[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"blog-ai-shows-you-arent-just-ranking-for-one-keyword-anymore":3,"latest-blogs-home":130},{"message":4,"data":5},"Blogs retrieved successfully",{"blog":6,"latest_blogs":49},{"id":7,"author_id":8,"title":9,"slug":10,"content":11,"short_summary":12,"featured_image":13,"status":14,"meta_title":9,"meta_description":15,"canonical_url":16,"keywords":16,"blog_type":17,"is_featured":18,"word_count":19,"published_at":20,"created_at":21,"updated_at":21,"deleted_at":16,"author":22,"categories":28},285,3,"AI Shows You Aren’t Just Ranking for One Keyword Anymore","ai-shows-you-arent-just-ranking-for-one-keyword-anymore","\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">Traditional search can’t get any more straightforward. As soon as a user enters a query, the search engine returns results that it thinks are the most relevant. How it determines that is still largely shrouded in secrecy, though that\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003Ca target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" class=\"text-primary-blue-600 hover:underline\" href=\"https:\u002F\u002Fnobsmarketplace.com\u002Fblog\u002Fwhy-doesnt-google-make-its-algorithm-public\">\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"> \u003C\u002Fspan>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(17, 85, 204); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">\u003Cu>may be for the best\u003C\u002Fu>\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fa>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">However, search engines today have moved past that thanks to AI. They won’t just provide the information the user’s looking for, but also other information that they may find helpful. Gone are the days when results were limited to the so-called “ten blue links.”\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">AI didn’t just change search for consumers but also for businesses and organizations. The expanded information provided by AI-generated summaries points to a key transformation: one keyword won’t cut it anymore. You don’t create content only for what consumers look for now, but also for what they \u003Cem>might \u003C\u002Fem>look for later.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">To make this work in your favor, it pays to understand the technique responsible for making the detailed results. This is known as \u003Cem>query fan-out\u003C\u002Fem>, and today’s blog post is all about it.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Ch2>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 16pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">\u003Cstrong>Running Additional Searches\u003C\u002Fstrong>\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fh2>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">To understand how this technique works, let’s search for the best steak doneness. The one below was done using Google’s AI Mode.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cimg class=\"max-w-full h-auto rounded-lg\" src=\"https:\u002F\u002Fwebsite-cdn.nobsmarketplace.com\u002Fuploads\u002Fblog-images\u002Fai-serp-about-what-is-the-best-steak-doneness-20260227071823-nueNKthq.jpg\" data-align=\"center\" style=\"display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\u003Cp style=\"text-align: center;\">\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">\u003Cem>Well-done ftw. Don’t judge me.\u003C\u002Fem>\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">While the search gave a specific answer, it also provided further context in the form of a comparison of other doneness levels and tips for cooking steak. That isn’t what the user was looking for, but search data suggests that they tend to do follow-up searches on such topics. The handpicked list of sources on the right also supports this.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">In query fan-out, the search engine breaks down the main search query into multiple sub-queries. The AI generates a response by collating relevant information from the results in each of the sub-queries. Here’s the breakdown using the example above.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cimg class=\"max-w-full h-auto rounded-lg\" src=\"https:\u002F\u002Fwebsite-cdn.nobsmarketplace.com\u002Fuploads\u002Fblog-images\u002Fbest-steak-doneness-query-flowchart-content-breakdown-20260227072259-mhyKHx8D.png\" data-align=\"center\" style=\"display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">All this happens within seconds, depending on how many sub-queries it needs to run. One study determined that the average fan-out extends to\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003Ca target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" class=\"text-primary-blue-600 hover:underline\" href=\"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.seerinteractive.com\u002Finsights\u002Fgemini-3-query-fan-outs-research\">\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"> \u003C\u002Fspan>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(17, 85, 204); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">\u003Cu>nearly 11 sub-queries\u003C\u002Fu>\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fa>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"> per prompt. In a few prompts, they can have as many as 28 sub-queries.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">Query fan-out is important for large language models (LLMs) for two reasons. First, as LLMs are expected to answer complex questions, this technique allows them to produce unique answers. It’s almost impossible to achieve this through traditional search, considering that returned results don’t necessarily provide the right nuance.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">More importantly, query fan-out helps satisfy search intent better. Today’s queries possess more than one objective, as in the case of the example below.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cimg class=\"max-w-full h-auto rounded-lg\" src=\"https:\u002F\u002Fwebsite-cdn.nobsmarketplace.com\u002Fuploads\u002Fblog-images\u002Fai-serp-about-best-coffee-brewing-methods-comparison-guide-immersion-gravity-pressure-20260227072600-yvyztQGG.jpg\" data-align=\"center\" style=\"display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">The search engine takes it a step further by defining each brewing method’s advantages and a comparison table below. By satisfying both explicit and implicit intents, query fan-out spares users the effort of running another search.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Ch2>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 16pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">\u003Cstrong>Implications for Content Creation\u003C\u002Fstrong>\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fh2>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">It’s clear how much AI has changed the face of content over the years. Despite persistent focus on organic rankings, the playing field has since shifted to AI summaries (in Google’s case, AI Overviews or AI Mode). That’s likely to stay that way as models evolve.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">Query fan-out, a staple of search LLMs, may make search more convenient for users. For businesses and organizations, however, they have their work cut out for them.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Ch3>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 14pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">\u003Cstrong>Presence Beyond the Main Query\u003C\u002Fstrong>\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fh3>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">Because query fan-out, well, “fans out” to other queries, publishers can’t confidently say they can rank for a single search term. A website’s exposure must also extend to the sub-queries, lest it risk letting its rivals dominate them.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">Going back to the search about coffee brewing methods, you’ll notice that AI Mode used information from 13 websites. All of them are fighting for visibility, but more importantly, visits, though one has an advantage due to the citation.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cimg class=\"max-w-full h-auto rounded-lg\" src=\"https:\u002F\u002Fwebsite-cdn.nobsmarketplace.com\u002Fuploads\u002Fblog-images\u002Fbest-coffee-brewing-methods-differences-immersion-gravity-pressure-20260227072730-E70GL448.png\" data-align=\"center\" style=\"display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">While the AI may reference your content, it won’t necessarily convert to visits if it also cites a dozen others. This fragmentation is a major downside for publishers, hence the necessity of extending a website’s presence to all sub-queries.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Ch3>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 14pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">\u003Cstrong>Topic Clusters Over One-Off Posts\u003C\u002Fstrong>\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fh3>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">If it were several years ago, writing an article or blog post about a single topic would’ve still been effective. However, query fan-out shows that’s no longer how search works, more so with AI as a key feature. Instead of individual topics, AI-powered SEO favors topic clusters.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">For the record, industry experts have been stressing the importance of topic clusters long before AI. They grew in necessity as Google made its search engine to understand context more and take queries at face value less. Granted, search engines are still far from having human-level context comprehension, but AI is helping speed up their learning.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">Below is a sample topic cluster for “steak doneness,” which I did via a free clustering tool.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cimg class=\"max-w-full h-auto rounded-lg\" src=\"https:\u002F\u002Fwebsite-cdn.nobsmarketplace.com\u002Fuploads\u002Fblog-images\u002Fsteak-doneness-levels-testing-regional-preferences-topic-cluster-20260227073005-7QNs7uLw.png\" data-align=\"center\" style=\"display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">LLMs don’t always delve too deep unless prompted, nor do they always include every piece of content in the cluster. However, they can be unpredictable in their choice of references for every request. Covering as many topics as possible increases a publisher’s chances of the model citing or even mentioning it.