Sponsored Posts Archives Sponsored Posts

Aug 26 2025

Ad Hijacking Explained: Over $12 Billion Lost To Hidden Tactics

This post was sponsored by Bluepear. The opinions expressed in this article are the sponsor’s own.

Have you ever seen an ad that looks just like your favorite brand’s ad, but isn’t? Ad hijacking.

Ever clicked an ad expecting to reach Nike’s website but ended up on some random store you’d never heard of? Ad hijacking.

It happens to thousands of companies that run paid ads, and you’re not immune.

More people are buying products and services online.

With $6 trillion being spent by online shoppers in 2024 (CapitalOneShopping Research), the competition for ad placement is fierce.

If someone hijacks your ads, you:

lose traffic.
lose money.
lose trust.

Ad hijacking harms your brand and ad performance.

Learn how to detect ad hijacking, stop affiliate abuse, and protect your traffic in 2025.

What Is Ad Hijacking?

Ad hijacking, by definition, is a form of advertising fraud where someone pretends to be your brand in paid search ads (like Google or other platforms). The fraudsters copy your brand name, your ad style, even your messaging, so the ad looks real.

But when a customer clicks, they’re sent somewhere else.

Ad Hijacking in Action: Real-World Example

Image created by Bluepear, August 2025

There are two common types:

Affiliate ad hijacking.
Competitor ad hijacking.

What Is Affiliate Ad Hijacking?

Affiliate ad hijacking happens when partners in your affiliate program bid on your brand name.

They:

copy your ad (same headline, same style) so it looks like the real thing.

The Result: The customer thinks they’re clicking on your official site because the ad looks the same. But behind the scenes, the affiliate redirects the traffic through their own tracking link.

You end up paying them a commission for a customer who was already looking for you. This inflates your costs, pollutes your data, and makes it harder to measure real performance.

Example: A user searches for [Super Tools]. An affiliate runs an ad with the headline “Super Tools Official Site,” but the link is an affiliate redirect. You pay them a cut, even though they didn’t bring in new traffic.

Image created by Bluepear, August 2025

What Is Competitor Ad Hijacking?

Competitor ad hijacking is when a rival company copies your brand in search ads to steal your traffic.

They:

bid on your brand name,
use ad text that looks like yours,
sometimes even mimic your domain.

The Result: Customers click, thinking they’re going to your site. But instead, they land on the competitor’s website.

This tactic lets competitors capture high-intent traffic. As a result, you lose potential sales, while they gain market share. Without PPC brand protection, your brand presence can be weakened, allowing competitors to grow faster at your expense.

Example: A competitor bids on “Super Tools” and runs a lookalike ad. The user clicks, expecting your site, but lands on the competitor’s product page instead. You lose a sale and possibly the customer’s trust.

As you see, search hijacking is already a serious threat to your brand and budget. It’s made even worse by how well the violators hide their tracks.

Secret Tactics That Are Used To Hide Ad Hijacking

Non-compliant partners use smart tactics to avoid being seen by brand owners or their teams. Here’s how they do it:

GEO targeting. Ads are shown only in specific countries, cities, or regions. If you’re not in that area, you’ll never see them – but your local customers will.
Dayparting. Hijackers run ads at night, on weekends, or during holidays when your team is less likely to notice them.
Cloaking and dynamic redirects. They use scripts to show one version of the ad or landing page to Google (to pass review) and a different one to users – usually a fake or affiliate redirect.
Smaller search engines. Many hijackers avoid Google and run campaigns on Bing or other second-tier platforms, where rules are looser and tracking is weaker.

Without proper hijacking prevention, these tactics make it easy for hijackers to hide and hard for your team to catch them in time.

Direct Impact Of Ad Hijacking On Your Company

The impact of affiliate ad hijacking goes far beyond a few stolen clicks. It damages performance, costs money, and creates serious risks for your business:

Lost ad budget. You pay commissions to affiliates who didn’t bring you new traffic; they just hijacked what was already yours.
Higher CPC and more competition. Hijackers bid on your brand keywords, driving up your costs and competing against your own campaigns.
Broken attribution. Without hijacking prevention, your analytics get messy. It becomes harder to measure what’s really working because affiliate hijacking inflates performance data.
Reputation damage. Users may land on shady or misleading pages. They won’t know it’s not your site – they’ll just stop trusting your brand.
Compliance risks. If you’re in a regulated industry (finance, health, etc.), fake ads and unapproved messaging can create legal trouble or policy violations.

Search hijacking doesn’t just hurt your numbers. It makes you question the data you rely on, wastes hours chasing false leads, and forces you to fight for traffic that was already yours.

Image created by Bluepear, August 2025

85% of consumers avoid buying from brands that generate unsafe experiences, and ad hijacking falls into that bucket (PwC Report).
75% of ad hijacking comes from affiliate partners exploiting tracking gaps to earn unearned commissions (Neilpatel).
Up to 30% of affiliate commissions come from hijacking and similar deceptive tactics (AffiliateWP).
Ad hijacking caused an estimated $12.6 billion in losses in 2023, based on 15% of the $84 billion lost to ad fraud globally (Juniper Research).

How To Spot And Prevent Ad Hijacking

What actually works on PPC brand protection? To uncover real issues, you need tools and methods that go beyond surface metrics:

Step 1: Quick Manual Checks

Run branded keyword searches and audit SERPs – look for near-identical copy linking to another domain.
Watch for anomalies in performance (CPC spikes, conversion drops, affiliate surges).
Review affiliate conversion patterns – unusual regional spikes may signal fraud.
Geo-test with VPNs or third-party tools to uncover geo-targeted hijacks.
Track impression share – sudden drops without budget changes mean new competition.

Step 2: Scalable Prevention Tactics

Behavioral simulation: Mimic real user searches across devices and browsers to reveal hidden hijacks.
Geo-rotation & proxy use: Detect localized hijacking attempts.
Proof collection: Document ads, redirects, affiliate IDs, and keywords for enforcement.
Real-time alerts & auto takedown: Get notified instantly and stop fraudulent ads before they drain your budget.

By combining manual checks and scalable tools, you can take control before search hijacking quietly eats into your ad spend.

Manual checks can’t keep up with how ad hijacking works today. Hijackers often run ads only in certain regions, at non-working hours, or under specific conditions. They use cloaking and redirects that can’t be detected with regular checks.

Most teams lack the time and capability to ensure hijacking prevention through manual monitoring alone.

That’s why ad hijacking tools like Bluepear are essential – as PPC brand protection software, they automate continuous scanning of search results to catch every sneaky ad trying to hijack your traffic and budget.

Here’s how Bluepear helps to fight against ad hijacking:

Simulates real user behavior. Bluepear mimics how actual customers search (using different devices, times, and locations) to trigger hidden hijack ads.
Uncovers hidden redirects and de-cloaks landing pages. It follows the full click path to spot when a user is being secretly redirected or sent to a misleading page.
Collects clear evidence. Every violation is logged with full details: screenshots, affiliate IDs, keywords, redirect chains – all in one report.
Sends instant alerts and supports takedowns. When a hijack is detected, you get an alert right away. Bluepear provides clear evidence so that you can remove bad ads fast to stop further damage.

Ad hijacking tools aren’t an excess. If you want to survive in a world of smart fraud, automated PPC brand protection is a must.

Image created by Bluepear, August 2025

Protect Your Brand From Ad Hijacking

Ad hijacking quietly eats into your ad budget, distorts your performance data, and damages user trust. Manual audits rarely catch it. Hijackers use GEO targeting, dayparting, and cloaking to stay hidden while stealing high-intent traffic and commissions.

Are you sure no one is hijacking your branded ads?

Bluepear helps you catch what others miss. The ad hijacking tool automatically checks SERPs from different GEOs, devices, and browsers to keep your brand protected from fraud.

Try Bluepear free for 7 days to see if your brand is being hijacked – and stop the budget loss.

Get a free trial

Image Credits

Featured Image: Image by Bluepear. Used with permission.

In-Post Images:Image by Bluepear. Used with permission.

Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments

Aug 6 2025

The Great Reversal: Why Agencies Are Replacing PPC With Predictable SEO via @sejournal, @mktbrew

This post was sponsored by Market Brew. The opinions expressed in this article are the sponsor’s own.

What if your client’s PPC budget could fund long-term organic growth instead?

Why do organic results dominate user clicks, but get sidelined in budget discussions?

Organic Drives 5x More Traffic Than PPC. Can We Prove It?

The Short Answer: Yes!

Over the past decade, digital marketers have witnessed a dramatic shift in how search budgets are allocated.

In the past decade, companies were funding SEO teams alongside PPC teams. However, a shift towards PPC-first has dominated the inbound marketing space.

Where Have SEO Budgets Gone?

Today, more than $150 billion is spent annually on paid search in the United States alone, while only $50 billion is invested in SEO.

That’s a 3-to-1 ratio, even though 90% of search clicks go to organic results, and only 10% to ads.

It’s not because paid search is more effective. Paid search is just easier to measure.

But that’s changing with the return of attribution within predictive SEO.

What Is Attribution?

Attribution in marketing is the process of identifying which touchpoints or channels contributed to a conversion or sale.

It helps us understand the customer journey so we can allocate budget more effectively and optimize campaigns for higher ROI.

As Google’s algorithms evolved, the cause-and-effect between SEO efforts and business outcomes became harder to prove.

Ranking fluctuations seemed random. Timelines stretched.

Clients became impatient.

Trackable Digital Marketing Has Destroyed SEO

With Google Ads, every dollar has a direct, reportable outcome:

Impressions.
Clicks.
Conversions.

SEO, by contrast, has long been:

A black box.

As a result, agencies and the clients that hire them followed the money, even when SEO’s results were higher.

PPC’s Direct Attribution Makes PPC Look More Important, But SEO Still Dominates

Hard facts:

SEO drives 5x more traffic than PPC.
Companies pay 3x more on PPC than SEO.

Image created by MarketBrew, August 2025

You Can Now Trace ROI Back To SEO

As a result, many SEO professionals and agencies want a way back to organic. Now, there is one, and it’s powered by attribution.

Attribution Is the Key to Measurable SEO Performance

Instead of sitting on the edge of the search engine’s black box, guessing what might happen, we can now go inside the SEO black box, to simulate how the algorithms behave, factor by factor, and observe exactly how rankings react to each change.

This is SEO with attribution.

Image created by MarketBrew, August 2025

With this model in place, you are no longer stuck saying “trust us.”

You can say, “Here’s what we changed. Here’s how rankings moved. Here’s the value of that movement.” Whether the change was a new internal link structure or a content improvement, it’s now visible, measurable, and attributable.

For the first time, SEO teams have a way to communicate performance in terms executives understand: cause, effect, and value.

This transparency is changing the way agencies operate. It turns SEO into a predictable system, not a gamble. And it arms client-facing teams with the evidence they need to justify the budget, or win it back.

How Agencies Are Replacing PPC With Measurable Organic SEO

For agencies, attribution opens the door to something much bigger than better reporting; it enables a completely new kind of offering: performance-based SEO.

