GEO vs. SEO: Is “Generative Engine Optimization” a Real Discipline?
‘GEO’ traces back to a real 2023 Princeton paper, not a new discipline. Here’s what the actual research says, and what the branding oversells.
AI
Multimodal Search: Google Lens, Circle to Search, and Visual Queries
Google Lens handles nearly 20 billion searches a month. Here’s why visual search is a real, mostly ignored surface most SEO strategies skip.
Google Shopping, ChatGPT Checkout, and the New Product-Feed SEO
OpenAI’s in-chat checkout converted at a third of normal click-through rates. Here’s the real state of AI shopping, not the launch-day hype.
Semantic Search and Embeddings, Explained for SEOs
AI Overviews didn’t invent semantic search. RankBrain, BERT, and MUM already moved Google past keyword matching. Here’s the real lineage.
Agentic Browsers and Shopping Agents: What Happens When AI Clicks Instead of You
OpenAI’s Operator, Atlas, and Google’s Project Mariner all launched and were shut down within about a year. Here’s what agentic browsers actually do.
AI Content Detectors Don’t Work: Here’s the Evidence
OpenAI shut down its own AI text detector for low accuracy. Here’s the actual research on why these tools don’t work as well as they claim.
Why Reddit Ranks for Everything: Inside Google’s Content Deal
A $60M/year Google-Reddit deal coincided with Reddit’s search visibility growing 191% in a year. Here’s what the data actually shows, and doesn’t.
Why AI Assistants Cite the Wrong Source
AI Overviews can be accurate and still misattribute the claim to a source that never said it. Here’s what the research on ‘ungrounded’ citations shows.
The AI Content Licensing Deals Reshaping Publisher Economics
From Axel Springer to Reddit, AI companies are now paying publishers to train on their content. Here’s what these real deals actually reveal.
Should You Block AI Crawlers? A Practical Decision Framework
GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot: not all AI crawlers do the same thing. A practical framework for deciding which to block, and which not to.