When an AI model has nothing on your company, it does not tell anyone. It does not decline, it does not hedge, and it does not mark the spot where its evidence ran out. It reaches for the nearest well-documented thing, which is usually a competitor, a category average, or a version of you from…
GLP-1s are inescapable online, as Mashable reported, including extensive discussions about them. The latest topic of conversation to hit your FYPs may be about being single and dating while taking the drug. “Dating after weight loss sucks,” said Katherine Lipovsky on social media, where she posts videos about life after losing 300 pounds with the…
Google’s AI Mode rarely shows the same products as the Popular products carousel in regular search results, and when it does, the first seller listed is often different, according to new data from Productrise, which sells organic product tracking for Google Shopping. Only 1.28% of products in the carousel also appeared in AI Mode for…
The internet isn’t exactly known for bringing out the best in people. Every so often, though, it channels all that collective energy into something genuinely helpful — like buying a car seat for someone you’ve never met. That is what happened after Call Her Daddy host Alex Cooper began surprising expectant parents by purchasing items…
Recently, I found myself in another conversation that has become increasingly familiar. A senior executive had received a warning from an AI visibility assessment vendor that the company was not sufficiently prepared for AI search. Among the recommendations was something I have seen appearing more frequently: the company needed an llms.txt file. Suddenly, an emerging,…
I wrote an article about auditing publisher websites last week, and it took a little piece of my soul. Like a Horcrux, but without me being a spectacularly evil wizard hellbent on world domination. Allegedly. I argued that SEO auditing should be broken down into four parts: Technical SEO. Content. E-E-A-T. Entities. I think almost…
It’s 7:40 a.m. You haven’t opened Google Ads once. Instead, you type a prompt: “Across all my accounts, what did we spend yesterday? Flag anything more than 20% off pace and tell me what changed.” Ninety seconds later, you have the answer. Three accounts that matter, and the specific reason for each. You follow up:…
Of all the characters you might expect to trigger school closures and police investigations, the Cat in the Hat probably would not be high on the list. Yet a creepy internet reinvention of the Dr. Seuss character is now causing very real disruptions across the United States. Over the past several weeks, AI-generated and manipulated…
Schema markup won’t make AI systems cite you directly, but it does help search engines like Google, Bing, and answer engines like ChatGPT understand who you are, verify your claims, and decide whether to feature you. I’ve supported schema for years, and although the benefits took time to show, the efforts I made on client…
Getting ready for a date usually comes with a fairly predictable checklist: Take a shower, apply deodorant, and find a shirt that has recently been through the washing machine. But one corner of the internet would like men to reconsider all three. Meet “pheromone-maxxing,” the latest “maxxing” trend circulating among some young men online. The…