[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"blog-how-to-start-a-digital-marketing-company":3,"latest-blogs-home":128},{"message":4,"data":5},"Blogs retrieved successfully",{"blog":6,"latest_blogs":33},{"id":7,"author_id":8,"title":9,"slug":10,"content":11,"short_summary":12,"featured_image":13,"status":14,"meta_title":9,"meta_description":12,"canonical_url":15,"keywords":16,"blog_type":17,"is_featured":18,"word_count":19,"published_at":20,"created_at":21,"updated_at":22,"deleted_at":23,"author":24,"categories":29},252,1,"How to Start a Digital Marketing Company","how-to-start-a-digital-marketing-company","\u003Cp>Digital marketing has spiked in demand in the years following the COVID-19 pandemic. No one’s sure what the future holds, let alone if a second global health crisis is just around the corner. Not about to take their chances, many businesses have boosted their online presence in the digital marketing landscape or gone fully digital.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\n\u003Cp>It isn’t surprising that digital marketers and digital agencies are emerging left and right in response. Research and Markets, a market insight and analysis firm, estimates that the digital marketing industry is poised to more than double in value by 2028 from 2022. Besides the effects of the pandemic, increasing Internet and mobile penetration is also a contributing factor.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\n\u003Cimg class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-26034\" src=\"https:\u002F\u002Fwebsite-cdn.nobsmarketplace.com\u002Fblog-assets\u002F2024\u002F03\u002F0-5.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"750\" height=\"500\" \u002F>\n\u003Cp style=\"text-align: center;\">\u003Cem>Source:\u003Ca href=\"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.researchandmarkets.com\u002Freport\u002Fdigital-marketing?utm_source=GNE&utm_medium=PressRelease&utm_code=drvz8j&utm_campaign=1889580+-+%24689.8+Billion+Digital+Marketing+Market+Analysis+by+Digital+Channel%2c+End+Use+Industry%2c+and+Region+-+Global+Forecast+to+2028&utm_exec=chdo54prd\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Research and Markets\u003C\u002Fa>\u003C\u002Fem>\u003C\u002Fp>\nIf you’re reading this, I assume you plan to start your own digital marketing company or, at least, a career in one. Granted, NO-BS Marketplace was founded years before COVID-19 changed the world. However, as the co-founder of a company that had a rocky start, I can help you pave your road to digital marketing business success.\n\u003Ch2>Can I Start a Digital Marketing Agency With No Experience?\u003C\u002Fh2>\nI graduated with a degree in Business Administration and Management in 2012. While it’s right for running a business, it doesn’t necessarily specialise in digital marketing. My time in the industry began during my college years as a freelancer.\n\n\u003Cp>A digital marketing degree isn’t required to start one’s career in this sector, let alone start an online advertising agency. However, while prior experience isn’t technically required, clients will always prefer one with years under their belt. Experience is your proof of competence, and getting new clients is impossible without it.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\n\u003Cp>You can earn experience by doing what I did: freelance digital marketing on the side while studying. That said, don’t rule out the possibility of working for a successful digital marketing agency because it allows you to work with veterans. Take every opportunity to hone your digital marketing skills, only deciding to go your way when you feel confident enough. Getting a digital marketing certification is a great way to acquire sought-after online marketing skills in this constantly changing industry.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\n\u003Ch2>What Digital Marketing Channel Should I Choose?\u003C\u002Fh2>\n\u003Cul>\n \t\u003Cli>As a fledgling business, you won’t have the resources or manpower to deliver on all digital marketing channels. Trust me, we began with link building and only expanded into content and SEO because we’ve spent years building our capabilities.\u003C\u002Fli>\n \t\u003Cli>If choosing is too hard, start your career with SEO. Call me biased, but believe me when I tell you that SEO has the lowest bar of entry among the channels for the following reasons:\u003C\u002Fli>\n \t\u003Cli>Unlike traditional marketing methods, you can start an SEO service for virtually zero capital. The Internet has no shortage of free analytics tools (though not as feature-rich as their paid counterparts) to work on a digital marketing campaign.\u003C\u002Fli>\n \t\u003Cli>The results of a digital marketing strategy can take a while to manifest, but when they do, the client can keep earning traffic and brand exposure as long as you deliver consistent SEO over time.\u003C\u002Fli>\n \t\u003Cli>Your time doing SEO will serve you well when you move on to other digital marketing channels like content marketing, influencer marketing, and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising.\u003C\u002Fli>\n\u003C\u002Ful>\n\u003Cimg class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-26035\" src=\"https:\u002F\u002Fwebsite-cdn.nobsmarketplace.com\u002Fblog-assets\u002F2024\u002F03\u002F1-5-1024x700.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"750\" height=\"513\" \u002F>\n\u003Cp style=\"text-align: center;\">\u003Cem>Source: Adobe Stock\u003C\u002Fem>\u003C\u002Fp>\nWhat about the other channels? How viable are they for a startup?\n\u003Cul>\n \t\u003Cli>\u003Cstrong>PPC Marketing: \u003C\u002Fstrong>PPC ads bring faster results and generate more revenue than SEO. However, it’s riskier because you’re directly managing the client’s marketing budget to bid for the best keywords. It’s also easy to lose the client’s money to bad calls.\u003C\u002Fli>\n \t\u003Cli>\u003Cstrong>Social Media Marketing: \u003C\u002Fstrong>With billions of users worldwide, marketing on social media platforms can generate brand awareness and lucrative returns. That said, if you aren’t careful with the social media content, the client’s brand will become vulnerable to polarising opinions.\u003C\u002Fli>\n \t\u003Cli>\u003Cstrong>Video Marketing:\u003C\u002Fstrong> Videos capture people’s attention more effectively than written content. But it entails a hefty investment in the necessary training and equipment, which you might not have as a startup.\u003C\u002Fli>\n \t\u003Cli>\u003Cstrong>Email Marketing: \u003C\u002Fstrong>Promotional materials sent via email go directly to the customer or target audience, making it more direct than other channels. However, there’s the risk of unknowingly violating online marketing guidelines or advertising laws like the \u003Ca href=\"https:\u002F\u002Fgdpr-info.eu\u002Fissues\u002Femail-marketing\u002F\">European Union’s GDPR\u003C\u002Fa>.\u003C\u002Fli>\n\u003C\u002Ful>\n\u003Ch2>Be Everything at Once or Focus on a Niche?\u003C\u002Fh2>\nWhen my brother and I founded Studio 56, NO-BS Marketplace’s predecessor, we focused on delivering strategies to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). But apart from the SEO industry back then being a pain in the neck due to its shortfalls, we also realised that an SME client base isn’t niche enough because many others are doing the same.