Search Marketing Is Being Rewritten
Reddit’s SEO Power Play
User-generated content becomes a cornerstone for brand visibility in AI-driven search.
What’s the News?
Reddit is emerging as a priority channel for AI-era brand discovery. SEMrush data shows Reddit is among the most-visited U.S. sites, and AI chatbots cite Reddit more than any other source. Momentum is further fueled by Reddit’s renewed data-sharing deal with Google, which boosts Reddit content in both Search and AI experiences. Read more
Why It Matters:
Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) now includes Reddit. If AI outputs lean heavily on Reddit threads, then winning relevant subreddit conversations becomes a path to influencing how your brand shows up in AI answers. Reddit’s Brand Playbook and Pro Trends offer practical tools for targeting discussions and building credibility.
Marketers Should:
Identify priority subreddits where your audience is active.
Monitor where Reddit threads surface in AI results for brand-related queries.
Contribute expert, non-promotional responses that AI can credibly cite.
Host FAQs or AMAs to seed authoritative, high-value threads.
Chrome Gets AI Mode
Conversational AI comes directly to the address bar.
What’s the News?
Google is rolling out AI Mode in Chrome’s address bar, enabling users to ask complex, multi-part questions and interact with webpages using AI — without ever hitting “enter” on a traditional results page. Read more
Why It Matters:
This shift blurs visibility, attribution, and user journeys. With AI overviews delivered at the browser level, traditional metrics like click-throughs and page visits may decline, even if your brand is still influencing decisions.
Marketers Should:
Keep optimizing for high intent, commercial search queries that still drive traffic and revenue.
Adapt content to align with AI Mode’s conversational answers.
Rethink performance tracking — focus on business outcomes over impressions.
Test AI ad placements within Google Ads to stay ahead of shifts.
Google Kills &num=100
A reporting change reshapes how marketers read Search Console data.
What's New:
Google has removed the &num=100 parameter, which allowed users and tools to pull 100 results per page. As a result, 87.7% of sites saw lost impressions in Search Console, and 77.6% lost unique ranking terms — especially on short- and mid-tail keywords. Read more
Why It Matters:
These changes don’t mean performance is down — it’s a reporting shift. Impressions and keyword counts may look weaker, but actual rankings are unchanged. This highlights the need for marketers to recalibrate baselines and focus on stronger, outcome-driven metrics.
Marketers Should:
Avoid overreacting to drops in Search Console impressions or keyword counts.
Recalibrate performance baselines with updated reporting.
Track visibility beyond rankings — mentions, citations, and referral traffic.
Anchor SEO measurement to revenue impact, not vanity impression or traffic metrics.
Match Type Showdown
Broad match boosts revenue, exact match drives efficiency.
What’s the News?
An Adalysis study of 16k+ Google campaigns found:
- Broad match delivers higher revenue per conversion but with higher CPA.
- Exact match is most efficient (lower CPA, higher ROAS), though limited in scale.
- Phrase match underperformed in most cases. Read more
Why It Matters:
Choosing the right match type is about aligning with campaign goals. Broad match may maximize value with automated bidding, while exact match ensures efficiency and control.
Marketers Should:
Use exact match as a baseline for efficiency benchmarks.
Test broad match in value-driven campaigns with strong bidding and negatives.
Closely monitor segmentation, search terms, and CPA/ROAS guardrails.
Shift spend away from underperforming phrase match where needed.
We’re reinventing performance marketing because everything changed while you were reading this.
We help you navigate this new landscape with data-driven insights, platform expertise, and creative that connects, so your brand not only keeps up, but gets ahead.
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