Our latest Google Workspace feature drop is here with new tools to help you collaborate, stay on top of your to-do list and do your best work. Plus, this latest update has plenty of AI-powered tools and additions that make the products you’re already using even more helpful. Here’s a quick look at what’s new:
The Google Workspace blog has all the details.
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ByDavey Winder

ByDavey Winder,
Senior Contributor.
Update Chrome now as emergency security fix drops.
Update, April 26, 2025: While there is no additional news regarding the emergency Google Chrome update vulnerability, this story, originally published April 23, has been updated with information regarding two newly confirmed critical vulnerabilities and how Google’s new browser security technology has closed them down.
In the same way that there are seemingly never-ending stories about Windows being under attack from threat actors, so Google’s Chrome browser is constantly being poked with the “you are being tracked” privacy stick, as well as the inevitable stream of “browser hacked” articles. These are often, to say the least, somewhat thin in respect to the actual threat posed. It’s worth keeping your eyes open for the important stuff, like emergency Chrome updates that could prevent your accounts, passwords and data from being stolen. One such update to Chrome 135 has just been confirmed, and you need to take action now.
I do my best to bring you meaningful warnings to alert you to real-world threats, such as Google emails being used to hack Gmail accounts, 2FA cookie-stealer attacks and drive-by threats targeting Chrome app downloads. I also regularly publish advisory articles when Google has fixed new security issues in Chrome, usually as a result of external researchers’ discovery of vulnerabilities. This is such an article, but with a twist: I don’t know what the security issue that has been confirmed actually is, I only know it must be critical for Google to issue an emergency fix dealing with just this single, mysterious issue.
In an April 22 statement, Google’s Prudhvi Kumar confirmed that the Chrome browser is vulnerable to a single new issue. That’s it. There’s no hint whether this was found by external researchers or Google’s own internal security teams. There’s no Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures CVE number. There’s no information at all.
And that, dear reader, is as worrying as it is unusual. I can’t recall ever coming across such a security update from Google before. What I do know is that, as the issue is obviously serious enough to roll out a security update now rather than wait until the next Patch Tuesday, it’s serious enough for you to install and activate immediately. Don’t wait for the automatic update to arrive in the “coming days and weeks,” as Google always likes to say, but take steps to kickstart that process right now.
I have approached Google for further information regarding this security issue and will update this article if I discover anything.
The SSD Secure Disclosure Technical Team has published a new report confirming that its vulnerability research has identified not one, but two, new and critical use-after-free issues affecting the Google Chrome browser. Crediting the find to an SSD researcher working in Korea, the report said the vulnerabilities impacted Chrome versions from 133.0.6835.0 but before 135.0.7016.0 — but the latest browser security technology from Google, MiraclePtr, “they are no longer exploitable.”
Had they been exploited, however, SSD reported that an attacker would have been able to use “well-known heap spraying techniques“ in order to be able to get arbitrary code execution outside the browser’s security sandbox — or they would have, at least, before MiraclePtr entered the equation. “Both of the vulnerabilities discovered are protected by MiraclePtr,” the report confirmed, “and thus are not exploitable.”
MiraclePtr is specifically designed to prevent the exploitation of use-after-free vulnerabilities. It stops objects from being freed from memory under certain circumstances and, thus, “makes it impossible for an attacker to reclaim that memory region via heap spraying or similar techniques.”
The latest Google Chrome security update will take your browser to the following version number, depending upon the operating system platform:
To kickstart the process and get the necessary protection against this mysterious security issue, circumventing any rollout delay, head for Settings|About Chrome, and Chrome will automatically start checking to determine if you already have the latest version. If you do not, then Chrome will initiate a download, followed by installation of the patched version.
This is critical, though: your patched version of Chrome will only provide the protection you need if it has been properly activated. Ensure you hit the relaunch button to complete the installation.

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25 Jun, 2025
We’re excited to announce that starting today, Google Pay is coming to two new countries in the Middle East and North Africa—Lebanon and Oman—helping you pay fast, simply, and securely with your Android phone and Wear OS devices.
