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Bill Hartzer

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Securly Strips AI Overviews as Google Ties School Search to AI

Posted on November 4, 2026 Written by Bill Hartzer

Illustration of a student doing homework beside a laptop where the AI summary in search results is blocked, with the Securly logo

Securly says its web filter can now strip Google’s AI Overviews out of student searches, not just block AI Mode. The timing is the story. The update landed on November 4, 2026, one day after Google said its K-12 student accounts will lose Google Search entirely if schools do not also switch on its AI. [Continue reading]

Filed Under: AI

Why Google Says 77% of My SearchEngines.net Traffic Is Branded

Posted on October 14, 2026 Written by Bill Hartzer

Here’s something interesting about owning a generic, keyword-rich domain name: My website, SearchEngines.net, gets most of its Google search clicks from queries that Google Search Console classifies as branded.

[Continue reading]

Filed Under: Search Engine Optimization

Paid Search Gets a Second Act: fullthrottle.ai Turns Search and Social Clicks Into Household Audiences

Posted on October 6, 2026 Written by Bill Hartzer

Paid search and paid social can tell marketers a lot about what people want. A search, a click, or an ad engagement can be a strong signal of interest. … [Continue reading]

Filed Under: Search Engine Marketing

The Reputation Engagement I Would Rather Have Than the Friday Afternoon One

Posted on September 28, 2026 Written by Bill Hartzer

The Unofficial Ballot book

A reporter emails your company at 4:40 on a Friday asking for comment on something contested. You have about twelve hours before the absence of an answer becomes the answer. Most organizations spend those twelve hours arguing about what to say. … [Continue reading]

Filed Under: Marketing

A Judge Ordered an Expert’s AI Prompts Produced. There Is Still No Standard, So I Wrote One

Posted on September 28, 2026 Written by Bill Hartzer

The Expert Record book

An expert witness sat for a deposition last year and was asked to produce the prompts he had typed into an AI system as he prepared his report. He did not have them. He had not kept them, because nobody had told him to, and no rule said he had to. … [Continue reading]

Filed Under: AI

Facebook Says an Account Called “Meta Verrified” Sending Phishing Messages Doesn’t Violate Its Rules

Posted on September 18, 2026 Written by Bill Hartzer

meta verrified account

There are certain things you see on the internet that make you stop and wonder if you're missing something. … [Continue reading]

Filed Under: Social Media

I Read 30 Digital Marketing Tool Licenses. Most Do Not Say What You Think.

Posted on September 17, 2026 Written by Bill Hartzer

You probably put a third-party traffic chart in a client deck this month. A Similarweb screenshot showing a competitor's monthly visits, a Semrush visibility graph, an Ahrefs backlink count. I have done it hundreds of times. … [Continue reading]

Filed Under: Search Engine Optimization

131 SEO Experts Just Ranked Google’s Ranking Factors. Backlinks Did Not Die.

Posted on September 9, 2026 Written by Bill Hartzer

Cyrus and Dawn Shepard published the 2026 Google Ranking Factors Expert Survey this morning. One hundred thirty-one SEO professionals scored more than 100 possible ranking factors on a seven-point scale, from strongly positive to strongly negative, … [Continue reading]

Filed Under: Search Engine Optimization

AI Local Business Recommendations Went From 6% To 45% In A Year. The Bigger Number Is 88%

Posted on September 9, 2026 Written by Bill Hartzer

AI search study

Forty-five percent of U.S. consumers used an AI tool to get a local business recommendation in the past twelve months. Last year that figure was 6 percent. … [Continue reading]

Filed Under: Local Search

IAB: 56% Want Creator Voices In AI Shopping Advice, But Nobody Can Verify Which Creators Are Honest

Posted on September 9, 2026 Written by Bill Hartzer

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) released research this morning showing that 56 percent of consumers prefer AI-generated shopping recommendations that include creator or influencer perspectives. Sixty-five percent say they feel more confident … [Continue reading]

Filed Under: Advertising

Semrush Says Showing Up Once In A ChatGPT Category Is Worse Than Not Showing Up

Posted on September 3, 2026 Written by Bill Hartzer

SEMrush topical focus ai study

Semrush released a second study of ChatGPT topic behavior on August 3, and it answers the question the first one left hanging. The July research told us that domain-level SEO metrics do a poor job of predicting who owns a topic. This one identifies … [Continue reading]

Filed Under: AI

Semrush Studied 1,094 ChatGPT Categories. The Number That Matters Is Not 53.7%.

