SEARCHENGINES
Greg Finn On Why Google Ads Will Decline

In part one, I do a lot of bantering with Greg Finn and talk about his history in the space and the growth of his agency, Cypress North. In part two we start to talk about his contributions to the industry, and then here in part three, we get into Google Ads.
Greg explained he loves Google Ads for what it used to be and what it can be but there is a misalignment in the short-term goals and he thinks it will lead to a major decline in Google Ads. He explained that the Google OKRs are short-term goals and there are no long-term results with it. He sees the changes Google is making are too focused on the short term, this quarter’s results, and not the long term. Googleโs earnings have been insane and he thinks it might result in long-term issues.
He said what Google is doing is you tell me your budget and then trust us, we will show your ads in the right place, not show you what keywords you are bidding on but trust us, we will spend your budget properly. If you are paying for specific search terms, you should be able to know what those terms are. In some cases, you canโt see 33% of where your ads are coming from and that is just insane.
Google is showing your ads in placements that you might not want to show up and then you will block and Google doesnโt want you to do it. So he thinks that is some of the reason behind the privacy changes. We debated about this a bit.
You can learn more about Greg Finn and follow him on Twitter @gregfinn.
You can subscribe to our YouTube channel by clicking here so you don’t miss the next vlog where I interviews. I do have a nice lineup of interviews scheduled with SEOs and SEMS, many of which you don’t want to miss – and I promise to continue to make these vlogs better over time. If you want to be interviewed, please fill out this form with your details.
Forum discussion at YouTube.
Source: www.seroundtable.com
SEARCHENGINES
Google Cotton Candy Machine

Here is a cotton candy machine that was at the Google office for a YouTube Live event a few months back. I don’t think this machine lives there, I suspect Google rented it for the event, but I am not sure.
We did see some Googlers eating cotton candy a year ago… Just saying…
This was posted on Instagram.
This post is part of our daily Search Photo of the Day column, where we find fun and interesting photos related to the search industry and share them with our readers.
SEARCHENGINES
SEOs Trust YMYL Content Less If It Is AI-Generated

Lily Ray ran a Twitter poll asking SEOs if they trust content in the YMYL, your money or your life, category more, less or the same if it was written by AI. The vast majority of responses said they trust AI-generated content less than human-generated content.
Lily asked, “If a site offering Your Money, Your Life information/advice (health, finance, etc) indicates that the content was partially written using AI, does this make you trust the content:”
About 74% of the over 1,000 votes said AI-generated content would be trusted less, 22% said there is no difference – they would trust it the same and 4% said it would be trusted more.
Here is the poll with the “See answers” option:
I know itโs hard not to be biased as an SEO professional, but try anyway. ๐
If a site offering Your Money, Your Life information/advice (health, finance, etc) indicates that the content was partially written using AI, does this make you trust the content:
โ Lily Ray ๐ (@lilyraynyc) January 15, 2023
Forum discussion at Twitter.
SEARCHENGINES
Google Ads Now Supports Account-Level Negative Keywords

We knew it was coming, Google Ads now supports negative keywords for brand safety at the account level. Google has just added account-level negative keywords to Google Ads and the PPC community is happy about it.
I spotted this first via Melissa Mackey on Twitter who credits @NilsRooijmanSEA with the find on LinkedIn. Melissa wrote, “Account-level negative keywords are here! This is big.”
The Google help document on negative keywords has a new section that reads, “Account-level negative keywords.”
When you create your account-level list of negative keywords, it will automatically apply to all search and shopping inventory in relevant campaign types. This allows you to create a single, global, account-level list that applies negative keywords across all relevant inventory in your account.
You can create a single, account-level list of negative keywords in your Google Ads account settings. In your โAccount Settings,โ youโll find the โNegative keywordsโ section. When you click on this section, you can begin creating your negative keywords list.
You can create your list by defining which search terms are considered negative for your brand. You can then enter this all at once in the โNegative keywordsโ section of your โAccount Settingsโ in your Google Ads account. You can also specify whether you want to exclude these based on broad, exact, or phrase match. A limit of 1,000 negative keywords can be excluded for each account. Learn more about account-level negative keywords.
Here is a screenshot of this setting, where Nils Rooijmans explained, “Google is rolling out this feature in most of my accounts right now.”
11 months ago, Ginny Marvin, the Google Ads Liaison said, Ginny Marvin responded to this saying “There are no current plans for a keyword tab in PMax. There are, however, plans to support negative keywords for brand safety at the account level.”
And now we got them.
Yay!!! pic.twitter.com/9uzIERjaY9
โ dan richardson (@njsdanrich) January 26, 2023
Bit more history:
Ginny mentioned the beta would start 6 months ago fwiw. Longish cycle from planning -> beta -> release https://t.co/eeUnFPjspr
It was spotted on Google’s roadmaps for Q4, seems to have been delayed a touch
โ Mike Ryan (@mikeryanretail) January 27, 2023
And some reaction on this:
The people asked for Performance Max negative keywords. We got account-level instead.
We typically want to exclude keywords from SOME campaigns, not ALL (for branded queries).
โ ๐ผ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐ฐ๐๐ (@MenachemAni) January 27, 2023
Donโt get me wrong, there is definitely utility in account-level negative keywords.
Just not what we were hoping for as it relates to PMX.
โ ๐ผ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐ฐ๐๐ (@MenachemAni) January 27, 2023
Forum discussion at Twitter and LinkedIn.
Update: The Google Ads Liaison has now posted about this on Twitter:
1/3 Some have noticed Account level negative keywords are starting to roll out globally. From Account Settings, you can add keywords to exclude traffic from all Search and Shopping campaigns, and the Search and Shopping portion of PMax for brand safety: https://t.co/B0VBApPVCm
โ AdsLiaison (@adsliaison) January 27, 2023
3/3 And a reminder of existing brand suitability controls include inventory types, digital content labels, placement exclusions and negative keywords at the campaign level.
โ AdsLiaison (@adsliaison) January 27, 2023
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