Google Pay allows people to pay and make secure purchases in stores (where contactless payments are accepted), in apps, and on the web. Cardholders will also be able to store credit or debit cards for Google Pay within Google Wallet, a digital wallet that is also launching today.
Cardholders can make safer payments with multiple layers of security. This includes industry-standard tokenization, which means when you use Google Pay to pay, transactions are made using a virtual card number (a token). A Token is device-specific and is associated with a dynamic security code that changes with each transaction.
You can download Google Wallet from the Google Play Store today.
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Without a clear e-commerce marketing strategy, organizations could face significant challenges as consumer behaviors change.
E-commerce sales boomed in 2020 and beyond due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, online shopping has continued to grow, as have competitors and changing demands from customers. If organizations invest time and resources into e-commerce marketing strategies, they can help establish, increase and retain their customer bases.
E-commerce marketing strategies involve promotional tactics to drive traffic to an online store. A well-thought-out marketing plan, coupled with an engaging website, can convert visitors into paying customers, help businesses retain them and increase their overall Customer lifetime value (CLV). If marketing teams stay up to date on the latest trends, they can help the organization reach and retain new customers.
These 10 e-commerce marketing strategies can help set an organization apart from its competition, strengthen the brand, attract new customers and increase sales over time.
Launching a website is a win for any e-commerce company, but websites aren’t enough for consumers to easily find the brand. To improve visibility, marketing teams must optimize websites for search engines. Positive search engine optimization (SEO) requires marketing teams to continually update websites with rich and relevant content that provides useful information for customers.
An SEO strategy can help organizations ensure their content shows up on search engine results pages (SERPs) for relevant queries and deliver positive CX when customers find the information they need. Marketing teams should use SEO keywords and phrases organically within content to alert search engines to the site’s relevance for those queries.
Marketing teams should also use easy-to-read URLs and descriptive page names that contain a primary keyword. These URLs and names can also include familiar words or phrases that customers likely use as they search. This strategy requires keyword research to identify opportunities for new content.
To support SEO and build brand authority, marketing teams should embrace content marketing in their e-commerce marketing strategies.
For example, a blog can help build a successful marketing strategy and enable brands to produce relevant content about their products. Blogs let marketing teams target important keywords that might not fit naturally on product or category pages. This content can speak directly to consumer needs, offer helpful solutions, build trust and strengthen relationships. Overall, blogs can lead to increased brand visibility and higher conversion rates from new and existing customers.
Content marketing helps answer customers’ questions, educate them, deliver the company narrative and lead people to make a purchase. Additionally, different content types, like video, downloadable guides and user-generated content, can strengthen a brand’s reputation. This content can also feed the blog and bring more eyes to the organization and its offerings.
In addition to strong SEO that helps content show up on SERPs, brands should meet consumers where they are: on social media. These channels can help engage an active audience.
Billions of people use social media each month, and social media can help brands create authentic connections with their followers. On social media platforms, marketing teams can also respond to comments, publish relevant content and provide more information about their company’s products.
Marketing teams should select the right platforms to manage and distribute this content. For example, people on Twitter want to see different content than people on Instagram. Marketing teams should know which platforms the customer base is most likely to use and align the channel they use with them.
Email marketing can also let prospects and customers know about new products or information. If marketing teams provide timely and relevant information through this channel, they can inform new and existing customers of sales, new product releases and new blog content.
Personalized email communications have lasting benefits in customer retention and repeat purchases. If marketing teams show they understand a buyer’s purchase or browsing history through personalized communications, they can establish a strong and loyal customer base.
Customer loyalty programs can help increase revenue and retain customers over time. Loyal customers are highly valuable because they have already made purchases. If marketing teams incentivize loyalty and repeat purchases, they can increase CLV and create strong brand advocates.
Marketing teams have various types of loyalty programs to choose among, but programs that are consistent and add value to the consumer often succeed the most. Loyalty programs also have strong personalization opportunities, as they can collect more information about consumers and insights into the best times to trigger communications to these individuals.