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Ch3>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 14pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">\u003Cstrong>Even Forgotten Content Has a Chance\u003C\u002Fstrong>\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fh3>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">Before AI in search was a thing, we were obsessed with ranking high in search results—and for good reason. People rarely bother exploring beyond one or two results pages, so having content where they’re visible is a must. Otherwise, it won’t see the light of day.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">Then, AI stepped in and changed that years-old mindset.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cimg class=\"max-w-full h-auto rounded-lg\" src=\"https:\u002F\u002Fwebsite-cdn.nobsmarketplace.com\u002Fuploads\u002Fblog-images\u002Franking-positions-llm-cited-search-results-chart-semush-study-20260227073119-054q3rzb.png\" data-align=\"center\" style=\"display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\u003Cp style=\"text-align: center;\">\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">\u003Cem>Source:\u003C\u002Fem>\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003Ca target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" class=\"text-primary-blue-600 hover:underline\" href=\"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.semrush.com\u002Fblog\u002Fai-search-seo-traffic-study\u002F?utm_campaign=llm-visibility&utm_source=backlinko.com&utm_medium=referral\">\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">\u003Cem> \u003C\u002Fem>\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(17, 85, 204); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">\u003Cem>\u003Cu>SEMrush\u003C\u002Fu>\u003C\u002Fem>\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fa>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">To further prove that point, I looked up the rankings for the sources AI Mode used for the search about coffee brewing methods. The first cited source wasn’t even in the top 10.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cimg class=\"max-w-full h-auto rounded-lg\" src=\"https:\u002F\u002Fwebsite-cdn.nobsmarketplace.com\u002Fuploads\u002Fblog-images\u002Fcoffee-brewing-method-rankings-page-2-page-3-serp-results-20260227073644-ex22WsR5.png\" data-align=\"center\" style=\"display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\u003Cp style=\"text-align: center;\">\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">\u003Cem>Rankings are as of this writing.\u003C\u002Fem>\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">AI cares more about relevance and less about rankings, and query fan-out is one of the key drivers of such behavior. Exploring sub-queries leads the model to more obscure content, yet believed to be the ideal source for fulfilling the user’s prompt.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">The implication in this case depends on where your website stands. If SEO has been the bane of its ranking efforts, this is good news because it now has a better chance of being seen. If you’ve kept its consistently high ranking, you can’t afford to rest on your laurels because the underdogs are vying for a spot in the AI summary.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Ch3>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 14pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">\u003Cstrong>Monitoring Will Be A Pain (For Now)\u003C\u002Fstrong>\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fh3>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">Searching for popular keywords is as simple as operating tools like Ahrefs and SEMrush, which also crunch the numbers in the process. Yet, even as these platforms integrate AI, many of their metrics won’t be as effective in tracking AI citations and mentions.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">It also doesn’t help that LLMs differ in how they\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003Ca target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" class=\"text-primary-blue-600 hover:underline\" href=\"https:\u002F\u002Fdigiday.com\u002Fmedia\u002Fwtf-is-ai-citation-tracking\u002F\">\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"> \u003C\u002Fspan>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(17, 85, 204); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">\u003Cu>retrieve sources and generate responses\u003C\u002Fu>\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fa>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">. Experts state that the models may be doing the former either through APIs or scraping, or even using either raw or synthetic data. Not to mention that prompts differ by user, which also affects responses, mentions, and citations.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">The good news is that some metrics are now trackable, particularly prompts that trigger AI responses and the amount of traffic coming from AI platforms. It might not look like much, but it’s a start while the industry perfects AI response tracking.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Ch2>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 16pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">\u003Cstrong>You May Be Doing SEO Wrong\u003C\u002Fstrong>\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fh2>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">Keyword research may still have its uses in modern SEO, but it’s losing ground in the face of AI-powered search. As such, the next time you’re looking for queries, know that you’re not ranking for just a single keyword anymore.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">You’re ranking for more than you think, and you’ll need as much as you can get.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>","Traditional search involved searching for keywords that are the best match for the content. The introduction of AI-powered search changed the game: now, publishers need to rank for more than one specific keyword. Here's a look at how one feature revolutionized search as we know it.","https:\u002F\u002Fwebsite-cdn.nobsmarketplace.com\u002Fuploads\u002Ffeatured-images\u002Fgoogle-ai-overview-on-mobile-screen-20260227071322-7JLxHjcW.jpg","published","With AI changing the way search works, publishers should take note that they need more than one keyword to stay competitive online.",null,"blog",false,1197,"2026-02-27T15:38:00.000000Z","2026-02-27T07:39:01.000000Z",{"id":8,"name":23,"email":24,"about":25,"avatar":26,"created_at":27,"updated_at":27,"deleted_at":16},"Jonas Trinidad","jonas@nobsmarketplace.com","","https:\u002F\u002Fwebsite-cdn.nobsmarketplace.com\u002Fblog-authors\u002F2023\u002F05\u002Fjonas-trinidad.jpg","2025-10-26T11:10:22.000000Z",[29,33,39,44],{"id":8,"name":30,"slug":31,"created_at":27,"updated_at":27,"deleted_at":16,"pivot":32},"SEO","seo",{"blog_id":7,"category_id":8},{"id":34,"name":35,"slug":36,"created_at":37,"updated_at":37,"deleted_at":16,"pivot":38},13,"SEO Marketing","seo-marketing","2025-10-26T11:10:27.000000Z",{"blog_id":7,"category_id":34},{"id":40,"name":41,"slug":42,"created_at":27,"updated_at":27,"deleted_at":16,"pivot":43},2,"Digital Marketing","digital-marketing",{"blog_id":7,"category_id":40},{"id":45,"name":46,"slug":47,"created_at":27,"updated_at":27,"deleted_at":16,"pivot":48},4,"Content Marketing","content-marketing",{"blog_id":7,"category_id":45},[50,72,103,115],{"id":51,"author_id":52,"title":53,"slug":54,"content":55,"short_summary":56,"featured_image":57,"status":14,"meta_title":58,"meta_description":59,"canonical_url":16,"keywords":16,"blog_type":17,"is_featured":60,"word_count":61,"published_at":62,"created_at":63,"updated_at":63,"deleted_at":16,"author":64,"categories":69},322,9,"90 Zero-Day Exploits in One Year: Why Cybersecurity Is Now an SEO Problem","zero-day-exploits-seo-impact","\u003Ch1>90 Zero-Day Exploits and Counting: Why Cybersecurity Is Now an SEO Problem\u003C\u002Fh1>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>Most digital marketers don’t think about cybersecurity until something goes wrong. A website gets defaced. A client’s domain starts redirecting to a pharmacy spam page. A Google Search Console account lights up with manual action warnings for “hacked content.” By that point, the damage to organic visibility is already done, and the recovery timeline is measured in months, not days.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>Cybersecurity and SEO have always been connected, but the scale of what’s happening right now makes it impossible to treat them as separate disciplines. Google’s Threat Intelligence Group published its annual zero-day review in March 2026, and the numbers paint a picture that anyone investing in organic search, \u003C\u002Fspan>\u003Ca target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" class=\"text-primary-blue-600 hover:underline\" href=\"https:\u002F\u002Fnobsmarketplace.com\u002Flink-building\">\u003Cspan>link building\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fa>\u003Cspan>, or content marketing needs to understand.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Ch2>\u003Cspan>What Is a Zero-Day Exploit and Why Should You Care\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fh2>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>Before getting into the data, it helps to understand what a zero-day actually is, because the term gets thrown around a lot without much explanation.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>A zero-day vulnerability is a security flaw in software that the software maker doesn’t know about yet. No patch exists. No fix has been issued. The name comes from the fact that developers have had “zero days” to address the problem. A zero-day exploit is what happens when an attacker discovers one of these unknown flaws and uses it to break into a system before anyone on the defensive side even knows the door is open.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>What makes zero-days particularly dangerous is the asymmetry. The attacker knows about the vulnerability. The software vendor doesn’t. The security team doesn’t. The users don’t. Until someone detects the intrusion or the flaw gets publicly reported, the attacker has unrestricted access through a hole that nobody is watching.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>For website owners, this matters because every piece of software in your stack is a potential target. Your CMS, your hosting platform, your SSL VPN, your email server, the plugins running on your blog, the security appliance sitting at your network perimeter. If any of those have an undiscovered vulnerability, and someone finds it before the vendor does, your entire digital presence is at risk.