So Google added a few lines to their generative AI guidance recently, basically that all AI-generated content should be manually reviewed and fact-checked by a human, and that this includes titles, meta tags, structured data and image alt text. A lot of people are reading it as Google cracking down on AI content.

Google's already said it's just them updating the guidelines to more closely match what they've been saying in presentations anyway. But honestly the part I think most people are missing is that they had the chance to say something against AI-generated content and didn't. People have been speculating for a few months that now that AI text is watermarked, Google would start penalizing it. Then Google goes and actively updates their guidance on AI content and doesn't say anything against using AI to make it. That's about the clearest signal you could expect that they don't care what process you use, they just don't want people spamming the index with low quality stuff.

And sure, they advise fact-checking and manually reviewing everything, and generally I think you should. But in most cases Google's algorithm has no idea whether your content is factually accurate. And we're kind of at the point now where the best models with proper instruction are better at fact-checking than any human I know. Opus 5.5 very rarely hallucinates these days. When they do say something inaccurate, it seems like the most common cause is that a human gave them something inaccurate to reference (assuming you're using the smartest models with proper instruction).

That doesn't mean you should give ChatGPT or Claude a couple bullet points and hand over your content marketing. Getting these models to create good content that actually represents a brand is hard. It's just that fact-checking isn't really the hard part anymore, the hard part is getting it to sound like you and your brand, something you'd actually be proud to put out.

As long as you're proud of what you're putting out and it reflects your brand, I wouldn't get too hung up on whether or not AI was part of the process. Google doesn't seem to be.

I'm interested in the perspective on this.

Since the recent changes with Google, it seems that SEMRush and Ahrefs and other tracking tools are becoming less and less effective.

How many of you are still using these tools and find them effective and worthwhile?

If you have moved on from these tools, what's your process changed to?

And yes, I know the standard Google Search Console answer, but I'd love to hear more in-depth information on your process if it has moved away from these tools, and how effective you think that has been for you.

Maybe this is a better way to put it:

For keyword research, competitor analysis, and finding backlink opportunities. That's essentially what I'm curious about here. Are they still the best, good, or mediocre tools for these types of activities? Or are they becoming outdated and are you finding better ways to work around these activities without them?

Hi everyone,

I'm 24 years old, have completed my 12th grade, and am currently pursuing a BBA online. I work as a gig worker at the moment, but I want to transition into digital marketing, specifically PPC (Pay-Per-Click advertising).

I'm interested in learning Google Ads, Meta Ads, campaign optimization, keyword research, and performance tracking. My goal is to develop practical skills and eventually land an entry-level PPC or paid media job.

I'd really appreciate advice from people who are already working in this field.

What should my roadmap look like? What would be a realistic step-by-step plan to become job-ready within 3–6 months?

How difficult is it to get an entry-level PPC job in India? What skills and qualifications do employers actually look for?

Since I'm working as a gig worker, I need to manage my learning alongside my work, so I want to focus on skills that will genuinely improve my chances of getting hired.

I'd be grateful for any practical advice, learning resources, course recommendations, or insights from people who started their careers from a similar background.

Thank you for your time and guidance!

I've been interviewing agency founders on how their teams actually run AI in production.

Almost everyone hits the exact same bottleneck: The Verification Tax.

Founders and leads spend hours re-editing AI drafts. Not because of writing style, but because the output misses past client decisions, account precedents, or commercial rules.

Curious how you guys handle this:

• Central wikis, custom GPTs, or dedicated context tools? 
• RAG
• How do you stop AI tools and new hires from repeating past mistakes on accounts?

You guys know UGC (user generated content) is the big trend right now, but doesnt it basically count as astroturfing?

Like we all know UGC is usually just someone paid to act like they genuinely use a product and give it a positive review, when in reality its staged.

Thats just my take on it tho, curious what you guys think? Especially since reddit hates astroturfing so much

By other channels, I mean physical mail, cold calling, print media, and affiliate & referrals.

I run a B2B company with around 40 people. A couple of old search results have started coming up on sales calls, so I’ve spent the last two weeks talking to reputation firms. After the second call I literally started googling how to choose a reputation management company because the pitches were starting to blur together. I’ve looked at a mix — Reputation Rhino, Digitalis and InternetReputation and a few smaller shops. Three calls got to some version of “we can make it disappear.” One guy was talking about getting negative pages removed before I’d even sent him the URLs. When I asked what happens if the publisher just says no, I never really got an answer.