Posted on August 31, 2026 Written by Bill Hartzer

semrush topic authority study

Semrush has published a study that puts real numbers behind an argument the search industry has been having since ChatGPT started answering buying questions. Does any brand actually own a topic inside an AI (artificial intelligence) assistant, or do … [Continue reading]

Filed Under: AI

Study: Home Service Companies That Track Profit Instead of Leads Get 38% More From Their Ad Spend

Posted on August 26, 2026 Written by Bill Hartzer

Home Service Companies That Track Profit Instead of Leads Get 38% More From Their Ad Spend, Study Finds Home service companies may have a bigger advertising measurement problem than an advertising budget problem. … [Continue reading]

Filed Under: Local Search

LinkedIn Reach Is Up 14% For Executives. The Same Report Says Organic Reach Is Collapsing.

Posted on August 25, 2026 Written by Bill Hartzer

executive presenceexecutive presence

Executive Presence released The Executive LinkedIn Report: 2026 this morning, and the number the Denver firm put at the top of its press release is a 14 percent year-over-year jump in reach. The average executive post pulled 5,083 impressions in the … [Continue reading]

Filed Under: Social Media

The Dental SEO Playbook Is Changing: Identity Dental Marketing Releases AEO vs. SEO Study

Posted on August 19, 2026 Written by Bill Hartzer

dental marketing firmdental marketing firm

For years, dental practices have focused heavily on one question: How high does the practice rank in Google? That question is still important. But it is no longer the only question that matters. … [Continue reading]

Filed Under: Search Engine Marketing Firms

Link Freedom Group Just Bet Tens of Millions on the Future of the Internet

Posted on August 19, 2026 Written by Bill Hartzer

link freedom group logolink freedom group logo

Link Freedom Group is making one of the biggest bets on the future of the internet that the domain name industry has seen in years. … [Continue reading]

Filed Under: Domain Names

The .ORG Impact Awards Just Named 35 Global Changemakers—and the Finalists Are Remarkable

Posted on August 12, 2026 Written by Bill Hartzer

Public Interest Registry has revealed the 35 finalists for the 2026 .ORG Impact Awards, and the list offers a striking look at the organizations and young leaders working on some of the world's most persistent problems. … [Continue reading]

Filed Under: Domain Names

Marlow Launches Its AI Software Builder

Posted on August 12, 2026 Written by Bill Hartzer

AI software development is moving quickly from an interesting experiment into a serious alternative to traditional application development. Now, a new platform backed by a publicly traded domain and technology company is taking aim at one of the … [Continue reading]

Filed Under: AI

Brands Keep Killing Their Best Ads Too Early—New Agentio Report Says Here’s What They Should Do Instead

Posted on August 12, 2026 Written by Bill Hartzer

There is a problem with creator advertising that tends to get overlooked when marketers talk about viral videos, influencers and high-performing social campaigns: even the best ad eventually gets tired. … [Continue reading]

Filed Under: Internet Marketing

accessiBe Launches AI Accessibility Assistant

Posted on August 10, 2026 Written by Bill Hartzer

accessiBe logoaccessiBe logo

accessiBe is adding a conversational AI layer to its accessibility widget, giving website visitors a new way to request accessibility adjustments, ask questions and find information without having to work through a traditional settings menu. … [Continue reading]

Filed Under: AI

Viral Nation Launches AI Discovery as Brands Face a New Problem: Getting Recommended by AI

Posted on August 10, 2026 Written by Bill Hartzer

Viral Nation logoViral Nation logo

Viral Nation is taking its social-first approach into a rapidly developing area of digital marketing with the launch of AI Discovery, a new Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) offering aimed at helping brands influence how artificial intelligence … [Continue reading]

Filed Under: AI

Dynadot’s New Domain Report Reveals Winners, Losers, and One Surprise Nobody Saw Coming

Posted on August 5, 2026 Written by Bill Hartzer

A 40 percent jump in registrations sounds like a market booming everywhere. Dynadot’s Domain Intelligence Report for Q1 2026 shows something narrower. A small group of extensions drove most of the growth, .com still rose 9 percent from the largest … [Continue reading]

Filed Under: Domain Names

Domain Parking Is Finished: What the 2025 Numbers Show

Posted on August 4, 2026 Written by Bill Hartzer

Developed Domains statsDeveloped Domains stats

Bodis gave domain investors three days' notice. On 28 January 2026 the company announced it was shutting down its services. By 31 January it had stopped monetizing domains altogether, and it dropped its PayPal payout threshold to one cent so … [Continue reading]

Filed Under: Domain Names

I Analyzed Twenty Years of My Own Backlinks. Half of Them Are Gone.

