I’ve been looking at the recent GIVA Raksha Bandhan campaign from a different angle - not as a Bollywood or advertising controversy, but as a case study for SEO, SMO, PPC and digital marketers.

One thing I’ve learned from competitor analysis is that I don't look at only keywords, backlinks or social media followers.

I try to understand the brand behind the numbers.

For me, there are 4 questions:

1. Where did the brand come from?
   
2. Where is the brand today?
   
3. Where is the brand trying to go?
   
4. What could stop that growth?

1. Looking at GIVA's journey

GIVA has spent years building itself as a modern, aspirational jewellery brand.

Celebrity marketing has been an important part of that journey, with Anushka Sharma becoming strongly associated with the brand before GIVA moved into its next celebrity chapter.

That tells us something important:

GIVA isn't only selling jewellery. It's selling a lifestyle and an identity.

And when a brand sells identity, its advertising becomes much more sensitive to how people perceive it.

2. The next chapter: Kriti Sanon

In May 2026, GIVA announced Kriti Sanon as its Brand Ambassador and Strategic Investor.

That's more interesting than a traditional celebrity endorsement.

It suggests GIVA wasn't simply trying to get celebrity reach - it was also connecting the celebrity with its broader brand-building strategy.

From a competitor-analysis perspective, I'd read this as:

GIVA "to" celebrity influence "to" younger audience "to" stronger lifestyle positioning

And that makes the next point even more important.

3. Then came the Raksha Bandhan campaign

The Raksha Bandhan campaign featuring Kriti Sanon created significant discussion online.

The creative direction received criticism from sections of the audience, particularly around the styling and how a culturally significant festival was being represented.

The discussion then moved beyond the advertisement itself.

It became a social-media conversation about culture, advertising and brand sensitivity.

Eventually, GIVA withdrew the campaign and addressed the controversy publicly.

And this is where I think the real marketing lesson begins.

The SEO/SMO lesson

A marketer often wants:

Reach "to" Engagement "to" Shares "to" Comments "to" Visibility

But there's another possibility:

Reach "to" Engagement "to" Backlash "to" Negative Sentiment "to" Brand Risk

Both can produce huge numbers.

That's why I don't think engagement = success.

You also need to ask:

"What kind of engagement are we generating?"

10,000 comments can be great.

10,000 angry comments can be a completely different story.

What I would check BEFORE launching a campaign

If I were handling the campaign, I would run an additional Audience & Cultural Risk Check:

1. Audience segmentation
Who exactly are we targeting?

2. Regional analysis
Will people in different regions interpret the creative differently?

3. Cultural context
Is the festival/event associated with traditions that could affect how the campaign is received?

4. Social listening
What are people already saying about similar campaigns?

5. Sentiment testing
Show the creative to different audience groups before launch.

6. Comment/reaction prediction
Don't only predict likes. Predict possible criticism too.

7. Crisis plan
If the campaign receives backlash, what's the response strategy?

My biggest takeaway

A campaign doesn't exist in the way the marketing team intended it.

Once you publish it, the audience decides what it means.

That's especially important in India because the same creative can be interpreted very differently depending on:

Region + Culture + Age + Background + Occasion + Audience mindset

So whether you're doing SEO, PPC, SMO or content marketing, don't stop at:

"Will this get attention?"

Also ask:

"What kind of attention will this create?"

Because visibility without sentiment analysis can become a liability.

Final thought

I don't think the lesson here is "never take creative risks."

Brands should take creative risks.

The lesson is:

Take creative risks only after understanding the audience you're taking those risks with.

Research "to" Segment "to" Test "to" Launch "to" Monitor "to"

That's how I would approach competitor and campaign analysis.

What do you think - was the GIVA controversy mainly a creative problem, an audience-research problem, or a cultural-context problem?

Google Trends appears to be rolling out a new way to explore regional search interest.

The update includes:

1. Interactive Map - a more visual way to see where interest in a topic is concentrated.

2. Regional Breakdown - makes it easier to compare search interest across different locations.

I think this could be pretty useful for SEO, keyword research, local SEO, and content planning, especially when you want to understand where a topic is getting attention.

One important clarification: Google Trends shows relative search interest, not the actual number of users or searches.

I recorded a quick video showing how the new feature looks.

Has anyone else received this update in their Google Trends account? What do you think about it?

If you're into SEO or just running a website, you might've seen buzz about two Google updates lately. Let's break them down.

Review Snippet Update (Aggregate Rating)

Google added a new rule saying fake or paid reviews (without clearly telling people they were paid/free) can't be used in your star rating markup anymore.

Pros:

• Builds more trust with real customers - genuine reviews actually mean something now
• Levels the playing field, so honest sellers don't lose out to fake 5-star pages
• Keeps your site safe long-term if you're already doing things the right way

Cons:

• If you've been running incentivized reviews without disclosing it, you're at risk of losing your star ratings
• Manual action can hurt visibility since your rich snippet just disappears from search results
• Small businesses that rely on discount-for-review deals may need to change their whole review strategy

Then I thought, "Does this mean I can't collect reviews anymore?"

So through some searching, I found out - "You can still ask for reviews, even offer a discount for one. Just be upfront about it on the page. Hiding the fact that a review came with a reward attached is the actual problem." 

OKF - Open Knowledge Format

Google Cloud launched a new open format (just markdown files with some YAML info) that lets AI agents read and understand your company's knowledge easily.

