If you rank your own product #1 in “best of” listicles, it’s not just a search-quality issue — it may violate FTC rules that took effect in October 2024. Driving the news. As Lily Ray noted on LinkedIn, the FTC’s Consumer Review Rule (16 CFR Part 465) prohibits several deceptive practices tied to reviews and […]
Are low-quality listicles about to lose their edge in Google Search? Read More »
Human-written content dominates Google’s top rankings, appearing in the No. 1 position 80% of the time versus just 9% for purely AI-generated pages, based on a Semrush analysis of 42,000 blog posts. The details. Semrush analyzed 20,000 keywords and their top 10 results, classifying content with an AI detector. Human-written pages outperformed AI and mixed
Human content is 8x more likely than AI to rank #1 on Google: Study Read More »
In this case study, we went deep instead of broad. We focused on one question: why wasn’t a brand present in a single ChatGPT prompt across ~70 iterations? We chose one prompt: “What are the best hotels in New York City?” We analyzed mentions, citations, fanouts, and SERPs in Google and Bing. We also planned
Bing, not Google, shapes which brands ChatGPT recommends Read More »
Is it possible to get an accurate view of the current state of SEO? There have been multiple attempts to reach consensus on what works, predict what might be coming, and identify the factors that may play a role in “good” (or “bad”) SEO. As useful and productive as some of this may be, none
SEO in 2026: Higher standards, AI influence, and a web still catching up Read More »
Most guidance on optimizing for AI still focuses on how content is written. But AI systems don’t read content the way humans do. These systems extract information, break it into parts, and reuse it in new contexts. What matters is whether your content can be pulled into an AI-sourced answer cleanly. Where traditional SEO has
How to design content that AI systems prefer and promote Read More »
ChatGPT Search is citing fewer websites per response after GPT-5.3 Instant became the default experience. The post ChatGPT Search Is Citing Fewer Sites, Data Shows appeared first on Search Engine Journal.
ChatGPT Search Is Citing Fewer Sites, Data Shows via @sejournal, @MattGSouthern Read More »
For a long time, links were the primary signal of authority in search. If you wanted visibility, you built backlinks. If you wanted credibility, you earned placements. That still matters — but it’s no longer enough. In AI-driven search, authority is shaped by how often your brand is mentioned, cited, and clearly associated with a
How to produce content that naturally builds AEO clout Read More »
Declining Google share and rising AI search usage signal a shift in where discovery happens and how SEO teams should allocate resources. The post The Top 6 Search Engines Market Share & The AI Search Engines To Watch appeared first on Search Engine Journal.
Since 2021, I’ve worked on more than 350 published guest posts. In that time, I’ve refined a repeatable guest posting outreach process that consistently drives approvals without ever paying for a placement. Although guest blogging is becoming more difficult, the basics of personalized guest posting outreach remain the same. If your mindset is to create
Guest post outreach in 2026: A proven, scalable process Read More »
Will WordPress’s troubled real-time collaboration feature be worth delaying the release of WP 7.0? The post WordPress’s Troubled Real-Time Collaboration Feature appeared first on Search Engine Journal.
WordPress’s Troubled Real-Time Collaboration Feature via @sejournal, @martinibuster Read More »
