Blog
Guides and research on AI search visibility — being found, read and cited by answer engines.
Google Searches Hit a Five-Year High. Search Revenue Slowed Anyway. AI Mode Is Why.
Alphabet's Q3 2026: record query growth, Search revenue growth down to 12%, and Google admitting AI Mode earns less. Its fix: ads in follow-up questions.
AI Engines Cite Pages That Answer First. Google Says Don't Write for AI.
Cited pages led with a direct answer 23% of the time vs 14% for passed-over pages. What the research shows, what Google says, and how to fix your openings.
Google Wants Share Links Out of Its Index. Noindex, Not Robots.txt.
Google's Oct 26 spam guide says to keep share links, generated pages and user apps out of Search by default. Its own docs say only one method works.
Freelancers Say GEO Demand Is Outpacing SEO. They Still Bet on Google.
67% of Fiverr's search freelancers see rising GEO requests vs 56% for Google rankings, yet 61% still call SEO the best bet. What the 230-person survey shows.
A Quarter of AI Overviews Now Link Out. The Clicks Are Another Story.
Peec AI data shows AI Overviews with external links jumping from near 0% to 25%+. What the number measures, what it omits, and why links aren’t clicks.
The First Randomized Test of Google AI Mode: Fewer Clicks, Lower Trust, More Bing
A preregistered test of 1,100 Google users: AI Mode cut click-through by 18.8 points and lowered trust. Hiding AI Overviews helped less than claimed.
AI Visibility Is Four Metrics, Not One Score
Mentions, citations, rankings and outcomes now move in opposite directions. A blended AI visibility score can climb while clicks fall 58%. Track them apart.
131 SEOs Ranked Google's Signals. Relevance Won, Backlinks Held.
A 131-expert survey put relevance at 57.1% and backlinks at 54.8%. But only 16.7% of AI Overview citations come from the top 10 those factors win.
People Also Ask Is Now 97% AI. The Old Answer Endpoint Is Gone.
Google’s People Also Ask answers went from 12.6% AI-generated to 97% in fourteen months. The legacy answer endpoint stopped responding in August 2026.
ChatGPT Shopping Switched to Product Feeds Overnight. 450 Brands Lost a Third of Their Shelf.
On July 10, 2026 feed retrieval in ChatGPT Shopping jumped from 8.26% to 61.54% in one day. 450 of 687 sampled brands lost a third of their visibility.