Posted on August 3, 2026 Written by Bill Hartzer

1,301,839 links. 22,260 referring domains. Not one of them bought. Here is what the data says about how long a backlink actually lasts — and what it says about my own site. I have been publishing on this domain since around 2006. Over that time it … [Continue reading]

Filed Under: Search Engine Optimization

Parents Fear TikTok. Norton’s Study Says The Damage Is Happening In Game Chat.

Posted on July 28, 2026 Written by Bill Hartzer

norton insights report social media tiktoknorton insights report social media tiktok

Norton released a survey this morning on children, parents, and artificial intelligence. The number the press release leads with is that 85 percent of American parents feel comfortable talking to their kids about online risk. The number that should … [Continue reading]

Filed Under: Social Media

Google Just Confirmed What SEOs Feared: AI Answers Are Changing Search Faster Than Anyone Expected

Posted on July 22, 2026 Written by Bill Hartzer

seo essex reportseo essex report

For years, SEO professionals have focused on rankings, clicks, and traffic. Google’s AI-generated answers are forcing a different conversation. A new analysis from SEO Essex suggests that the real battle is shifting from ranking in the top 10 … [Continue reading]

Filed Under: AI

New Data: AI Visitors Sign Up 11x More Than Google Traffic

Posted on July 14, 2026 Written by Bill Hartzer

AI Visitors Convert to Sign-Ups at 11x the Rate of Search Traffic

Here is a number that should make every digital agency sit up straight. AI-referred visitors sign up at eleven times the rate of Google search traffic. And most analytics tools cannot see a single one of them. That finding comes from a new … [Continue reading]

Filed Under: AI

Businesses Fired the Human Overseer From Their AI. New Data Shows How Fast It Happened

Posted on July 14, 2026 Written by Bill Hartzer

AI agents are showing up in more workplaces every month. Here is the catch. Almost nobody is keeping an eye on them. That is the blunt takeaway from JumpCloud's new Q3 2026 IT Trends Report, titled AI Agents Are Entering Critical Workflows. Who's … [Continue reading]

Filed Under: Marketing

When a Web Developer Holds Your Domain Name Hostage: “You Didn’t Pay Me” Is Not a Defense

Posted on July 13, 2026 Written by Bill Hartzer

When a Web Developer Holds Your Domain Name Hostage

Over the years, I have investigated and consulted on hundreds of domain name disputes, and a particular pattern keeps resurfacing. A business hires a web designer or developer to build and maintain its website. The developer, as a matter of … [Continue reading]

Filed Under: Domain Names

Forget the Design Team: One URL Now Builds a Full Set of Ads

Posted on July 13, 2026 Written by Bill Hartzer

Omneky

Omneky made a notable move on July 10, 2026. The San Francisco company opened its ad creative engine to the public. Two products shipped on the same day: the Omneky API and an MCP server. Both give outside developers, commerce platforms, and AI … [Continue reading]

Filed Under: AI

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Recent Posts

  • Securly Strips AI Overviews as Google Ties School Search to AI
  • Why Google Says 77% of My SearchEngines.net Traffic Is Branded
  • Paid Search Gets a Second Act: fullthrottle.ai Turns Search and Social Clicks Into Household Audiences
  • The Reputation Engagement I Would Rather Have Than the Friday Afternoon One
  • A Judge Ordered an Expert’s AI Prompts Produced. There Is Still No Standard, So I Wrote One
  • Facebook Says an Account Called “Meta Verrified” Sending Phishing Messages Doesn’t Violate Its Rules
  • I Read 30 Digital Marketing Tool Licenses. Most Do Not Say What You Think.
  • 131 SEO Experts Just Ranked Google’s Ranking Factors. Backlinks Did Not Die.
  • AI Local Business Recommendations Went From 6% To 45% In A Year. The Bigger Number Is 88%
  • IAB: 56% Want Creator Voices In AI Shopping Advice, But Nobody Can Verify Which Creators Are Honest
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