Additionally, loyalty programs can provide special offers, discounts and birthday wishes to strengthen the relationship between business and consumer.
An e-commerce website includes category and product pages. However, optimizing the product pages can help with conversion rate optimization. These pages should make it easy for visitors to see the product, learn about its specifications or features and make a purchase.
Product marketers can evaluate which pages to optimize for conversion based on analytics data to see where sales come from or where sales are lost. These teams should also optimize the checkout experience for ease of use and reduce the number of steps it takes for someone to complete their purchase.
Some e-commerce marketing strategies have a lower cost associated with implementation, but sometimes, brands need to pay to get their products and services in front of consumers. Pay-per-click (PPC) strategies can ensure that product pages are at the top of SERPs in the form of ads.
Good PPC campaigns contain an ad, offer and landing page. This approach can support SEO efforts and let businesses use marketing budgets to get offers in front of consumers. Marketing teams can deploy search and display campaigns within search engines or within their support ad networks. Within ad networks, these campaigns can follow users to other sites they visit and increase visibility to products and offers. Additionally, marketing teams can use paid advertising strategies on social media platforms.
Building off a PPC strategy, a retargeting strategy is another paid approach to get people to revisit a website they already visited and expressed interest in. While PPC can bring new eyes to a website, retargeting tracks people who already visited a page but left without making a purchase.
Brands can build different audience lists based on website pages viewed. If someone comes to an e-commerce site and views various product pages, representing an interest in those items, brands can deploy relevant ads on other websites within the brand’s ad networks. These ads can drive users to the specific product pages they visited before and reinforce that they should buy the product.
Influencer marketing is a growing strategy among brands that want to tap into a specific audience through someone the community trusts already. Influencers exist in all different types of markets and industries. From tech review blogs and YouTube channels to lifestyle products and TikTok channels, brands that use influencers can reach their followers.
In particular, this approach can benefit organizations releasing new products. Companies can send influencers free products in exchange for reviews, promotions, a third-party perspective on the product and an increased reach for the brand. While organizations can engage with influencers in many ways, they often include product or sponsorship costs depending on the influencer’s terms.
Marketing teams should consider influencer marketing as a strong channel for an e-commerce marketing strategy, as it involves positive relationships with influencers and ensures they can provide a positive review or promotion for the products.
SMS texting is a resurging and growing channel for e-commerce marketing strategies. While the mix of strategies includes creating relevant content, sending emails and promoting through paid channels, social media or influencers, marketing teams can’t ignore that consumers are on their phones most often.
Brands that want to take advantage of an SMS marketing strategy can collect phone number details from consumers and send frequent and timely offers to both prospects and customers.
Online shopping retailers are currently some of the most successful businesses that uses SMS marketing. This approach offers cross-sell and upsell opportunities and abandoned cart recovery, and it can also provide exclusive offers or promotions to drive increased sales.
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Part of: Develop your unique e-commerce marketing strategy
Marketers have myriad tools in their belts — from SEO to influencers to technology and tools. These strategies can improve anyone’s e-commerce marketing plan.
Building a database, nurturing existing customers and using an email service provider are some e-commerce email marketing strategies to help businesses increase revenue.
Content marketing strategies with personalization, thought leadership research, SEO and diverse content types can help e-commerce companies reach and engage more customers.
An e-commerce marketing strategy is no longer optional. Organizations need a marketing platform that meets their e-commerce teams’ needs, can customize websites and is affordable.
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Boost SEO results with powerful keyword research
Written by Leigh McKenzie
Search itself will continue to change profoundly in 2025.
– Sundar Pichai, Google’s CEO
Big statement.
While we don’t know the extent of Google’s plans, trend data provides a good indicator of how to prepare.
In this post, I’ll show you the five SEO trends we’re betting on in 2025.
Some are foundational. Some are obvious (ahem, AI). And others reveal extreme results.
Each trend comes with examples and clear takeaways you can use right away.
Let’s start.