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Ch2>\u003Cspan>90 Zero-Days in a Single Year: What Google Found\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fh2>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>Google Threat Intelligence Group (GTIG) published its annual zero-day review in March 2026, covering exploitation activity through the end of last year. The report tracked 90 zero-day vulnerabilities that were exploited in the wild during that period. To be clear about what “exploited in the wild” means: these aren’t theoretical vulnerabilities found in a lab. These are flaws that real attackers used against real targets in real attacks, before patches were available.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>The 90 figure is higher than 2024’s count of 78, though lower than the record of 100 set in 2023. What stands out isn’t any single year’s number but the sustained elevation. Over the past five years, annual zero-day counts have fluctuated between 60 and 100, a range that would have been unthinkable a decade ago when the numbers sat in the low 30s. The floor has permanently risen, and that baseline isn’t coming back down.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Ch2>\u003Cspan>Enterprise Software Is Now the Primary Target\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fh2>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>The most consequential finding in the latest data is the continued shift toward enterprise targets. Nearly half of all zero-days exploited last year, 43 out of 90, targeted enterprise software and infrastructure. Both the raw number and the proportion (48%) reached all-time highs.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>What does “enterprise software” mean in practice? Security appliances like firewalls and intrusion detection systems. Networking equipment like routers and switches. VPN products from vendors like Ivanti and SonicWall. Virtualization platforms like VMware. Email servers. Business applications. The entire category of software that organizations depend on to operate, including the infrastructure that websites run on top of.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>Microsoft products alone accounted for 25 of the 90 zero-days. Google had 11. Cisco and Fortinet had 4 each. Ivanti and VMware had 3 each. Twenty other vendors were each hit with at least one zero-day.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>The reason enterprise targets are so valuable to attackers is what comes after the initial breach. A compromised consumer device affects one person. A compromised enterprise appliance, a VPN concentrator, a firewall, an email gateway, gives attackers privileged access across entire networks. One vulnerability in one device can open the door to everything behind it. For organizations running web properties, that “everything” includes the servers, databases, and content management systems that power their online presence.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>Edge devices are especially attractive because most of them don’t run endpoint detection and response (EDR) tools. Routers, switches, and security appliances sit at the perimeter of an organization’s network, but they’re often blind spots for security monitoring. An attacker who compromises an edge device can operate undetected for far longer than one who lands on a monitored endpoint. GTIG noted that 14 zero-days last year targeted edge devices, and that the true number is likely higher because the lack of monitoring means many compromises simply aren’t discovered.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Ch2>\u003Cspan>Browsers Got Harder to Crack, So Attackers Went Around Them\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fh2>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>Browser-based zero-days dropped to less than 10% of the total last year, a sharp decline from the browser-heavy years of 2021 and 2022. Chrome, Safari, and Firefox have invested heavily in sandboxing, memory safety improvements, and exploit mitigations over the past several years, and those investments are paying off. Exploiting a modern browser is significantly harder than it used to be.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>But attackers don’t stop when one path closes. They adapt. The decline in browser exploits coincided with a rise in operating system vulnerabilities, which accounted for 44% of all zero-days last year. Mobile OS exploitation jumped from 9 zero-days in 2024 to 15. Desktop OS exploitation fluctuated between 16 and 23 annually.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>The pattern matters because it shows how the threat landscape responds to defensive improvements. Browser hardening didn’t reduce the total number of zero-days. It redirected them. Attackers moved to operating systems, server infrastructure, and the enterprise tools that sit upstream from the browser. For website owners, that upstream infrastructure is exactly where your digital presence lives.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Ch2>\u003Cspan>Who Is Doing the Exploiting and Why It Matters\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fh2>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>GTIG was able to attribute 42 of the 90 zero-days to specific threat actors. The breakdown challenges some common assumptions about who is behind these attacks.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>Commercial surveillance vendors (CSVs) accounted for the largest share, roughly 35% of attributed exploits. These are private companies that develop and sell hacking tools, often to government clients. For the first time since Google began tracking zero-day exploitation, CSVs surpassed traditional state-sponsored espionage groups. The surveillance industry is growing, its tools are proliferating to a wider customer base, and its capabilities are expanding. The exploits these vendors develop target the same consumer devices and enterprise platforms that everyone uses.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>State-sponsored cyber espionage groups linked to China remained the most active single-country actor, responsible for at least 10 zero-days. These groups focused heavily on security appliances and edge networking devices, aiming to maintain persistent, difficult-to-detect access to strategic targets.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>Financially motivated cybercriminals, including ransomware operators, were tied to 9 zero-days. Groups affiliated with the CL0P extortion brand targeted Oracle E-Business Suite customers. A Russian-linked group used a zero-day to distribute malware. The financially motivated category represents a higher proportion of total attributed exploits than in previous years, and these are the threat actors most likely to target businesses indiscriminately, including businesses whose primary asset is their web presence.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Ch2>\u003Cspan>What Google’s CEO Said About AI and Zero-Days\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fh2>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>The timing of the GTIG report coincided with some unusually candid public comments from Google CEO Sundar Pichai that put the zero-day problem in a broader context.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>Speaking on the Cheeky Pint podcast with Stripe CEO Patrick Collison, Pichai framed cybersecurity as one of the hidden constraints on AI deployment, alongside memory supply and energy infrastructure. He wasn’t talking about it as a future concern. He described it as something that may already be happening, saying that AI models are going to break most existing software and that the breaking may have already started without anyone fully realizing it.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>The conversation got more specific when someone mentioned that black-market prices for zero-day exploits might be falling, the theory being that AI is increasing the supply of discoverable vulnerabilities. If AI tools can scan codebases and identify flaws faster than human researchers, the supply of exploitable bugs goes up, and market dynamics push prices down. Pichai said he wasn’t surprised by that possibility.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>What makes Pichai’s comments significant isn’t just the content but the source. Google operates one of the largest vulnerability research programs in the world through Project Zero and GTIG. When the CEO of that company says publicly that AI is going to break most existing software, and that it might already be happening, he’s speaking from an informed position.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>Pichai also made a point about the coordination gap. He said the situation requires more coordination between companies, governments, and security researchers, coordination that isn’t happening today. He predicted a potential “sharp moment” ahead where the consequences of that coordination gap become impossible to ignore.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>Google’s own threat intelligence team echoed this in the GTIG report’s 2026 forecast section. The report stated that AI will accelerate the race between attackers and defenders. On the offensive side, adversaries will use AI to speed up reconnaissance, vulnerability discovery, and exploit development. On the defensive side, AI-powered tools and agentic security systems will help detect and patch vulnerabilities before exploitation. The question isn’t whether AI reshapes cybersecurity. The question is which side benefits more, and how fast the shift happens.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>For anyone running a website or managing digital assets, the implications are concrete. The volume of discoverable vulnerabilities in the software you depend on is likely to increase. The speed at which those vulnerabilities get exploited is likely to increase. The window between a flaw being discovered and a patch being available, which is already the defining characteristic of zero-day exploitation, could shrink even further on the attacker’s side while growing on the defender’s side.