Traditionally, SEO services have been sold as retainers or hourly engagements. Clients pay for effort, not outcomes. With attribution, agencies can now flip that model and say: You only pay when results happen.

Enter Market Brew’s AdShifted feature to model this value and success as shown here:

: Screenshot from a video by MarketBrew, August 2025

The AdShift tool starts by entering a keyword to discover up to 4* competitive URLs for the Keyword’s Top Clustered Similarities. (*including your own website plus 4 top-ranking competitors)

: Screenshot of PPC vs. MarketBrew comparison dashboard by Marketbrew, August 2025

AdShift averages CPC and search volume across all keywords and URLs, giving you a reliable market-wide estimate and details for your brand towards a monthly PPC investment to rank #1.

: Screenshot of a dashboard by Marketbrew, August 2025

AdShift then calculates YOUR percentage of replacement for PPC to fund SEO.

This allows you to model your own Performance Plan with variable discounts available to the Market Brew license fees with an always less than 50% of PPC Fee for clicks replaced by new SEO traffic.

: Screenshot of a dashboard by Marketbrew, August 2025

AdShift simulates a PPC replacement plan option selected based on its keywords footprint to instantly see savings from the associated Performance Plans.

That’s the heart of the PPC replacement plan: a strategy you can use to gradually shift a clients’ paid search budgets into measurable performance-based SEO.

What Is A PPC Replacement Plan? Trackable SEO.

A PPC replacement plan is a strategy in which agencies gradually shift their clients’ paid search budgets into organic investments, with measurable outcomes and shared performance incentives.

Here’s how it works:

Benchmark Paid Spend: Identify the current Google Ads budget, i.e., $10,000 per month or $120,000 per year.
Forecast Organic Value: Use search engine modeling to predict the lift in organic traffic from specific SEO tasks.
Execute & Attribute: Complete tasks and monitor real-time changes in rankings and traffic.
Charge on Impact: Instead of billing for time, bill for results, often at a fraction of the client’s former ad spend.

This is not about replacing all paid spend.

Branded queries and some high-value targets may remain in PPC. But for the large, expensive middle of the keyword funnel, agencies can now offer a smarter path: predictable, attributable organic results, at a lower cost-per-click, with better margins.

And most importantly, instead of lining Google’s pockets with PPC revenue, your investments begin to fuel both organic and LLM searches!

Real-World Proof That SEO Attribution Works

Agencies exploring this new attribution-powered model aren’t just intrigued … they’re energized. For many, it’s the first time in years that SEO feels like a strategic growth engine, not just a checklist of deliverables.

“We’ve pitched performance SEO to three clients this month alone,” said one digital strategy lead. “The ability to tie ranking improvements to specific tasks changed the entire conversation.”

– Sean Myers, CEO, ThreeTech

Another partner shared,

“Instead of walking into meetings looking to justify an SEO retainer, we enter with a blueprint representing a SEO/GEO/AEO Search Engine’s ‘digital twin’ with the AI-driven tasks that show exactly what needs to be changed and the rankings it produces. Clients don’t question the value … they ask what’s next.”

– Stephen Heitz, Chief Innovation Officer, LAVIDGE

Several agencies report that new business wins are increasing simply because they offer something different. While competitors stick to vague SEO promises or expensive PPC management, partners leveraging attribution offer clarity, accountability, and control.

And when the client sees that they’re paying less and getting more, it’s not a hard sell, it’s a long-term relationship.

A Smarter, More Profitable Model for Agencies and SEOs

The traditional agency model in search has become a maze of expectations.

Managing paid search may deliver short-term wins, but it comes to a bidding war with only those with the biggest budgets winning. SEO, meanwhile, has often felt like a thankless task … necessary but underappreciated, valuable but difficult to prove.

Attribution changes that.

For agencies, this is a path back to profitability and positioning. With attribution, you’re not just selling effort … you’re selling outcomes. And because the work is modeled and measured in advance, you can confidently offer performance plans that are both client-friendly and agency-profitable.

For SEOs, this is about getting the credit they deserve. Attribution allows practitioners to demonstrate their impact in concrete terms. Rankings don’t just move, … they move because of you. Traffic increases aren’t vague, … they’re connected to your specific strategies.

Now, you can show this.

Most importantly, this approach rebuilds trust.

Clients no longer have to guess what’s working. They see it. In dashboards, in forecasts, in side-by-side comparisons of where they were and where they are now. It restores SEO to a place of clarity and control where value is obvious, and investment is earned.

The industry has been waiting for this. And now, it’s here.

From PPC Dependence to Organic Dominance — Now Backed by Data

Search budgets have long been upside down, pouring billions into paid clicks that capture a mere fraction of user attention, while underfunding the organic channel that delivers lasting value.

Why? Because SEO lacked attribution.

That’s no longer the case.

Today, agencies and SEO professionals have the tools to prove what works, forecast what’s next, and get paid for the real value they deliver. It’s a shift that empowers agencies to move beyond bidding-war PPC management and into a lower cost & higher ROAS, performance-based SEO.

This isn’t just a new service mode it’s a rebalancing of power in search.

Organic is back. It’s measurable. It’s profitable. And it’s ready to take center stage again.

The only question is: will you be the agency or brand that leads the shift or watch as others do it first?

Citations

Get Your Predictable SEO Plan

Image Credits

Featured Image: Image by Market Brew. Used with permission.

In-Post Image: Images by Market Brew. Used with permission.

Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments

Jul 30 2025

How To Win In Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) via @sejournal, @maltelandwehr

This post was sponsored by Peec.ai. The opinions expressed in this article are the sponsor’s own.

The first step of any good GEO campaign is creating something that LLM-driven answer machines actually want to link out to or reference.

GEO Strategy Components

Think of experiences you wouldn’t reasonably expect to find directly in ChatGPT or similar systems:

Engaging content like a 3D tour of the Louvre or a virtual reality concert.
Live data like prices, flight delays, available hotel rooms, etc. While LLMs can integrate this data via APIs, I see the opportunity to capture some of this traffic for the time being.
Topics that require EEAT (experience, expertise, authoritativeness, trustworthiness).

LLMs cannot have first-hand experience. But users want it. LLMs are incentivized to reference sources that provide first-hand experience. That’s just one of the things to keep in mind, but what else?

We need to differentiate between two approaches: influencing foundational models versus influencing LLM answers through grounding. The first is largely out of reach for most creators, while the second offers real opportunities.

Influencing Foundational Models

Foundational models are trained on fixed datasets and can’t learn new information after training. For current models like GPT-4, it is too late – they’ve already been trained.

But this matters for the future: imagine a smart fridge stuck with o4-mini from 2025 that might – hypothetically – favor Coke over Pepsi. That bias could influence purchasing decisions for years!

Optimizing For RAG/Grounding

When LLMs can’t answer from their training data alone, they use retrieval augmented generation (RAG) – pulling in current information to help generate answers. AI Overviews and ChatGPT’s web search work this way.

As SEO professionals, we want three things:

Our content gets selected as a source.
Our content gets quoted most within those sources.
Other selected sources support our desired outcome.

Concrete Steps To Succeed With GEO

Don’t worry, it doesn’t take rocket science to optimize your content and brand mentions for LLMs. Actually, plenty of traditional SEO methods still apply, with a few new SEO tactics you can incorporate into your workflow.

Step 1: Be Crawlable

Sounds simple but it is actually an important first step. If you aim for maximum visibility in LLMs, you need to allow them to crawl your website. There are many different LLM crawlers from OpenAI, Anthropic & Co.

Some of them behave so badly that they can trigger scraping and DDoS preventions. If you are automatically blocking aggressive bots, check in with your IT team and find a way to not block LLMs you care about.

If you use a CDN, like Fastly or Cloudflare, make sure LLM crawlers are not blocked by default settings.

Step 2: Continue Gaining Traditional Rankings

The most important GEO tactic is as simple as it sounds. Do traditional SEO. Rank well in Google (for Gemini and AI Overviews), Bing (for ChatGPT and Copilot), Brave (for Claude), and Baidu (for DeepSeek).

Step 3: Target the Query Fanout

The current generation of LLMs actually does a little more than simple RAG. They generate multiple queries. This is called query fanout.

For example, when I recently asked ChatGPT “What is the latest Google patent discussed by SEOs?”, it performed two web searches for “latest Google patent discussed by SEOs patent 2025 SEO forum” and “latest Google patent SEOs 2025 discussed”.

Advice: Check the typical query fanouts for your prompts and try to rank for those keywords as well.

Typical fanout-patterns I see in ChatGPT are appending the term “forums” when I ask what people are discussing and appending “interview” when I ask questions related to a person. The current year (2025) is often added as well.

Beware: fanout patterns differ between LLMs and can change over time. Patterns we see today may not be relevant anymore in 12 months.

Step 4: Keep Consistency Across Your Brand Mentions

This is something simple everyone should do – both as a person and an enterprise. Make sure you are consistently described online. On X, LinkedIn, your own website, Crunchbase, Github – always describe yourself the same way.

If your X and LinkedIn profiles say you are a “GEO consultant for small businesses”, don’t change it to “AIO expert” on Github and “LLMO Freelancer” in your press releases.

I have seen people achieve positive results within a few days on ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews by simply having a consistent self description across the web. This also applies to PR coverage – the more and better coverage you can obtain for your brand, the more likely LLMs are to parrot it back to users.

Step 5: Avoid JavaScript

As an SEO, I always ask for as little JavaScript usage as possible. As a GEO, I demand it!

Most LLM crawlers cannot render JavaScript. If your main content is hidden behind JavaScript, you are out.

Step 6: Embrace Social Media & UGC

Unsurprisingly, LLMs seem to rely on reddit and Wikipedia a lot. Both platforms offer user-generated-content on virtually every topic. And thanks to multiple layers of community-driven moderation, a lot of junk and spam is already filtered out.

While both can be gamed, the average reliability of their content is still far better than on the internet as a whole. Both are also regularly updated.

reddit also provides LLM labs with data into how people discuss topics online, what language they use to describe different concepts, and knowledge on obscure niche topics.

We can reasonably assume that moderated UGC found on platforms like reddit, Wikipedia, Quora, and Stackoverflow will stay relevant for LLMs.

I do not advocate spamming these platforms. However, if you can influence how you and competitors show up there, you might want to do so.

Step 7: Create For Machine-Readability & Quotability

Write content that LLMs understand and want to cite. No one has figured this one out perfectly yet, but here’s what seems to work:

Use declarative and factual language. Instead of writing “We are kinda sure this shoe is good for our customers”, write “96% of buyers have self-reported to be happy with this shoe.”
Add schema. It has been debated many times. Recently, Fabrice Canel (Principal Product Manager at Bing) confirmed that schema markup helps LLMs to understand your content.
If you want to be quoted in an already existing AI Overview, have content with similar length to what is already there. While you should not just copy the current AI Overview, having high cosine similarly helps. And for the nerds: yes, given normalization, you can of course use the dot product instead of cosine similarity.
If you use technical terms in your content, explain them. Ideally in a simple sentence.
Add summaries of long text paragraphs, lists of reviews, tables, videos, and other types of difficult-to-cite content formats.

