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Microsoft CEO: AI will make Google more dominant

Written on October 3, 2023 at 4:31 am, by admin

“Bogus.” That’s what Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella thinks about Google’s argument that there is actual choice in the search engine market. And artificial intelligence will provide zero advantage or hope for any companies that hope to enter web search – the “biggest no-fly zone of all,” Nadella said.

Why we care. The ongoing U.S. vs. Google antitrust trial has already unearthed troubling behavior from Google, including raising ad prices to meet revenue targets. If Google is found to have abused its monopoly position in search, it could potentially reshape the company and the search landscape.

Exclusive rights. To further enhance its dominance in AI Search, Google plans to pay publishers for “exclusive” content rights, Nadella testified. If only Google could access this data, it would essentially make every other search engine irrelevant, Nadella said.

Search engines have been “the organizing layer of the internet” Nadella said. But publishers are concerned over the rise of large language models (LLMs) – many popular websites have blocked GPTBot – and using their content/data for training and profit, without compensation.

Google has not commented on this accusation about exclusive deals.

Google’s Search Ads 360 dispute. One of the key issues of interest to paid search marketers is Google Search Ads 360. The platform has not kept up with new Microsoft ad features and types and Nadella said Microsoft wanted to make it easy for advertisers to transfer ad campaigns from Google to Microsoft with the click of a button. That didn’t happen.

A vicious cycle. With nearly 90% market share, Google is able to improve its search results and bottom line, Nadella said, and has nothing to do with product quality.

All hope is gone? The launch of the new Bing and Bing Chat, powered by OpenAI’s technology that powers ChatGPT, came with a lot of hype and excitement, especially from Nadella, who said he may have been over-enthusiastic.

So far, Bing Chat has failed to take market share away from Google. Yusuf Mehdi, Microsoft’s corporate VP and consumer CMO, claimed the opposite, but to date has not shared any of the company’s data showing this. In fact, Microsoft Bing’s market share is lower than it was a year ago, as we reported in August.

No breaking the Google habit. Default search agreements, such as the one Google has with Apple, have cemented Google’s dominance, Nadella said.

But. On laptop devices where Microsoft’s operating systems are used, and Bing is the default search engine, Bing’s market share is still below 20%, Nadella admitted. That means a lot of people have figured out how to switch their default search engine.

$100 billion. That’s how much Microsoft has invested in Bing, according to Nadella. Why?

Leading with pessimism. It surprised me to see such bleak quotes today from Nadella, who has typically been an optimistic leader with all things Bing. He never argued that Microsoft Bing Search is better than Google Search. It seemed more like a concession that Microsoft Bing Search could never be better because of Google’s monopoly position.

Is this Nadella simply telling it as he sees it? That he knows Microsoft Bing will never be a true contender (which is true).

It’s likely he views this antitrust trial as a last-ditch moment to stop Google – a monopolistic rival that could do real damage to consumers, competitors and the entire ecosystem that relies on Google advertising and traffic. The $244 billion question is whether Google will be forced to change how it operates.

The post Microsoft CEO: AI will make Google more dominant appeared first on Search Engine Land.

Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing




Reddit unveils Ads Manager updates for improved community targeting

Written on October 3, 2023 at 4:31 am, by admin

Reddit has launched new capabilities on Ads Manager for enhanced community targeting.

The platform has added three new features to the platform, as well as two new administration tools, designed to enhance campaign efficiency and performance, benefitting small business advertisers all the way through to enterprise clients.

Why we care. The enhanced features in Reddit’s Ads Manager provide improved tools for a deeper understanding of relevant Reddit communities, helping connect brands with high-value consumers for better conversions. The new administration tools also provide more efficient and controlled campaign management, offering advertisers greater flexibility and effectiveness in their advertising efforts.

New Ads Manager features. Reddit has added several new Ads Manager features to help advertisers find their audience, expand their targeting, and better understand the Reddit communities most relevant to them:

New administration tools. Reddit has also invested in new administration tools to help streamline campaign optimization and oversight:


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What has Reddit said? Reddit’s EVP of Business Marketing and Growth Jim Squires told Search Engine Land:

Deep dive. Read Reddit’s Business Blog for more information about the platform’s latest developments.

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Microsoft blames Google for Apple rejecting offer to buy Bing

Written on September 29, 2023 at 7:01 pm, by admin

Microsoft claims its attempts to sell Bing to Apple were blocked by Google.

The tech giant’s CEO of Advertising and Web Services, Mikhail Parakhin, said he offered Apple more than 100% of the revenue or gross profit to make Bing its default search engine – but the proposal was rejected because of the company’s deal with Google.

Speaking at the federal antitrust trial, Parakhin alleged this was despite Microsoft offering to pay Apple more than Google – which he claims was offering in the region of 60%.