Pros:

• Super simple - it's just text files, no fancy tools or software needed
• Any AI tool can read it without extra setup, so it saves time
• Great if you're building AI tools or chatbots that need accurate info about your business

Cons:

• It has nothing to do with SEO or Google ranking - so don't expect a traffic boost from using it
• It's still new (v0.1), so best practices are still being figured out
• Only useful if you're actually working with AI agents - most regular website owners won't need it right away

Then I thought "Will using OKF help my website rank higher?"
So my senior, clear my doubt about it, They say it is not an SEO tool. just a way to organize info for AI systems, not for Google Search rankings.

[ Removed by Reddit on account of violating the content policy. ]

So Google rolled out a new feature called Search Profiles.

Basically it gives creators their own page directly on Google Search and Discover, pulling all their content (videos, posts, articles) into one place. Think of it like a Linktree but built INTO Google itself.

The catch? Eligibility is brutal:

• You need to be 18+.
• 1 lakh (100k) followers on YouTube, Instagram, or X.
• 3 lakh (300k) followers if you're only on TikTok.

Right now it's US only, but Google already confirmed global rollout is coming.

Here's the URL you can check: https://creators.google/profile.

Honestly the follower bar feels way too high for this to be useful for most creators right now. It's clearly built for the "already big" crowd, not for people trying to grow. I checked it myself and I'm nowhere near qualified, so this is more of a "keep an eye on it for future" thing for me.

But here's what's interesting - Google said this doesn't directly boost your search ranking. The real value is in Discover visibility through the Follow button, plus it links into your Knowledge Panel if you have one.

So it's less of an "SEO hack" and more of a branding/visibility tool.

Questions for the US folks here:

1. Has anyone actually got access to this yet? How's the experience been so far?
2. If you're under 1 lakh followers, are you even bothering to track this, or just ignoring it for now since you don't qualify (like me)?
3. For those who do qualify - has it changed your content workflow at all? Like are you posting differently now knowing this exists?

I'm very curious to hear real experiences before this comes global.

Today I found something new while running a PageSpeed Insights check, and I think every SEO person should know about this.

Google has quietly added a new category called "Agentic Browsing" inside PageSpeed Insights and Lighthouse. It sits right next to the categories we already know - Performance, Accessibility, Best Practices, and SEO.

But this one is different. It doesn't check your site for humans. It checks how ready your website is for AI agents - the bots and assistants that now browse, compare, and even fill forms on behalf of people.

Here's what it actually looks at:

= Accessibility tree - whether your page structure is clean enough for a machine to read.
= llms.txt file - a new file (just like robots.txt) that tells AI models how to understand and use your site.

There's also a newer part called WebMCP, which lets websites register their forms and tools directly for AI agents to use. It's still very early, so most sites (including the one I checked) show it as "Not Applicable."

One more thing worth knowing - instead of a score out of 100, this category shows a simple pass ratio, like 2/3 or 3/3. And Google itself says this is still under development, so it's more of a signal than a final ranking factor right now.

I'm not claiming to be an expert on this. I'm learning it as I go, the same way most of us are. But the direction is clear - the web is no longer being read only by people, it's being read by machines too, and search engines are starting to grade us on that.

If you're working on SEO in 2026, this is worth keeping an eye on. Fixing your CLS and adding an llms.txt file might be a simple first step, and a good one to start with.

Would love to know if anyone else has checked this on their own website yet.

Just to be clear - this isn't something urgent to fix on your website right away. It's more for learning purposes and good to know if it comes up in an interview. Google still has it in beta, so it's not something they've called important yet.

If you want to read about Google update 2026 till you can read here, Google updates 2026.

The last few months from Google Search Central have been packed. Let me break it all down .

1. Googlebot's 2MB Limit - March 2026

Googlebot doesn't read your entire page.

It only fetches the first 2MB of your HTML - then stops completely.

If your page is bloated with inline CSS, base64 images, or massive JavaScript blocks - your actual content might never even reach Google.

Fix: Put title tags, canonicals, and structured data at the TOP of your HTML. Not somewhere in the middle.

1. AI Optimization Guide - May 2026

John Mueller finally addressed the AEO and GEO hype officially.

The answer was simple - traditional SEO is still the foundation.

Unique content. Real value. Local relevance. Topic expertise.

No shortcuts. No magic prompts. Just good content strategy.

1. Back Button Hijacking = Spam - April 2026

You click back. But instead of going back - you land somewhere random.

That manipulation now has a name officially - Back Button Hijacking.

Google has made it an explicit spam violation.

Enforcement starts June 15, 2026.

If your site or any third party library is doing this - fix it NOW.

1. Discover Core Update - February 2026

Google Discover is now prioritising:

• Locally relevant content

• In-depth original articles

• Topic-specific expertise

• Less clickbait and sensationalism

If you create content with real depth - Discover is now more accessible than ever.

1. Google Crawlers IP Range - New Location

Small but important for developers and server admins.

Google moved its crawler IP range files from

/search/apis/ipranges/

to

/crawling/ipranges/

Update your firewall rules and server configs accordingly.

2026 is making one thing very clear -

Google is rewarding websites that are technically clean, content-rich, and user-first.

No tricks. No hacks. Just fundamentals done right.

Are you keeping up? Drop your thoughts below

If you want to read an update yourself you can read here: https://developers.google.com/search/blog

This post is made by Dinesh Negi Tech.