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SEO & Online Marketing
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- Searchengineland Read
What language should you track AI prompts in?
English dominates AI training, but isn't always best for tracking AI visibility. Here's how to choose the right language for each market.
- Searchenginejournal Read
Why SEO Isn’t Enough Anymore – And Why That’s A Good Thing
SEO has always been great because there are so many ways to be successful. Now there might be even more.
Daily Search Forum Recap: October 14, 2026
Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web. Google has rolled out its latest Gemini model, Argon 4
Dave’s Hot Chicken Started With $900 in a Parking Lot. It Now Has 500 Restaurants
The chain has eight openings in one day, deals across Europe and no sign of slowing down.
What can you actually put in a URL 🐔?
Can you put a chicken emoji 🐔in your domain name? What about your URL path? What about non-English characters? Welcome to the premiere of The Non-Canonical Cabinet—a series where Google Search Developer Advocates Gary Illyes and Cherry Prommawin dig through the vault to answer the weirdest, most hyper-specific edge cases of SEO. These are questions that don't belong on a standard FAQ page but are still useful for Search and generative AI features. In this episode, they tackle the technical boundaries of domain names and URL paths, explain Punycode vs. percent encoding, and unpack why just because technology allows you to be weird doesn't mean you should. In this episode: 🌐 Who decides what goes in a domain name 🈶 Internationalized domain names and Punycode (xn--what?) 🐔🔥 Can emojis go in a domain? 📈 Do keywords in a URL help with ranking? 🔣 Emojis and non-English characters in the URL path, and percent-encoding ➖ Hyphens vs. underscores TL;DR: Just because you can doesn't mean you should. Keep URLs simple, readable and built for humans. Chapters: 00:00 – Welcome to The Non-Canonical Cabinet 01:33 – Can you put anything in a domain or URL path? 02:05 – Domain: understanding ICANN & RFC standards 03:46 – What is allowed in the domain name? ASCII, Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs), and Punycode 05:18 – Emoji in a domain name? 06:01 – Do keywords in a URL help with ranking? 07:02 – URL Paths: UTF-8, special characters, and "chicken gear" 08:28 – Encoding in a domain vs URL path 09:06 – Why emoji URLs might not be a good idea 10:45 – Hyphens vs. Underscores in URL paths 11:34 – Recap 📚 Learn more: URL structure best practices: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/url-structure 🗄️ Got a weird question you want us to pull from the cabinet? Don't let your edge-case questions gather dust! Leave it in the comments below! 🤖 Next episode: we try to put chicken in a robots.txt file. Like. Subscribe. Keep it Canonical. #GoogleSearchCent
A Masked Gang Stole 30,000 Bottles of Wine Worth $5.8 Million From an Italian Winery. It’s Being Called the Biggest Vino Heist in Italy’s History
The vino villians disabled the cameras, used the company’s own forklifts and drove off with two truckloads of prized Tuscan reds.
Higher Ed Got More Money This Year. So Why Are Colleges Still Broke?
Is higher education facing a temporary funding squeeze or a deeper structural problem? Rising costs, enrollment uncertainty and uneven public investment raise important questions.
- Searchengineland Read
What the PPC agency of 2027 will look like
As routine PPC work gets automated, agencies face a bigger question: What will clients still pay humans to do?
- The Media Copilot Read
Publishers test AI search strategies as Google referrals fall 40%
Publishers are testing AI search strategies as Google referrals decline, but experts say there is no reliable GEO playbook yet.
- The Media Copilot Read
Reach signs Google AI partnership for UK and Irish news content
Reach has announced a partnership with Google that gives Google enhanced content rights to news across its UK and Ireland portfolio. The post
- Searchenginejournal Read
Your Store Is ‘Agent-Ready’ By Default, We Tested 122 Shopify Stores To See What That Actually Means
From testing top Shopify stores, Bill Hunt found agents can build a checkout, but can’t answer basic delivery or cancellation questions.
- The Keyword Read
6 ways to trick-or-treat yourself to the ultimate Halloween with Search
Whether you need a last-minute costume or a scary movie watchlist, let Google handle heavy lifting for your Halloween prep.
- Searchengineland Read
Organic growth in ecommerce in 2027
Build an ecommerce growth loop that connects AI shopping recommendations, conversion, packaging, customer retention, and brand recognition.
- The Keyword Read
Check out this year’s buzziest Halloween trends
Ready or not, spooky season is here. To help you prepare, we’re launching Google Frightgeist, our annual interactive website highlighting the top trending searches for H
Google Ads Search Terms and Ad Combinations Report
Google Ads seems to be testing a new report named the Search terms and ad combinations report. This report shows how search queries, ad creatives, and landing pages work together.
Google Tests AI Mode Left Sidebar On Main Google Search Results Page
Google is testing placing the left vertical sidebar you see in AI Mode results on the main Google web search results page. This places the small super G Google logo on the left, with the chat history lines, a way to start a chat with AI Mode and the settings icon all on the left side.
Bing Tests Large Single Sponsored Ad Unit At Top Of Search Results
Microsoft Bing is testing placing a large single ad unit at the top of the Bing Search results page. The sponsored ad has a gray background, with an image and call to action button, and of course, the url, title and ad description. This was spotted by Khushal Bherwani who posted this screenshot on X, he wrote, "Bing testing a dedicated placement for sponsored ads at top of serp." Here is his screenshot: It almost looks like a malware ad but it is not, right? Forum discussion at X.
- Jakob Nielsen on UX Read
3 AI Interaction Styles: Turn-Taking, Task Agents, Always-On
In under 4 years, AI has acquired 3 interaction styles: Turn-Taking AI answers the questions you ask, Task Agents finish the jobs you assign, and Always-on Agents fill the roles you appoint them to and start work on their own.
OpenAI ChatGPT Ads Account Manager
OpenAI has humans who are reaching out to advertisers to help them manage their ChatGPT Ads. These ad representatives are called ChatGPT Ads Account Managers and I guess are real humans who help agencies manage ads for their customers?
Google Ads Policies Adds Prediction Markets Section
Google added a section for prediction markets to the main Google Ads policies documentation last week. Google has posted updates and policies on advertising for prediction markets on Google Ads numerous times before, but now it has been added to the main policy document.
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