\n\n\u003Cp>Fortunately, an opportunity came knocking not long after. The industry was in a bad state, with all the black hats running rampant. As such, upon founding NO-BS Marketplace, we made offering \u003Ca href=\"https:\u002F\u002Fnobsmarketplace.com\u002Flink-building\u002Flink-building-packages\u002F\">transparent link building\u003C\u002Fa> our niche. The company saw significant success in its first few years, so much so that we had to expand our team to keep up.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\n\u003Cp>As a startup, it’s better to find a niche to market to than please everyone at once. There are thousands of digital marketing agencies, and without a quirk that makes you different, you won’t be able to stand out from the crowd. When you’ve grown your digital agency large enough, that’s the time to consider broadening your horizons.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\n\u003Ch2>What Tools Does My Digital Marketing Agency Need?\u003C\u002Fh2>\nThe contents of your digital marketing toolbox depend on the channel you opt to focus on and the digital marketing services you offer. We may have our powerful link building platform, but it needs support from other tools to keep it working. Here’s a typical equipment list for SEO.\n\u003Cul>\n \t\u003Cli>\u003Cstrong>SEO Analytics: \u003C\u002Fstrong>These tools capture a wide range of usage data from search engines, from keywords to search volume. Examples include Ahrefs, Moz, Google Analytics, and SEMrush.\u003C\u002Fli>\n \t\u003Cli>\u003Cstrong>Task Management: \u003C\u002Fstrong>These tools organise tasks to enable easier monitoring of each project’s progress. Examples include ClickUp, Slack, and Trello.\u003C\u002Fli>\n \t\u003Cli>\u003Cstrong>Team Collaboration:\u003C\u002Fstrong> If your agency consists of multiple people, these tools can aid in coordinating tasks. Examples include Microsoft Teams and Google Workspace.\u003C\u002Fli>\n \t\u003Cli>\u003Cstrong>Customer Service: \u003C\u002Fstrong>Expect to receive a constant stream of calls from your customers and potential clients. You can invest in specialised tools like Help Scout, Zendesk, or Buffer.\u003C\u002Fli>\n\u003C\u002Ful>\nAs I mentioned earlier, you can use free versions of these tools if available and suitable for your needs. But they don’t scale well and have a lot of features, so you’ll likely have to pay for a subscription as your agency grows.\n\u003Ch2>Do I Need to Rent Out an Office Space?\u003C\u002Fh2>\nBecause most tasks occur over the Internet, a digital agency can be a fully remote business model like ours. In fact, this is advisable if you hope to look for talent around the world to integrate into your digital marketing team. This lets you save on rent and other property expenses, which you can put to equipment and wages.","Digital marketing has spiked in demand in the years following the COVID-19 pandemic. No one’s sure what the future holds, let alone if a second global health crisis is just around the corner. Not abou...","https:\u002F\u002Fwebsite-cdn.nobsmarketplace.com\u002Fblog-assets\u002F2024\u002F03\u002Fimage-4-2.png","published","https:\u002F\u002Fnobsmarketplace.com\u002Fblog\u002Fhow-to-start-a-digital-marketing-company\u002F","","blog",false,1179,"2024-03-20T06:50:31.000000Z","2025-10-26T11:10:30.000000Z","2025-10-31T09:45:55.000000Z",null,{"id":8,"name":25,"email":26,"about":16,"avatar":27,"created_at":28,"updated_at":28,"deleted_at":23},"Aaron Gray","support@nobsmarketplace.com","https:\u002F\u002Fwebsite-cdn.nobsmarketplace.com\u002Fblog-authors\u002F2024\u002F04\u002FAGray.png","2025-10-26T11:10:22.000000Z",[30],{"id":8,"name":31,"slug":17,"created_at":28,"updated_at":28,"deleted_at":23,"pivot":32},"Blogs",{"blog_id":7,"category_id":8},[34,64,97,111],{"id":35,"author_id":36,"title":37,"slug":38,"content":39,"short_summary":40,"featured_image":41,"status":14,"meta_title":42,"meta_description":43,"canonical_url":23,"keywords":23,"blog_type":17,"is_featured":18,"word_count":44,"published_at":45,"created_at":46,"updated_at":46,"deleted_at":23,"author":47,"categories":52},324,9,"Rankings Won’t Matter If AI Agents Don’t Know Your Brand Exists","ai-agents-brand-entity-recognition-seo","\u003Ch1>Rankings Won’t Matter If AI Agents Don’t Know Your Brand Exists\u003C\u002Fh1>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>Google CEO Sundar Pichai sat down with Stripe co-founder John Collison and investor Elad Gil on the Cheeky Pint podcast earlier this month. The conversation ran over an hour and covered Google’s AI history, infrastructure spending, compute bottlenecks, and where Search is headed. One theme ran through everything Pichai described: Search is moving from returning results to executing tasks, and in that model, the question isn’t where you rank. The question is whether the AI agent knows your brand exists at all.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>Pichai used the phrase “agent manager” to describe what Search is becoming. Not a search engine. Not an answer engine. A system that coordinates tasks on a user’s behalf, running multiple threads simultaneously. In that world, the brands that maintain visibility are the ones AI systems already associate with specific topics, services, and areas of expertise. That association, entity recognition, is becoming the most important asset in organic search strategy. Understanding why requires looking at what Pichai actually said and what it means for how discovery works going forward.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Ch2>\u003Cspan>What Pichai Actually Said About the Future of Search\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fh2>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>When asked what the future of Search looks like, whether it remains a product, a distribution mechanism, or one of many ways people interact with the world, Pichai described something fundamentally different from the search engine that exists today.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>He said that information-seeking queries, the kind of searches that currently return a list of ranked results, will become agentic. Instead of typing a question and getting links, users will initiate tasks. Instead of searching for trip options, Search will plan the trip. Instead of returning results, Search will coordinate actions across multiple services simultaneously.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>Pichai used the phrase “agent manager” to describe what Search becomes in this model. Not a search engine. Not an answer engine. A system that manages concurrent tasks on a user’s behalf, with multiple threads running at once. He compared it to how he already uses internal Google tools, where agents perform work in parallel and the user oversees the output rather than doing each step manually.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>When asked whether the traditional search box will still exist in ten years, Pichai avoided a direct answer but said something revealing. He said the form factor of devices will change, that input and output methods will change radically, and that trying to predict ten years out is paralyzing. Instead, he said the curve of AI progress is so steep that thinking one year ahead is more productive, and more exciting, than trying to envision five years out.