From the Operator’s Seat: a blog about growth marketing and philosophy.
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The August 2026 Google Spam Update: what it hit, what it spared, and the recovery clock nobody mentions
Google rolled out its August 2026 spam update on August 18, and it finished rolling out a few days later, around August 21. It’s the third spam update of the year, after March and June. Here’s what actually matters if you run a site. What it is It’s global, across all regions and languages. It…
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The organic vs. paid credit war is quietly draining your growth budget
The organic-versus-paid credit war is still quietly draining growth budgets across the industry, and almost nobody names it as the line item it actually is. I was reminded of it reading a recent post from Simon Thillay on how the latest Apple and Google store-transparency data is reshaping ASO. He makes several sharp points, but…
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Google Play just changed the ASO funnel, and that’s more interesting than the dashboard drama
Google Play has been making some significant changes to how developers see and measure acquisition, and the latest one is easy to miss. Store Listing Performance reporting is now focused primarily on unique clicks rather than completed acquisitions. At the same time, Play Console now surfaces impression metrics that show how often your app was…
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Google made three moves in a week, and together they tell one story about where search is heading
Google made three moves in the same week in June 2026, and taken together they tell a single story about where search is going. Individually, each got its own round of coverage and its own round of panic. Read as a set, they point in exactly the same direction. Move 1: The spam update The…
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Should Google I/O and WWDC dictate your next ASO pivot?
The big-platform-energy answer is: yes. Eventually. In the way Netflix announces a show, loudly, globally, and then, quietly, “not available in your region.” So here’s what actually changed this year, and what “changed” really means when it’s coming from these two. Google Play Ask Play. Gemini is now inside the store. Conversational queries return AI-generated,…
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One brand, one message: why growth breaks in the handoffs, not the keywords
I’ve been saying this for years: the brands that win are the ones that treat their message as one living thing. Not three or four teams telling three different stories. Not a paid ad that contradicts your app store listing. Not a product launch your ASO team hears about on release day. One story. One…
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Your 2026 SEO strategy is a dead parrot (but only because you’re doing it alone)
Hot take: your 2026 SEO strategy is a dead parrot. Don’t panic. It’s just resting. Here’s the problem. Too many teams still treat SEO as a magical solo growth lever, pick the trendiest acronym of the quarter, point it at the wall, and wait for instant results. That’s not a strategy. That’s sketch comedy. SEO…
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I told you 2026 was going to be a very interesting year for search
I told you 2026 was going to be a very interesting year for search. The landscape just shifted again, and this time from a name you might not have expected. Yahoo has officially entered the AI arena with the launch of Scout, its new AI-powered “answer engine.” Yes, that Yahoo. You know the one. This…
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The search landscape is fragmenting, and you have to optimize for all of it
Traditional search isn’t disappearing. But it’s changing fast, and pretending otherwise is how brands get caught flat-footed. Here’s the shift, in two simple columns. What’s happening to classic SEO Organic click-through rates are quickly declining as the search results page gets more crowded, and AI Overviews increasingly satisfy the user’s intent right there on the…
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