Step 8: Optimize your Content

Start of the paper GEO: Generative Engine Optimization (arXiv:2311.09735)

The original GEO paper

If we look at GEO: Generative Engine Optimization (arXiv:2311.09735) , What Evidence Do Language Models Find Convincing? (arXiv:2402.11782v1), and similar scientific studies, the answer is clear. It depends!

To be cited for some topics in some LLMs, it helps to:

Add unique words.
Have pro/cons.
Gather user reviews.
Quote experts.
Include quantitative data and name your sources.
Use easy to understand language.
Write with positive sentiment.
Add product text with low perplexity (predictable and well-structured).
Include more lists (like this one!).

However, for other combinations of topics and LLMs, these measures can be counterproductive.

Until broadly accepted best practices evolve, the only advice I can give is do what is good for users and run experiments.

Step 9: Stick to the Facts

For over a decade, algorithms have extracted knowledge from text as triples like (Subject, Predicate, Object) — e.g., (Lady Liberty, Location, New York). A text that contradicts known facts may seem untrustworthy. A text that aligns with consensus but adds unique facts is ideal for LLMs and knowledge graphs.

So stick to the established facts. And add unique information.

Step 10: Invest in Digital PR

Everything discussed here is not just true for your own website. It is also true for content on other websites. The best way to influence it? Digital PR!

The more and better coverage you can obtain for your brand, the more likely LLMs are to parrot it back to users.

I have even seen cases where advertorials were used as sources!

Concrete GEO Workflows To Try

Before I joined Peec AI, I was a customer. Here is how I used the tool – and how I advise our customers to use it.

Learn Who Your Competitors Are

Just like with traditional SEO, using a good GEO tool will often reveal unexpected competitors. Regularly look at a list of automatically identified competitors. For those who surprise you, check in which prompts they are mentioned. Then check the sources that led to their inclusion. Are you represented properly in these sources? If not, act!

Is a competitor referenced because of their PeerSpot profile but you have zero reviews there? Ask customers for a review.

Was your competitor’s CEO interviewed by a Youtuber? Try to get on that show as well. Or publish your own videos targeting similar keywords.

Is your competitor regularly featured on top 10 lists where you never make it to the top 5? Offer the publisher who created the list an affiliate deal they cannot decline. With the next content update, you’re almost guaranteed to be the new number one.

Understand the Sources

When performing search grounding, LLMs rely on sources.

Look at the top sources for a large set of relevant prompts. Ignore your own website and your competitors for a second. You might find some of these:

A community like Reddit or X. Become part of the community and join the discussion. X is your best bet to influence results on Grok.
An influencer-driven website like YouTube or TikTok. Hire influencers to create videos. Make sure to instruct them to target the right keywords.
An affiliate publisher. Buy your way to the top with higher commissions.
A news and media publisher. Buy an advertorial and/or target them with your PR efforts. In certain cases, you might want to contact their commercial content department.

You can also check out this in-depth guide on how to deal with different kinds of source domains.

Target Query Fanout

Once you have observed which searches are triggered by query fanout for your most relevant prompts, create content to target them.

On your own website. With posts on Medium and LinkedIn. With press releases. Or simply by paying for article placements. If it ranks well in search engines, it has a chance to be cited by LLM-based answer engines.

Position Yourself for AI-Discoverability

Generative Engine Optimization is no longer optional – it’s the new frontline of organic growth. At Peec AI, we’re building the tools to track, influence, and win in this new ecosystem.

Generative Engine Optimization is no longer optional – it’s the new frontline of organic growth. We currently see clients growing their LLM traffic by 100% every 2 to 3 months. Sometimes with up to 20x the conversation rate of typical SEO traffic!

Whether you’re shaping AI answers, monitoring brand mentions, or pushing for source visibility, now is the time to act. The LLMs consumers will trust tomorrow are being trained today.

Try Peec AI

Image Credits

Featured Image: Image by Peec.ai Used with permission.

Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments

Jul 17 2025

Your Reviews Are Ranking You (Or Not): How to Stay Visible in Google’s AI Era

This post was sponsored by GatherUp. The opinions expressed in this article are the sponsor’s own.

If your business has a great local, word-of-mouth reputation but very few online reviews, does it even exist?

That’s the existential riddle facing local businesses and agencies in 2025.

With Google’s AI Overviews (AIOs) now reshaping the search experience, visibility isn’t just about being “the best.”

It’s about being part of the summary.

And reviews? They’re no longer just trust signals. They’re ranking signals.

This article breaks down what’s changing, what’s working, and how agencies can keep their clients visible across both traditional local search and Google’s evolving AI layer.

Reviews Are Now A Gateway To Search Inclusion

Reviews have long been seen as conversion tools, helping users decide between businesses they’ve already discovered. But that role is evolving.

In the era of Google’s AI Overviews (AIOs), reviews are increasingly acting as discovery signals, helping determine which businesses get included in the first place.

GatherUp’s 2024 Online Reputation Benchmark Report shows that businesses with consistent, multi-channel review strategies, especially those generating both first- and third-party reviews, saw stronger reputation signals across volume, recency, and engagement. These are the exact kinds of signals that Google’s systems now appear to prioritize in AI-generated results.

That observation is reinforced by recent industry research and leaked Google documentation, which suggest that review characteristics like click-throughs, content depth, and freshness contribute to both local pack visibility and AIO inclusion.

In other words, the businesses getting summarized at the top of the SERP aren’t just highly rated. They’re actively reviewed, broadly cited, and seen as credible across sources Google trusts.

Recency Is A Signal. “Relevance” Is Google’s Shortcut.

More than two-thirds of consumers say they prioritize recent reviews when evaluating a business. But Google doesn’t necessarily show them first.

Instead, Google’s “Most Relevant” filter may prioritize older reviews that match query terms, even if they no longer reflect the current customer experience.

That’s why it’s critical for businesses to maintain steady review velocity. A flood of reviews in January followed by silence for six months won’t cut it. The AI layer, and the human reader, needs signals that say “this business is active and trustworthy right now.”

For agencies, this presents an opportunity to shift client mindset from static review goals to ongoing review strategies.

Star Ratings Still Matter, But Mostly As A Decision Shortcut

During our recent webinar with Search Engine Journal, we explored how consumers are using star ratings to disqualify options, not differentiate them.

Research shows:

73% of consumers won’t consider businesses with fewer than 4 stars
But 69% are still open to doing business with brands that fall short of a perfect 5.0, so long as the reviews are recent and authentic

In other words, people are looking for a “safe” choice, not a flawless one.

A few solid 4-star reviews with real detail from the past week often carry more weight than a dozen perfect ratings from 2021.

Agencies should help clients understand this nuance, especially those who are hesitant to request reviews out of fear of imperfection.

First-Party & Third-Party Reviews: Both Are Necessary

AI Overviews aggregate information from across the web, including structured data from your own website and unstructured commentary from others.

First-party reviews: These are collected and hosted directly on the business’s website. They can be marked up with schema, giving Google structured, machine-readable content to use in summaries and answer boxes.
Third-party reviews: These appear on platforms like Google, Yelp, Facebook, TripAdvisor, and Reddit. They’re often seen as more objective and are more frequently cited in AI Overviews.

Businesses that show up consistently across both types are more likely to be included in AIOs, and appear trustworthy to users.

GatherUp supports multi-source review generation, schema markup for first-party feedback, and rotating requests across platforms. This makes it easier for agencies to build a review presence that supports both local SEO and AIO visibility.

AIOs Pull From More Than Just Google Reviews

According to recent data from Whitespark, over 60% of citations in AI Overviews come from non-Google sources. This includes platforms like:

Reddit.
TripAdvisor.
Yelp.
Local blogs and industry-specific directories.

If your client’s reviews live only on Google, they risk being overlooked entirely.

Google’s AI is scanning for what it deems “experience-based” content, unfiltered, authentic commentary from real people. And it prefers to cross-reference multiple sources to confirm credibility.

Agencies should encourage clients to broaden their review footprint and seek mentions in trusted third-party spaces. Dynamic review flows, QR codes, and conditional links can help diversify requests without overburdening the customer.

Responses Influence Visibility & Build Trust

Review responses are no longer just a nice gesture. They’re part of the algorithmic picture.

GatherUp’s benchmark research shows:

92% of consumers say responding to reviews is now part of basic customer service.
73% will give a business a second chance if their complaint receives a thoughtful reply.

But there’s also a technical upside. When reviews are clicked, read, and expanded, they generate engagement signals that may impact local rankings. And if a business’s reply includes resolution details or helpful context, it increases the content depth of that listing.

For agencies juggling multiple clients, automation helps. GatherUp offers AI-powered suggested responses that retain brand tone and ensure timely replies, without sounding robotic.

How Agencies Can Make AIO Part Of Their Core Strategy

Google’s AI systems are designed to answer user questions directly, often without requiring a click. That means review content is increasingly shaping brand narratives within the SERP.

To adapt, agencies should align client visibility efforts across both search formats:

For Local Pack Optimization

Keep Google Business Profile listings fully updated (photos, categories, Q&A).
Build and maintain steady review velocity using email, SMS, and in-person requests.
Respond to reviews regularly, especially nuanced or negative ones.

For AIO Inclusion

Collect first-party reviews and mark them up with schema.
Rotate requests to third-party platforms based on vertical relevance.
Capture reviews with photo uploads and detailed descriptions.
Build unstructured citations through community involvement, media mentions, and event participation.

Download Our Complete Proactive Reputation Management Playbook for Digital Agencies for templates and workflows to operationalize this as a branded, revenue-generating service.

Reputation Is No Longer Separate From Rankings

AI Overviews now appear in nearly two-thirds of local business search queries. That means your clients’ next customers may form an impression—or make a decision—before ever clicking through to a website or map pack listing.

Visibility is no longer guaranteed. It’s earned through content, coverage, and credibility.

And reviews sit at the center of all three.

For agencies, this is a moment of opportunity. You already have the tools to guide clients through the shift. You know how to structure content, build citations, and amplify voices that resonate with customers.

Reputation management isn’t optional anymore. It’s infrastructure.

About GatherUp

GatherUp is the only proactive reputation management platform purpose-built for digital agencies. We help you build, manage, and defend your clients’ online reputations.

GatherUp supports:

First- and third-party review generation across multiple platforms,
Schema-marked up feedback collection for AIO relevance,
Intelligent, AI-assisted response workflows,
Seamless white-labeling for full agency control,
Scalable review operations tools that can help you manage 10 or 10,000 locations and clients.

Agencies who use GatherUp don’t just react to algorithm changes. They shape client visibility, and defend it.

To learn more, watch the full webinar for actionable strategies, data-backed insights, and examples of AIO-influenced local search in the wild.

Watch the full webinar

Image Credits

Featured Image: Image by GatherUp. Used with permission.

Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments

Jul 8 2025

Why Google Ads Fails B2B (And How to Fix It)

This post was sponsored by Vehnta. The opinions expressed in this article are the sponsor’s own.

Why isn’t Google Ads working for my B2B marketing campaigns?