How much did Microsoft offer Apple? Tinter didn’t reveal exactly how much its offer to Apple was worth, but it was enough that the tech giant would have sustained a several billion dollar loss as a result. Tinter explained the company felt the short-term loss would be a justified investment because of the importance of default search engine status.

Why we care. Apple’s decision to reject Microsoft’s higher monetary offer for Bing as the default search engine implies that the Google deal might not be solely based on financial considerations. This could reinforce Google’s argument that it’s preferred for its superior product. Nevertheless, it underscores the significance of default status for search engines, as Microsoft was willing to incur a significant loss for the position.

Better offer than Google. While Tinter didn’t provide the exact dollar amount Microsoft offered Apple, he asserted that Microsoft was confident it presented a superior deal compared to Google. He explained: “That’s based on our best estimates of the revenue payments that Google was making to Apple in the United States.”

Samsung also shut down potential sale. Tinter went on to reveal that Microsoft had also tried to pitch Samsung about making Bing the default search engine on its products. However, he claims these conversations were shut down by the tech giant in their early stages.

Tinter allegedly urged Samsung to at least allow Microsoft to try and make an offer that could rival its deal with Google. But the tech giant told Microsoft that negotiations wouldn’t be worth discussing because of the company’s contract with Google.


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What has Microsoft said? Parakhin told the court at the federal antitrust trial:

Deep dive. Read our Google antitrust trial updates for the latest developments in the courtroom.

The post Microsoft blames Google for Apple rejecting offer to buy Bing appeared first on Search Engine Land.

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Google introduces Google-Extended to let you block Bard, Vertex AI via robots.txt

Written on September 28, 2023 at 4:01 pm, by admin

Google today announced a new “standalone product token,” Google-Extended, that lets you control whether Bard and Vertex AI can access the content on your site.

This seems to be the end result of a “public discussion” Google initiated in July, when the company promised to gather “voices from across web publishers, civil society, academia and more fields” to talk about choice and control over web content.

Bard is Google’s conversational AI tool. Vertex AI is Google’s machine learning platform for building and deploying generative AI-powered search and chat applications.

The announcement. In a blog post, Google said:

“Today we’re announcing Google-Extended, a new control that web publishers can use to manage whether their sites help improve Bard and Vertex AI generative APIs, including future generations of models that power those products. By using Google-Extended to control access to content on a site, a website administrator can choose whether to help these AI models become more accurate and capable over time.”

– Google’s Danielle Romain, VP, Trust / An update on web publisher controls

What is Google-Extended. Google calls it “A standalone product token that web publishers can use to manage whether their sites help improve Bard and Vertex AI generative APIs, including future generations of models that power those products.”

The new crawler has been added to the Google Search Central documentation on web crawlers.

What Google is saying. The company said Google-Extended gives publishers “choice and control”:

Robots.txt. You can use robots.txt to block Google-Extended from accessing your content, or parts of it. To fully block Google-Extended, add the following to your site’s robots.txt:

User-agent: Google-Extended
Disallow: /

Why we care. We know 242 of the most popular 1,000 websites have already decided to block GPTBot, OpenAI’s web crawler, since it launched in August. Now you can decide whether your website should opt out of helping Google improve its AI products.

Is this the right answer? In Robots.txt is not the answer: Proposing a new meta tag for LLM/AI, Search Engine Land contributor argued why using robots.txt for managing data usage in LLMs is the wrong approach. Seems Google didn’t agree.

Dig deeper. Crawlers, search engines and the sleaze of generative AI companies

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Google Search Generative Experience adds About this result feature

Written on September 28, 2023 at 4:01 pm, by admin

Google today is adding its About this result feature to the AI-generated answers in the Search Generative Experience (SGE).

What it does. About this result is meant to “give people helpful context, such as a description of how SGE generated the response, so they can understand more about the underlying technology,” according to Google.

What it looks like. Here’s a GIF showing how this feature works:

In this example, the description says:

For individual links (soon). About this result will “soon” be added to individual links in Google SGE as well. Here, the purpose will be to give people more information about webpages that backup the SGE answers.

About About this result. Google launched About this result in Search in 2021. It was meant to help searchers learn more about a search result or search feature.

Why we care. While it’s felt like a struggle for Google to cite its sources in SGE and Bard, this highlighting of webpages and content seems like another positive step for highlighting the source from which Google is generating its AI answers.

Targeted improvements in SGE. Google is also working to reduce AI-powered responses that validate “false or offensive premises” in SGE. A “false premise” query is inaccurate or factually incorrect and something Google has worked to reduce in featured snippets. According to Google:

“We’re rolling out an update to help train the AI model to better detect these types of false or offensive premise queries, and respond with higher-quality, more accurate responses. We’re also working on solutions to use large language models to critique their own first draft responses on sensitive topics, and then rewrite them based on quality and safety principles. While we’ve built a range of protections into SGE and these represent meaningful improvements, there are known limitations to this technology, and we’ll continue to make progress.”