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>He also addressed the relationship between Search and Gemini, Google’s standalone AI model. He said the two will overlap in some areas and profoundly diverge in others, and that Google is committed to running both. AI Mode in Search serves as the bleeding edge, and features that prove successful there migrate to the main search experience over time. The implication is that AI Overviews and AI Mode are not experiments. They are staging grounds for the next version of Search.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Ch2>\u003Cspan>What “Agent Manager” Means in Practice\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fh2>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>To understand what Pichai is describing, it helps to think about how Search works today and what changes when it becomes agentic.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>Today, a user types a query. Google returns a ranked list of results, increasingly topped by an AI Overview that summarizes information from multiple sources. The user clicks a result or reads the overview. The interaction is essentially one question, one response, one session.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>In an agentic model, the interaction looks completely different. A user describes what they want to accomplish rather than what they want to know. Search doesn’t return results. It initiates a process. It might contact multiple services, compare options, negotiate parameters, and execute a decision, all within the search interface, all without the user visiting a single external website.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>Pichai referenced 2027 as a potential inflection point for when agentic workflows expand beyond engineering and developer use cases into mainstream commercial applications. That timeline aligns with what most infrastructure observers expect for broad deployment of long-horizon AI agents.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>The practical example is straightforward. Today, someone searching for a weekend trip to Lisbon gets a list of blog posts, hotel booking sites, and flight comparison tools. In an agentic model, Search takes the intent, the budget, the dates, the user’s preferences, and books the trip. The blog posts, the hotel sites, and the comparison tools are still data sources, but the user never visits them. Search consumed their information and acted on it.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Ch2>\u003Cspan>Why This Matters for Organic Search Strategy\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fh2>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>The entire architecture of SEO is built on a foundational assumption: that Google Search exists to connect users with websites. Every ranking factor, every backlink, every piece of optimized content operates within that framework. Users search. Google returns links. Users click. Websites get traffic.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>Pichai’s description of the future doesn’t include that loop.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>That doesn’t mean websites stop existing or that SEO becomes irrelevant overnight. Google still needs sources. AI Overviews and agentic processes still need data to synthesize, services to connect to, and information to act on. But the role of a website in that ecosystem changes from a destination to a data source. The user doesn’t visit you. The agent consumes your content and uses it as an input.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\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>, the implications ripple outward. Backlinks have always been a signal of authority and trust. When Search operated as a referral mechanism, links mattered because they influenced which results users saw and clicked. In an agentic model, authority signals still matter, possibly more than ever, because the agent needs to decide which sources to trust when executing tasks. But the downstream value of the link changes. A backlink that used to drive referral traffic and pass ranking authority might still pass authority, but the referral traffic component diminishes if the agent is doing the visiting on the user’s behalf.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\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> and contributed content face a similar recalibration. Publishing an article on a respected industry site has traditionally served dual purposes: earning a link for SEO value and putting a brand in front of that publication’s audience. If the audience increasingly gets their answers through agentic search without visiting the publication, the second purpose weakens. The SEO value of the link may persist, but the brand exposure depends on whether the agent surfaces the brand name in its output, which is a question of entity recognition, not traditional ranking.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Ch2>\u003Cspan>Entity Recognition Becomes the Core Asset\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fh2>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>In a search environment where agents synthesize information and execute tasks without sending users to websites, the brands that maintain visibility are the ones the agent knows about and trusts. That knowledge comes from entity recognition, the ability of AI systems to associate a brand name with specific topics, services, and areas of expertise.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>Entity recognition gets built through exactly the kind of work that has always supported strong SEO: consistent publishing on authoritative sites, editorial coverage that mentions the brand in context, topical relevance reinforced across multiple sources, and structured data that helps AI systems understand what a company does and where it operates.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>The difference is that in a traditional search model, all of that work eventually translated into rankings, and rankings translated into clicks. In an agentic model, the translation step changes. The work still matters, but its output is whether the agent includes your brand when executing a task, not whether you appear on page one of a results list.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>Companies that have invested in building strong entity association through consistent \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>, editorial mentions, and topical authority across the web are better positioned for an agentic search environment than companies that have optimized primarily for keyword rankings. Keyword rankings assume a results page. Entity recognition works regardless of the interface.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Ch2>\u003Cspan>What Pichai Didn’t Address\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fh2>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>Pichai’s interview was notable for what it left out. He didn’t discuss how publishers will be compensated when their content is consumed by agents without generating traffic. He didn’t address how advertising works in an agentic model where users don’t see search results pages. He didn’t explain how smaller businesses, the ones that don’t have the brand recognition to be known to AI agents, will get discovered in a world without clickable results.