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Ch2>\u003Cspan>Why This Is an SEO Problem\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fh2>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>Everything above might read like a cybersecurity story that doesn’t belong on a digital marketing blog. But the consequences of these trends land directly on organic search performance, and they do so in ways that are difficult to reverse.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>When a website gets compromised, the most immediate SEO impact comes from Google’s Safe Browsing system. Once Google detects malware, phishing, or unwanted software on a domain, it can flag the site with interstitial warnings. The red screen that says “The site ahead contains harmful programs” appears between your domain and every visitor trying to reach it through Chrome, which holds roughly 65% of global browser market share. Organic click-through rates don’t gradually decline when that warning appears. They effectively drop to zero.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>But the Safe Browsing warning is just the most visible consequence. Compromised sites frequently get injected with spam content, hidden links, or redirects that serve different content to Googlebot than to regular users (a practice called cloaking). Google’s algorithms are designed to detect and penalize cloaking. A hacked site that’s been injected with pharmaceutical spam or casino links can trigger algorithmic suppression or manual actions that take weeks to resolve even after the hack itself is cleaned up.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>Then there’s the backlink damage. If your domain gets flagged, publishers who link to you will start noticing. Sites that earned you coverage through \u003C\u002Fspan>\u003Ca target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" class=\"text-primary-blue-600 hover:underline\" href=\"https:\u002F\u002Fnobsmarketplace.com\u002Fdigital-pr\">\u003Cspan>digital PR\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fa>\u003Cspan> campaigns or placed contextual links through \u003C\u002Fspan>\u003Ca target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" class=\"text-primary-blue-600 hover:underline\" href=\"https:\u002F\u002Fnobsmarketplace.com\u002Flink-insertion\">\u003Cspan>link insertion\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fa>\u003Cspan> may remove those links or add nofollow attributes to protect their own domain authority. Backlinks that took months to build through \u003C\u002Fspan>\u003Ca target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" class=\"text-primary-blue-600 hover:underline\" href=\"https:\u002F\u002Fnobsmarketplace.com\u002Fguest-posting\">\u003Cspan>guest posting\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fa>\u003Cspan> relationships can evaporate in days once a partner site’s editorial team sees the Safe Browsing flag. And those links don’t automatically come back when the warning gets lifted. You have to rebuild the trust, and in many cases, rebuild the links from scratch.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>The recovery timeline is punishing. Google doesn’t immediately recrawl and re-evaluate a site that’s been cleaned up. Recrawl rates can slow down for flagged domains. Manual action reviews take time. And even after the technical all-clear, rankings that took quarters to build can take just as long to recover, assuming competitors haven’t filled the gap in the meantime.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Ch2>\u003Cspan>What Marketing Teams Can Actually Do\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fh2>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>Most marketing teams don’t have direct control over their organization’s security posture. They can’t manage patch cycles, configure firewalls, or audit VPN appliances. But they can take steps that reduce their exposure and speed up recovery if something does go wrong.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>Understanding what software your web presence depends on is a starting point. Which CMS are you running, and is it current? What plugins are active, and when were they last updated? Is your hosting provider transparent about their patching practices? These aren’t questions that require a security engineering background to ask. They require the same operational awareness that any marketing team applies to their analytics stack or their ad platform accounts.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>Google Search Console’s security issues report is a tool that many marketers have access to but rarely check proactively. Setting up alerts for security issues, manual actions, and unusual indexing spikes can give you early warning if something goes wrong.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>Having a response plan matters too. Knowing who to contact, what steps to take, and how to request a Google review after a cleanup isn’t something you want to figure out for the first time during a crisis. Document it in advance. Include your hosting provider’s security contact, your developer’s escalation process, and the steps required to submit a reconsideration request.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Ch2>\u003Cspan>The Bigger Picture\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fh2>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>The latest zero-day data doesn’t exist in isolation. It sits alongside Pichai’s public warning about AI breaking software, alongside the GTIG forecast about accelerating offensive capabilities, and alongside a sustained multi-year trend of elevated exploitation. The threat environment isn’t going back to where it was in 2019 when the annual zero-day count was 32.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>For digital marketers, this means cybersecurity awareness isn’t optional background knowledge. It’s operationally relevant. The sites that maintain their organic visibility over the long term won’t just be the ones with the strongest content, the best backlink profiles, or the most consistent publishing cadence. They’ll be the ones that didn’t get breached while doing all of those things.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>","Google’s latest threat intelligence report tracked 90 zero-day exploits, with enterprise software as the top target. Paired with Sundar Pichai’s warning that AI will break most existing software, this post explains what zero-days are, who is exploiting them, and why breaches destroy SEO performance.","https:\u002F\u002Fwebsite-cdn.nobsmarketplace.com\u002Fuploads\u002Ffeatured-images\u002Fcybersecurity-seo-zero-day-20260408164627-b07CR0wh.png","Why Cybersecurity Is an SEO Problem","Google’s latest threat report tracked 90 zero-day exploits. Nearly half targeted enterprise software. A breach is one of the fastest ways to lose rankings.",true,2298,"2026-04-08T16:22:47.000000Z","2026-04-08T16:47:34.000000Z",{"id":52,"name":65,"email":66,"about":16,"avatar":67,"created_at":68,"updated_at":16,"deleted_at":16},"Rasit Cakir","rasit@nobsmarketplace.com","https:\u002F\u002Fwebsite-cdn.nobsmarketplace.com\u002Frasit.webp","2026-01-26T11:10:22.000000Z",[70],{"id":8,"name":30,"slug":31,"created_at":27,"updated_at":27,"deleted_at":16,"pivot":71},{"blog_id":51,"category_id":8},{"id":73,"author_id":8,"title":74,"slug":75,"content":76,"short_summary":77,"featured_image":78,"status":14,"meta_title":74,"meta_description":79,"canonical_url":16,"keywords":16,"blog_type":17,"is_featured":60,"word_count":80,"published_at":81,"created_at":82,"updated_at":82,"deleted_at":16,"author":83,"categories":84},320,"Benefits of Link Building You Probably Don’t Know: A Revisit","benefits-of-link-building-1","\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">\u003Cem>In 2020, we published a post explaining the\u003C\u002Fem>\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003Ca target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" class=\"text-primary-blue-600 hover:underline\" href=\"https:\u002F\u002Fnobsmarketplace.com\u002Fblog\u002Fbenefits-of-link-building-you-probably-dont-know\">\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">\u003Cem> \u003C\u002Fem>\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(17, 85, 204); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">\u003Cem>\u003Cu>benefits of link building\u003C\u002Fu>\u003C\u002Fem>\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fa>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">\u003Cem> that most people aren’t aware of. But after going through that post, I learned that most of the items explained there are already well-known. This update discusses the lesser-known benefits this time around.\u003C\u002Fem>\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">You can’t do SEO without link building. Not in today’s search.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">As I’ve explained in past posts, links vouch for a website’s credibility. Imagine an article or blog post by a well-known site citing your post (and linking to it). Not only readers but also search engines see this as a sign that your content—and website, to an extent—is reliable. Thus, it stands to reason that it should be higher up in the search results.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">But unless you’re a total novice reading this, you probably already know about this benefit of link building. You may also be aware that it helps increase incoming traffic to your site or even boost your site’s authority. That said, is there anything else?\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Ch2>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 1.5em; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">Better AI Visibility\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fh2>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">AI’s entry into search has made SEO more complicated than it already is. Between the rise of AI summaries and AI-powered search functions, it has already changed parts of the SEO playbook. Unfortunately, site owners and SEO experts alike are struggling to adapt.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">Link building isn’t spared from the sweeping changes. While the majority of professionals believe backlinks will remain relevant, it won’t just be about them anymore. To be honest, it was never just about them in the first place.