Matching search intent has always been a big ranking factor. But now it’s an absolute must if you want to rank consistently.
Let’s take a look at why getting this right matters.
Imagine you’re searching for “best running shoes.” You click on a link expecting to see a list of top sneakers for running. But instead, you land on a product page selling a specific pair of running shoes.
That’s a classic example of matching the keyword but totally missing the mark on intent. The page didn’t give you what you wanted.
That’s why the (organic) search results for a term like this are packed with lists, rather than products:
Now, what would you do in this scenario as a searcher?
Most likely, you’d leave the page and open another one that satisfies your search intent.
You quickly leaving that first page increases its bounce rate, which is an indicator for Google’s algorithms that it didn’t meet your search intent. (More on these signals in the third trend on this list.)
Google can then use this to refine its results for that term to better meet user intent.
Note: This is clearly a pretty simple example. But at scale, Google can use data from thousands of searchers to understand which search results they find useful and which they don’t. Learn more about this in our guide to user behavior and SEO.
A great example of meeting search intent is the page ranking #1 for “QR code scanner”:
It has no content beyond a functional QR code scanner.
Talk about giving users what they want.
Okay, it’s clear why this is a best practice. But where’s the evidence that we’re shifting more in this direction than we were before?
Let’s take a look the SERP for a term like “keyword research” back in April 2024:
Now let’s compare that to the SERP in April 2025:
Last year, a listicle had the top spot, followed by a guide, then a tool. This year, it’s a tool, then a listicle, and then all tools through the rest of the top 10 (bar one video result).
The SERP went from 50% tools in 2024 to 80% in 2025.
The more specific “keyword research tool” saw a similar shift in 2025 vs. 2024:
That SERP went from 60% tools to 90%. It’s an easier one to understand as well: people searching for “keyword research tool” want to find a keyword research tool.
What’s more useful to them: a page telling them about the best tools, or a page that has a tool on it they can instantly try?
It’s not a case of the intent shifting (although that can sometimes explain these kinds of changes). It’s a narrowing of what Google will display for a given search term.
The old way involved ranking for a lot of terms with an ultimate guide that broadly covered all the intents.
Now it’s about truly understanding the main intent behind a search term and making sure you’re meeting that. Rather than trying to meet a more generic intent or lots of different intents at once.
You need to be laser focused on the search intent for every keyword you target. Or you risk wasting a ton of resources and never ranking at all.
Optimizing your content for search intent starts with identifying EXACTLY what users want to get or achieve with their search term.
One quick and easy way to do this is by using the Semrush Keyword Overview tool. Just enter your target keyword and find out the user intent behind each related keyword.
In this case, the keyword “best running shoes” has commercial search intent. This suggests people are researching purchases. They’re not looking to make one there and then (which would fall under transactional search intent).
And this is exactly what we see in the SERP: pages dedicated to helping searchers research their options before they buy.
But don’t just limit yourself to the four main types of intent (informational, navigational, commercial, and transactional). Remember to drill down to exactly what the searcher wants. Is it:
You can also just search for your desired keyword in Google and analyze the top results. Look at what type of content ranks on the first page and what intent they satisfy.
Once you understand what the search intent of your target keyword is, you can create content that will answer the search query and resonate with your target audience.
Content is an integral part of SEO, whether that’s:
Or any other pages with words, images, or videos on them.
Site owners have been using AI to help or wholly write content for these kinds of pages since even before ChatGPT came along. But obviously, the past few years have seen a massive increase.
But the best SEOs and content teams?
They use AI to augment their content, not to create it.
How to Use AI to Level Up Your Content
AI can do a lot of things well. It can summarize information that’s already known, make existing copy shorter, and turn lengthy paragraphs into bullet points.
You can also use it to drum up tables and simple graphical representations of data fast and with ease.
These are all things writers spend a good chunk of time on.
Using AI strategically can unlock a lot of that time for your writers to instead focus on:
The best writers already do a lot of this — we can speak from experience with our own team (more on that in our guide to using AI for writing).