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>These are not minor gaps. Google’s advertising business generated over $113 billion in a single quarter in late last year. That business depends on users seeing and clicking ads in search results. An agentic model that executes tasks without showing results pages disrupts the revenue model that funds everything Google does.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>Pichai did say that commercial information will still have value, and that AI will help figure out the best way to integrate it. But the specifics remain undefined. For businesses that depend on organic search traffic for revenue, the absence of a clear answer about how discovery and monetization work in an agentic model is the most important thing Pichai didn’t say.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Ch2>\u003Cspan>The Timeline Question\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fh2>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>How quickly this transition happens is the most practical question for anyone making SEO and content investments today.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>Pichai’s comments suggest the transition is already underway. AI Overviews are live globally. AI Mode is available as a separate tab for users who want the more advanced experience, with successful features migrating to the main search page over time. The underlying models are improving on a curve steep enough that Pichai said thinking more than a year ahead is less productive than just riding the current trajectory.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>At the same time, Pichai acknowledged that the full agentic vision is not here yet. He referenced 2027 as a potential inflection point for non-engineering use cases. The infrastructure constraints are real. Google is spending $175 to $185 billion in capital expenditures in 2026 and still can’t build fast enough because memory chips, wafer capacity, and power infrastructure are the binding constraints, not money.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>That means there’s a window, but the window has a visible end. The traditional search model isn’t going to disappear in the next twelve months, but the signals about where it’s heading are no longer ambiguous. The CEO of Google described the future of search as a task execution system and didn’t mention websites. That’s about as clear a signal as you can get.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Ch2>\u003Cspan>What to Do With This Information\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fh2>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>The practical response is not to abandon SEO or stop building links. The foundational work of earning authority, building brand recognition, and establishing topical relevance across the web is the same work that positions a brand for visibility in an agentic search environment.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>The adjustment is in how you measure success and where you direct effort. Traffic from organic search will likely decline over time as agentic features absorb more query types. But brand mentions in AI generated outputs, entity recognition across AI systems, and the authority signals that come from appearing on respected third party sites will become more important, not less.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>Building a strong backlink profile through quality editorial placements is still valuable, and may become more valuable, because those placements contribute to the entity recognition that determines whether an agent includes your brand when executing a task. The measurement just needs to expand beyond rankings and traffic to include brand visibility in AI outputs.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan>Pichai gave a one-year planning horizon as the most productive timeframe for decision-making. That’s a reasonable framework. Invest in the foundational work that serves both the current search model and the emerging agentic model, and reassess as the product evolves. The worst position to be in is having built nothing that AI systems recognize when the transition completes.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>","Google CEO Sundar Pichai described Search evolving into an agent manager that executes tasks instead of returning results. In that model, rankings become secondary to whether AI systems recognize your brand. Entity recognition is emerging as the asset that determines visibility.","https:\u002F\u002Fwebsite-cdn.nobsmarketplace.com\u002Fuploads\u002Ffeatured-images\u002Fai-agents-brand-entity-20260412124615-GC3yN6yJ.png","Rankings Won’t Matter If AI Agents Don’t Know Your Brand","Google’s CEO described Search becoming an agent that completes tasks, not returns links. Entity recognition is replacing rankings as the core SEO asset.",1886,"2026-04-12T12:42:17.000000Z","2026-04-12T12:46:21.000000Z",{"id":36,"name":48,"email":49,"about":23,"avatar":50,"created_at":51,"updated_at":23,"deleted_at":23},"Rasit Cakir","rasit@nobsmarketplace.com","https:\u002F\u002Fwebsite-cdn.nobsmarketplace.com\u002Frasit.webp","2026-01-26T11:10:22.000000Z",[53,59],{"id":54,"name":55,"slug":56,"created_at":57,"updated_at":57,"deleted_at":23,"pivot":58},23,"AI","ai","2026-03-10T11:18:29.000000Z",{"blog_id":35,"category_id":54},{"id":60,"name":61,"slug":62,"created_at":28,"updated_at":28,"deleted_at":23,"pivot":63},3,"SEO","seo",{"blog_id":35,"category_id":60},{"id":65,"author_id":60,"title":66,"slug":67,"content":68,"short_summary":69,"featured_image":70,"status":14,"meta_title":66,"meta_description":71,"canonical_url":23,"keywords":23,"blog_type":17,"is_featured":18,"word_count":72,"published_at":73,"created_at":74,"updated_at":75,"deleted_at":23,"author":76,"categories":80},321,"Planning on Outsourcing Link Building? Read This First","outsourcing-link-building","\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">\u003Cem>This post is an update to our guide on\u003C\u002Fem>\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003Ca target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" class=\"text-primary-blue-600 hover:underline\" href=\"https:\u002F\u002Fnobsmarketplace.com\u002Fblog\u002Fhow-to-outsource-link-building\">\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>outsourcing 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>, which was published back in 2024. While that guide still holds water today, we’ve made this one more streamlined to make it easier to understand.\u003C\u002Fem>\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">As an SEO service, we often stress how crucial proper link building is in promoting brands and businesses. It might sound like you need to build your own link building capability in-house, but that isn’t always possible. In more cases than you may think, businesses don’t have the expertise, tools, or time to do it themselves.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">That’s where the likes of NO-BS Marketplace come in. We do SEO so you don’t have to.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">But before you start looking for an outside professional, you need to know a couple of key things. If you aren’t careful with your choice of link building service, your business can be blamed for the service’s mistakes. And as we’ve established countless times already, the Big G won’t show mercy for anyone who tries fooling it.