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">Anytime an AI model scours the search results, it\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003Ca target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" class=\"text-primary-blue-600 hover:underline\" href=\"https:\u002F\u002Fnobsmarketplace.com\u002Fblog\u002Fai-shows-you-arent-just-ranking-for-one-keyword-anymore\">\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"> \u003C\u002Fspan>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(17, 85, 204); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">\u003Cu>focuses more on relevance\u003C\u002Fu>\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fa>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\"> and less on rankings. It doesn’t care if a post is outside the top ten or the first page; it’ll cite whatever info it has if it answers the user’s question. To that end, it doesn’t put as much weight on backlinks as on other factors like search intent.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">That doesn’t mean backlinks are irrelevant today. AI still uses them to confirm that a site is reliable enough to use its content for generating the summary. It’s just that there’s more to link building than backlinks per se.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">\u003Cem>Brand mention \u003C\u002Fem>is the name of the game, and it consists of passive and active modes.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cul>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">In \u003Cstrong>passive brand mention, \u003C\u002Fstrong>the goal is to create assets that the model can cite with ease. These are more than your run-of-the-mill article or blog post. Some examples include online tools, original research, and explainer pages.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003C\u002Fli>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">Meanwhile, \u003Cstrong>active brand mention \u003C\u002Fstrong>is essentially setting yourself up to be an expert on your niche. Anytime journalists or content creators need a resource person for a topic, you deliver timely content that answers their questions.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003C\u002Fli>\u003C\u002Ful>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">This isn’t link building in the traditional sense, but it can still result in backlinks. And all the while, AI can be convinced that your words are exactly what users need to know and cite or mention them in the summary.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Ch2>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 1.5em; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">Improves Bounce Rate\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fh2>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">A visitor to a site “bounces” when they enter a page but leave without doing anything else. Therefore, a high bounce rate means that more people are leaving the site than engaging with it (i.e., cart checkout, creating an account).\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">A high bounce rate is often associated with poor user experience. However, improper link building can also be a cause. If a link leads to a post that doesn’t sate a visitor’s curiosity, you can’t blame them if they opt to continue their search elsewhere.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">You may think that improving bounce rates is as easy as keeping visitors on the site for as long as possible. But as far as analytics go, that won’t do without getting them to engage. The simplest way is to urge them to explore the rest of the site.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">Link building just happens to have a good method: \u003C\u002Fspan>\u003Ca target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" class=\"text-primary-blue-600 hover:underline\" href=\"https:\u002F\u002Fnobsmarketplace.com\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-2026-website-s-guide-to-internal-link-building\">\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(17, 85, 204); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">\u003Cem>\u003Cu>internal link building\u003C\u002Fu>\u003C\u002Fem>\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fa>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">\u003Cem>.\u003C\u002Fem>\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cfigure data-type=\"image\" data-align=\"left\" style=\"display: inline-block; max-width: 100%; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: auto;\">\u003Cimg class=\"max-w-full h-auto rounded-lg\" src=\"https:\u002F\u002Fwebsite-cdn.nobsmarketplace.com\u002Fuploads\u002Fblog-images\u002F3-structural-links-20260408051133-pUUxUQ87.webp\" data-align=\"left\">\u003C\u002Ffigure>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: center;\">\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">\u003Cem>Source:\u003C\u002Fem>\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003Ca target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" class=\"text-primary-blue-600 hover:underline\" href=\"https:\u002F\u002Fmoz.com\u002Flearn\u002Fseo\u002Finternal-link\">\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">\u003Cem> \u003C\u002Fem>\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(17, 85, 204); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">\u003Cem>\u003Cu>Moz\u003C\u002Fu>\u003C\u002Fem>\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fa>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">Internal links make a site more crawl-friendly, but it does more than that. Visitors who want to explore more of the site benefit from links that take them to the next destination in a single click. This alone is already a form of engagement, thus improving the bounce rate.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">Internal link building also works from an attention span perspective. For example, I could discuss the various methods of building internal links at this point. However, that would make this post longer than it already is, and not everyone has the patience to go through long-form content. By leaving a link, readers can opt to check it out for additional context.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">\u003Cstrong>\u003Cem>Note:\u003C\u002Fem>\u003C\u002Fstrong>\u003Cem> Bounce rate shouldn’t be confused with \u003C\u002Fem>\u003Cstrong>\u003Cem>exit rate\u003C\u002Fem>\u003C\u002Fstrong>\u003Cem>, which measures how many users leave a site after visiting multiple pages. \u003Cu>All bounces are exits, but not all exits are bounces\u003C\u002Fu>.  \u003C\u002Fem> \u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Ch2>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 1.5em; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">Helps Journalists\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fh2>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">While I can’t speak for the profession as a whole, I’m well aware that journalists don’t have it easy. Covering a story involves finding a person with authority and expertise to talk about the topic. Not to mention that they have to hand in their report before the end of the day.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">Fortunately, building healthy partnerships is part and parcel of link building. The media just happens to be a major benefactor, as a brand mention in a source of unbiased information says a lot about its credibility. Granted, the brand can’t blatantly promote its products and services (unless labeled as sponsored content), but readers demand answers, not ads.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">There are two ways link building helps journalists: direct and indirect. The direct approach involves, well, directly reaching out to these people. One example is Help A Reporter Out (HARO), a free-to-use platform that lets reporters and niche experts exchange information.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cfigure data-type=\"image\" data-align=\"left\" style=\"display: inline-block; max-width: 100%; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: auto;\">\u003Cimg class=\"max-w-full h-auto rounded-lg\" src=\"https:\u002F\u002Fwebsite-cdn.nobsmarketplace.com\u002Fuploads\u002Fblog-images\u002Fpicture20-20260408051213-d1A30oHI.png\" data-align=\"left\">\u003C\u002Ffigure>\u003Cp style=\"text-align: center;\">\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">\u003Cem>The HARO process. Source:\u003C\u002Fem>\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003Ca target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" class=\"text-primary-blue-600 hover:underline\" href=\"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.helpareporter.com\u002Fabout\">\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">\u003Cem> \u003C\u002Fem>\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(17, 85, 204); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">\u003Cem>\u003Cu>HARO\u003C\u002Fu>\u003C\u002Fem>\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fa>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">Other similar platforms include Featured (which operates HARO), Source of Sources, and MentionMatch. Keep in mind that fulfilling a reporter’s request doesn’t guarantee a brand mention, considering that you’re up against thousands of others with the same idea.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">The indirect approach is what I like to call the \u003Cem>bait and wait\u003C\u002Fem>. Instead of communicating with journalists directly, this process involves publishing newsworthy press release content and waiting for a reporter to bite. Emphasis on “newsworthy” because a generic press release will largely be ignored. Journalists only have so much time on their hands.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">Whichever approach you opt for (or both), it shows how link building can be a godsend to reporters looking for news. The more you provide satisfactory answers, the more likely the reporter will come to you when their story needs your expertise.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Ch2>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 1.5em; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">Don’t Dismiss Link Building Too Quickly\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fh2>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">Make no mistake because link building does wonders for any website’s SEO campaign. But when you look past the SEO aspect, you begin to appreciate its true value. Proper link building isn’t a win for the brand but a win-win for everyone involved.