The Insights

Google’s new AI optimization guide spends most of its word count saying the quiet part out loud: keep doing SEO, just be smarter about it. Buried in the “create valuable, non-commodity content” section is one line that does a lot of work without explaining itself: If you’re using generative AI tools to assist in content […]

LLMs.txt is the most-promoted, least-effective piece of “AI SEO” the industry produced between mid-2024 and mid-2026. Google made the position official in its May 2026 AI Optimization Guide. The hard data behind that position has been in server logs for over a year. I’ve been writing about it since October 2025. None of this is […]

Google’s new AI Optimization Guide landed in Search Central on May 15, 2026, and it’s the first official, vendor-neutral document the company has published on how to show up in AI Overviews and AI Mode. It also debunks five popular tactics the AEO and GEO industry has been selling for the past 18 months. That’s […]

Vibe coding and SEO have a problem with each other, and on Search Off the Record episode 110, Google’s John Mueller and Martin Splitt finally said it out loud. Sites built by AI tools like Lovable, Bolt.new, v0, Cursor, and Replit AI Studio look great in the editor, ship in days, and routinely fail at […]

Key Takeaways Gemini Tripled Its User Base While ChatGPT’s Growth Slowed The Datos/Semrush State of Search Q4 2025 report tracks desktop AI tool usage across the US, EU, and UK. The biggest competitive shift in 2025 wasn’t a new entrant. It was Gemini quietly tripling its user base while ChatGPT’s growth trajectory flattened. In the […]

Key Takeaways Search Query Length Is Shifting Toward Longer, More Specific Phrasing The Datos/Semrush State of Search Q4 2025 report tracked search query length distribution for the first time, covering 15 months of desktop data across the US, EU, and UK. The results show a consistent shift: users are typing longer, more detailed queries into […]

AI search destination domains reveal a different web than traditional Google search. Clickstream data from Q4 2025 shows GitHub at #3 after AI search (absent from Google top 15), while Wikipedia and Facebook dominate Google but vanish from AI destinations.

Key Takeaways Live demo above. Hover over the button to see the 0.8s inversion. The chromatic border is rendering in real-time via WebGL. This liquid glass button uses a WebGL shader running in real-time to produce that animated chromatic border. The metallic highlights orbit the perimeter, shifting through spectral colors as they move. On hover, […]

Key Takeaways Google AI Mode Clickstream Data Shows Steady but Tiny Growth The Datos/Semrush State of Search Q4 2025 report includes Google AI Mode clickstream data for the first time. The numbers tell two stories at once: consistent monthly growth and a share so small it barely registers on the chart. In the US, AI […]

X published the source code for its Phoenix recommendation algorithm in January 2026. Built on Grok, it predicts 15 engagement types for every post. A single reply conversation where you respond back is worth 150 likes.