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Ch2>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 1.5em; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">To Outsource or Not to Outsource\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fh2>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">You can take the steps here in any order, but the first step will always be to ask yourself:\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">\u003Cem>“Do I even need to\u003C\u002Fem>\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: 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>outsource 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>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">It’s like that adage that says, “Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.” As much as we want an answer set in stone, businesses—like their owners and staff—vary. Even two startups in the same industry that offer the same products and services can differ in their digital marketing needs.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">To answer this question, you’ll need to ask yourself several more questions. Fortunately, this cheat sheet can help guide you to a sound decision.\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\u002Fpicture21-20260408054958-KS8PzSnW.png\" data-align=\"left\">\u003C\u002Ffigure>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">\u003Cem>*Based on U.S. data from ZipRecruiter. Actual salary may vary.\u003C\u002Fem>\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">Asking yourself these questions is also an exercise in tempering expectations. Outsourcing link building to professionals may be less costly, but don’t expect them to be on the same wavelength or even share the same work culture as your company. Collaboration doesn’t need any of those, only the willingness to work together amid both parties’ differences.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Ch2>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 16pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">\u003Cstrong>Shortlisting Your Candidates\u003C\u002Fstrong>\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fh2>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">If you’re convinced that outsourcing link building is ideal, the next step is to scour the Web for candidates. There’s a lot to choose from, given that most SEO agencies (like yours truly) aren’t restricted to offering their services to their home countries or regions.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">A while back, I discussed the things an SEO firm shouldn’t do to avoid being\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003Ca target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" class=\"text-primary-blue-600 hover:underline\" href=\"https:\u002F\u002Fnobsmarketplace.com\u002Fblog\u002Fa-guide-on-how-to-avoid-your-agency-being-branded-a-scam\">\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>called a scam\u003C\u002Fu>\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fa>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">. While I wrote that for SEO firms, it’s also a useful guide for businesses looking for one. For a brief recap, steer clear of agencies that:\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cul>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">\u003Cstrong>Guarantee good results: \u003C\u002Fstrong>\u003Cem>There are no guarantees in SEO. \u003C\u002Fem>Anyone who claims with confidence that they can get your website to the top of search results for dirt cheap doesn’t know what they’re talking about—or worse.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003C\u002Fli>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">\u003Cstrong>Abuse cold emailing:\u003C\u002Fstrong> Cold emailing by itself isn’t unethical. But when you get a lot of such emails to the point of flooding your inbox, that’s a sign to cross out that firm. They’re less likely to be serious about delivering good results.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003C\u002Fli>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">\u003Cstrong>Lack transparency:\u003C\u002Fstrong> Given that much of SEO is technical, agencies are obligated to explain the process to clients in a language they can understand. Hiding behind alibis like “SEO is too technical” only gives people reason for suspicion.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003C\u002Fli>\u003C\u002Ful>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">Once you’ve trimmed out the unwanted fat, gauge the remaining candidates based on their approach to link building. By now, you should be aware that link building is undergoing a major change driven by the rise of AI. While old practices such as guest posting will still be relevant for now, a good link builder must always look forward.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">To that end, ask them: “How do you create linkable assets?”\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">We’re not talking about mere guest articles here. We’re talking about infographics, original research, online tools, and even content with coined terms. Essentially, content that’ll get people to share or, better yet, journalists to write a story about them.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Ch2>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 1.5em; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">Asking for Guarantees\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fh2>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">“Wait, didn’t you just say that there are no guarantees in SEO?”\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">Yes, I did. We’re not asking for that here, though, but guarantees of \u003Cem>deliverables.\u003C\u002Fem>\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">Even if there’s no way to reliably get the exact results you need, you still want to achieve minimums. For that, talk about the specifics of your link building campaign with the link builder of your choice. Don’t worry if you have no idea about the exact minimums; finding those out is the agency’s job.