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Seattle vs. Vancouver
Joined February 2014
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aka, if you're in the training data and found during live retrieval at the same time, your odds of being found, cited, and recommended go up more than either signal explains alone
it matches what we've tested: training and retrieval are separate signals
Two signals influence brand, product and service recommendations in AI answers.
1. Primary Bias: Brand-to-entity association in model's parametric memory.
2. Grounding: Brand presence in search results used to ground the model.
A brand with both is more likely to be ranked higher in model's generative output than a brand carrying only one.
one of our ai press release clients, in a competitive local-service category, went from 0 of 21 benchmark ai queries to 11 of 21 in a week
it's a dr 14 site
every stat in the article came from third-party sources, with a publication date attached
the same client separately wanted a specific line cited: that they're "the affordable option"
we pushed back because nobody has ever published that claim about this business, but they insisted, so we went ahead and did it anyway
guess which got cited? you got it: the chunk of content whose claims were verifiable
the affordable claim never got any traction at all
this is just another data point that suggests ai models aren't just blindly taking your word for it
hey, gang
it's 5 pm friday here in oz, and that marks a two week break for me
if this account is quieter than usual, just know your boy will be surfing waves and sipping margies on a tropical island in the pacific
don't hate me,
@AlreadyBrody
😬
We tested ChatGPT ads. Here's what we got:
97,131 impressions. 1,263 clicks. $3.16 CPC. Almost no sign-ups.
It did tell us why, though. And what we'd run differently next time.
⚡ The full write-up, plus the setup we're keeping: seranking.com/blog/how-to-ad…
get outta here with your PBNs and parasite seo
that's amatuer hour
THIS is black hat seo:
WHY IS THIS GUY DRIVING AROUND WITH 100s OF PHONES IN HIS CAR?
Well, apparently, this is a shady but effective local SEO hack lol
“Google has a patent describing directions-based ranking of places. It explicitly describes using direction requests and mobile location/search logs as signals of a place's popularity.”
So now, there are literal services like this where they drive around with 100s of phones to your local business...
Indicating your business is in demand, and this will apparently boost your local ranking
can’t wait to see what Google will do about this
Readers added context they thought people might want to know
iykyk
AI slop has fundamentally changed how I experience reading.
I now notice the tells everywhere. The short, punchy sentences. The relentless groups of three. The em dashes—the unnecessary little asides.
And once you see it, you can’t unsee it.
The worst part? My brain now flags perfectly innocent human writing as AI slop too. AI hasn’t just made me enjoy bad writing less. It’s made me suspicious of all writing.
That’s a real loss.
innnnnteresting!
Google DeepMind recently developed the next step for AI Search: Autoregressive Ranking (ARR). ARR is a unified model for ranking documents that can replace current retrieval and ranking methods.
searchenginejournal.com/goog…
chat, a new negative seo play just dropped
I ran a negative SEO campaign to see if it manipulated ChatGPT sentiment...
Baseline was: X company had neutral reviews.
After the test, of 5,300 domains (only 16% indexed) ChatGPT changed its opinion to entirely negative/skeptical
All I did:
- Ran a MoneyRobot campaign
- Used brand + negative review as anchor
- Used brand + 'is it worth it?' as the page title
- Used lexical relevance to connect bad with the brand
- I forced indexed what I could w/ IndexChex
for example things like number of reviews, case studies, self-proclaimed wins, unverifiable figures, any bad dealings in the news...
rather than saying 'this brand is the worst, don't work with them'
i simply seeded the different ways someone *could* be bad and made sure the brand was mentioned every time
this was a TEST site, that i burned... do with this what you will.
ctr on informational content is already down bad, across the board
if this trend continues (and i don't see how it'll improve), the informational well is drying up and commercial/transactional is where the traffic and monetization opportunities remain
this is because aios can't fully satisfy commercial/transactional search intent like it can with informational intent and, if mike is right here, doesn't want to
remember: google will always protect its ad revenue before it gives a hoot about your traffic