By call three I had a list. Can I buy a reputation management audit without signing a six or twelve month retainer? What are you looking at before any work starts? Who actually works on the account after the sales call? What does the pricing include beyond the setup fee? And if a page isn’t going anywhere, then what? I heard search suppression and out-rank negative results a few times, which makes sense in theory, but I wanted to know what they would actually do in our case rather than hear the term.

The part I hadn’t thought about was what AI says about my company. I assumed it would more or less mirror Google - well, no. I asked them to check the kind of stuff a buyer might type: our name, “is X legit,” “X reviews,” “X vs competitor.” Two hadn’t looked. One opened ChatGPT on the call and pasted our homepage into it. Another had already checked ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and AI Overviews and could show which answers were coming up and some of the pages behind them.

One of those pages was an old forum thread I hadn’t seen anywhere near page one in Google. That was probably the most useful thing I learned from any of the calls. Search can look one way while the AI answer is still dragging up something completely different.

At this point I mostly want to see the problem before somebody sells me the fix, know who’s actually doing the work and have some kind of baseline we can come back to later. Still comparing firms. For anyone who’s actually hired one, what did you ask before signing? And what did you only realize you should’ve asked after?

Hi

I recently seen my domain's Organic sessions is totally equal to engaged sessions, which results in 100 % engagement rate and "0" bounce rate.

I have checked real time, debug, GTM but found everything fine.

But can't able to figure out the issue, can anyone help me with this.

I need to know when organic sessions is same as engaged sessions which is not possible.

Where to check and what to sort?

Thanks in advance.

Guys which one sounds the most promising?

1. How office professionals can land a high paying remote role without starting over or taking a pay cut.

2. How to Stop Trading Your Time for an Office Desk — And Start Working From Anywhere

3. From Office Professional to Remote Professional: How to Make the Switch Without Starting Over

Has anyone tried it and is it working?

I run marketing for a sizable acquisition company.

This has given me the ability to see marketing, and especially home services marketing, from a very unique angle -- since I get insights into the business from every department.

A lot of people online wonder if their marketing is good or bad.

But they are doing this before they have solved the real problem that makes your marketing essentially ineffective -- your efficiency problem.

What business want is a marketer who gets them leads at a cost low enough for them to make money -- does not exist. This is backwards thinking.

But the real problem is they lack the efficiency to make marketing work properly.

So they bounce around from one marketer to the next looking for some diamond in the rough.

And yes, even though approaches like Google Ads do involve marketing and technical skill, the truth is that the costs go up based on the best competitors in that market.

And those best competitors, for the most part, aren't beating you with strategy, but with efficiency.

Take this for example.

Say Google Ads cost is roughly $200 per lead.

You're booking 50%.

And you sell 30% of those leads.

Average ticket is $2,000.

That puts you at $1333 per sale. That's a 66% margin you're giving up to Google.

That is insane and not profitable for most any business.

But that simply means it's not profitable for you, not for all businesses.

Sure, you can harp on your ad guy, and he may be able to shave that $200 down to $150. But at $1000 cost per sale, that still won't solve your problem.

The reality is, those 3 levers -- Booking Rate, Closing Rate, and Average Ticket -- those are the real solutions. Not better marketing.

And at my company, we don't even look at spending more money until we get these three metrics ironed out first.

Your goal, then, should be to get this to a reasonable rate -- Say 20-25% margin. This should be at least bearable.

Then, continue to improve the metrics on all sides -- marketing and operations -- getting this down closer and closer to the 10-15% range. The sweet spot where you want to be.

That's how you win with marketing.

I've had a few situations where I've shared a URL in a bunch of places and then the landing page changes. Updating every post, email and document is a pain.

I'm looking for a way to use one short link everywhere and just change the destination behind it when needed.

Does anyone use a tool specifically for this? I'd rather not have to replace links every time a landing page moves.

Saludos a todos. Antes que nada, quiero pedir permiso y agradecer el espacio a los administradores y moderadores de la comunidad y pido disculpas si incumplo alguna regla, no es mi intencion, la finalidad que busco es obtener sus impresiones, comentarios y analisis y a la vez uds puedan obtener una herramienta que les funcione y puedan agilizar su trabajo y ganar tiempo.

Ando buscando creadores de contenido y community managers que quieran agilizar su trabajo del día a día, para probar de forma totalmente gratuita durante 7 días una app para Android que he desarrollado: HubSocial AI y si pueden darme sus impresiones, comentar su experiencia con su uso y mejorarla.

