Pulling out one of the threads of thought from my post this week, I’ve long thought we are heading quickly to a world where every search is “search volume 1”. 👀 What do you think? Do you agree? 🤔 What are you doing about it?

I've been in the lab. I wanted to see if I could model the impact of combining randomness in LLM outputs with the branching chaos of conversational paths. I wondered how stable the recommended product and brand would be. The answer? Extremely unstable.

Did you know the Google quality graders consider "content effort" to differentiate things that somehow deserve to rank? You'd be well-served to have a listen to @zyppy.com on the subject. (if you want to hear more, register here for the full content: www.searchpilot.com/winning-ai-c... )

You know who is the GOAT at introducing other people and their work? @zyppy.com - Cyrus Shepard.

I have become very interested in the developing AI capabilities for forecasting. My favourite tool at the moment is @FUTURESEARCHAI which takes a simple forecasting question, builds a panel of researchers and emulates the best human forecasters' approaches to quantitative forecasting.

Guardrail metrics have long been a staple of many forms of testing, but they have been less common in SEO testing. I wrote up three uses for guardrails: www.searchpilot.com/resources/bl...

Crunching the numbers, looks like both you and I were in the top ~10th percentile of consensus Surprising, but guess we aren't very contrarian ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ docs.google.com/spreadsheets...

Expert Consensus

docs.google.com

I am pleased that @zyppy.com is continuing the work of doing ranking factor surveys, and I was pleased to be asked to contribute. I cross-referenced my answers against the published data and found something interesting that is important to know when you're reading the output.

This:

My conversation with @britneymuller.bsky.social , in which she told some WILD anecdotes and combined deep technical expertise with extreme clarity of thought - now available in the podcast feed: shows.acast.com/business-cla...

We're trying something new for this webinar - the registration landing page has a LIVE poll on it. @kevin-indig.bsky.social and I placed a bet last year about what would happen in the search space by the end of 2030...

Hear the ways @kevin-indig.bsky.social has changed his mind about what will and won't threaten Google's dominance in how people search and discover things in the AI age. Is it more like Snapchat threatening Instagram, or Blackberry vs. iPhone?

@kevin-indig.bsky.social has some of the best data out there on the ways that different AI discovery tools are gathering data and representing your products and brand. In this clip he talks about the shocking LACK of overlap between the sources cited between the different tools.

Just released the conversation @patrickhathaway.bsky.social and I had about SEO tools on the podcast feed: shows.acast.com/business-cla...

Beyond crawl data: what SEO teams really need from their tools with Patrick Hathaway | Business Class Lounge by SearchPilot, hosted by Will Critchlow

Season 02, Episode 16: Patrick Hathaway, Founder and CEO of Sitebulb

shows.acast.com

Prompt tracking has its place. Just like rank tracking did for SEO. But the plan can't just be "keep tracking this number and see what happens".

"I’ve had more questions from leadership in the last 6 months than in the preceding 10 years." If you work in SEO or digital marketing, does this sound familiar? The C-Suite is officially obsessed with AI search. Are you ready for the spotlight?

I'm hearing three very clear and consistent messages repeated by leaders, executives, and the C-suite at all our customers: 1. Are we ready for AI search? 2. Can we go faster / run more tests? 3. How do our efforts compare to the market?

Anyone else find that business wins are a bit like trying to see yourself blink in the mirror? By the time you stop to look, they're gone and it's on to the next thing. Anyway, we celebrated a little milestone @searchpilot.bsky.social with some branded lego:

I see a lot of scepticism in my networks about prompt tracking for GEO / AI discovery. The biggest issues I hear are (all related):

My conversation with Norman Nielsen 🚀 is now live on the podcast feed if you want some weekend listening: shows.acast.com/business-cla...

SEO Is a System, Not a Channel: Lessons from Zalando, Omio, and idealo with Norman Nielsen | Business Class Lounge by SearchPilot, hosted by Will Critchlow

Season 02, Episode 15: Norman Nielsen

shows.acast.com

Too much confident guessing about GEO on this platform. We're bringing numbers. We can now measure LLM referral traffic and Google organic in the same A/B test, and we've just published our first GEO case study with Omio.

From SEO Maturity to AI Discoverability: Heather Physioc on What Needs to Change - via @searchpilot.bsky.social & @willcritchlow.bsky.social #seo

From SEO Maturity to AI Discoverability: Heather Physioc on What Needs to Change

Heather Physioc explains why SEO maturity needs a reset as AI changes how people discover, compare, and buy.

searchpilot.com

Full conversation here: www.searchpilot.com/how-premium-...

How an experienced enterprise retail SEO team works with finance to get EVERYONE excited about their work.

Jobs that don't require tons of experience can be hard to find right now. SearchPilot is hiring an analyst onto our US team. Check out the opportunity by heading to the careers page on our website. Tell your friends.

I made my first little personal disposable app to put my claude usage limit in my mac toolbar so I don't keep having to root around to find out how close I am.

Too much SEO reporting compares this year to last year. Seems reasonable until you consider how much changed in between. My colleague Demetria broke it down in her webinar last week and you can rewatch the whole thing for free. Here's a clip. Full link below.

I'm biased, but I think that if you're interested in what REALLY works in SEO / GEO these days, there is nowhere better to learn than @searchpilot.bsky.social . If you're spending Sunday thinking about your future, check out the SearchPilot jobs pages - we are hiring a consultant in the US.

The other day, I was thinking about resources I wished someone had put together and I realised I wanted someone to collate the current state of play of how traffic referred from different AI sources shows up in server logs and web analytics.

Retail SEO leaders - are you setting yourself up to be a scapegoat or the GOAT? www.searchpilot.com/resources/bl...

Scapegoat or GOAT? When traffic falls but revenue grows

Traffic down. Organic revenue up. The only growing channel in 2028. Are you the scapegoat for a vanity metric, or the GOAT driving revenue?

searchpilot.com