But this is going to be table stakes moving forward if you want to consistently and sustainably rank at the top of Google.
So in 2025, encourage your writers to think of themselves more as content curators than just content writers.
Note: This doesn’t just apply to writers. Your editors, brief creators, design team, and strategists can all benefit from this approach.
During Google’s big antitrust case, they had to reveal some of the patents their search algorithms use.
It turns out Google leans heavily on user signals to rank content, not just deep content analysis. They’re really good at figuring out if users are happy with what they find.
They likely do this using metrics like click-through rate, dwell time, and bounce rate. (Although we can’t be sure of the specifics for now.)
This means SEO is shifting more towards optimizing for user engagement and satisfaction. In other words: making it clear to Google that you’re giving users what they want (see the first trend on meeting search intent).
Note: Optimizing for user signals comes down to optimizing your page so that users spend more time interacting with your page. Ideally, they’ll even want to share it further.
One way to foster positive user signals and encourage people to spend more time on your pages is by providing a great user experience (UX).
Site speed, ease of navigation, and how users can interact with your site are key elements that Google’s algorithms consider when ranking websites.
Here are some tips to keep visitors engaged with a great user experience:
In 2024, Google released its AI-powered summaries in search results: AI Overviews.
These are AI-generated summaries that appear at the top of the search results for certain keywords.
These let users ask extensive questions and the AI generates an answer to their queries based on existing content on the web. This makes it easier for users to get the answers they need right there on the SERP.
AI Overviews are not the first feature Google has introduced to search results that has the potential to massively impact website traffic levels.
Over the years, we have seen several new features introduced that have changed the way users access information, products, and services.
From featured snippets, which give users the answer to their question right there on the SERP:
To People Also Ask boxes that give you even more information:
And even built-in calculators that remove the need to even go to another site:
These kinds of features have led to a rise in “zero-click searches.”
All of these things have an impact on one important metric: click-through rate.
There’s no doubt that AI Overviews are likely to reduce the chances of a user clicking through to organic search results for some queries.
One report from Advanced Web Ranking suggests this is already happening at scale for informational queries. And a study by Seer Interactive suggests that, while CTRs are rising for queries without AI Overviews, those with AI Overviews saw CTRs drop over the past year.
But other sites may see the opposite effect. Because Google can include your site in the overview, you can actually drive more traffic to your site than if you were originally ranking at the bottom of page 1 (or lower).
So in some cases, these features will actually help sites get more clicks. But clearly this isn’t going to be true for the majority.
No matter what happens with CTRs, our view stays the same: people still need to get to a site in the end.
Okay, for some searches, they don’t. If Google can show them a quick calculator to convert miles to kilometers, the user doesn’t need a site.
But imagine they’re searching for something like “how to choose an email marketing tool.” No matter how great an answer the AI Overview provides, the user eventually needs to go to an email marketing solution’s website and press the buy button.
So how do you win in this environment?
There are two aspects to this:
If you have other websites, social media profiles, YouTube channels, or business profiles, put effort into growing your presence there.
The more Google can learn about your brand, the more likely it is to feature it in AI Overviews and other SERP features (along with organic rankings).
Also consider where the key discussions are happening in your industry. This could be on platforms like Reddit or social media platforms like LinkedIn and Twitter/X.
Just look at this snippet of a SERP for “how to perform an seo audit”:
There’s a full screen’s worth of real estate taken up by video and forum results.
If you can grow your presence in these areas, you might not impact your CTR directly.
But you can capture attention and traffic from elsewhere. And you can make it easier for Google to understand more about your brand to potentially include it in AI Overviews.
There’s no doubt that some search terms are just going to be less rewarding than they used to be.
Anything Google can answer with a few paragraphs in an AI Overview is going to be hard to vouch for as part of your keyword strategy.
Instead, focus on terms where you can provide something that Google can’t just summarize.
We’ve done this ourselves with our tool pages:
By expanding our range of free tools, we were able to double down on important terms (keyword research, backlinks etc.) with high click potential (people are looking for tools, not summaries or definitions).