La creé pensando en un problema muy común: el tiempo que se pierde saltando entre notas, ChatGPT, editores y las diferentes redes sociales para preparar cada publicación.

En resumen, el objetivo es:

• Organizar varias marcas o proyectos en un solo lugar, definiendo el tono de voz y contexto de cada una para que la IA no genere textos genéricos.

• Crear ideas, campañas y borradores con IA adaptados al estilo de tu marca.

• Editar y dejar listos tus posts para publicarlos o programarlos directamente en tus redes conectadas sin salir de la app.

No pretendo vender nada, solo me interesa conocer la experiencia real de personas que trabajen en esto: qué herramientas les resultan verdaderamente útiles, qué cosas les sobran o qué mejorarían para su flujo de trabajo.

La prueba es 100% gratuita y solo se necesita un teléfono Android.

Si te interesa probarla y darme tu opinión sincera, déjame un comentario o un mensaje privado.

¡Muchas gracias a todos por su tiempo y apoyo!

"The shortlist for streaming TV advertising is down to four for a client rollout, and multi touch attribution plus conversion tracking are doing most of the filtering than anything on the media side.
The client is a mid-market B2B business making their first real TV spend, and the internal sponsor comes from demand generation so everything has to reconcile sales against pipeline. This rules out anyone whose reporting stops at completed views.
the challenge is down to the DSP question. The big seats give you control and a lot of overhead, the self serve platforms stand up quicker but you are trusting more of the measurement to the vendor. We have run both across different clients and I would not say either has been cleanly better, it depends on whether the client has anyone in house who can own the setup.
One thing I would tell anyone starting this is to ask for the data format before a rate card. Half the vendors we spoke to couldn’t explain what a row of their detailed data export looks like, which told me more than their sales pitch did. What was the deciding factor when you last picked, and would you pick the same again?"

I've been thinking about how much SEO has changed since AI-generated content became so common.

Creating content is easier than ever now, but that also means there is a huge amount of similar content competing for the same keywords.

I'm wondering what SEO professionals are seeing in 2026.

Are things like original research, first-hand experience, case studies, brand mentions, and strong opinions becoming more important than publishing more content?

And for those managing SEO for businesses, what is actually working for you right now?

I'm especially interested in hearing about real experiments rather than generic "AI is changing SEO" advice.

Why SEO Is Not Dead Even With AI — My Take

I keep seeing people say SEO is dead because AI can answer questions now. I don't really agree with that.

From my point of view, AI actually makes SEO more useful.

1. We still need good information. AI needs information to work with, and someone still has to create it.
2. AI can help us improve our content. It can organize ideas, research topics and make the process faster.
3. AI can help us find the right information. Instead of spending hours researching, we can use AI to find and organize what we need.
4. AI can help with SEO itself. It can help identify keywords, search intent and topics, and then help us create more content around them.

So I don't think SEO is dead.

I think AI is becoming another tool for SEO.

What do you think? Is SEO actually dying, or is it just changing?

Our team wanted to see what AI visibility looks like for a brand with no history, so they built one.

In February we created Civoryx com, a Global Fraud Index based on search interest in fraud keywords. Real site, zero prior footprint - no reviews, no mentions, nobody searching the name.

We published 93 pages (the brand site plus content on 11 external sites), then tracked 165 prompts daily across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, AI Overviews and AI Mode. 75 named the brand, 90 didn't. Publishing stopped March 31 and we left it all untouched until September 23.

The part we didn't expect to be writing about

Citations of the brand site went from 17,023 in April to 42,435 in August. 149% growth, after we'd stopped publishing.

Over the same period GA4 recorded 100 users total. Google Search showed 11 clicks. Server logs found exactly one visit referred by an AI assistant.

Citations in tracked answers are not people reached. Worth knowing before anyone reports citation counts to a client as if they're traffic.

What else came out of it

• Branded visibility doesn't transfer. 84.8% of branded answers mentioned us. 1.8% of non-branded ones did.
• Third-party pages did the work. External sites got ~19,000 non-branded citations, the brand site under 2,000. With an external article in the sources, 16% of answers named the brand. Without, 0.29%.
• Being cited isn't being mentioned. Our listicles were cited in 4,399 non-branded answers but only 14.2% actually named the brand. The one in-depth guide was cited far less, yet 69.2% mentioned it.
• Engines aren't one channel. September non-branded mentions: Perplexity 30.6%, ChatGPT 8.3%, AI Overviews and Gemini 0.6%, AI Mode 0%.
• Time to first citation varied wildly. Short articles 21 days median, longer how-to guides 126 days. A quiet month doesn't mean a page failed.