– Hema Budaraju, Google senior director, product management, Search / How we’re responsibly expanding access to generative AI in Search

The post Google Search Generative Experience adds About this result feature appeared first on Search Engine Land.

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$84 billion of ad spend lost due to ad fraud in 2023

Written on September 28, 2023 at 4:01 pm, by admin

Ad fraud will cost marketers $84 billion this year – 22% of all online ad spend.

This figure is expected to soar to $170 billion in five years’ time in 2028, according to a new in-depth study from Juniper Research.

Why we care. Ad fraud could be costing your brand money, hurting campaign results, leaving you with fewer genuine leads and poor advertising ROI. With this in mind, it may be worthwhile exploring fraud-blocking technology or reallocating some of your ad budget to your SEO strategy.

Key findings. Juniper’s study analyzed digital advertising in 45 countries across 8 regions, using a dataset of over 78,700 data points from 2019 to 2028. The research found that:

Solution. Fraud detection technology, such as Fraud Blocker, can detect and identify fraudulent or invalid traffic, impressions, clicks, or conversions on ads, helping to protect your campaign performance and ad budget.

What has Juniper Research said? Senior Research Analyst from Juniper Research, Elisha Sudlow-Poole, said in a statement:

Deep dive. Download the full report by Juniper Research for more information.

The post $84 billion of ad spend lost due to ad fraud in 2023 appeared first on Search Engine Land.

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Why it’s time to reevaluate your match type and bidding strategy

Written on September 28, 2023 at 4:01 pm, by admin

Advertisers have been encouraged to reevaluate their match type and bidding strategies to effectively optimize costs and maximize campaign performance.

The advice was published in a new report conducted by Optmyzr that investigated broad match type vs exact match type.

Although researcher and Optmyzr evangelist Navah Hopkins previously strongly supported broad match in favor of exact match type, the study found that exact match outperformed broad match for the majority of accounts in terms of:

The report also found that the majority of accounts performed better with Maximize Conversion Value than Maximize Conversions, and the median percentage gains were better as well.

Why we care. For advertisers, it’s crucial to test new strategies in your campaigns before making decisions. This ensures enhanced performance. Evaluate costs and adjust your approach based on budget and targeting goals, exploring more cost-effective networks or top-of-funnel options to optimize spending.

The study. The Optmyzr report analyzed 2637 accounts to compare the effectiveness of broad match type versus exact match type. Additionally, we examined Maximize Conversions against Maximize Conversion Value in 1,334 accounts due to their close association with smart bidding.

The results. Key findings from the study reveal:

Key takeaways. The study concluded by advising advertisers to:


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What has Optmyzr said? Navah Hopkins, Optmyzr Evangelist, said in a statement:

Deep dive. Read the Optmyzr report in full for more information.

The post Why it’s time to reevaluate your match type and bidding strategy appeared first on Search Engine Land.

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ChatGPT Browse with Bing returns after being disabled 3 months ago

Written on September 27, 2023 at 12:58 pm, by admin

Open AI has reenabled the Bing search feature it has added to its ChatGPT AI service after temporarily disabling the feature in early July. “ChatGPT can now browse the internet to provide you with current and authoritative information, complete with direct links to sources. It is no longer limited to data before September 2021,” wrote OpenAI on X.

Browse with Bing. Open AI added Bing Search to ChatGPT as a premium service in May. Doing so added to ChatGPT more up-to-date information and timely information powered by Bing Search. ChatGPT has a data set from 2021 or earlier, which is why using Bing Chat provided a better experience for more timely questions. With Bing Search in ChatGPT, the service can “provide timelier and more up-to-date answers with access from the web,” the company wrote.

The service was for ChatGPT Plus subscribers.

Returned on September 27. Open AI explained, “Since the original launch of browsing in May, we received useful feedback. Updates include following robots.txt and identifying user agents so sites can control how ChatGPT interacts with them. Browsing is particularly useful for tasks that require up-to-date information, such as helping you with technical research, trying to choose a bike, or planning a vacation.”

Who can use it. Browse with Bing is available to Plus and Enterprise ChatGPT users today. Open AI said they will “expand to all users soon.”

To enable, choose Browse with Bing in the selector under GPT-4.

Why we care. The Browse with Bing feature in ChatGPT made the service even more useful to searchers and people with questions. Now that this feature is back, it adds more recent information to ChatGPT.

To learn more about this, see our original story over here.

The post ChatGPT Browse with Bing returns after being disabled 3 months ago appeared first on Search Engine Land.

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Apple has 19 billion reasons not to build a Google Search rival

Written on September 26, 2023 at 9:57 am, by admin

Apple is not planning to create its own search engine to rival Google.

