Scott Clark

@CyrusShepard After trying LLM.TXT out 5x with zero chang in citations:

Chillaxing with an exciting book of LLMs txt files

I'm so nerdy I love building #AIagents that do work for me. But I don't save any time because I'm too nerdy not to witness them in action.

@glenngabe Scrolljacking next?

Sites have two months to stop it. -> Whoa, huge news and it's something I wrote about last year on my blog. If you hijack the back button, you are going to get a manual action. This is great news for users... Enough with hijacking the back button and providing a Google-like feed of articles that tricks people into staying. This will make the web better. I'm really glad Google is rolling this out. From Google: "Starting in about two months, June 15, 2026, Google will begin enforcement of this action. “We believe that the user experience comes first. Back button hijacking interferes with the browser’s functionality, breaks the expected user journey, and results in user frustration. People report feeling manipulated and eventually less willing to visit unfamiliar sites,” Google added.

Wow. Something interesting was just brought to my attention regarding self-promotional listicles: in some cases, they may actually be *against the law,* according to FTC rules that took effect in October 2024. There is already precedent for this: A few years back, a company was sued for publishing hundreds of fake "best of" review pages that ranked their own services #1, included fabricated reviews of competitors whose products had never been used, and posted fake reviews on third-party platforms. The BBB eventually censured the company for unsubstantiated claims. (Note: I am being vague/anonymous on purpose 👀 ) This case took place before the FTC formalized these prohibitions, so the legal exposure today would presumably be much worse. I've been researching and writing about self-promotional listicles for months - the "Best [X] Companies" and "Top 10 [Y] Tools" pages where the publishing company ranks itself #1. This has arguably become the most popular GEO tactic over the last year or two because it has worked (surprisingly well) to influence SEO & GEO results. In my articles about this, I've been approaching this as a potential search quality problem. But it turns out the FTC's Consumer Review Rule (16 CFR Part 465) explicitly prohibits several practices that are common in these pages: * Creating a company-controlled site that presents itself as providing independent reviews (§465.6) * Publishing reviews of products or services you've never actually used (§465.2) * Attributing reviews to people who didn't write them (§465.2(a)) And the penalties? Up to $53,088 PER VIOLATION. Plus, each page could be a separate violation (!!) The FTC issued its first enforcement warning letters under this rule in December 2025 to 10 companies. One way to interpret this for SEOs/GEOs: if your client (or your agency) is publishing "best of" listicles that rank themselves #1 based on scores they made up, about products or competitors they never used, on a site that looks like an independent review authority... that's not just a Google quality guidelines issue anymore. It's a potential legal liability. Based on FTC guidance, the line appears relatively straightforward: you can *absolutely publish comparison content that includes your own product.* Just be honest about who you are and don't fabricate reviews of products or competitors you've never used. (BTW, this part is recommended in Google's Reviews guidelines as well.) That said, this might be tricky for most of these listicles, given that the author almost never actually tried and tested competitor products; usually they're just doing research based on publicly available data about the company. I used Claude to put together a quick reference table (see image below) breaking down what's legal and what's not under the FTC rule. (BTW, I’m not a lawyer and this isn’t legal advice; just my interpretation of the FTC’s published rules. If you’re doing this at scale, it’s worth checking with legal counsel.)

@NotebookLM I'd prefer a revision of voice overviews first, folders later. The banter-mode drives me nuts. Can we please have tedtalk mode? or roundtable mode... or something?

Ok ok ok. Let's talk about folders (gasp!) We are exploring several notebook-level organization options, but would love to know: Is there something specific about *folders* that you want? Or would an easy way to filter/search/tag/find your notebooks suffice? Help us, help you!

@JulianGoldieSEO It's slick, but the audio overviews are like fingernails on chalkboards for me. I REALLY hope they allow format/voice modifications soon on there.

Nobody is talking about this. Google just turned NotebookLM into a full content factory. Upload PDFs → get a video. Upload notes → get a podcast. Upload docs → get quizzes, training guides, study briefs. 80+ languages. Runs on Gemini 3. Completely free. Most people are still repurposing content manually. That’s about to look crazy.

#Github down for others?

#lexky - side streets feel MUCH slicker than earlier with the new snow on them - sliding even at a crawl pace. Use extra care on streets with cars parked on them as the tracks from earlier cars will pull you sideways!