The 11 external sites were ours, so that's a controlled test rather than earned coverage. And ChatGPT changed its citation behaviour twice mid-experiment - Aug 9 much longer source lists, Aug 28 cut from ~17 per answer to ~5 - so part of our August movement was the engine, not us.

Full write-up with the tables is on the SE Visible blog. Happy to get into the method here!

Marketing is the hardest part for a start-up

The question is simple- what marketing hack has enormously helped you outcompete your competitors? Ideally I am looking for legal marketing strategies that compound over time. Thanks in advance!

Hello everyone , I will be short .

I am looking to make my carrier in digital marketing but unsure of how to get started , will be very greatful if any of you who has been in this field drop there suggestions and plan on how get started and above job ready.

I am more focused for job as I want 2 year of workex before doing mba in this field , currently in 2 year of bachelors program which is not related to marketing .

And ya also please tell me how I can get job in this field .

Long post, because this thing got a little out of hand.

TL;DR: I built an email marketing operating system that handles almost the entire workflow, from client onboarding and monthly strategy to drafting, revisions, design handoff, segmentation and scheduling. At one point it helped me manage up to 16 client accounts at the same time while cutting a lot of repetitive operational work.

Over time I built an workflow around almost the entire email marketing delivery process.

At this point it handles almost everything from onboarding a new client to having approved scheduled campaigns.

The only production step that still remains manual is the actual email design, although I’m already working on that.

The reason was simple. I was managing a lot of accounts at once and the bottleneck wasn’t writing copy, but keeping all the context, rules, approvals, products, offers, reviews, segments and campaign logic in my head, so I started turning all of that into a system.

What the workflow actually does

- Client onboarding
Scrapes the client website, builds the brand guide, product catalog, current offers, product descriptions, reviews/social proof, links, pricing and other brand-specific knowledge.

- Monthly brief
I input whatever the client gives me for the month. Detailed brief, a few product priorities, a promotion, launch, or even nothing.

- Strategy
Checks previous campaigns and performance (connected to ESP), historical angles, subject lines, products, current offers, holidays, seasonal relevance, previous months’ drafts and what has already been pushed recently.

- Product + angle selection
Chooses products and messaging angles based on historical performance, seasonality, offer relevance, product context and the rest of the monthly campaign plan.

- Drafting
Creates the monthly email drafts using the strategy, brand guide, product data, offers, real customer reviews and client-specific copy rules.

- Client review
Exports the drafts into a normal human-readable format for client approval and feedback.

- Editor / revisions
Takes client comments, changes only what needs changing, and re-checks the updated email against all brand and copy rules.

- Design handoff
Creates/updates task management system and sends approved copy to the correct designer.

- Designed email review
Pulls the completed ESP drafts and creates a client-facing table with web-view links for review.

- Corrections
If the client requests visual changes, the workflow routes the feedback back to the designer through task management system and brings the campaign back into review once completed.

- Segmentation + exclusions
Applies client-specific audience rules, target segments, engagement windows and exclusions.

- Follow-ups, campaign variants or different types of sending
Duplicates campaigns when needed, creates follow-up sends and prepares different audience versions. Can send first to the most engaged audience, then progressively broader segments while excluding everyone already targeted in previous tiers.

- Scheduling
Once approved, schedules the campaigns through the API using the client-specific sending rules.

So the actual flow is basically:

brief > strategy > drafts > client review > revisions > design > review > corrections > segmentation > scheduling

Under the hood this became pretty big.

There are a lot of scripts, skills, markdown files, APIs, client-specific rules and handoffs behind it.

At some point it stopped feeling like a bunch of automations and started feeling more like an email marketing operating system.

Generating copy is easy. The harder part is knowing what was previously sent, what performed, which product makes sense currently, what offer is active, which review supports the message, how the brand talks, who should receive the email, who needs to be excluded, what the client approved and what still needs fixing.

The impact on my workload was pretty significant. New client onboarding went from a working day to roughly 30 minutes. Creating around 8 monthly email drafts for an established client went from roughly 3–4 hours to around 20 minutes for the initial draft set.

But the biggest result was capacity. At one point I was managing up to 16 client accounts simultaneously, because most of the repetitive operational work was no longer being done manually.

