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ScamWatch: A New Trick for Stealing Your Google Ads Account

Last Updated: October 19, 2026

Apparently, it’s not enough that Google wants a piece of every advertising dollar you spend. Now scammers are lining up to take a piece, too. On October 6, 2026, cybersecurity researchers at Island exposed a phishing scam in which criminals were creating fake AI advertising platforms and passing them off as products from familiar companies […]

Google Is Making Its Paid Listings Bigger. And Small Businesses Pay the Price.

Last Updated: October 15, 2026

We’ve all watched as Google has become more and more of a pay-to-play scheme. Paid ads keep gobbling up more and more of the search results page. Google has monetized the top of local searches with Local Services Ads, and seemingly every change pushes organic results farther down the page. For small businesses, that means […]

ScamWatch: Fake “Google Business Listing” Calls Are Using Urgent Suspension Threats

Last Updated: October 5, 2026

We’re seeing another wave of scam calls targeting small-business owners with Google Business Profiles. The script is simple: someone calls claiming to be a “listing verification specialist” or a “Google Business listing specialist.” They say there is an urgent problem with your listing, that it has been “flagged for review,” and that you need to […]

Is Google’s “Spend X, Get X” Ads Promotion a Scam?

Last Updated: September 22, 2026

Google Ads advertisers are reporting an unpleasant surprise: they spend the money required for a promotional offer, then Google invalidates the credit they thought they had earned. One recent case involved an advertiser expecting a $3,200 credit after spending $3,200. PPC consultant David Melamed said the promotion was later invalidated, and Google Ads Liaison Ginny […]

What Not To Do With Google Business Profile Updates: A Cautionary Tale

Last Updated: September 17, 2026

We all know that if you want any kind of visibility in local search, the suits at Google expect you to feed their machine with your time and effort. No one loves it, but it’s Google’s world and we just live in it, right? We add photos, publish posts, update our information, showcase recent work, […]

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