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">Near the end of your meeting, make sure to request a copy of a\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003Ca target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" class=\"text-primary-blue-600 hover:underline\" href=\"https:\u002F\u002Falexberman.com\u002Fwhat-is-statement-of-work\">\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>Statement of Work (SOW)\u003C\u002Fu>\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fa>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">. According to marketing expert Alex Berman, an SOW should ideally be provided within 24 hours while the details of the meeting are still fresh. He also stated that it must contain all seven of the following sections, complete with specifics:\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cul>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">The campaign’s overview and objectives\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003C\u002Fli>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">The agency’s scope of work\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003C\u002Fli>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">Expected deliverables (e.g., documents)\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003C\u002Fli>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">A timeline of relevant tasks\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003C\u002Fli>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">Payment information and terms\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003C\u002Fli>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">Conditions for acceptance and revisions\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003C\u002Fli>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">Work not included in the agency’s scope\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003C\u002Fli>\u003C\u002Ful>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">Don’t hesitate to raise any concerns with the SOW. If changes are necessary, the agency should inform you of their pros and cons via email. In fact, receiving written confirmation for revisions is crucial for transparency. The last thing you want to happen is to be blamed for content violations you yourself didn’t commit.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">Keep a copy of the SOW (as well as other contract documents) and all your back-and-forth with the link building service.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Ch2>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 1.5em; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">Constant Monitoring\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fh2>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">It takes a while for link building to yield noticeable results. Nevertheless, it pays to keep a close eye on the numbers to see if your decision to outsource is bearing fruit.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">Measuring success in link building is made easy thanks to SEO analytics platforms, which integrate all you need in one interface. Of the dozens available, many in the SEO industry consider the Big Three to be Ahrefs, Moz, and SEMrush. But because they also have some of the priciest plans, having at least one of these should be enough.\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\u002Fpicture22-20260408055105-WrYqPDM3.png\" data-align=\"left\">\u003C\u002Ffigure>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">But for all their wide range of features, they largely track metrics using third-party data. If you want search data straight from Google, Google Search Console (GSC) is the only tool that lets you do that. To ensure accuracy, I recommend using GSC (it’s free) on top of your chosen Big Three platform for comparing data.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">If money is really tight, you can opt for the lesser-known tools. However, keep in mind that many of these aren’t as feature-rich as the Big Three. That said, they’re good as a stopgap until you can afford more advanced analytics.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Ch2>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 1.5em; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">You’re Now Ready to Outsource\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fh2>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif;\">Congratulations on getting this far! Now you’re ready to leave link building to professionals who won’t leave you hanging when push comes to shove. Or if you decide to do it yourself, that’s fine too.  \u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>","Not all businesses have the resources or time to build their own link building capability, instead hiring a professional service to do it for them. Even so, it pays to do due diligence when searching for the ideal agency or firm. Here are some valuable tips on outsourcing your link building needs.","https:\u002F\u002Fwebsite-cdn.nobsmarketplace.com\u002Fuploads\u002Ffeatured-images\u002Fparveender-seo-6271942-1280-20260408053112-O8If6TIX.png","Link building isn’t easy, which is why businesses get professionals to do it for them. But if you’re planning to do so, read this guide first.",1100,"2026-04-09T10:32:00.000000Z","2026-04-08T05:52:33.000000Z","2026-04-09T02:32:48.000000Z",{"id":60,"name":77,"email":78,"about":16,"avatar":79,"created_at":28,"updated_at":28,"deleted_at":23},"Jonas Trinidad","jonas@nobsmarketplace.com","https:\u002F\u002Fwebsite-cdn.nobsmarketplace.com\u002Fblog-authors\u002F2023\u002F05\u002Fjonas-trinidad.jpg",[81,83,85,91],{"id":8,"name":31,"slug":17,"created_at":28,"updated_at":28,"deleted_at":23,"pivot":82},{"blog_id":65,"category_id":8},{"id":60,"name":61,"slug":62,"created_at":28,"updated_at":28,"deleted_at":23,"pivot":84},{"blog_id":65,"category_id":60},{"id":86,"name":87,"slug":88,"created_at":89,"updated_at":89,"deleted_at":23,"pivot":90},8,"Link Building","link-building","2025-10-26T11:10:26.000000Z",{"blog_id":65,"category_id":86},{"id":92,"name":93,"slug":94,"created_at":95,"updated_at":95,"deleted_at":23,"pivot":96},7,"Guides","guide","2025-10-26T11:10:25.000000Z",{"blog_id":65,"category_id":92},{"id":98,"author_id":36,"title":99,"slug":100,"content":101,"short_summary":102,"featured_image":103,"status":14,"meta_title":99,"meta_description":104,"canonical_url":23,"keywords":23,"blog_type":17,"is_featured":18,"word_count":105,"published_at":106,"created_at":107,"updated_at":108,"deleted_at":23,"author":109,"categories":110},323,"AI Bot Traffic Up 300%: What It Means for SEO and Content","ai-bots-scraping-publisher-content-seo","\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 2em; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);\">\u003Cstrong>AI Bot Traffic Surged 300%, Publishers Got Hit the Hardest, And SEO Feels It Next\u003C\u002Fstrong>\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003Cspan style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 0);\">\u003Cbr>\u003Cbr>Akamai published its latest State of the Internet report this week, and the findings should concern anyone who creates content, builds links, or invests in organic visibility. The report, titled “Protecting Publishing: Navigating the AI Bot Era,” tracked AI bot activity across Akamai’s global network from July through December of last year. The numbers are significant. AI bot activity surged by 300%, and the media industry ranked second globally with 13% of all AI bot traffic, with publishing organizations making up 40% of that activity.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 0);\">Those percentages translate into an enormous volume of automated requests hitting content rich websites. And the implications go well beyond server load.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Ch2>\u003Cspan style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 0);\">What Are AI Bots and Why Are They Scraping Content\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fh2>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 0);\">To understand what’s happening, it helps to know the difference between the types of AI bots that are hitting websites right now. The Akamai report breaks them into distinct categories, each with different objectives and different consequences for publishers.