How do I improve lead quality in B2B Google Ads campaigns?

What’s the best way to scale Account-Based Marketing (ABM) using Google Ads?

The good news: Google Ads isn’t broken in B2B; it’s just being used wrong.

The platform works brilliantly for consumer brands because their strategies align with consumer behavior, but B2B operates in an entirely different universe with complex buying journeys involving multiple stakeholders.

This guide will help you modify Google Ads to perform better for B2B paid marketing campaigns.

Issue 1: AI Automation Optimizes For The Wrong B2B Objectives

Google’s AI-powered automation creates the biggest challenge for you at this time.

Why? The actions that signal customer engagement for Google Ads do not align with how B2B shoppers behave, leading to incorrect AI analysis of and actions taken on B2B ad success.

For example:

Performance Max campaigns optimize for volume conversions rather than quality opportunities, resulting in a doubling of lead volume while halving lead quality.
Google Smart Bidding tends to attract users who are likely to take lightweight actions, such as downloads or sign-ups; these actions are unlikely to result in qualified B2B buyers, leading to low-value conversions and wasted spend.

How To Fix Google Ad AI’s Misalignment For B2B PPC

Phase 1: Implement Strategic AI Controls

Disable automatic audience expansion in Search campaigns to maintain targeting precision.
Use Target ROAS instead of Target CPA, setting values based on actual customer lifetime value.
Create separate campaigns for different buying stages with stage-appropriate conversion goals.
Start Performance Max with limited budgets (20-30% of total spend) until optimization stabilizes.

Phase 2: Configure B2B-Specific Signals

Upload customer lists with consistent firmographic data as audience signals.
Set up similar audiences based on highest-value customers, not highest-converting leads.
Monitor search terms weekly and add negatives aggressively.
Use custom conversion goals weighted toward pipeline contribution, not form submissions.

The Easy Way

Vehnta accelerates campaign optimization, enabling precise targeting and performance tracking across your entire B2B account list.

With its Similarity feature and AI-powered Keyword & Ad Generator, you can create high-performing, B2B-optimized campaigns in minutes, avoiding wasted spend on low-value conversions.

Insights are available from day one, and campaigns can be optimized manually or with AI. Plus, with seamless Google Ads integration and automated multilingual message diversification at scale, Vehnta lets you go to market faster and more effectively.

What You Get

Faster launch cycles.
More qualified leads.
Better performance.
Scalable impact. without the usual manual overhead.

Campaigns are built on intelligent targeting and high-quality inputs, so optimization starts smart and improves from there.

The Result

Reduced wasted budget on low-value conversions like downloads or sign-ups.
Focused paid ad spend on high-intent, high-fit prospects.

Issue 2: Generic Targeting Wastes Budget On Wrong Audiences

Most B2B campaigns tend to target broad demographics rather than specific firmographics, resulting in wasted spend on prospects that are a poor fit.

Traditional metrics create a “metrics mirage” where campaigns focused on clicks draw unqualified leads instead of high-intent decision-makers.

Additionally, broad messaging often fails to resonate across diverse markets, whereas precise targeting is effective at scale.

One multinational retailer with 500+ locations across four countries cut costs by 60% and tripled engagement by implementing hyper-local, multilingual campaigns tailored to specific regions.

How To Fix PPC Ad Targeting Waste

Phase 1: Implement Firmographic Precision

Phase 2: Configure Account-Level Monitoring

Set up cross-domain tracking to monitor multiple touchpoints from the same organization.
Use UTM parameters with company identifiers to track organizational buying patterns.
Create audiences based on account-level engagement patterns.

The Easy Way

Vehnta’s Similarity engine leverages a 500M+ company database to identify prospects that match your best customers with surgical precision.

Simply:

Insert one or more existing customers or your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) into the Similarity Engine.
The Similarty Engine analyzes economic data, industry sectors, and semantic relevance to find similar companies.

This approach makes targeting 10x faster than manual audience research.

Additionally, it provides precision that extends far beyond basic lookalike audiences.

Then, the Search Terms feature provides full visibility into searches performed by your target audience, organized by company and location for actionable insights.

What You Get

A radically faster, more precise way to build high-value target lists.
Prospect lists that closely mirror your best customers, aligned to your ICP from day one.
Full visibility into the actual search behavior of those companies.

The Result

Smarter segmentation.
Faster activation.
Better-performing campaigns fueled by insight, not assumptions.

Issue 3: Marketing/Sales Alignment Problems

B2C metrics fail to capture the complexity of B2B interactions, resulting in a fundamental disconnect between marketing activities and sales outcomes.

Most B2B marketing teams operate under the myth that success requires high lead volumes, but this creates qualification bottlenecks since most B2B sales teams can effectively pursue only a few qualified opportunities simultaneously.

This quality-over-quantity approach delivers results: an enterprise SaaS provider targeting only $1B+ companies achieved 70% cost reduction and 3x engagement by focusing on ultra-precise targeting aligned with sales capacity.

Steps to Fix Marketing/Sales Misalignment

Align Campaigns with Sales Capacity

Calculate your sales team’s true capacity for working on qualified opportunities.
Set monthly lead generation goals that align with sales capacity, rather than arbitrary growth targets.
Develop lead scoring systems that qualify prospects before they reach the sales team.
Implement progressive profiling to gather firmographic information during conversion.

Optimize for Opportunity Quality

The Easy Way

Vehnta’s Insight Collection provides real-time business intelligence that automatically qualifies prospects, focusing on high-quality opportunities from pre-qualified target companies instead of generating hundreds of unqualified leads monthly.

The VisionSphere function provides a ranked list of companies most interested in your business, calculated by proprietary algorithms reflecting genuine buying interest.

What You Get

Consistently higher-quality pipeline, driven by real-time insight into which companies actually show buying intent.
Focused efforts on prospects that are already aligned with your offering.
A ranked view of interested accounts.
Clarity on where to prioritize and when to engage.
More efficient sales motions.
Stronger conversion rates.
Faster deal velocity.

All the intelligence you need, without the noise.

Issue 4: Scalability Of ABM Approaches

The challenge of scaling Account-Based Marketing through Google Ads lies in managing hundreds of target accounts while maintaining surgical precision.

Traditional ABM approaches require significant manual effort and dedicated specialists, making it difficult to achieve scale without compromising quality.

However, this complexity can be overcome: a global manufacturer targeting 4,000+ plant locations reduced spend from $160K to $40K while generating 2.5x more qualified leads through automated ABM systems.

How To Fix Account-Based Marketing (ABM) Scalability

Phase 1: Implement Automated Account Intelligence

Use advanced similarity algorithms to identify high-value prospects matching your best customers.
Automate audience research and list-building processes that typically consume weeks of specialist time.
Deploy AI-powered campaign creation that generates optimized targeting in minutes.
Set up automated monitoring across hundreds of target accounts without additional team members.

Phase 2 Create Scalable Precision Systems

Build campaigns that automatically diversify messaging across multiple languages.
Implement systems providing full visibility into search behavior across target companies.
Use proprietary algorithms to rank companies by genuine buying interest.
Deploy real-time optimization eliminating manual analysis while maintaining quality.

The Easy Way

Vehnta accelerates campaign execution through a truly scalable ABM approach, enabling accurate targeting and real-time performance tracking across your entire B2B account list.

Integrated AI Campaign Generation allows marketers to generate highly relevant, B2B-tailored campaigns in minutes, not days, while minimizing budget waste on low-intent traffic. From day one, teams gain access to actionable insights and can fine-tune performance manually or through automated optimization.

Thanks to seamless Google Ads integration and automated multilingual message diversification at scale, Vehnta eliminates the operational friction that often stalls ABM at the execution phase.

What you get: ABM that finally matches the speed and scale of your growth ambitions, without the typical overhead. Campaigns go live faster, reach the right accounts with precision, and continuously improve through data-driven optimization. Marketing teams save time, reduce costs, and drive more qualified pipeline, while maintaining control and strategic clarity. The complexity is gone; the impact remains.

The Strategic Transformation: From Volume to Value

The transformation from failing to succeeding with B2B Google Ads requires fundamentally rethinking how paid search fits into complex, multi-stakeholder B2B sales processes. Companies achieving breakthrough results abandon volume-based B2C tactics for precision-focused, account-based strategies that create budget efficiency and market dominance within targeted segments.

The competitive opportunity is significant: while competitors chase high-volume keywords and vanity metrics, strategic B2B marketers focus on qualified accounts and pipeline impact using advanced targeting intelligence and automated optimization systems.

Ready to transform your B2B Google Ads approach?

Discover how Vehnta works and achieve precision at scale—cut costs, improve targeting, and align every campaign with how your customers actually buy.

Book a demo: boost leads, cut costs.

Book A Demo

Image Credits

Featured Image: Image by Vehnta. Used with permission.

Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments

Jun 24 2025

The Smart SEO Team’s Guide To Timing & Executing A Large-Scale Site Migration via @sejournal, @inmotionhosting

This post was sponsored by InMotion Hosting. The opinions expressed in this article are the sponsor’s own.

We’ve all felt it, that sinking feeling in your stomach when your site starts crawling instead of sprinting.

Page speed reports start flashing red. Search Console is flooding your inbox with errors.

You know it’s time for better hosting, but here’s the thing: moving a large website without tanking your SEO is like trying to change tires while your car is still moving.

We’ve seen too many migrations go sideways, which is why we put together this guide.

Let’s walk through a migration plan that works. One that’ll future-proof your site without disrupting your rankings or overburdening your team.

Step 1: Set Your Performance Goals & Audit Your Environment

Establish Performance Benchmarks

Before you touch a single line of code, you need benchmarks. Think of these as your “before” pictures in a website makeover.

If you skip this step, you’ll regret it later. How will you know if your migration was successful if you don’t know where you started?

Gather your current page speed numbers, uptime percentages, and server response times. These will serve as proof that the migration was worth it.

Document Current Site Architecture

Next, let’s identify what’s working for your site and what’s holding it back. Keep a detailed record of your current setup, including your content management system (CMS), plugins, traffic patterns, and peak periods.

Large sites often have unusual, hidden connections that only reveal themselves at the worst possible moments during migrations. Trust us, documenting this now prevents those 2 AM panic attacks later.

Define Your Website Migration Goals

Let’s get specific about what success looks like. Saying “we want the site to be faster” is like saying “we want more leads.” It sounds great, but how do you measure it?

Aim for concrete targets, such as:

Load times under 2 seconds on key pages (we like to focus on product pages first).
99.99% uptime guarantees (because every minute of downtime is money down the drain).
Server response times under 200ms.
30% better crawl efficiency (so Google sees your content updates).

We recommend running tests with Google Lighthouse and GTmetrix at different times of day. You’d be surprised how performance can vary between your morning coffee and afternoon slump.

Your top money-making pages deserve special attention during migration, so keep tabs on those.

Step 2: Choose The Right Hosting Fit

Not all hosting options can handle the big leagues.

We’ve seen too many migrations fail because someone picked a hosting plan better suited for a personal blog than an enterprise website.

