Another year in search has come and gone, and Google called it year three of a 10-year platform shift. In 2025, that shift became impossible to ignore. AI moved from experiments and previews into the core of how search actually works. Below are the biggest SEO news stories of 2025 on Search Engine Land. Note: […]

OpenAI is laying the groundwork for an advertising business, signaling a potential shift in how ChatGPT and other products could be monetized beyond subscriptions and enterprise deals. What’s happening. According to reporting from The Information, OpenAI has begun exploring ad formats and partnerships, with early discussions pointing toward ads that could appear within or alongside […]

Google reduced the minimum audience size requirement to just 100 active users across all networks and audience types, making remarketing and customer list targeting far more accessible—especially for smaller advertisers. What’s new. Audience segments with as few as 100 users can now be used across Search, Display, and YouTube, including both remarketing lists and customer […]

I get it, these are uncertain times. Organic traffic is dropping like a rock, and new referral traffic  coming in from LLMs like ChatGPT barely scratches the surface of what’s been lost.  The narrative of “traffic is simply coming from a new source” is not accurate. Search and engagement are happening in new ways, but […]

Most business owners assume that if an ad is approved by Google or Meta, it is safe.  The thinking is simple: trillion-dollar platforms with sophisticated compliance systems would not allow ads that expose advertisers to legal risk. That assumption is wrong, and it is one of the most dangerous mistakes an advertiser can make. The […]

Google expanded Demand Gen channel controls to include Google Maps, giving advertisers a new way to reach users with intent-driven placements and far more control over where Demand Gen ads appear. What’s new. Advertisers can now select Google Maps as a channel within Demand Gen campaigns. The option can be used alongside other channels in […]

Search marketers are starting to build, not just optimize. Across SEO and PPC teams, vibe coding and AI-powered development tools are shrinking the gap between idea and execution – from weeks of developer queues to hours of hands-on experimentation.  These tools don’t replace developers, but they do let search teams create and test interactive content […]

Brand-agency partnerships look very different today than they did even a few years ago, and by 2026 that gap will only widen.  Internal marketing teams are more sophisticated, digital channels are more specialized, and the role agencies play is no longer one-size-fits-all.  As a result, the companies that get the most value from agency relationships […]

Look back on Google AI news in 2025 across Gemini, Search, Pixel and more products.

Generative AI is everywhere right now. It dominates conference agendas, fills LinkedIn feeds, and is reshaping how many businesses think about organic search.  Brands are racing to optimize for AI Overviews, build vector embeddings, map semantic clusters, and rework content models around LLMs. What gets far less attention is a basic reality: for most websites, […]