Search & SEO
Search engines, ranking, indexing and discoverability.
Local Search Intent Decoded: What Geographic Queries Really Tell You About Your Audience
Local search intent is defined as the goal a searcher has when they type a query into a search engine when seeking a resource in a specific geographic location. The local searcher could be looking for a nearby restaurant, a plumber in their city, or store hours for a business they plan to visit. Understanding local search intent helps marketers optimize content and listings to match what users actually want when they include location-based queries.
Google Must Open Up Search Rankings and Share User Data Under New UK Order
The UK's Competition and Markets Authority has issued conduct requirements forcing Google to rank search results using objective criteria, provide advance notice of ranking changes, and allow users to port their search data to authorised third-party services such as rewards platforms and personalised recommendation tools.
How to Filter Your Search Console Reports by Social and Video Platform Properties
Google Search Console now lets you verify Instagram, TikTok, X, and YouTube as 'platform properties' — a new property type that surfaces performance data for your social and video posts directly inside the Performance report, Insights report, and Achievements sections.
ChatGPT’s Dual Citation Realities: Only 25.6% Overlap Between Instant and Thinking Modes
A Semrush and Kevin Indig study reveals ChatGPT’s two reasoning modes cite nearly entirely different sources, reshaping brand visibility strategy across buyer journeys.
SEO’s publishing golden rule is dead — here’s why more content now hurts your visibility
As AI-driven search retrieval replaces traditional document ranking, indiscriminate content publishing creates semantic dilution and internal competition — Learn how consolidation, authority density, and structural clarity are replacing the old "more is better" SEO playbook.
Why Traffic Think Tank Staying Private Is Actually Good News for SEOs
Search Engine Land's Traffic Think Tank will continue operating as a private Slack community while expanding member benefits through enhanced Search Engine Land integrations, giving SEO professionals continued access to exclusive industry insights and networking.
Why Advanced Site Architecture Is the New SEO Frontier for AI and Search
Advanced architecture is no longer just technical structure — it determines whether your content can be found, understood, and surfaced by search engines and AI systems. Insights from SMX Now on July 15 highlight how site architecture has become the critical intersection of SEO, AI discoverability, and user experience.
Entity SEO and the Publisher Survival Playbook: What Search Engine Land's Traffic Data Actually Shows
Search Engine Land demonstrates how entity-based SEO — combining topical authority with Knowledge Graph optimization — can protect publishers from editorial traffic declines and increase citations in AI Overviews.
Google's June 2026 Spam Update Just Wrapped — Now What?
Google finished rolling out the June 2026 spam update globally across all languages. It ran from June 24 to June 26 — the second spam update of the year. Here's what the rollout timeline tells us, how it compares to recent spam updates, and what site owners should actually do next.
Bruce Clay, the OG SEO Whisperer Who Named the Game and Built Its Foundations
Bruce Clay didn’t just live through SEO’s first thirty years—he helped write the playbook. His passing leaves behind the language of the trade, a structural method still in use on every major site, and a legacy of helping beginners find their voice.
The Neo Geo Said No—and Doom Has Never Returned
How the Neo Geo's rigid sprite-only architecture made Doom technically unreachable without custom cartridge hardware—despite identical CPU specs to systems that did run it.
Beehiiv Integrates Cloudflare’s AI Crawl Control to Put Publishers Back in Charge of Their Content
A partnership between Beehiiv and Cloudflare embeds advanced AI Crawl Control technology into the newsletter platform, giving creators one-click toggles and analytics to decide whether to block AI scrapers or allow them for maximum search discovery.