. In short, Reid said Search and Gemini share technology but have different product “north…

Google is reaching out directly to advertisers via email, requiring them to confirm whether their campaigns contain EU political ads — with a hard deadline of March 31st. Why we care. This isn’t optional. EU regulation now requires Google to verify political ad status across all active campaigns, and advertisers who don’t act before the deadline could face compliance issues. What’s happening. Google is asking every advertiser to declare whether their existing campaigns include EU political ads. The requirement applies to all current campaigns and must be completed by March 31, 2026. How to comply: Google has outlined three ways…

Until a few years ago, schema helped search engines extract basic facts and display visual enhancements like star ratings and sitelinks.  However, in the AI-driven search world, schema plays a different and fundamental role for local SEO, helping Google and other AI systems understand who you are, what you do, where you operate, and how confidently your information can be reused. Improving rankings isn’t as relevant. Now, schema helps reduce confusion for Google and reinforces your business as a stable, trustworthy local entity across traditional search, local packs, AI Overviews, rich results, and external AI platforms. Let’s dig into how…

Do you think you’re able to answer the question every marketing leader dreads hearing from leadership: “Why isn’t our marketing effort doing more?” How do you even go about answering that? Let’s look at what I mean using a fictional location analytics company we’ll call Acme Area Analytics. The Acme team reviews its reports. Nothing appears broken. Campaigns are running, leads are still coming in, and performance metrics are mostly stable. Yet sales momentum isn’t clearly accelerating, and it’s hard to pinpoint why. Insights are scattered across site analytics, brand monitoring and SEO tools, CRM systems, and paid media dashboards.…

If I hear “always be testing” one more time, I might scream. It was great advice in 2016. In 2026, it’s a great way to light your budget on fire. That mantra made sense when budgets were loose and platforms forgave a lot of chaos. Launch five audience tests simultaneously? Sure, why not! Swap out three creative variables at once? Go for it! But the rules have changed. Our new reality has tighter budgets, longer learning phases, and signal fragmentation everywhere. One poorly structured test can distort your performance for weeks, not days. That performance hit compounds fast. Modern experimentation…

Video advertising has never been easier to distribute. Platforms can deliver impressions and views at an enormous scale across YouTube, paid social, short-form video, and connected TV. But distribution isn’t the same as effectiveness. Many campaigns generate impressive platform metrics while producing little measurable business impact. The problem usually isn’t targeting, budget, or platform choice. It’s a deeper strategic issue: campaigns are optimized for outputs like views and impressions rather than outcomes like attention, persuasion, and action. Most video ads fail because they misunderstand attention Poor targeting, limited budgets, and platform choice are rarely the real problem. The bigger issue…

Google AI Max drives revenue but at a higher cost, according to Smarter Ecommerce’s Mike Ryan, who analyzed 250+ campaigns. Outcomes vary, and much more testing is still needed. Why we care. AI Max isn’t a minor update. It’s Google’s most significant reimagining of Search campaigns in years, shifting away from keyword syntax toward pure intent matching. For you, that’s both an opportunity (possible growth) and a risk (an efficiency tradeoff). By the numbers. The result of the analysis: Median revenue: +13% Median CPA: +16% ROAS range: +42% to -35% Advertisers who activate AI Max typically see 14% more conversions…

While OpenAI becomes increasingly independent from Microsoft and, by extension, Bing, has it replaced this new found freedom for a dependent relationship with Google? Has OpenAI’s increasing independence from Microsoft and, by extension, Bing, become an overly dependent relationship with Google? Our study comparing shopping query fan-outs (QFOs) in ChatGPT from both Google and Bing carousels seems to have provided at least somewhat of an answer to that question. Let’s take a look at how this study was conceived and what we found. In November 2025, a few researchers in the AI research space, including myself, detected a mysterious field…

For 20 years, the web has run on a simple trade: publish content that meets a person’s needs, rank in search, earn traffic, then monetize that traffic through products, services, affiliate referrals, or ads. Zero-click answers and AI search are rewriting that relationship. The new question is whether AI will cite you as a source — and whether that visibility can turn into revenue. To understand who gets included and who gets routed around, I ran over 200 AI visibility audits across 10 industries. The pattern was consistent: Most sites are easy to parse, but hard to justify citing. And…