Match Your Needs To Solutions

Let’s break down what we’ve found works best.

Managed VPS is excellent for medium-sized sites. If you’re receiving 100,000 to 500,000 monthly visitors, this might be your sweet spot. You’ll have the control you need without the overkill.

Dedicated servers are what we recommend for the major players. If you’re handling millions of visitors or running complex applications, this is for you.

What we appreciate about dedicated resources is that they eliminate the “noisy neighbor” problem, where someone else’s traffic spike can tank your performance. Enterprise sites on dedicated servers load 40-60% faster and rarely experience those resource-related outages.

WordPress-optimized hosting is ideal if you’re running WordPress. These environments come pre-tuned with built-in caching and auto-updates. Why reinvent the wheel, right?

Understand The Must-Have Features Checklist

Let’s talk about what your web hosting will need for SEO success.

NVMe SSDs are non-negotiable these days. They’re about six times faster than regular storage for database work, and you’ll feel the difference immediately.

A good CDN is essential if you want visitors from different regions to have the same snappy experience. Server-level caching makes a huge difference, as it reduces processing work and speeds up repeat visits and search crawls.

Illustration showing how caching works on a website

Image created by InMotion Hosting, June 2025

Staging environments aren’t optional for big migrations. They’re your safety net. Keep in mind that emergency fixes can cost significantly more than setting up staging beforehand.

And please ensure you have 24/7 migration support from actual humans. Not chatbots, real engineers who answer the phone when things go sideways at midnight.

Key Considerations for Growth

Think about where your site is headed, not just where it is now.

Are you launching in new markets? Planning a big PR push? Your hosting should handle growth without making you migrate again six months later.

One thing that often gets overlooked: redirect limits. Many platforms cap at 50,000-100,000 redirects, which sounds like a lot until you’re migrating a massive product catalog.

Step 3: Prep for Migration – The Critical Steps

Preparation separates smooth migrations from disasters. This phase makes or breaks your project.

Build Your Backup Strategy

First things first: backups, backups, backups. We’re talking complete copies of both files and databases.

Don’t dump everything into one giant folder labeled “Site Stuff.” Organizing backups by date and type. Include the entire file system, database exports, configuration files, SSL certificates, and everything else.

Here’s a common mistake we often see: not testing the restore process before migration day. A backup you can’t restore is wasted server space. Always conduct a test restore on a separate server to ensure everything works as expected.

Set Up the New Environment and Test in Staging

Your new hosting environment should closely mirror your production environment. Match PHP versions, database settings, security rules, everything. This isn’t the time to upgrade seven different things at once (we’ve seen that mistake before).

Run thorough pre-launch tests on staging. Check site speed on different page types. Pull out your phone and verify that the mobile display works.

Use Google’s testing tools to confirm that your structured data remains intact. The goal is no surprises on launch day.

Map Out DNS Cutover and Minimize TTL for a Quick Switch

DNS strategy might sound boring, but it can make or break your downtime window.

Here’s what works: reduce your TTL to at least 300 seconds (5 minutes) about 48 hours before migration. This makes DNS changes propagate quickly when you flip the switch.

Have all your DNS records prepared in advance: A records, CNAMEs for subdomains, MX records for email, and TXT records for verification. Keep a checklist and highlight the mission-critical ones that would cause panic if forgotten.

Freeze Non-Essential Site Updates Before Migration

This might be controversial, but we’re advocates for freezing all content and development changes for at least 48 hours before migration.

The last thing you need is someone publishing a new blog post right as you’re moving servers.

You can use this freeze time for team education. It’s a perfect moment to run workshops on technical SEO or explain how site speed affects rankings. Turn downtime into learning time.

Step 4: Go-Live Without the Guesswork

Migration day! This is where all your planning pays off, or where you realize what you forgot.

Launch Timing Is Everything

Choose your timing carefully. You should aim for when traffic is typically lowest.

For global sites, consider the “follow-the-sun” approach. This means migrating region by region during their lowest traffic hours. While it takes longer, it dramatically reduces risk.

Coordinate Your Teams

Clear communication is everything. Everyone should know exactly what they’re doing and when.

Define clear go/no-go decision points. Who makes the call if something looks off? What’s the threshold for rolling back vs. pushing through?

Having these conversations before you’re in the middle of a migration saves a ton of stress.

Live Performance Monitoring

Once you flip the switch, monitoring becomes your best friend. Here are the key items to monitor:

Watch site speed across different page types and locations.
Set up email alerts for crawl errors in Search Console.
Monitor 404 error rates and redirect performance.

Sudden spikes in 404 errors or drops in speed need immediate attention. They’re usually signs that something didn’t migrate correctly.

The faster you catch these issues, the less impact they’ll have on your rankings.

Post-Migration Validation

After launch, run through a systematic checklist:

Test redirect chains (we recommend Screaming Frog for this).
Make sure internal links work.
Verify your analytics tracking (you’d be surprised how often this breaks).
Check conversion tracking.
Validate SSL certificates.
Watch server logs for crawl issues.

One step people often forget: resubmitting your sitemap in Search Console as soon as possible. This helps Google discover your new setup faster.

Even with a perfect migration, most large sites take 3-6 months for complete re-indexing, so patience is key.

Step 5: Optimize, Tune, and Report: How To Increase Wins

The migration itself is just the beginning. Post-migration tuning is where the magic happens.

Fine-Tune Your Configuration

Now that you’re observing real traffic patterns, you can optimize your setup.

Start by enhancing caching rules based on actual user behavior. Adjust compression settings, and optimize those database queries that seemed fine during testing but are sluggish in production.

Handling redirects at the server level, rather than through plugins or CMS settings, is faster and reduces server load.

Automate Performance Monitoring

Set up alerts for issues before they become problems. We recommend monitoring:

Page speed drops by over 10%.
Uptime drops.
Changes in crawl rates.
Spikes in server resource usage.
Organic traffic drops by over 20%.

Automation saves you from constantly checking dashboards, allowing you to focus on improvements instead of firefighting.

Analyze for SEO Efficiency

Server logs tell you a lot about how well your migration went from an SEO perspective. Look for fewer crawl errors, faster Googlebot response times, and better crawl budget usage.

Improvements in crawl efficiency mean Google can discover and index your new content much faster.

Measure and Report Success

Compare your post-migration performance to those baseline metrics you wisely collected.

When showing results to executives, connect each improvement to business outcomes. For example:

“Faster pages reduced our bounce rate by 15%, which means more people are staying on the site.”
“Better uptime means we’re not losing sales during peak hours.”
“Improved crawl efficiency means our new products get indexed faster.”

Pro tip: Build easy-to-read dashboards that executives can access at any time. This helps build confidence and alleviate concerns.

Ready to Execute Your High-Performance Migration?

You don’t need more proof that hosting matters. Every slow page load and server hiccup already demonstrates it. What you need is a plan that safeguards your SEO investment while achieving tangible improvements.

This guide provides you with that playbook. You now know how to benchmark, choose the right solutions, and optimize for success.

This approach can be applied to sites of all sizes, ranging from emerging e-commerce stores to large enterprise platforms. The key lies in preparation and partnering with the right support team.

If you’re ready to take action, consider collaborating with a hosting provider that understands the complexities of large-scale migrations. Look for a team that manages substantial redirect volumes and builds infrastructure specifically for high-traffic websites. Your future rankings will thank you!

FREE CHECKLIST

Image Credits

Featured Image: Image by InMotion Hosting. Used with permission.

In-Post Image: Images by InMotion Hosting. Used with permission.

Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments

Jun 17 2025

See What AI Sees: AI Mode Killed the Old SEO Playbook — Here’s the New One via @sejournal, @mktbrew

This post was sponsored by MarketBrew. The opinions expressed in this article are the sponsor’s own.

Is Google using AI to censor thousands of independent websites?

Wondering why your traffic has suddenly dropped, even though you’re doing SEO properly?

Between letters to the FTC describing a systematic dismantling of the open web by Google to SEO professionals who may be unaware that their strategies no longer make an impact, these changes represent a definite re-architecting of the web’s entire incentive structure.

It’s time to adapt.

While some were warning about AI passage retrieval and vector scoring, the industry largely stuck to legacy thinking. SEOs continued to focus on E-E-A-T, backlinks, and content refresh cycles, assuming that if they simply improved quality, recovery would come.

But the rules had changed.

Google’s Silent Pivot: From Keywords to Embedding Vectors

In late 2023 and early 2024, Google began rolling out what it now refers to as AI Mode.

What Is Google’s AI Mode?

AI Mode breaks content into passages, embeds those passages into a multi-dimensional vector space, and compares them directly to queries using cosine similarity.

In this new model, relevance is determined geometrically rather than lexically. Instead of ranking entire pages, Google evaluates individual passages. The most relevant passages are then surfaced in a ChatGPT-like interface, often without any need for users to click through to the source.

Beneath this visible change is a deeper shift: content scoring has become embedding-first.

What Are Embedding Vectors?

Embedding vectors are mathematical representations of meaning. When Google processes a passage of content, it converts that passage into a vector, a list of numbers that captures the semantic context of the text. These vectors exist in a multi-dimensional space where the distance between vectors reflects how similar the meanings are.

Instead of relying on exact keywords or matching phrases, Google compares the embedding vector of a search query to the embedding vectors of individual passages. This allows it to identify relevance based on deeper context, implied meaning, and overall intent.

Traditional SEO practices like keyword targeting and topical coverage do not carry the same weight in this system. A passage does not need to use specific words to be considered relevant. What matters is whether its vector lands close to the query vector in this semantic space.

How Are Embedding Vectors Different From Keywords?

Keywords focus on exact matches. Embedding vectors focus on meaning.

Traditional SEO relied on placing target terms throughout a page. But Google’s AI Mode now compares the semantic meaning of a query and a passage using embedding vectors. A passage can rank well even if it doesn’t use the same words, as long as its meaning aligns closely with the query.

This shift has made many SEO strategies outdated. Pages may be well-written and keyword-rich, yet still underperform if their embedded meaning doesn’t match search intent.

What SEO Got Wrong & What Comes Next

The story isn’t just about Google changing the game, it’s also about how the SEO industry failed to notice the rules had already shifted.

Don’t: Misread the Signals

As rankings dropped, many teams assumed they’d been hit by a quality update or core algorithm tweak. They doubled down on familiar tactics: improving E-E-A-T signals, updating titles, and refreshing content. They pruned thin pages, boosted internal links, and ran audits.

But these efforts were based on outdated models. They treated the symptom, visibility loss, not the cause: semantic drift.

Semantic drift happens when your content’s vector no longer aligns with the evolving vector of search intent. It’s invisible to traditional SEO tools because it occurs in latent space, not your HTML.

No amount of backlinks or content tweaks can fix that.

This wasn’t just platform abuse. It was also a strategic oversight.

SEO teams:

Many believed that doing what Google said, improving helpfulness, pruning content, and writing for humans, would be enough.

That promise collapsed under AI scrutiny.

But we’re not powerless.

Don’t: Fall Into The Trap of Compliance

Google told the industry to “focus on helpful content,” and SEOs listened, through a lexical lens. They optimized for tone, readability, and FAQs.