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 0);\">AI training crawlers are bots that systematically scrape website content to feed it into large language model training datasets. When a company like OpenAI or Google builds the next version of its language model, the training data has to come from somewhere. These crawlers visit websites at scale, download text content, and store it for use in model training. AI training crawlers made up 63% of all AI bots targeting the media industry. The content they collect becomes part of the model’s knowledge base permanently.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 0);\">AI fetchers are different. These bots retrieve content in real time to power AI driven search tools and chatbot responses. When someone asks ChatGPT or Perplexity a question and gets an answer that references a specific article or dataset, a fetcher likely pulled that content moments before. AI fetchers represented 24% of all AI bot activity targeting media, with publishing accounting for 43% of that segment.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 0);\">AI search crawlers operate similarly to traditional search engine crawlers, but they index content specifically for AI powered search interfaces rather than conventional search results pages.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 0);\">The distinction between training crawlers and fetchers matters because they create different problems. Training crawlers take content once and bake it into a model forever. Fetchers take content repeatedly, in real time, and use it to generate answers that may keep users from ever visiting the original source. Both consume server resources. Neither generates pageviews, ad impressions, or subscription conversions for the publisher.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Ch2>\u003Cspan style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 0);\">The Referral Traffic Problem\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fh2>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 0);\">The most striking data point in the report concerns what happens after AI systems consume publisher content. AI chatbots drove approximately 96% less referral traffic than traditional Google search. That number was measured in Q4 2024, and the trend has only accelerated since then.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 0);\">Consider what that means in practice. A user searches Google for a topic, clicks a result, and lands on a publisher’s website. The publisher gets a pageview, serves ads, has a chance to convert a subscriber, and builds brand familiarity. That exchange has powered the economics of online publishing for two decades.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 0);\">Now compare that to what happens with an AI chatbot. A user asks a question, the AI fetcher pulls content from one or several publisher sites, synthesizes an answer, and delivers it in the chat interface. The user gets what they need. The publisher gets nothing. No visit, no ad impression, no brand exposure, no opportunity to convert. The content was used, but the value was captured entirely by the AI platform.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 0);\">OpenAI generated the highest volume of AI bot traffic targeting media companies, with publishing organizations accounting for 40% of all OpenAI requests. That makes OpenAI the single largest identified source of AI bot traffic hitting publishers.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Ch2>\u003Cspan style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 0);\">Why Content Creators Should Pay Attention\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fh2>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 0);\">The Akamai data describes a structural shift in how content gets consumed and who captures the value from it. For anyone creating content as part of a \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=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 0);\">link building\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fa>\u003Cspan style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 0);\"> 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=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 0);\">digital PR\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fa>\u003Cspan style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 0);\"> strategy, this shift has real operational consequences.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 0);\">Content published 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=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 0);\">guest posting\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fa>\u003Cspan style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 0);\"> on third party sites has traditionally served two purposes: earning a backlink for SEO value and placing a brand in front of that publisher’s audience. The second part of that equation depends on readers actually visiting the publisher’s site, reading the article, and encountering the brand in context. If AI bots are scraping that content and serving it through chatbot interfaces without attribution or links, the guest post still exists on the publisher’s site, but fewer people are reading it there.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 0);\">The same logic applies to any content that lives on a third party domain. Thought leadership articles, contributed columns, data driven research that earns editorial coverage. All of these depend on the publisher’s ability to attract and retain readers. As AI tools pull content out of publisher sites and serve it directly, the traffic those publishers receive declines, their ad revenue drops, and the economic model that supports their editorial operations gets squeezed.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 0);\">That squeeze has downstream effects. Publishers under revenue pressure cut editorial staff, tighten contributor guidelines, reduce content output, or shut down entirely. The ecosystem that SEO and link building depends on, a healthy network of publishers creating high quality content, doesn’t function the same way when the economic incentives that sustain it are being systematically undermined.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Ch2>\u003Cspan style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 0);\">The Scraping vs. Blocking Dilemma\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fh2>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 0);\">Publishers face an uncomfortable choice. They can try to block AI bots, which risks losing visibility in AI powered search results that are rapidly growing in usage. Or they can allow scraping, which means their content gets used to generate answers that compete with their own traffic.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 0);\">Blocking AI crawlers through robots.txt or other technical measures might protect content from being scraped, but it also means that content won’t appear in AI generated answers. As more users shift toward AI interfaces for information retrieval, being absent from those answers means being absent from a growing share of discovery. The trade off is between protecting today’s revenue model and maintaining relevance in tomorrow’s information ecosystem.