Field notes on AI search and SEO
We document the data and conclusions of every real experiment. No filler.
Where exactly is the line between white hat, grey hat, and black hat SEO? From Google's spam updates and the three tiers of black hat risk to enforcement differences across markets, here's how to choose tactics that won't get you flagged and wipe out your traffic.
Five commonly confused search optimization acronyms are actually four stages of one pipeline plus a parallel track. We break down each battlefield using Ahrefs data on 863,000 keywords.
After Working with 100+ Clients Who Needed SEO, I Finally Realized: SEO Runs Deeper Than You Think: many people's understanding of SEO is far too one-sided, and with the spread of AI tools, even more people misunderstand SEO on a deeper level
We rebuilt the llms.txt our site serves to AI engines — from 3.7 KB of placeholder page lists into twelve sections of fact. Here is what was wrong, the new structure, four rules we write by, and how to tell whether it works.
Google rolled out its third spam content algorithm update of 2026, and many websites that previously used AIGC for SEO optimization have seen traffic plummet after this round of algorithm updates
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