Eddy Cue, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Services, is expected to testify at the federal antitrust trial that there are no plans for an “Apple Search” model because its partnership with Google works better for its customers, reports Bloomberg.

Cue notably helped negotiate Apple’s multibillion-dollar deal with Google, which took four months “working every single day” to finalize.

Why we care. The U.S. Justice Department argues that Google’s deal with Apple to become the default search engine on its products has played a major role in creating an unfair search landscape as it’s prevented rival search engines from being able to compete seriously. The testimony from Cue, which Apple tried to block per Reuters, provides a significant insight into Google’s relationship with Apple.

Apple’s deal with Google. Google has a financial agreement in place with brands like Apple to be the default search engine on its products at a cost of around $10 billion a year. In addition, Google pays Apple advertising revenue – which is one of the search engine’s biggest costs.

Apple reports its income from Google as advertising revenue, which is categorized under its services division. This amounted to $78.1 billion in sales during Apple’s fiscal year 2022.

Google could pay Apple as much as $19 billion this fiscal year, according to an estimate from Bernstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi.

Why Google is Apple’s default search engine. Cue is expected to testify that Apple chose Google as the default search engine for its product because it is the best search engine. He will also state that Apple has financial deals with other search engines such as Yahoo, Microsoft Bing, DuckDuckGo and Ecosia, as well as Google. In addition, Cue is set to claim that Apple customers with Google as their default search engine can easily change it, echoing comments made by Google’s lawyer, John Schmidtlein.

However, DuckDuckGo founder and CEO Gabriel Weinberg told the court last week that changing a default search engine is “way harder than it needs to be.” He said:

Who else has testified? Cue will be the scond executive from Apple to testify, following pple AI head (and former Google executive) John Giannandrea last week. However, the majority of Giannandrea’s testimony was given in a closed courtroom and so the details and not publicly available.


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What has Google said? John Schmidtlein, lead lawyer for Google, claims the company dominates the search market with a 90% share because it is a superior product – not because it has financial deals that give its rivals an unfair advantage. In contrast, it highlights the default inclusion of Microsoft’s Bing on the Windows operating system, which has not significantly helped Bing’s market position.

Deep dive. Read our Google antitrust trial updates for all the latest developments in this landmark case.

The post Apple has 19 billion reasons not to build a Google Search rival appeared first on Search Engine Land.

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Apple has 19 billion reasons not to build a Google Search rival

Written on September 26, 2023 at 9:57 am, by admin

Apple is not planning to create its own search engine to rival Google.

Eddy Cue, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Services, is expected to testify at the federal antitrust trial that there are no plans for an “Apple Search” model because its partnership with Google works better for its customers, reports Bloomberg.

Cue notably helped negotiate Apple’s multibillion-dollar deal with Google, which took four months “working every single day” to finalize.

Why we care. The U.S. Justice Department argues that Google’s deal with Apple to become the default search engine on its products has played a major role in creating an unfair search landscape as it’s prevented rival search engines from being able to compete seriously. The testimony from Cue, which Apple tried to block per Reuters, provides a significant insight into Google’s relationship with Apple.

Apple’s deal with Google. Google has a financial agreement in place with brands like Apple to be the default search engine on its products at a cost of around $10 billion a year. In addition, Google pays Apple advertising revenue – which is one of the search engine’s biggest costs.

Apple reports its income from Google as advertising revenue, which is categorized under its services division. This amounted to $78.1 billion in sales during Apple’s fiscal year 2022.

Google could pay Apple as much as $19 billion this fiscal year, according to an estimate from Bernstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi.

Why Google is Apple’s default search engine. Cue is expected to testify that Apple chose Google as the default search engine for its product because it is the best search engine. He will also state that Apple has financial deals with other search engines such as Yahoo, Microsoft Bing, DuckDuckGo and Ecosia, as well as Google. In addition, Cue is set to claim that Apple customers with Google as their default search engine can easily change it, echoing comments made by Google’s lawyer, John Schmidtlein.

However, DuckDuckGo founder and CEO Gabriel Weinberg told the court last week that changing a default search engine is “way harder than it needs to be.” He said:

Who else has testified? Cue will be the scond executive from Apple to testify, following pple AI head (and former Google executive) John Giannandrea last week. However, the majority of Giannandrea’s testimony was given in a closed courtroom and so the details and not publicly available.


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What has Google said? John Schmidtlein, lead lawyer for Google, claims the company dominates the search market with a 90% share because it is a superior product – not because it has financial deals that give its rivals an unfair advantage. In contrast, it highlights the default inclusion of Microsoft’s Bing on the Windows operating system, which has not significantly helped Bing’s market position.

Deep dive. Read our Google antitrust trial updates for all the latest developments in this landmark case.

The post Apple has 19 billion reasons not to build a Google Search rival appeared first on Search Engine Land.

Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing