How to use schema markup to optimize for the agentic web
Schema markup has earned its place at the center of the SEO and GEO conversation. Google and Bing have confirmed they use structured data to power AI Overviews, and ChatGPT factors it into product recommendations. Now, schema markup is becoming part of the infrastructure behind the agentic web, where AI systems increasingly interact directly with […]
Treating Reviews As Business Infrastructure, Not Marketing, Drives Real Business Results
Most business owners assume that higher star ratings are linked to better business outcomes. A peer-reviewed study tested that assumption directly. Researchers Eddie Inyang and Juliana White surveyed 251 U.S. small-business owners on online reputation management, Google star ratings, and business performance. Notably, Google star ratings alone didn’t predict performance. What was associated with performance […]
What Is Topical Authority in SEO & How to Build It
Imagine if your website (or clients) could rank for every single keyword related to a desired niche. Enter topical authority. Now imagine that you could even achieve this with no link building. If some people in the SEO world are to be believed, this is achievable by anyone willing to write content about absolutely everything […]
10 Ways for AI to Make Higher-Flying City Pages for Local SEO
For many years now, people who know just enough about local SEO to be dangerous have blasted out “city” or “location” pages like they’re the Funyuns factory. Sometimes those pages are effective, and produce both visibility and customers, but usually they flop. Now, with AI on the scene, there’s even more incentive to create “city” […]
Amazon Vs. Perplexity: The CFAA Case That Decides Whether AI Agents Can Visit Your Website
Amazon sued Perplexity over its Comet browser shopping on Amazon under user authorization. On March 10, 2026, a federal judge in the Northern District of California issued a preliminary injunction blocking Comet from accessing Amazon’s logged-in pages. Roughly a week later, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals paused the injunction pending Perplexity’s appeal. On May […]
Google’s I/O Demos Reveal The New Business Visibility Problem
Google I/O produced a week of coverage on how AI will change the search experience. Most of it focused on consumer features, with less attention paid to a pattern that’s emerging for businesses. Many of the highest-profile consumer demos at I/O take the user from search to action, with Google carrying more of the journey […]
AI Content Alone Won’t Fix Your Search Visibility (Here’s What Will)
Most in-house SEO teams and agencies have adopted AI for content briefs, drafts, on-page recommendations, and technical audits. The output is up, but two things are happening at once, and SEO teams have to solve both: Why More AI-Assisted Content Isn’t Moving Rankings Search behavior has shifted. Long-tail queries (10+ words) have grown sharply, query […]
Google AI Overview Data Looks Different For Commercial Queries
A new analysis from Peec AI, an AI search visibility platform, found that Google’s AI Overviews appeared in about 87% of the 500,000 prompts it studied. The sample skews toward commercial, buying-intent queries and leaves out navigational searches. So the figure describes a specific slice of search, not Google overall. What Peec Found For decision-stage […]
Google appears to be testing new branded search controls in AI Max campaigns
Advertisers may soon have more control over how AI Max campaigns participate in branded searches — addressing a main concern marketers have raised since the campaign type launched. What’s happening. Some advertisers are reporting a new “Branded Searches” control inside AI Max campaigns that lets them choose how the campaign handles brand-related queries. The setting […]
Matt McGee on the Wild West days of SEO
Matt McGee was the former Editor-in-Chief at Search Engine Land, technically my boss at this site, for a period of time. I had the honor of interviewing Matt McGee, where we spoke about the early days of SEO, something he called the “Wild West” days of SEO, where you’d do keyword stuffing, cloaking and all […]