And we’ve seen real click growth across these pages year over year — almost 150%.
Good candidates for high click potential keywords include any with high buyer intent or where the reader wants to take action. An AI summary isn’t going to cater to a user looking to make a purchase or try out a tool.
But you don’t have to be selling something on every page. If your focus is informational content, consider targeting more technical topics. Or on those that require a thorough step-by-step guide (with visuals) to fully cover.
These are topics that, no matter how great the AI summary is, are still likely to generate a lot of clicks.
Domain authority used to be all about links. You used to be able to focus on getting links to brute force rank for almost any keyword.
And links are still important. Especially for high-value keywords.
But more important than the sheer number of links you get in 2025 is the type of links you get.
I’m not talking about follow vs. nofollow. I’m talking about links where you’re being discussed as an authority.
If you look at our backlink profile, you’ll see that a lot of our links come from sources discussing Brian Dean by name:
This is testament to the influence Brian had with Backlinko. But it’s also a good illustration of the kind of backlinks we believe will become more important in the future.
The kind of backlinks that help you build trust and credibility around your brand, or “brand authority.”
You want to become part of the discussion around key topics in your niche all over the internet. This might sound pretty obvious or basic, but there’s no denying the power of brand awareness and trust in 2025.
The more links you can build to your site that are in the context of relevant discussions in your niche, the better.
This will make it easier for Google (and users) to associate your site with the topics you’re trying to rank for.
In fact, you likely won’t always need a link for this effect to benefit your site. And we believe brand mentions will become more important this year.
We get a lot of these. Like this one, which even mentions what we’re known for (SEO):
That site has an Authority Score of 43, so it would have been a decent link to pick up. But even the mention alone is likely to suggest to Google and readers of that post that Backlinko is a reputable source in the SEO space.
Sure, it’s not a super strong signal, but it’s still a signal.
Or take this example from the Seattle Times, a site with an Authority Score of 71:
Again, that would have been a nice link to get. But it’s still a mention of our brand as a reputable source in a high-authority and high-traffic publication.
Now don’t get me wrong: these would likely have a stronger effect individually on our SEO if they were links. There is no denying that.
But the point we’re trying to make is that just being discussed as an authority across the internet is going to become more important moving forward.
Google’s AI Overviews and the myriad AI tools on the market all rely on understanding brands and what people think of them to produce their answers.
So the more people talk about your brand online, the higher your chances of ranking in search and appearing in the answers these tools provide.
Like our previous trend, a lot of the methods to grow your brand authority follow general SEO basics. Create great content, maintain your website, and perform outreach where you can to accelerate your link building efforts.
You don’t just need to focus on blogs, news sites, and other traditional publications. Links from forums and social media sites might not pack the SEO punch of a link from a site with a high Authority Score. But they’re still valuable mentions of your brand.
In fact, mentions of your brand in these places can actually be even more powerful from a conversion and brand awareness perspective.
Like this example of someone recommending one of our posts specifically to help a local business with SEO:
These kinds of mentions can be super powerful for growing trust in your brand.
Why?
Because there are bound to be lots of other business owners that might find that thread and see our post as one of the top recommendations.
Plus, like we showed in the previous section, forum results can take up a significant chunk of the SERP. So appearing in these can indirectly boost your visibility.
You can’t directly influence this of course, at least not without coming across as spammy. But you can:
This is one of those factors that is tough and effort-intensive to influence. But when you do it well, it can be a massive driver for growth.
If we have one takeaway from these SEO trends, it’s that the bar has been raised in 2025.
Brands that know how to use AI to create better content, not just more content, are the ones that will win.
And while CTRs will keep dropping and more users start trying out new ways to search, the bottom line is that SEO is still a fundamental part of running a website that performs well.
Looking for more on the future of marketing and search? Check out our guide to this year’s content marketing trends.
Backlinko is owned by Semrush. We’re still obsessed with bringing you world-class SEO insights, backed by hands-on experience. Unless otherwise noted, this content was written by either an employee or paid contractor of Semrush Inc.
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