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 0);\">Some publishers are negotiating licensing deals directly with AI companies. Others are exploring technical solutions that allow AI systems to access content under specific conditions, like providing attribution and linking back to the source. But no industry wide standard has emerged, and the pace of bot development continues to outrun the pace of policy.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Ch2>\u003Cspan style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 0);\">What This Means for SEO Strategy\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fh2>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 0);\">The AI bot surge doesn’t change the fundamentals of SEO overnight, but it does change the environment in which SEO operates.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 0);\">First, the value of direct brand visibility becomes more important as intermediary platforms (including AI chatbots) capture a larger share of content discovery. If users are getting answers from AI tools instead of visiting websites, the brands that get mentioned by name in those AI generated answers are the ones that maintain visibility. Building entity recognition, the kind of consistent brand and topic association that helps AI systems identify a source as authoritative, becomes a competitive advantage. Companies investing in content strategies that associate their brand with specific topics and services are better positioned to appear in AI generated responses, even when direct referral traffic declines.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 0);\">Second, the quality of backlinks matters more when the quantity of available publishers is under pressure. If AI driven revenue erosion causes publishers to consolidate or close, the supply of high authority sites available for \u003C\u002Fspan>\u003Ca target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" class=\"text-primary-blue-600 hover:underline\" href=\"https:\u002F\u002Fnobsmarketplace.com\u002Flink-insertion\">\u003Cspan style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 0);\">link insertion\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fa>\u003Cspan style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 0);\"> and guest contributions contracts. Links from surviving, well maintained, authoritative publications become more valuable precisely because there are fewer of them. Building relationships with quality publishers now, before further consolidation occurs, is a hedge against a shrinking ecosystem.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 0);\">Third, content that gets scraped and repackaged by AI systems doesn’t carry the same SEO value as content that drives engagement on a publisher’s site. Google’s algorithms still reward content that generates real user signals: clicks, time on page, engagement. If AI bots are consuming content without producing any of those signals, the content may still exist but its contribution to rankings could weaken over time as engagement metrics shift.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Ch2>\u003Cspan style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 0);\">The Bigger Picture\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fh2>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 0);\">The Akamai report measures something that has been building for the past two years but is now reaching a scale that’s hard to dismiss. AI systems are consuming publisher content at an accelerating rate, generating less referral traffic in return, and reshaping the economics that have supported online content creation since the early days of search.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 0);\">For anyone working in SEO, content marketing, or link building, the response isn’t to panic. The response is to recognize that the ecosystem is changing and to build strategies that account for that change. Brand visibility in AI generated answers, strong relationships with quality publishers, and content that creates genuine engagement are all more important now than they were a year ago, and they’ll be more important a year from now than they are today.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 0);\">The sites and brands that adapt to this shift won’t just survive it. They’ll benefit from the fact that many of their competitors haven’t noticed it yet.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>","Akamai’s latest State of the Internet report found AI bot traffic surged 300%, with publishing absorbing the largest share. AI chatbots send 96% less referral traffic than Google search, reshaping how content gets discovered and who benefits from it.","https:\u002F\u002Fwebsite-cdn.nobsmarketplace.com\u002Fuploads\u002Ffeatured-images\u002Fai-bot-traffic-surge-and-impact-20260409102145-hTrxI7Vr.png","Akamai’s latest report shows AI bot activity surged 300%, with publishers hit hardest. Here’s what content scraping means for SEO and link building",1459,"2026-04-09T09:40:39.000000Z","2026-04-09T10:22:13.000000Z","2026-04-09T10:35:06.000000Z",{"id":36,"name":48,"email":49,"about":23,"avatar":50,"created_at":51,"updated_at":23,"deleted_at":23},[],{"id":112,"author_id":36,"title":113,"slug":114,"content":115,"short_summary":116,"featured_image":117,"status":14,"meta_title":118,"meta_description":119,"canonical_url":23,"keywords":23,"blog_type":17,"is_featured":120,"word_count":121,"published_at":122,"created_at":123,"updated_at":123,"deleted_at":23,"author":124,"categories":125},322,"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":36,"name":48,"email":49,"about":23,"avatar":50,"created_at":51,"updated_at":23,"deleted_at":23},[126],{"id":60,"name":61,"slug":62,"created_at":28,"updated_at":28,"deleted_at":23,"pivot":127},{"blog_id":112,"category_id":60},[129,134,154],{"id":112,"author_id":36,"title":113,"slug":114,"featured_image":117,"published_at":122,"short_summary":116,"word_count":121,"author":130,"categories":131},{"id":36,"name":48,"avatar":50,"email":49},[132],{"id":60,"name":61,"pivot":133},{"blog_id":112,"category_id":60},{"id":135,"author_id":60,"title":136,"slug":137,"featured_image":138,"published_at":139,"short_summary":140,"word_count":141,"author":142,"categories":143},320,"Benefits of Link Building You Probably Don’t Know: A Revisit","benefits-of-link-building-1","https:\u002F\u002Fwebsite-cdn.nobsmarketplace.com\u002Fuploads\u002Ffeatured-images\u002Fparveender-backlinks-7791412-1280-20260408050806-Kh2bsBoF.png","2026-04-08T13:13:00.000000Z","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.",1082,{"id":60,"name":77,"avatar":79,"email":78},[144,146,148,150],{"id":8,"name":31,"pivot":145},{"blog_id":135,"category_id":8},{"id":60,"name":61,"pivot":147},{"blog_id":135,"category_id":60},{"id":86,"name":87,"pivot":149},{"blog_id":135,"category_id":86},{"id":151,"name":152,"pivot":153},16,"Educative Content",{"blog_id":135,"category_id":151},{"id":155,"author_id":36,"title":156,"slug":157,"featured_image":158,"published_at":159,"short_summary":160,"word_count":161,"author":162,"categories":163},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":36,"name":48,"avatar":50,"email":49},[164],{"id":54,"name":55,"pivot":165},{"blog_id":155,"category_id":54}]