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>","If you think that link building is only good for boosting your website's ranking in search results, think again. The benefits of this core component of SEO go beyond the search engine, which is why it's still widely employed. Learn the lesser-known benefits of link building in this updated guide.","https:\u002F\u002Fwebsite-cdn.nobsmarketplace.com\u002Fuploads\u002Ffeatured-images\u002Fparveender-backlinks-7791412-1280-20260408050806-Kh2bsBoF.png","There’s more to link building than being more visible in search results. Learn its lesser-known benefits, from better AI visibility to good journalism.",1082,"2026-04-08T13:13:00.000000Z","2026-04-08T05:13:34.000000Z",{"id":8,"name":23,"email":24,"about":25,"avatar":26,"created_at":27,"updated_at":27,"deleted_at":16},[85,87,93,97],{"id":8,"name":30,"slug":31,"created_at":27,"updated_at":27,"deleted_at":16,"pivot":86},{"blog_id":73,"category_id":8},{"id":88,"name":89,"slug":90,"created_at":91,"updated_at":91,"deleted_at":16,"pivot":92},8,"Link Building","link-building","2025-10-26T11:10:26.000000Z",{"blog_id":73,"category_id":88},{"id":94,"name":95,"slug":17,"created_at":27,"updated_at":27,"deleted_at":16,"pivot":96},1,"Blogs",{"blog_id":73,"category_id":94},{"id":98,"name":99,"slug":100,"created_at":101,"updated_at":101,"deleted_at":16,"pivot":102},16,"Educative Content","educative-content","2026-02-10T11:18:29.000000Z",{"blog_id":73,"category_id":98},{"id":104,"author_id":52,"title":105,"slug":106,"content":107,"short_summary":108,"featured_image":109,"status":14,"meta_title":105,"meta_description":108,"canonical_url":16,"keywords":16,"blog_type":17,"is_featured":18,"word_count":110,"published_at":111,"created_at":112,"updated_at":112,"deleted_at":16,"author":113,"categories":114},319,"How to Read Google Search Console Metrics in 2026","how-to-read-search-console-metrics-2026","\u003Ch1>How to Read Google Search Console Metrics in 2026 (And Why Your Impression Data Has Been Wrong for 11 Months)\u003C\u002Fh1>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>Google Search Console is the closest thing site owners have to a direct line into how Google sees their site. It shows which queries bring up pages in search results, how often those pages appear, how often users click through, and where pages rank. For anyone working in SEO, content strategy, or site management, the Performance report is the first place to look when something changes in organic traffic.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>But the data in Search Console requires more interpretation than most people give it. The metrics look straightforward on the surface, and that simplicity creates a false sense of precision. Understanding what each metric actually measures, how Google defines it, and where the data can mislead is the difference between making informed decisions and chasing ghosts.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>That distinction became especially relevant on April 3, 2026, when Google disclosed that a logging error had been inflating impression counts in Search Console since May 13, 2025. Nearly eleven months of overstated impressions, affecting every Performance report during that period. More on that at the end of this post, but the disclosure underscores why understanding what these metrics actually represent is worth the time.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Ch2>\u003Cspan>Impressions: What Counts as “Seen”\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fh2>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>An impression in Search Console is recorded when a URL from the site appears in a search result that a user could have seen. The key word is “could have.” The user doesn’t need to scroll down to the result. They don’t need to notice it. If Google’s systems determine the result was present on the page the user loaded, it counts as an impression.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>For standard web results, that means a page ranking on position 1 of the first results page generates an impression for every search that loads those results. A page ranking on position 8 also generates an impression for that same search, even if the user never scrolled past position 3. A page ranking on position 11 (the second page of results) only generates an impression if the user actually clicks through to page two.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>For features like AI Overviews, featured snippets, image packs, and knowledge panels, the impression counting works slightly differently depending on whether the content requires user interaction (like expanding a section) to become visible. Google’s documentation covers these edge cases, but the general principle is that an impression means “the result was available to be seen,” not “the user saw it.”\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>As of June 2025, AI Mode data is merged into Search Console performance totals under the “Web” search type. There’s currently no native way to separate AI Mode impressions from standard organic impressions, which adds another layer of ambiguity to the impression number.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>Impressions are useful for tracking visibility trends over time, but they should never be treated as a measure of actual human attention. A page can accumulate thousands of impressions without a single person consciously noticing it in the results.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Ch2>\u003Cspan>Clicks: The Most Reliable Metric in the Report\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fh2>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>A click in Search Console is recorded when a user selects a result that takes them to a page outside of Google Search. Clicks on ads, clicks that keep the user within Google’s interface (like expanding a “People Also Ask” section), and clicks on AI Overview citations that don’t leave Google are generally not counted as clicks in the Performance report.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>Clicks are the most trustworthy metric in Search Console because they represent a definitive user action. A user saw the result, decided it was worth visiting, and clicked through to the site. There’s no ambiguity about whether the interaction happened. The Google disclosure about the impression bug explicitly confirmed that clicks were not affected by the logging error, which reinforces clicks as the metric to anchor analysis around when other data is uncertain.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>One thing to watch: Search Console click data and Google Analytics session data won’t match exactly. Search Console counts clicks on the Google side, while GA4 counts sessions on the site side. Redirects, slow-loading pages, users who click but close the tab before the page loads, and tracking script issues all create gaps between the two numbers. A consistent gap is normal. A sudden widening of the gap is worth investigating.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Ch2>\u003Cspan>Click-Through Rate: A Calculated Metric, Not a Measured One\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fh2>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>CTR in Search Console is calculated by dividing clicks by impressions. Because it’s derived from those two inputs, any issue with either metric directly affects CTR. If impressions are inflated (as they were from May 2025 through early 2026), CTR appears artificially low. If impressions are underreported, CTR appears artificially high.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>CTR is useful for comparing the relative performance of different pages or queries within the same time period, where the measurement conditions are consistent. It’s less reliable for comparing CTR across time periods that span data anomalies, algorithm updates, or changes in SERP layout (like the introduction of new features that change how much of the results page is occupied by non-organic elements).\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>The SERP landscape in 2026 includes AI Overviews, AI Mode, featured snippets, knowledge panels, People Also Ask, local packs, shopping results, video carousels, and image packs. A query where the organic result sits below an AI Overview and a People Also Ask section will naturally have a lower CTR than the same ranking position on a cleaner SERP, even if nothing about the page or its ranking has changed. CTR trends should always be read alongside an understanding of what the SERP actually looks like for the queries in question.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Ch2>\u003Cspan>Average Position: A Blended Number\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fh2>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>Average position in Search Console represents the average ranking of a page across all the queries it appeared for during the selected time period. A page that ranked position 2 for a high-volume query and position 45 for twenty low-volume queries could show an average position of 40+, which would make it look like a poorly performing page even though it ranks well for the query that actually drives traffic.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>Average position is most useful when filtered to a specific query or a narrow set of related queries, where the blending effect is minimized. As a site-level or page-level aggregate across all queries, it’s often misleading. A page’s average position can improve (the number goes down) while traffic decreases, or worsen (the number goes up) while traffic increases, depending on which queries are entering or leaving the data set.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Ch2>\u003Cspan>How to Use the Metrics Together\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fh2>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>The metrics in Search Console work best as a system rather than individually. Each one answers a different question.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>Impressions answer: how visible is the site for a given set of queries? Clicks answer: how many users actually visited the site from search? CTR answers: of the people who could have seen the result, what percentage clicked? Average position answers: where did the page typically rank for the queries it appeared in?\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>When impressions increase but clicks stay flat, the site is appearing for more queries (or the same queries more often) but those new appearances aren’t generating traffic. Possible explanations include ranking for queries where the result sits below the fold, appearing in positions where AI Overviews or other features absorb the click, or ranking for queries with informational intent where users get their answer from the SERP without clicking.