The authority era: How AI is reshaping what ranks in search

From PageRank to AI Overviews, Google’s understanding of authority evolved. Here’s why brand legitimacy now drives sustainable visibility.

From PageRank to AI Overviews, Google’s understanding of authority evolved. Here’s why brand legitimacy now drives sustainable visibility.
When phone cameras got good enough, portrait photographers scolded people who took their own headshots. And when the Mac got pretty good at typesetting, professional designers pointed out that people who can’t tell a font from a typeface and don’t care about kerning should avoid it. Professional translators bring humanity and insight to transforming writing
Litmus’ email marketing conference was packed with insights, predictions, and expert advice. Get a recap plus links to watch the sessions.
The post Litmus Live 2026 Recap appeared first on Litmus.
Peec AI analyzed fan-out queries from 10M+ ChatGPT prompts and found 43% of background searches ran in English, even for non-English prompts.
The post ChatGPT Search Often Switches To English In Fan-Out Queries: Report appeared first on Search Engine Journal.

Google Ads now shows where Performance Max campaigns run, giving advertisers clear insights to optimize performance.

Text ad clicks surged year over year as classic organic fell across key verticals, with paid listings now taking up to one-third of clicks.
Google’s Jeff Dean explains why latency and cost make Flash Google’s production tier for AI search, and why models are built to retrieve, not memorize.
The post Why Google Runs AI Mode On Flash, Explained By Google’s Chief Scientist appeared first on Search Engine Journal.

Microsoft Advertising’s multi-image Shopping ads let brands show more product visuals in search to boost engagement.

Microsoft Advertising’s new Performance Max learning path helps advertisers run better campaigns and showcase verified expertise.

ChatGPT pulls most from early sections, favoring direct definitions, balanced tone, and dense entities, new research finds.