But “helpfulness” was being determined mathematically by whether your vectors aligned with the AI’s interpretation of the query.

Thousands of reworked sites still dropped in visibility. Why? Because while polishing copy, they never asked: Does this content geometrically align with search intent?

Do: Optimize For Data, Not Keywords

The new SEO playbook begins with a simple truth: you are optimizing for math, not words.

The New SEO Playbook: How To Optimize For AI-Powered SERPs

Here’s what we now know:

AI Mode is real and measurable.
✅You can calculate embedding similarity.
✅You can test passages against queries.
✅You can visualize how Google ranks.
Content must align semantically, not just topically.
✅Two pages about “best hiking trails” may be lexically similar, but if one focuses on family hikes and the other on extreme terrain, their vectors diverge.
Authority still matters, but only after similarity.
✅The AI Mode fan-out selects relevant passages first. Authority reranking comes later.
✅If you don’t pass the similarity threshold, your authority won’t matter.
Passage-level optimization is the new frontier.
✅Optimizing entire pages isn’t enough. Each chunk of content must pull semantic weight.

How Do I Track Google AI Mode Data To Improve SERP Visibility?

It depends on your goals; for success in SERPs, you need to focus on tools that not only show you visibility data, but also how to get there.

Profound was one of the first tools to measure whether content appeared inside large language models, essentially offering a visibility check for LLM inclusion. It gave SEOs early signals that AI systems were beginning to treat search results differently, sometimes surfacing pages that never ranked traditionally. Profound made it clear: LLMs were not relying on the same scoring systems that SEOs had spent decades trying to influence.

But Profound stopped short of offering explanations. It told you if your content was chosen, but not why. It didn’t simulate the algorithmic behavior of AI Mode or reveal what changes would lead to better inclusion.

That’s where simulation-based platforms came in.

Market Brew approached the challenge differently. Instead of auditing what was visible inside an AI system, they reconstructed the inner logic of those systems, building search engine models that mirrored Google’s evolution toward embeddings and vector-based scoring. These platforms didn’t just observe the effects of AI Mode, they recreated its mechanisms.

As early as 2023, Market Brew had already implemented:

Passage segmentation that divides page content into consistent ~700-character blocks.
Embedding generation using Sentence-BERT to capture the semantic fingerprint of each passage.
Cosine similarity calculations to simulate how queries match specific blocks of content, not just the page as a whole.
Thematic clustering algorithms, like Top Cluster Similarity, to determine which groupings of passages best aligned with a search intent.

🔍 Market Brew Tutorial: Mastering the Top Cluster Similarity Ranking Factor | First Principles SEO

This meant users could test a set of prompts against their content and watch the algorithm think, block by block, similarity score by score.

Where Profound offered visibility, Market Brew offered agency.

Instead of asking “Did I show up in an AI overview?”, simulation tools helped SEOs ask, “Why didn’t I?” and more importantly, “What can I change to improve my chances?”

By visualizing AI Mode behavior before Google ever acknowledged it publicly, these platforms gave early adopters a critical edge. The SEOs using them didn’t wait for traffic to drop before acting, they were already optimizing for vector alignment and semantic coverage long before most of the industry knew it mattered.

And in an era where rankings hinge on how well your embeddings match a user’s intent, that head start has made all the difference.

Visualize AI Mode Coverage. For Free.

SEO didn’t die. It transformed, from art into applied geometry.

AI Mode Visualizer Tutorial

To help SEOs adapt to this AI-driven landscape, Market Brew has just announced the AI Mode Visualizer, a free tool that simulates how Google’s AI Overviews evaluate your content:

Enter a page URL.
Input up to 10 search prompts or generate them automatically from a single master query using LLM-style prompt expansion.
See a cosine similarity matrix showing how each content chunk (700 characters) for your page aligns with each intent.
Click any score to view exactly which passage matched, and why.

🔗 Try the AI Mode Visualizer

This is the only tool that lets you watch AI Mode think.

Two Truths, One Future

Nate Hake is right: Google restructured the game. The data reflects an industry still catching up to the new playbook.

Because two things can be true:

Google may be clearing space for its own services, ad products, and AI monopolies.
And many SEOs are still chasing ghosts in a world governed by geometry.

It’s time to move beyond guesses.

If AI Mode is the new architecture of search, we need tools that expose how it works, not just theories about what changed.

We were bringing you this story back in early 2024, before AI Overviews had a name, explaining how embeddings and vector scoring would reshape SEO.

Tools like the AI Mode Visualizer offer a rare chance to see behind the curtain.

Use it. Test your assumptions. Map the space between your content and modern relevance.

Search didn’t end.

But the way forward demands new eyes.

Book Your AI Mode Strategy Session

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Image Credits

Featured Image: Image by MarketBrew. Used with permission.

Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments

Jun 12 2025

Your Next Time Saver: How To Use AI To Save Time On Hosting Maintenance, Agency Edition via @sejournal, @Hanrahan7

This post was sponsored by Cloudways. The opinions expressed in this article are the sponsor’s own.

Have you ever woken up to a 3 AM client website panic?

Did your client’s ecommerce site crash during a flash sale?

Has another client asked why their site is slow, “even though we’re paying for premium hosting.”

This isn’t just an occasional nuisance.

If you’re managing multiple client sites, hosting maintenance becomes a full-on job in itself. The worst part? None of this time is billable, and every minute spent troubleshooting is a minute you’re not spending on business growth.

Here’s the truth: The way you handle hosting maintenance may be broken. And it’s costing you far more than you realize, in time, money, and missed opportunities.

In this article, we’ll explore:

Ways You’re Accidentally Draining Agency Revenue

You and your agency may lose countless hours to hosting maintenance without realizing the true cost.

Behind every “quick fix” lies a hidden drain on productivity and profits.

Are You Doing This?

A frantic client message or monitoring alert, often hours after the problem started. Then:

Developers scramble to check logs and test configurations.
The team disables plugins one by one as a diagnostic method.
Someone finally contacts hosting support after internal efforts fail.
The issue gets resolved (often) after hours of back-and-forth.

The financial impact is staggering when you do the math.

Consider an agency managing just 30 websites.

If each site experiences only 2 hosting incidents per month requiring 3 hours to resolve, that’s 180 hours annually.

This is nearly an entire month’s worth of lost productivity.

Average resolution time: 3.5 hours per incident.
For an agency with 50 client sites, 4,200 hours/year lost.
At a $150/hour billable rate → $630,000 potential revenue wasted.

Beyond direct costs, this broken system creates three major problems:

Team burnout – Constant firefighting demoralizes developers
Client distrust – Repeated issues make your agency look incompetent
Growth stagnation – Leadership spends time troubleshooting instead of scaling

Each downtime incident plants seeds of doubt about your agency’s technical competence. After just a few occurrences, clients start questioning why they’re paying premium rates for what feels like unreliable service. This erosion of confidence makes contract renewals harder and opens the door for competitors.

How To Solve Client Website Hosting Issues

Most agencies cycle through the same ineffective solutions, each with significant drawbacks:

Don’t: Only Take The Staffing Approach

The most common solution is hiring dedicated infrastructure staff. Many agencies believe bringing a systems admin or DevOps engineer on board will solve their hosting woes. While this provides more control, it creates new problems. You’re now responsible for recruiting, managing, and covering the cost of specialized technical talent.

$85k+ annual salary for each infrastructure specialist.
Ongoing management overhead for technical staff.
Limited availability for after-hours emergencies.
Still requires hosting provider support for complex issues.

Don’t: Just Take The Managed Hosting Solution

Many agencies turn to managed hosting providers to alleviate their maintenance burden.

Technically adept teams can absolutely handle straightforward server-level maintenance, security patches, and core updates; however, most still require some additional support when faced with:

Application-specific troubleshooting (plugin conflicts, theme issues).
Custom performance optimization.
Specialized configurations.

The key difference lies in how managed hosting providers address these residual needs. Traditional hosting providers might still leave you waiting in support queues, while next-gen platforms automatically begin repairs.

Don’t: Simply Use Website Uptime Monitoring Tools

You may think about attempting to solve the problem through monitoring tools.

Website monitoring tools layer on services like New Relic, Datadog, and UptimeRobot, hoping the better visibility will reduce firefighting.

While these tools provide valuable data, they primarily generate more alerts for your team to interpret and take action on. You’ve essentially traded one problem for another – instead of lacking information, you’re now drowning in it.

Alert overload from multiple systems.
False positives that waste investigation time.
No actionable insights – just more data to interpret.
Still requires manual diagnosis and resolution.

Do: Incorporate AI-Powered Hosting Maintenance

Imagine, instead of the chaotic process, you:

Know about issues before clients did.
Understand exactly what went wrong, in plain English.
Get step-by-step instructions to fix it immediately.

Copilots that can do these tasks are your first step towards using and creating a self-learning, auto-healing hosting platform.

They can use intelligent monitoring to detect and help resolve the most common and critical server issues.

Hosting Maintenance: Before & After AI Integration

The Old Way:

Client reports site is down (30+ minutes after it actually went down).
You spend an hour checking logs and plugins.
You contact support and wait 2 hours for a response.
Support suggests a fix that may or may not work.
Total downtime: 4+ hours.

With Cloudways Copilot:

Copilot detects the issue immediately (often before users notice).
You receive an alert with exact cause and fix.
You implement the solution in minutes.
Total downtime: Dramatically reduced resolution time compared to traditional troubleshooting.

How To Get Automatic Hosting & Site Alerts, Repairs & Updates

You can configure Cloudways Copilot to manage many facets of web hosting.

Host Health

Triggers when your entire server goes down, typically from:

Webstack Health

Alerts when core services fail (Apache, Nginx, MySQL, PHP-FPM).
Catches crashes before they take sites offline.
Identifies resource exhaustion issues.

Disk & Inode Health

Warns before you hit critical limits:

Disk space (95%+ utilization).
Inode usage (separate from storage space).

Result: Instant problem detection!

Copilot continuously monitors your servers and applications for:

Performance bottlenecks.
Security threats.
Resource constraints.
Configuration errors.

Unlike traditional monitoring tools that just tell you “something’s wrong,” Copilot identifies the specific issue.

What AI Reports Look Like For Website Maintenance

For each problem detected, Copilot provides:

What happened: The specific error or issue
Where it occurred: Which site, which server
Why it happened: The root cause analysis
How to fix it: Step-by-step resolution instructions

Real-World Example

Instead of just “High CPU Usage” alert, Copilot tells you:

“Your WordPress site on Server X is experiencing high CPU due to a poorly optimized WooCommerce query in Plugin Y. Disable the plugin or contact the developer for an update.”

To be more specific, the example below shows Copilot detecting a DDOS attack, listing malicious IPs, and identifying the file that is being attacked. It then provides remediation steps to prevent the DDOS attack.

Investigation Summary

The investigation shows that much of the server load is driven by multiple concurrent Magento cron tasks and frequent POST requests to the xmlrpc.php endpoint. These factors have caused high CPU usage and intermittent HTTP 500 errors. It appears that the repeated bot visits to xmlrpc.php and resource-intensive Magento cron jobs are the likely cause of the problem.

