The Tactical Pivot to AI Search

The overarching theme through this week's top 10 is how traditional SEO tactics are migrating over and changing in priority as they are applied to AI search. The building blocks may remain the same, but the information you're able to feed to Google beyond your indexed on-page content has never been more important. The same goes for the structure of said content - 'chunking' is about structuring your content, and this is not a new tactic, but it is one that is only going up in importance.

- Tom Capper, Senior Search Scientist, STAT & Moz

What We're Reading:

What if User Satisfaction Is the Most Important Factor in SEO?

It is, and it has been for a long time! Ultimately, once you're in the running, the most important determinant of rankings is whether users prefer your site over alternatives.

How Do You Compete in Agentic Commerce?

Kevin has a clear view of what agentic ecommerce really is, how it will play out in the search ecosystem, and why SEO is still, in fact, not dead.

Information Retrieval Part 1: Disambiguation

Harry argues that the foundation of good SEO (and GEO!) going forward is consistent and clear information, and that this is what we should have been focused on all along.

Moving from a Google-shaped Web to an Agent-shaped Web: A Refutation of Misinformation about Chunking

Google says don't chunk, SEOs say chunking is what they did all along. It's become a heated debate, and Mike is clarifying his (very reasonable) position.

Your SEO Backlog Is Costing You Revenue. Here’s Why Marketing Needs To Own It

Reza argues that more SEOs need to get their hands dirty. Too many backlog problems can be addressed with "no-dev SEO", and too many marketing teams decide that these aren't their problem.

AI Local Visibility Is up to 30x Harder Than Ranking in Google: Report

Behind the shocking headline is a good news story - when bigger brands are recommended only 1/30th as much in AI responses as in regular search, it's small independents that are filling the gaps.

The Local SEO Gatekeeper: How Google Defines Your Entity

Echoing Harry's points above, Claudia brings the focus to local SEO and the importance of clarity in your listings, especially your Google listings.