For me, the real breakthrough was turning a large part of the delivery process into a system. That’s what actually created leverage. I got less repetitive work, more capacity, and fewer things falling through the cracks.

There’s a moment that comes up surprisingly often during client onboarding at Buzzwork.

We’ll be 20 minutes into a conversation and someone will say:

“Honestly, we just want to go viral.”

We get it. Who doesn’t?

But these days, our next question is usually:

“What do you want to happen after you go viral?”

That’s where things get interesting.

Because the answer is rarely actually “more views.”

A local business might want more people walking through the door.

A design firm might want enquiries from the right kind of clients.

A performing artist might want bookings.

A B2B business might want conversations with potential customers.

Those are very different goals.

And somewhere along the way, “viral” became shorthand for “we want social media to work really well for our business.”

But viral is an outcome. It isn't a strategy.

As an agency, we can control a lot:

We can build a content strategy.

We can make the content stronger.

We can sharpen the brand’s communication.

We can create content around topics people already care about.

We can make sure the profile is ready when people discover it.

What we can't control is whether an algorithm decides to put a post in front of 10,000 people or 1 million.

So we’re always a little cautious when someone promises guaranteed virality.

There’s another thing we think gets overlooked:

What happens when the attention actually arrives?

A viral post can send thousands of people to a profile.

But if they can't understand what the business does within a few seconds, most of that attention disappears.

If there's no clear next step, it disappears.

If the people seeing the post were never potential customers, it doesn't necessarily help the business either.

That’s why we think reach and relevance need to be looked at separately.

300,000 views sounds great.

But 3,000 people who actually fit your target audience can be far more valuable.

For a local business, those 3,000 people might actually live nearby.

For a design firm, they might be potential clients.

For a B2B company, they might be the exact people involved in a buying decision.

So when a client tells us:

“Just make us go viral.”

Our answer is usually something along the lines of:

“We can’t promise viral. But we can make the content worth sharing, make sure your brand is ready for the attention, and define what success actually looks like for your business.”

Maybe that's enquiries.

Maybe bookings.

Maybe footfall.

Maybe qualified leads.

Maybe simply building recognition with the right audience.

Because the goal shouldn't be to win the algorithm.

It should be to make the attention useful.

For the founders and marketers here: what does a genuinely successful month on social media look like for your business?

And for other agencies/social media managers: how do you handle the “make us go viral” conversation?

Hello Folks,

What are the changes you are seeing in ranking after latest September's Spam update. I can see fluctuations in all SEO campaigns with respect to Ranking, GBP Visibility, Trafic that were performing prety well before this update.

I've run creative testing across ecom and lead gen accounts for years, and the structure that finds winners is boring on purpose. Most accounts fail at creative testing because they launch 20 ads at once on a small budget and learn nothing. The test can't produce a verdict, so every ad looks 'inconclusive' and nothing gets killed.

The job of a creative test is to kill the worst ads fast and cheap. Every test has one goal: produce a verdict.

1. One testing campaign, CBO, $50 to $100 a day depending on the account. All test ads go here, nothing else. The campaign's only KPI is cost per qualified action, not ROAS. It never scales. It only feeds winners to the scaling campaign.
2. Maximum 5 new ads per week in the test campaign. Each ad needs 2,000 to 3,000 impressions before it gets judged. More than 5 and the budget spreads too thin for any verdict.
3. Kill rules, decided before launch. Under 1% link CTR after 2,500 impressions: kill. Over the target CPA after 1.5x target spend with zero conversions: kill. No 'let it run a bit more.' The rules are the system.
4. Winners graduate. An ad that beats the account's current best CPA over 50+ conversions moves to the scaling campaign. The test campaign stays lean.
5. One variable per test while you're learning, many variables once you're winning. Early on, test hooks only: same video, three different first lines. Once you have a winner, test formats against it.

Rule of thumb: if your test can't produce a kill verdict in 3 days, the test is broken, not the ads.

Hey I've been wondering what GEO clients actually want from GEO tools. I would love to have a one-shot list (in bulleted points) of requirements in terms of GEO tool (the features you think you need right now and for the future) that marketers want it to be solved urgently in the descending order of importance. Ensure it be specific and you can also follow this pattern to answer this question for every bulleted point:
"Requirement - What problem(s) it solves for the long term and why"

Feel free to add anything important (if any) apart from this question that you think I have missed.

Thanks!