Remediation Steps

To mitigate the issues related to the potential DDoS attack and improve server performance, please follow these steps:

Block Offending IPs: Use the `.htaccess` file to block the specific IP addresses that are contributing to the abuse. Add the following lines to your .htaccess file:

deny from 66.249.75.34

deny from 114.119.136.249

deny from 182.43.65.168

Implement Cloudflare: If you haven’t already, consider setting up Cloudflare for your application. This will enhance your website’s security and help mitigate DDoS attacks by filtering malicious traffic before it reaches your server. Follow the integration steps provided by Cloudways to set up CNAME records.

Enable Under Attack Mode: Once Cloudflare is set up, enable Under Attack Mode, which performs an extra security check for every visitor and helps protect your site from ongoing DDoS attacks, especially targeting specific URLs like /xmlrpc.php.

By taking these actions, you can significantly reduce the strain on your server and improve its performance.”,

Support links:

https://support.cloudways.com/en/articles/6009152-how-to-integrate-cloudflare-with-your-application

https://support.cloudways.com/en/articles/5120765-how-to-monitor-system-processes-using-htop-command

This is how Cloudways Copilot uses AI to identify hosting and server issues by comparing them to similar cases across the fleet, quickly suggesting the most effective remediation solutions with step-by-step instructions. This saves you time by providing immediate solutions without the need for manual detection, troubleshooting, or back-and-forth support tickets, preventing disappointment for your clients.

Image create by Cloudways, April 2025

At the end of the day, hosting headaches shouldn’t waste your agency’s most valuable resource: time. Every minute spent troubleshooting is a minute taken away from client work, business growth, or simply having a life outside of server emergencies.

Cloudways Copilot tackles this problem at its root by:

Detecting issues before clients notice.
Pinpointing exactly what broke and why.
Showing where problems occurred (specific apps/servers).
Providing step-by-step fixes in plain language.
Cutting resolution time from hours to minutes.

What’s coming next makes Cloudways Copilot even better:

One-click fixes – Resolve common errors automatically with a single click
Automated resolutions – Let Copilot handle routine tasks like server-wide cache purges and backup management
Developer workflows – Automate performance monitoring and testing to free up your team

Best of all? During our early access period, Cloudways Copilot is completely free. We’re currently onboarding users through our limited-access program – visit the Cloudways Copilot page and submit your details to secure your spot.

SECURE MY SPOT

Image Credits

Featured Image: Image by Cloudways. Used with permission.

In-Post Image: Images by Cloudways. Used with permission.

Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments

Jun 4 2025

How To Host Or Migrate A Website In 2025: Factors That May Break Rankings [+ Checklist] via @sejournal, @inmotionhosting

This post was sponsored by InMotion Hosting. The opinions expressed in this article are the sponsor’s own.

Is your website struggling to maintain visibility in search results despite your SEO efforts?

Are your Core Web Vitals scores inconsistent, no matter how many optimizations you implement?

Have you noticed competitors outranking you even when your content seems superior?

In 2025, hosting isn’t just a backend choice. It’s a ranking signal.

In this guide, you’ll learn how hosting decisions impact your ability to rank, and how to choose (or migrate to) hosting that helps your visibility.

Learn to work with your rankings, not against them, with insights from InMotion Hosting’s enterprise SEO specialists.

Jump Straight To Your Needs

Best For	Hosting Type	How Easy is Migration?
Growing SMBs	VPS	Easy: Launch Assist (free)
Enterprise / SaaS	Dedicated	Very Easy: White-Glove + Managed Service

Don’t know which one you need? Read on.

Hosting Directly Impacts SEO Performance

Your hosting environment is the foundation of your SEO efforts. Poor hosting can undermine even the best content and keyword strategies.

Key Areas That Hosting Impacts

Core Web Vitals

Server response time directly affects Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) and First Input Delay (FID), two critical ranking factors.

Solution: Hosting with NVMe storage and sufficient RAM improves these metrics.

Crawl Budget

Your website’s visibility to search engines can be affected by limited server resources, wrong settings, and firewalls that restrict access.

When search engines encounter these issues, they index fewer pages and visit your site less often.

Solution: Upgrade to a hosting provider that’s built for SEO performance and consistent uptime.

Indexation Success

Proper .htaccess rules for redirects, error handling, and DNS configurations are essential for search engines to index your content effectively.

Many hosting providers limit your ability to change this important file, restricting you from:

– Editing your .htaccess file.

– Installing certain SEO or security plugins.

– Adjusting server settings.

These restrictions can hurt your site’s ability to be indexed and affect your overall SEO performance.

Solution: VPS and dedicated hosting solutions give you full access to these settings.

SERP Stability During Traffic Spikes

If your content goes viral or experiences a temporary surge in traffic, poor hosting can cause your site to crash or slow down significantly. This can lead to drops in your rankings if not addressed right away.

Solution: Using advanced caching mechanisms can help prevent these problems.

Server Security

Google warns users about sites with security issues in Search Console. Warnings like “Social Engineering Detected” can erode user trust and hurt your rankings.

Solution: Web Application Firewalls offer important protection against security threats.

Server Location

The location of your server affects how fast your site loads for different users, which can influence your rankings.

Solution: Find a web host that operates data centers in multiple server locations, such as two in the United States, one in Amsterdam, and, soon, one in Singapore. This helps reduce loading times for users worldwide.

Load Times

Faster-loading pages lead to lower bounce rates, which can improve your SEO. [Server-side optimizations], such as caching and compression, are vital for achieving fast load times.

These factors have always been important, but they are even more critical now that AI plays a role in search engine results.

40 Times Faster Page Speeds with Top Scoring Core Web Vitals with InMotion Hosting UltraStack One. (Source: InMotion Hosting UltraStack One for WordPress )

Image created by InMotion Hosting, 2025.

2025 Update: Search Engines Are Prioritizing Hosting & Technical Performance More Than Ever

In 2025, search engines have fully embraced AI-driven results, and with this shift has come an increased emphasis on technical performance signals that only proper hosting can deliver.

How 2025 AI Overview SERPs Affect Your Website’s Technical SEO

Google is doubling down on performance signals. Its systems now place even greater weight on:

Uptime: Sites with frequent server errors due to outages experience more ranking fluctuations than in previous years. 99.99% uptime guarantees are now essential.
Server-Side Rendering: As JavaScript frameworks become more prevalent, servers that efficiently handle rendering deliver a better user experience and improved Core Web Vitals scores. Server-optimized JS rendering can make a difference.
Trust Scores: Servers free of malware with healthy dedicated IP addresses isolated to just your site (rather than shared with potentially malicious sites) receive better crawling and indexing treatment. InMotion Hosting’s security-first approach helps maintain these crucial trust signals.
Content Freshness: Server E-Tags and caching policies affect how quickly Google recognizes and indexes new or updated content.
TTFB (Time To First Byte): Server location, network stability, and input/output speeds all impact TTFB. Servers equipped with NVMe storage technology excel at I/O speeds, delivering faster data retrieval and improved SERP performance.

Infographic Illustrating How Browser Caching Works (Source: Ultimate Guide to Optimize WordPress Performance )

Created by InMotion Hosting. May, 2025

Modern search engines utilize AI models that prioritize sites that deliver consistent, reliable, and fast data. This shift means hosting that can render pages quickly is no longer optional for competitive rankings.

What You Can Do About It (Even If You’re Not Into Technical SEO)

You don’t need to be a server administrator to improve your website’s performance. Here’s what you can do.

1. Choose Faster Hosting

Upgrade from shared hosting to VPS or dedicated hosting with NVMe storage. InMotion Hosting’s plans are specifically designed to boost SEO performance.

2. Use Monitoring Tools

Free tools like UptimeRobot.com, WordPress plugins, or cPanel’s resource monitoring can alert you to performance issues before they affect your rankings.

3. Implement Server-Side Caching

Set up caching with Redis or Memcached using WordPress plugins like W3 Total Cache, or through cPanel.

4. Add a CDN

Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) can enhance global performance without needing server changes. InMotion Hosting makes CDN integration easy.

5. Utilize WordPress Plugins

Use LLMS.txt files to help AI tools crawl your site more effectively.

6. Work with Hosting Providers Who Understand SEO

InMotion Hosting offers managed service packages for thorough server optimization, tailored for optimal SEO performance.

Small Business: VPS Hosting Is Ideal for Reliable Performance on a Budget

VPS hosting is every growing business’s secret SEO weapon.

Imagine two competing local service businesses, both with similar content and backlink profiles, but one uses shared hosting while the other uses a VPS.

When customers search for services, the VPS-hosted site consistently appears higher in results because it loads faster and delivers a smoother user experience.

What Counts as an SMB

Small to medium-sized businesses typically have fewer than 500 employees, annual revenue under $100 million, and websites that receive up to 50,000 monthly visitors.

If your business falls into this category, VPS hosting offers the ideal balance of performance and cost.

What You Get With VPS Hosting

1. Fast Speeds with Less Competition

VPS hosting gives your website dedicated resources, unlike shared hosting where many sites compete for the same resources. InMotion Hosting’s VPS solutions ensure your site runs smoothly with optimal resource allocation.

2. More Control Over SEO

With VPS hosting, you can easily set up caching, SSL, and security features that affect SEO. Full root access enables you to have complete control over your server environment.

3. Affordable for Small Businesses Focused on SEO

VPS hosting provides high-quality performance at a lower cost than dedicated servers, making it a great option for growing businesses.

4. Reliable Uptime

InMotion Hosting’s VPS platform guarantees 99.99% uptime through triple replication across multiple nodes. If one node fails, two copies of your site will keep it running.

5. Better Performance for Core Web Vitals

Dedicated CPU cores and RAM lead to faster loading times and improved Core Web Vitals scores. You can monitor server resources to keep track of performance.

6. Faster Connections

Direct links to major internet networks improve TTFB (Time To First Byte), an important SEO measure.

7. Strong Security Tools

InMotion Hosting provides security measures to protect your site against potential threats that could harm it and negatively impact your search rankings. Their malware prevention systems keep your site safe.

How To Set Up VPS Hosting For Your SEO-Friendly Website

Assess your website’s current performance using tools like Google PageSpeed Insights and Search Console
Choose a VPS plan that matches your traffic volume and resource needs
Work with your provider’s migration team to transfer your site (InMotion Hosting offers Launch Assist for seamless transitions)
Implement server-level caching for optimal performance
Configure your SSL certificate to ensure secure connections
Set up performance monitoring to track improvements
Update DNS settings to point to your new server

Large & Enterprise Businesses: Dedicated Hosting Is Perfect For Scaling SEO

What Counts As An Enterprise Business?

Enterprise businesses typically have complex websites with over 1,000 pages, receive more than 100,000 monthly visitors, operate multiple domains or subdomains, or run resource-intensive applications that serve many concurrent users.

Benefits of Dedicated Hosting

Control Over Server Settings

Dedicated hosting provides you with full control over how your server is configured. This is important for enterprise SEO, which often needs specific settings to work well.

