Field notes on AI-era SEO
Tactics, frameworks, and teardowns for ranking in AI Overviews, ChatGPT search, Perplexity, and classic Google.
Semantic HTML is back, because LLMs read the markup
Div soup was tolerable when Googlebot was your only reader. LLM-grounded retrievers parse the DOM.
Why classic SEO scanners miss AI search in 2026
Seobility, Ahrefs, and Moz were architected for a Google-only world. Here is what they no longer test for, and why a 92/100 score can still leave you invisible to ChatGPT.
The AI crawler field guide (OAI-SearchBot, PerplexityBot, ClaudeBot, and friends)
Who is crawling, what they crawl for, and which user-agent strings to allow. The 2026 reference list every site should keep current.
AEO, GEO, AIO: the three acronyms, ranked by usefulness
Answer Engine Optimization, Generative Engine Optimization, AI Overview Optimization. Different names, overlapping checks.
FAQ schema is a footgun: the five mistakes I see weekly
Google demoted FAQ rich results in 2023 but FAQ schema still helps LLM grounding. Here is how to use it without tripping a manual action.
Schema markup checklist for AI-era search
The six schema types worth shipping in 2026, in order of impact, with the gotchas that break grounding.
What gets cited in Google AI Overviews: a 2026 reading
An honest look at what is driving citation selection inside Google AI Overviews, based on our audit data.
The Perplexity citation playbook
Perplexity cites differently from Google. Here is how to ship for it.
ChatGPT search vs Google: what each one rewards
Two engines, two retrieval models, two slightly different on-page targets.
Topic clusters still work, but the pillar has changed
The 2018 topic cluster model needs a small but important update for the AI search era.
Unlinked brand mentions are the new backlink
LLMs do not need a hyperlink to associate a mention with your brand.
How AI engines actually pick sources: a working mental model
Two retrieval stages, one ranker, one generator. A model that explains why your site gets cited or skipped.
How to get cited by Google's AI Overviews
Google's AI Overviews now sit above the blue links for billions of queries. Here's the seven-signal checklist for getting cited.
GEO vs SEO: what's actually different in 2025
Generative Engine Optimization is not "SEO with a hat on". The signals that get you remembered by an LLM are different from the signals that get you ranked by Google.
The 2025 E-E-A-T audit checklist
Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness — the four signals Google's Quality Raters look for. Here's what to fix first.
llms.txt: what it is, what it isn't, and whether you need one
The proposed standard for telling LLMs what to index. Here's what to put in it and what not to bother with.
The AI crawler allowlist every site should ship in 2026
GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, PerplexityBot, ClaudeBot, GoogleOther — the full list, what each does, and the robots.txt block to paste.
Schema markup cheatsheet: the six types that actually matter
Schema.org has 800+ types. Six of them do 90% of the work for AI search. Copy-paste examples for each.
Why your first paragraph is now the entire game
AI Overviews extract roughly 60 words after each H2. If your first paragraph is throat-clearing, you're cited by no one.
Local SEO when AI Overviews are above the local pack
For "near me" queries the SERP now stacks AI Overview → local pack → organic. Here is how to win all three layers.
Yes, Core Web Vitals still matter (and INP is the one that bites)
LCP and CLS are usually fine. INP — Interaction to Next Paint — is where most modern React/Vue sites are quietly failing.
The anonymous author tax
Pages with named, schema-tagged authors get cited by AI search 4× more than anonymous ones. Here is how to fix it across the site.
CSR, SSR, SSG: which rendering modes survive AI crawlers
Most AI crawlers do not execute JavaScript. Here is what that means for Next.js, Remix, TanStack Start, Astro, and friends.
What an AI Overview citation actually looks like (and how to engineer one)
We reverse-engineered 200 cited passages. They share five structural traits. Here they are.