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>When clicks increase but impressions stay flat, the site is getting a higher CTR for its existing visibility, which usually means improved rankings for high-intent queries, better meta descriptions or titles earning more clicks at the same position, or queries shifting to SERPs where the organic result is more prominent.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>When both impressions and clicks drop, either the site has lost rankings, queries the site ranked for have declined in volume, or a SERP layout change has pushed organic results further down. Search Console alone can’t distinguish between these causes, so pairing the data with rank tracking tools and SERP analysis fills the gap.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Ch2>\u003Cspan>Why Clicks, Not Impressions, Should Lead Reporting\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fh2>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>For \u003C\u002Fspan>\u003Ca target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" class=\"text-primary-blue-600 hover:underline\" href=\"https:\u002F\u002Fnobsmarketplace.com\u002Flink-building\">\u003Cspan>link building\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fa>\u003Cspan> and \u003C\u002Fspan>\u003Ca target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" class=\"text-primary-blue-600 hover:underline\" href=\"https:\u002F\u002Fnobsmarketplace.com\u002Fdigital-pr\">\u003Cspan>digital PR\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fa>\u003Cspan> campaigns where the goal is driving organic traffic growth, clicks are the metric that connects directly to business outcomes. Impressions indicate visibility potential. Clicks indicate actual visits. CTR indicates conversion efficiency from impression to visit. Average position indicates competitive standing.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>The temptation to lead with impressions is understandable because the numbers are larger and growth looks more dramatic on a chart. But as the eleven-month impression bug demonstrates, impression data carries more measurement risk than click data. Building reporting and strategy around clicks as the primary metric, with impressions and CTR as supporting context, produces more reliable analysis.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Ch2>\u003Cspan>The Impression Bug: What Happened and What to Do About It\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fh2>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>On April 3, 2026, Google updated its Data Anomalies in Search Console page with the following disclosure: “A logging error is preventing Search Console from accurately reporting impressions from May 13, 2025 onward. This issue will be resolved over the next few weeks; as a result, you may notice a decrease in impressions in the Search Console Performance report. Clicks and other metrics were not affected by the error, and this issue affected data logging only.”\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>A Google spokesperson confirmed to Search Engine Land: “We identified a reporting error in Search Console that temporarily led to an over-reporting of impressions from May 13, 2025 onward. Bug fixes are being implemented to ensure accurate reporting.”\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>Eleven months of inflated impression data across every Search Console property. Any analysis, report, or strategic decision made during that period using impression counts or CTR as inputs was working with inaccurate data. CTR calculations during the affected period would have appeared lower than reality because the denominator (impressions) was artificially large.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>The impression bug also coincided with Google merging AI Mode data into Search Console totals in June 2025, which means impression trend lines from mid-2025 through early 2026 contain at least two significant data discontinuities. Year-over-year comparisons spanning this period are unreliable for impressions and CTR.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>What to do now: annotate dashboards and reports to mark May 13, 2025 as a data discontinuity point. Use clicks as the primary metric for evaluating performance during the affected period, since Google confirmed clicks were not impacted. Export historical data before the fix fully propagates to preserve a record of both the pre-correction and post-correction numbers. Once the correction is complete, re-baseline impression data and recalculate CTR using the corrected figures. And resist the urge to interpret the forthcoming impression drop as a performance decline. The impressions are going down because the data is becoming more accurate, not because anything changed about the site’s actual visibility.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>","How to Read Google Search Console Metrics in 2026 (And Why Your Impression Data Has Been Wrong for 11 Months)","https:\u002F\u002Fwebsite-cdn.nobsmarketplace.com\u002Fuploads\u002Ffeatured-images\u002Freading-google-metrics-for-2026-20260407095555-iwmKoJuk.png",1723,"2026-04-07T09:54:29.000000Z","2026-04-07T09:56:02.000000Z",{"id":52,"name":65,"email":66,"about":16,"avatar":67,"created_at":68,"updated_at":16,"deleted_at":16},[],{"id":116,"author_id":52,"title":117,"slug":118,"content":119,"short_summary":120,"featured_image":121,"status":14,"meta_title":122,"meta_description":123,"canonical_url":16,"keywords":16,"blog_type":17,"is_featured":18,"word_count":124,"published_at":125,"created_at":126,"updated_at":127,"deleted_at":16,"author":128,"categories":129},318,"XML Sitemaps in 2026","xml-sitemaps-in-2026","\u003Ch1>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 16pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;\">\u003Cstrong>XML Sitemaps in 2026\u003C\u002Fstrong>\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fh1>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;\">A site owner on Reddit’s r\u002FSEO recently asked whether splitting a sitemap.xml into separate files would hurt SEO performance. The site was ranking in the top 3 for most target searches, and the concern was that restructuring the sitemap could disrupt that. Google’s John Mueller jumped in with a response that laid out several reasons why multiple sitemaps are useful, including a few that most guides don’t cover.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;\">Mueller’s list of reasons for splitting sitemaps: tracking different kinds of URLs in groups (“product detail page sitemap” vs “product category sitemap,” which you can then monitor with Search Console’s page indexing report), splitting by content freshness (so search engines theoretically don’t need to check the “old” sitemap as often), proactively splitting before hitting the 50,000 URL limit, managing hreflang sitemaps (which can take up significant space), and, as he put it, “my computer did it, I don’t know why.”\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Ch2>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 14pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;\">\u003Cstrong>What an XML Sitemap Actually Does\u003C\u002Fstrong>\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fh2>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;\">An XML sitemap is a file that lists the URLs on a site that should be discoverable by search engines. It serves as a direct communication channel between a website and search engine crawlers, pointing them to pages that should be crawled and indexed.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;\">Search engines can discover pages through internal links, external backlinks, and crawling, so a sitemap isn’t strictly required for every site. But for sites with deep page structures, pages with few internal links pointing to them, new sites with limited external backlinks, sites that publish content frequently, or JavaScript-heavy sites where content might not be immediately discoverable through standard crawling, a sitemap removes ambiguity about which pages exist and which ones are important enough to index.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;\">Google’s documentation specifies two hard limits for a single sitemap file: 50,000 URLs maximum and 50MB uncompressed file size maximum. If either limit is exceeded, the sitemap needs to be split into multiple files. A sitemap index file acts as a master list that points to all the individual sitemap files, and that index file is what gets submitted to Search Console.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;\">Google ignores the priority and changefreq tags in sitemaps. The loc tag (the URL) and the lastmod tag (last modification date) are the only fields Google actually uses. The lastmod date needs to be accurate and verifiable, meaning it should reflect when the page content actually changed, not an arbitrary refresh date. Google has been clear that faking lastmod dates can backfire by causing the system to distrust those signals for the entire site.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Ch2>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 14pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;\">\u003Cstrong>Why Multiple Sitemaps Are a Strategic Choice\u003C\u002Fstrong>\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fh2>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;\">Mueller’s Reddit response outlines reasons that go beyond the 50,000 URL limit, and several of them are worth expanding on because they represent practical benefits most sites don’t take advantage of.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;\">\u003Cstrong>Tracking different content types separately.\u003C\u002Fstrong> Search Console’s page indexing report shows data per sitemap. If all URLs are in a single file, the indexing report gives one aggregated view. If product pages, category pages, blog posts, and support articles each have their own sitemap, Search Console shows indexing status for each group independently. Spotting problems becomes significantly easier. If 200 product pages suddenly drop out of the index, that shows up immediately in the product sitemap’s report rather than being buried in a combined report where 200 out of 10,000 URLs changing status might not be noticed.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;\">\u003Cstrong>Splitting by freshness.\u003C\u002Fstrong> Mueller mentioned this with a caveat: “theoretically a search engine might not need to check the ‘old’ sitemap as often; I don’t know if this actually happens tho.” The idea is that separating evergreen content from frequently updated content lets crawlers focus their attention on the sitemap that changes often, rather than rechecking thousands of URLs that haven’t changed. Whether Google actually adjusts crawl frequency based on sitemap-level freshness signals is unconfirmed, but the logic is sound from a crawl efficiency perspective.