Better Crawlability for Large Websites

More server resources allow search engines to crawl more pages quickly. This helps ensure your content gets indexed on time. Advanced server logs provide insights to help you improve crawl patterns.

Reliable Uptime for Global Users

Enterprise websites need to stay online. Dedicated hosting offers reliable service that meets the expectations of users around the world.

Strong Processing Power for Crawlers

Dedicated CPU resources provide the power needed to handle spikes from search engine crawlers when they index your site. InMotion Hosting uses the latest Intel Xeon processors for better performance.

Multiple Dedicated IP Addresses

Having multiple dedicated IP addresses is important for businesses and SaaS platforms that offer API microservices. IP management tools make it easier to manage these addresses.

Custom Security Controls

You can create specific firewall rules and access lists to manage traffic and protect against bots. DDoS protection systems enhance your security.

Real-Time Server Logs

You can watch for crawl surges and performance issues as they happen with detailed server logs. Log analysis tools help you find opportunities to improve.

Load Balancing for Traffic Management

Load balancing helps spread traffic evenly across resources. This way, you can handle increases in traffic without slowing down performance. InMotion Hosting provides strong load balancing solutions.

Future Scalability

You can use multiple servers and networks to manage traffic and resources as your business grows. Scalable infrastructure planning keeps your performance ready for the future.

Fixed Pricing Plans

You can manage costs effectively as you grow with predictable pricing plans.

How To Migrate To Dedicated Hosting

Conduct a thorough site audit to identify all content and technical requirements.
Document your current configuration, including plugins, settings, and custom code.
Work with InMotion Hosting’s migration specialists to plan the transition
Set up a staging environment to test the new configuration before going live
Configure server settings for optimal SEO performance
Implement monitoring tools to track key metrics during and after migration
Create a detailed redirect map for any URL changes
Roll out the migration during low-traffic periods to minimize impact
Verify indexing status in Google Search Console post-migration

[DOWNLOAD] Website Migration Checklist

Free Website Migration Checklist download from InMotion Hosting – step-by-step guide to smoothly transfer your website

Image created by InMotion Hosting, May 2025

Why Shared Hosting Can Kill Your SERP Rankings & Core Web Vitals

If you’re serious about SEO in 2025, shared hosting is a risk that doesn’t come with rewards.

Shared Hosting Issues & Risks

Capped Resource Environments

Shared hosting plans typically impose strict limits on CPU usage, memory, and connections. These limitations directly impact Core Web Vitals scores and can lead to temporary site suspensions during traffic spikes.

Resource Competition

Every website on a shared server competes for the same limited resources.

This becomes even more problematic with AI bots accessing hundreds of sites simultaneously on a single server.

Neighbor Problems

A resource-intensive website on your shared server can degrade performance for all sites, including yours. Isolated hosting environments eliminate this risk.

Collateral Damage During Outages

When a shared server becomes overwhelmed, not only does your website go down, but so do connected services like domains and email accounts. InMotion Hosting’s VPS and dedicated solutions provide isolation from these cascading failures.

Limited Access to Server Logs

Without detailed server logs, diagnosing and resolving technical SEO issues becomes nearly impossible. Advanced log analysis is essential for optimization.

Restricted Configuration Access

Shared hosting typically prevents modifications to server-level configurations that are essential for optimizing technical SEO.

Inability to Adapt Quickly

Shared environments limit your ability to implement emerging SEO techniques, particularly those designed to effectively handle AI crawlers. Server-level customization is increasingly important for SEO success.

In 2025, Reliable Hosting Is a Competitive Advantage

As search engines place greater emphasis on technical performance, your hosting choice is no longer just an IT decision; it’s a strategic marketing investment.

InMotion Hosting’s VPS and Dedicated Server solutions are engineered specifically to address the technical SEO challenges of 2025 and beyond. With NVMe-powered storage, optimized server configurations, and 24/7 expert human support, we provide the foundation your site needs to achieve and maintain top rankings.

Ready to turn your hosting into an SEO advantage? Learn more about our SEO-first hosting solutions designed for performance and scale.

LEARN MORE

Image Credits

Featured Image: Image by Shutterstock. Used with permission.

In-Post Image: Images by InMotion Hosting. Used with permission.

Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments

May 13 2025

How To Increase Google Discover Visibility Naturally Using These Ranking Signals via @sejournal, @rollerads

This post was sponsored by RollerAds. The opinions expressed in this article are the sponsor’s own.

Want more visibility in Google Discover?

Not sure how to get into Google’s personalized news feeds?

Discover isn’t like search. You don’t rank for keywords.

You get selected.

And that means the best way to get featured isn’t to optimize for keywords; it’s to optimize for specific algorithmic signals.

In this guide, we’ll cover the core ranking signals that help Google determine which content belongs in Discover feeds, and how you can naturally boost those signals using tools like push notifications.

Google Discover Optimization Tips: Which Signals Tell Google Your Content Belongs in Discover?

Google Discover uses a different algorithm from traditional search results.

While it still considers many of the same quality indicators, Discover visibility depends less on keywords and more on how your content performs in the real world.

Here are the most important content quality signals for Discover.

1. E-E-A-T: Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trust

A good rule of thumb is to follow the “E-E-A-T” guideline:

Experience: Firsthand, real-world familiarity with the subject.
Expertise: Deep knowledge and skill in your content niche.
Authoritativeness: Recognition from other trusted sources.
Trustworthiness: Accurate, unbiased, and reliable information.

2. Engagement Metrics

These tell Google your content resonates with users and may be worth promoting more widely.

3. Strong Visuals & Headlines

Discover is highly visual, so if you don’t stand out immediately, the users are likely to scroll past your content.

Take your time to polish headlines to get attention, but make sure they accurately reflect the content of your article, post, or whatever you’re writing right now.

Engaging headlines, images, and videos perform better, especially when those assets are optimized for mobile.

4. Technical SEO & Mobile Optimization

While you don’t need to “rank” per se, you do need a well-optimized site, which includes:

Fast load times: Consider page speed and overall efficiency. Use PageSpeed Insights to ensure your web pages are optimized for user performance.
Mobile-friendly layouts: Google Discover is only available on mobile devices, as there is currently no desktop version.
Structured data: Google relies on structured data to categorize content and provide relevant suggestions for users. To attract more engaged and relevant users, you need to add tags and structure data so that Google can better recognize and categorize your content.
Internal linking & link building: It will help you create your own network of content. This concerns old articles, too, as they might serve as a gateway to newer pieces of content.
RSS or Atom Feed: Allow users to follow you to receive updates quickly. Google generates a feed for you automatically, but you can connect your own.
Google Web Stories: Similar to Instagram, these stories appear under the Visual Stories banner on mobiles and serve to expand your reach. Stories are easy to create, engaging, interactive, and fun.

Track, test, improve. Use Google Search Console (GSC) to monitor your performance and statistics. Unlike Google Analytics, it has a dedicated tab for monitoring Google Discover traffic.

5. Freshness & Topical Relevance

Valuable content addresses and solves pain points.

For content to have a better chance of showing up in Discover feeds, it should be:

Accurate.
Timely.
Trending.
Helpful.
Continuously updated.

This is especially powerful if your content is tied to current events or spikes in interest, as shown in Google Trends.

To discover what users search for, try:

Google Search: Enter a query and scroll down to view related and popular requests.
Google Search’s Autocomplete: Start typing a search and observe the suggested autocomplete queries; these are the queries that many others regularly search for.
Google Trends: Identify how popular a content direction is in any part of the world. This is also great for identifying seasonality.

How Google Discover Works

Google Discover suggests your content, which should include all the positive signals mentioned above.
The Google app user engages with your content within Google Discover, adding to Google’s knowledge of how users interact with your website.
These engagements (visitor volume, time on page, user experience, etc.) indicate to Google that your content is well-suited for similar readers.
Google increases your reach and visibility on Google Discover.
Those new viewers engage with your content in a similar pattern.
The cycle repeats, spreading your optimized content to more Google Discover timelines.

This is known as a positive loop because your content consistently passes positive ranking signals back to Google’s Discover algorithm, thereby continuing to increase in engagement.

How Do I Create A Positive Loop & Show Up In Google Discover?

Now that you know what Google is looking for, here’s how to naturally boost those signals.

We know that Google Discover places your content based on:

High-clickthrough rates.
Long time-on-page.
Repeat visitors.

So, how can you increase those metrics?

By getting a dedicated reader base that is always ready to consume your new content.

Push notifications are a great way to alert your dedicated readers that new content is out.

And they will feed your Google Discover algorithm data.

How To Use Push Notifications To Boost These Google Signals

Many publishers avoid push notifications, believing they’re too promotional or might harm user experience (UX).

However, modern push notification platforms allow you to take a more hybrid approach, combining editorial updates with monetization to boost visibility.

Why Hybrid Push Notifications Help Boost Discover Visibility

Done right, push notifications help your content get discovered organically by:

Increasing CTR with a second wave of distribution.
Driving fast engagement shortly after publication.
Bringing back repeat readers to increase session depth.
Boosting behavioral signals that Google uses to judge quality.

In other words, push notifications support the very engagement metrics that can lead to more Discover visibility.

When users receive a mix of informative and promotional pushes, each message feels fresh, encouraging clicks and boosting your CTR.

Higher engagement signals to Google that your content is valuable, increasing the chances of it being featured on Discover.

And since Discover traffic is largely made up of new visitors, each one becomes a fresh opportunity to grow your subscriber base.

Once users opt in, you can keep re-engaging them, creating a cycle of rising visibility, CTR, and traffic.

Image created by RollerAds April, 2025

How to Implement Hybrid Push Format to Get on Discover Faster

In a recent case study, one RollerAds publisher increased their revenue from $0 to $60,000 per month by pairing great content with hybrid push notifications and Discover-optimized distribution. The key was creating content that signals quality and leveraging distribution to show it.

With a tool like RollerAds, you can gain a streamlined way to:

Send personalized push notifications for your latest content.
Mix promotional and editorial messaging without spamming your readers.
Increase engagement, retention, and revenue simultaneously.

Simply register your site, get a custom strategy from your account manager, and start boosting content visibility, without compromising user experience.

Even better? You can monetize this traffic directly with ad formats designed for Discover audiences, no intrusive pop-ups or poor user experience. Just clear, engaging content with a side of revenue.

For SEJ readers, use the code SEJ30 to add +30% to your funds before July 1st, 2025.

Just show the code to your account manager on RollerAds before your first payment.

Getting featured on Google Discover isn’t just about luck; it’s about strategy.

From creating high-quality, relevant content to optimizing visuals, headlines, and mobile performance, every step counts. However, to truly stand out and amplify your chances, pairing content strategy with smart tools, such as hybrid push notifications from RollerAds, can make all the difference.

Engaging your audience through push updates not only drives more clicks but also signals content quality to Google, boosting your Discover reach. With the right monetization tools, you can convert that traffic into substantial revenue.

Image Credits

Featured Image: Image by RollerAds. Used with permission.

In-Post Image: Images by RollerAds. Used with permission.

Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments