markwilliamscook.substack.com/p/how-catstx...

How cats.txt showed llms.txt evidence is GEO astrology

How the joke web standard cats.txt took the fancy of some SEOs and became cited at the same evidential level as llms.txt for optimising websites for search and AI discovery.

markwilliamscook.substack.com

thought today was thursday. it’s saturday. doing really well mentally

Measurement plans. Do then before you put your dirty little mits on GA! www.searchenginejournal.com/designing-a-...

Designing A Measurement Framework Before You Touch GA4

GA4 can collect the data, but it can not decide what matters. Build the measurement framework before the implementation starts.

searchenginejournal.com

Planning and defining success before you even start executing tactics. Great article by @bngsrc.bsky.social

Designing A Measurement Framework Before You Touch GA4

GA4 can collect the data, but it can not decide what matters. Build the measurement framework before the implementation starts.

searchenginejournal.com

GA4 can collect the data, but it can not decide what matters. Build the measurement framework before the implementation starts.

Here's what to expect at #SearchNorwichXL Morning: @hellemans.me @bngsrc.bsky.social @dixonjones.bsky.social Afternoon: @guaca.bsky.social @sequinsnsearch.bsky.social @adoubleagent.bsky.social A panel about the future of search & SEO. Ending with: @myriam.dopamine.builders @divingfor.fun

Congratulations @bngsrc.bsky.social for being featured on Google Search News! I’m so proud of you! 🤩 youtu.be/sq55KB5icQ4?...

Google Search Gen AI Reports, Search Profiles & more (Q2 ‘26)

YouTube video by Google Search Central

youtu.be

Bengü Sarıca Dinçer@bngsrc.bsky.social · 4mo ago

My newest article for @sejournal.bsky.social dropped ✨ Data is messy. But somehow… we’re all expected to sound 100% certain all the time? Hard pass. So, this time I wrote about how to communicate uncertainty without losing credibility. 🥳 www.searchenginejournal.com/reporting-un...

Everyone is coming to Search ’n Stuff London 2026 🥳 💼 C-level execs 👔 Agency leaders 💻 Marketers 📝 Digital marketing lovers ⚽ Gunners — we’re at Emirates Stadium 🙌 If you work in search or marketing, this is your room. Don’t “maybe later” this one. searchnstuff.co.uk/search-n-stu...

Do LLMs use schema? I did an experiment that was widely misunderstood, so I’ve taken the time to write up all of the detail on the theory and look at available evidence. This is the new nuanced and long-form answer on my Substack. 🤓 open.substack.com/pub/markwill...

Schema, LLMs and the Low Bar for “Evidence” in GEO

I built a fake company with nonsense schema. The LLMs returned the address anyway. That is not the win the GEO industry thinks it is.

open.substack.com

Being the person who gets things done is great. Until your reward becomes… more things to get done. 🤡 I wrote about why high-performing marketers get trapped in tactical work, and how to move from fixing everything to shaping what actually matters. www.searchenginejournal.com/why-high-per...

Why High-Performing Marketers Get Trapped In Tactical Work (And How To Escape)

Execution gets marketers hired, strategic thinking gets them heard. Here’s how you can move from task completion to strategic influence.

searchenginejournal.com

I decided to start a Substack to keep my throughts in one place, rather than screaming into the void on LinkedIn. I did a "more longerer form" version of the AI 'convergence problem' that I touched on at my talk at @athensgrease.bsky.social markwilliamscook.substack.com/p/the-ai-con...

The AI Convergence Problem

Where LLMs are weak, they're stupid. Where they're strong, they're dragging your marketing toward the mean.

markwilliamscook.substack.com

Big SPF energy! 🌞 I’m very excited to say I contributed to Summer of SEO this year ⛱️ The email series launches on 8 June and free sign-ups are live: summerofseo.co

GA4 or any other tool will not tell you, “Congrats, people remember you now.” But it can help you spot recognition proxies. I wrote about how to use GA4 Explorations for measuring brand recognition proxies for @athenseo.bsky.social Knowledge Hub 🥳 athenseo.com/knowledge-hu...

Building A GA4 Exploration Report To Measure Recognition Proxies - Athens SEO

athenseo.com

I am repurposing an old 20k subscriber YouTube account I have to try something new; shorts and deep dive videos into AI/SEO. Come subscribe if you want something a bit different to Linkedin content: www.youtube.com/@mwcsearch?s...

General tickets for the SearchNorwichXL conference are now on sale 🎟️ for £125: 200+ SEO professionals, world-class talks, interactive industry panel, free food and drink, sponsored afterparty at Dead Wax Social :D searchnorwich.org

Hot take: You can't secure AI visibility using AI hacks/tricks if your site doesn't make sense. Data from @sejournal.bsky.social + @duda.co → www.searchenginejournal.com/68-million-a... basically shows that the same signals we’ve been using for years are the ones getting picked up by AI systems.

68 Million AI Crawler Visits Show What Drives AI Search Visibility

Research on 68 million AI crawler visits show clear patterns that drive better AI search performance to business sites.

searchenginejournal.com

⚠️ Free tool: Find intent gaps in your content automatically! I've made an accessible, no API key, no login, no payment required demo of the content improvement workflow I wrote a guide for at intentgaps.com

Not sure how it’s possible to be able to run a marathon and yet get out of breath walking up the hill and talking. Anyway, come to our conference it’s the last day to get early bird tickets. SearchNorwich.org

If you like SEO, there is 1 day left for silly cheap Early Bird SearchNorwichXL tickets to hang out with 200+ SEOs and see some excellent speakers. If you don't like SEO, there is a free bar and that is still pretty cheap for that too. searchnorwich.org

How do you say “I don’t know” without people thinking you’re not very good? Great question! During this age of AI search, if you have a detailed conversation and DON’T say “I don’t know” at some point, chances are you’re maybe a bit deluded - OR a genius. Bengu really nails this with this: 🧵 1/5

Reporting Uncertainty Without Losing Credibility

Modern analytics is full of estimates, imperfect data, and blind spots. A perspective on communicating uncertainty in SEO analytics reporting.

searchenginejournal.com

This was a lovely surprise 🥹 Really grateful to see my article "Why Your SEO KPIs Are Failing Your Business (And How To Fix Them)" mentioned in a @sitebulb.com training today by legendary @markwilliamscook.com . 🥳 Read the article, if you wish: www.searchenginejournal.com/why-your-seo...

I am doing a training webinar with @sitebulb.com tomorrow about what to do when some dickhead has brought you into a migration far too late and expects you to literally be some kind of magical web magician. The webinar will cover how to not look like the dickhead. sitebulb.com/website-migr...

Website Migrations Training Series | Sitebulb

This 3-part training series with Mark Williams-Cook & Candour covers the ideal website migrations scenario, plus emergency protocol and traffic recovery plan.

sitebulb.com

22+ years in SEO teaches you one thing fast: Most tactics don’t last. The good ones do. @markwilliamscook.com (@withcandour.co.uk, @alsoasked.com) is joining Search ’n Stuff London 2026 with practical, battle-tested SEO thinking. 🎟️ Grab your ticket: searchnstuff.co.uk/search-n-stu...

You may have seen her speak at @brightonseo.com and @searchnstuff.co.uk, we're honoured to welcome @bngsrc.bsky.social to #SearchNorwichXL! During her 12-year career, Bengü has provided consultancy services to many medium and large-scale companies with national and international authority.

Speaking at #SearchNorwichXL this September ❤️‍🔥 At every event, I somehow end up with Norwich people. Suspiciously great humans. So now I’m coming to investigate the source: air? vibes? BBC propaganda? 🤡 Buy your ticket now & thank me later. 🎟️ £75 early bird: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/searchnorw...

SearchNorwichXL is happening on 24th September and I am stoked at the line up we've got 😍 Join us: searchnorwich.org

📣 The SEO & AI Search News of the Week from #SEOFOMO [April 5, 2026] 👇 seofomo.co/posts/the-se...

We’ve got some exciting news 🎉 🥳 @designmodo.bsky.social has been shortlisted for Best In-House Team at the European Search Awards 🌟 Unspam, one of our projects has been shortlisted for Best Use of Search – B2B (SEO): Small #EuSearchAwards @dontpanicevents.bsky.social

It's important to be clear about uncertainty in metrics, regardless of whether it's for SEO or anything else. And, it's critical to make room & set expectations for those you work with, that expressing uncertainty is a good thing. Thanks for the write-up, @bngsrc.bsky.social !

Bengü Sarıca Dinçer@bngsrc.bsky.social · 4mo ago

My newest article for @sejournal.bsky.social dropped ✨ Data is messy. But somehow… we’re all expected to sound 100% certain all the time? Hard pass. So, this time I wrote about how to communicate uncertainty without losing credibility. 🥳 www.searchenginejournal.com/reporting-un...

My newest article for @sejournal.bsky.social dropped ✨ Data is messy. But somehow… we’re all expected to sound 100% certain all the time? Hard pass. So, this time I wrote about how to communicate uncertainty without losing credibility. 🥳 www.searchenginejournal.com/reporting-un...

Reporting Uncertainty Without Losing Credibility

Modern analytics is full of estimates, imperfect data, and blind spots. A perspective on communicating uncertainty in SEO analytics reporting.

searchenginejournal.com