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;\">\u003Cstrong>Proactive splitting before hitting limits.\u003C\u002Fstrong> Mueller’s point here is practical: if a site is growing and will eventually cross 50,000 URLs, setting up the split structure now avoids having to urgently reconfigure everything later. Building the infrastructure for multiple sitemaps when a site has 20,000 URLs means the transition to 60,000 is seamless rather than an emergency.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;\">\u003Cstrong>Hreflang management.\u003C\u002Fstrong> For multilingual sites, hreflang annotations can be managed in the HTML of each page or in the sitemap. For sites with many language\u002Fregion variants, the sitemap approach is often more manageable and less error-prone than maintaining hreflang tags across thousands of page templates. But hreflang annotations can make sitemap files grow quickly since each URL needs to reference every alternate language version. Separate sitemaps for hreflang help keep file sizes under the limits.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Ch2>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 14pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;\">\u003Cstrong>What Should and Shouldn’t Be in a Sitemap\u003C\u002Fstrong>\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fh2>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;\">The sitemap should include every page that should be indexed. That means canonical URLs for key pages like service pages, product pages, blog posts, landing pages, and any other content that serves search intent. The URLs listed should be the canonical versions, not duplicates, parameterized variations, or alternate formats.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;\">Pages with noindex tags should not appear in the sitemap. A sitemap tells search engines “please index these pages,” while noindex says the opposite. Including both on the same URL sends conflicting signals. Similarly, pages blocked by robots.txt shouldn’t be in the sitemap, and URLs that redirect or return error codes should be cleaned out regularly.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;\">For sites running \u003C\u002Fspan>\u003Ca target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" class=\"text-primary-blue-600 hover:underline\" href=\"https:\u002F\u002Fnobsmarketplace.com\u002Flink-building\">\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;\">link building\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fa>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;\"> campaigns, the sitemap serves as a quality control layer. Every page that receives backlinks should be in the sitemap with an accurate lastmod date, a clean canonical URL, and no conflicting signals. If a page earning links through \u003C\u002Fspan>\u003Ca target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" class=\"text-primary-blue-600 hover:underline\" href=\"https:\u002F\u002Fnobsmarketplace.com\u002Fguest-posting\">\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;\">guest posting\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fa>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;\"> placements or \u003C\u002Fspan>\u003Ca target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" class=\"text-primary-blue-600 hover:underline\" href=\"https:\u002F\u002Fnobsmarketplace.com\u002Fdigital-pr\">\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;\">digital PR\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fa>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;\"> coverage returns a redirect, a noindex, or doesn’t appear in the sitemap at all, the link equity flowing to that page may not translate into the indexing and ranking benefits intended. Verifying that linked-to pages are properly represented in the sitemap is a basic but often overlooked step.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Ch2>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 14pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;\">\u003Cstrong>How to Structure Multiple Sitemaps\u003C\u002Fstrong>\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fh2>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;\">The sitemap index file is the organizing layer. It lists all individual sitemap files and is the single file submitted to Search Console. The structure looks like a hierarchy: one index file pointing to multiple sitemap files, each containing a subset of URLs.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;\">Common approaches to splitting include organizing by content type (products, categories, blog posts, pages), by site section (matching the URL structure), by language or region (for multilingual sites using hreflang), or by update frequency (frequently changing content in one sitemap, stable content in another).\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;\">The sitemap index file itself has the same 50,000 URL limit, meaning it can reference up to 50,000 individual sitemap files. For the vast majority of sites, that ceiling is effectively unlimited. The referenced sitemaps must be hosted on the same site and in the same directory or lower in the site hierarchy as the index file, unless cross-site submission is configured.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;\">For most CMS platforms, sitemap generation is handled automatically. WordPress plugins like Yoast SEO split sitemaps by content type by default. Other platforms may generate a single sitemap that needs to be manually split as the site grows. Custom-built sites can use server-side scripts or cron jobs to generate and update sitemaps on a schedule, which is the approach the original Reddit poster was describing.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Ch2>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 14pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;\">\u003Cstrong>Sitemap Maintenance\u003C\u002Fstrong>\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fh2>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;\">A sitemap that isn’t maintained creates more problems than no sitemap at all. Stale sitemaps with broken URLs, removed pages, or inaccurate lastmod dates waste crawl budget and send misleading signals about the site’s structure.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;\">The core maintenance tasks are straightforward: remove URLs that return 404 or redirect, update lastmod dates only when content actually changes, add new pages as they’re published, remove pages that are set to noindex, and verify that every listed URL resolves to a 200 status code with the correct canonical tag.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;\">Google Search Console’s sitemap report and page indexing report are the primary monitoring tools. They show how many URLs were submitted, how many are indexed, and where errors are occurring. Checking these reports regularly, especially after site changes, content migrations, or URL structure updates, catches problems before they affect visibility.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Ch2>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 14pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;\">\u003Cstrong>The Bottom Line on Splitting\u003C\u002Fstrong>\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fh2>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;\">Mueller’s response on Reddit confirms what experienced technical SEOs have known but rarely see documented from Google’s side: splitting sitemaps is a management and monitoring strategy, not just a response to hitting size limits. The strategic benefits of tracking different content types independently in Search Console, separating evergreen from frequently updated content, planning for growth, and managing hreflang complexity all make multiple sitemaps a better default than a single monolithic file for any site with meaningful scale or growth ambitions.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;\">Splitting a sitemap won’t hurt SEO. Google processes sitemap index files and individual sitemaps the same way regardless of how many files are involved. The URLs are what matter, not how they’re organized across files. The organization serves the site owner’s ability to monitor and maintain the sitemap, not the search engine’s ability to read it.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>","XML Sitemaps in 2026: When and Why to Split Them, and What John Mueller Says About Multiple Sitemaps","https:\u002F\u002Fwebsite-cdn.nobsmarketplace.com\u002Fuploads\u002Ffeatured-images\u002Fxml-sitemaps-in-2026-infographic-20260406075705-IUhkrigN.png","XML Sitemaps in 2026 : Practical Information","XML Sitemaps in 2026: When and Why to Split Them, and What Mueller Says About Multiple Sitemaps",1445,"2026-04-06T07:45:12.000000Z","2026-04-06T07:56:14.000000Z","2026-04-06T07:57:11.000000Z",{"id":52,"name":65,"email":66,"about":16,"avatar":67,"created_at":68,"updated_at":16,"deleted_at":16},[],[131,136,147],{"id":51,"author_id":52,"title":53,"slug":54,"featured_image":57,"published_at":62,"short_summary":56,"word_count":61,"author":132,"categories":133},{"id":52,"name":65,"avatar":67,"email":66},[134],{"id":8,"name":30,"pivot":135},{"blog_id":51,"category_id":8},{"id":73,"author_id":8,"title":74,"slug":75,"featured_image":78,"published_at":81,"short_summary":77,"word_count":80,"author":137,"categories":138},{"id":8,"name":23,"avatar":26,"email":24},[139,141,143,145],{"id":8,"name":30,"pivot":140},{"blog_id":73,"category_id":8},{"id":88,"name":89,"pivot":142},{"blog_id":73,"category_id":88},{"id":94,"name":95,"pivot":144},{"blog_id":73,"category_id":94},{"id":98,"name":99,"pivot":146},{"blog_id":73,"category_id":98},{"id":148,"author_id":52,"title":149,"slug":150,"featured_image":151,"published_at":152,"short_summary":153,"word_count":154,"author":155,"categories":156},316,"AI Visibility in 2026: What Actually Gets Brands Cited by LLMs","ai-visibility-2026-what-gets-brands-cited","https:\u002F\u002Fwebsite-cdn.nobsmarketplace.com\u002Fuploads\u002Ffeatured-images\u002Fimage-apr-2-2026-09-48-17-am-20260402074850-MmACyW63.png","2026-04-02T07:37:11.000000Z","How LLM tools cite brands? Answer is a bit complex, but digital PR and high authority seem to lead the way",1345,{"id":52,"name":65,"avatar":67,"email":66},[157],{"id":158,"name":159,"pivot":160},23,"AI",{"blog_id":148,"category_id":158}]