@lilyraynyc I hope they are talking to clients that way - it'll flood the pipeline

Suddenly, thousands of people in the search marketing space suddenly talk like this across all social media posts and comments: “This really encapsulates the ontological reorientation we’re seeing in search and information retrieval. We’re moving from deterministic keyword frameworks toward probabilistic, entity-centric systems where generative models synthesize meaning across contextual, relational, and latent signals. AEO and GEO aren’t merely tactical evolutions — they represent a structural reframing of how machine intelligence mediates knowledge, relevance, and discoverability at scale.”

Heads-up! I saw this live yesterday before the announcement today. It's super-alarming and should be for all publishers. When you click "Show more" in the AIO, you are TAKEN OUT OF SEARCH and into just the AIO (you cannot scroll past the AIO to the search results). Then if you type a question in the "Ask anything" field, you are taken directly to AI Mode. This is not a great feature for any publisher ranking in the 10-blue links below the AIO. I'll provide some examples soon, but you can see the video below and in Barry's post.

.@WallControl - why must we feel regrets every time we see omniwall's full-set screwdriver holders?

Tips from Google and @scottclark on how to secure your Google Ads account with the rise of Google Ads account hijacks seroundtable.com/google-ads-hij…

@SchmelebeckPPC Wait wait wait. MS Ads lets you import Meta ads!!!! WIN WIN. /jk

stop wasting your money every month on letting your Meta focused agency upsell you on a bullshit PPC service it's PMAX x Brand Search/Shopping x "Cold" search (that often just has more brand hiding inside) you can do that yourself when you're ready to scale TOF on Google seriously, your "one size fits all" meta agency will NOT do it for you

@lilyraynyc Add GPT for sheets and your LLM APIs in the sheet, and then run that answer through a sentiment prompt to see brands at a glance. :-)

This is why I have been sharing this (and other) checklists in all my talks about AI search. So much of it is just saying the things that you’d want an LLM to say about you, directly and concisely on your website and other owned assets. docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d…

@natmiletic Amagine awards programs with performance metrics as the criteria. The winner in MER YOY % is......

Spicy take 🌶️ Most "award-winning" design is just expensive art that doesn't convert. Your job isn't to impress designers at agencies, it's to get your client new leads.

@SchmelebeckPPC For dynamic brands, Strategic Profitability Score is a better segmenting anchor than raw margins. Margin tiering is most of it, but with SPS you are able to account for strategic products independent of margins. Look it up :-)

your Google Shopping feed is bleeding money. Here's the 4-minute fix that doubled new customers on a first click basis for a client 1. Segment by margin, not product type 2. Kill anything under 30% margin in cold campaigns (unless high LTV driver) 3. Run this in a catch-all campaign to allow for smart bidding budget allocation Test it. You'll thank me.

@SchmelebeckPPC This is not true for competitive, premium ecom. Branded CPAs on compettiive ecommerce are pennies on the dollar compared to losing the $ spent on upper funnel. Even with dealer networks capturing brand clicks your risk losing the last 4-5 touchpoints to a competitor.

If 80% of your Google spend is brand + retargeting, you don't have a "Google Ads strategy You have a expensive safety net for people who already know you exist. You need to be creating Google Funnels to scale beyond your Meta traffic: Search > Competitor Aware > Solution Aware > Problem Aware YouTube > In-Stream > Shorts Statics > Discover > YT In-Feed > GDN But you already knew this. You're just scared to test it.

@rustybrick Tie this together with UCP rollout and Gemini agentic / conversational shopping and a lot of fitment-oriented / personalized contexts will make shopping easier all of a sudden. We're begging clients to pay attention.

Personal Intelligence in the Gemini app and soon coming to AI Mode in Google Search seroundtable.com/personal-intel…

@kurtinc Good luck enforcing MAP pricing with this setup.

Shopify just made your products searchable by AI. ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, Perplexity. All pulling from the same feed now. Your products are probably already being indexed too. Here's what that email you ignored actually means: SHOPIFY CATALOG Single machine-readable feed of every eligible Shopify product. AI platforms query it in real-time. Think Google Merchant Center but instant and built for AI agents. No scraping, no lag, no manual uploads. Already in if you have Shopify Payments + Shop Pay active. THE BIGGER DEAL @Shopify and Google co-developed Universal Commerce Protocol. AI agents can now complete full checkout in chat. Discount codes, loyalty, subscriptions. All without leaving Gemini or ChatGPT. Target, Walmart, Etsy, Wayfair, Mastercard, Visa, Stripe all endorsed it. When competitors align like this, pay attention. THE SHIFT Discovery flips from browsing to prompts. You're competing inside conversations now, not grid layouts. Product data is the new keyword. WHAT TO FIX Assign Standard Product Categories (unlocks metafields AI uses to match queries) Move specs from bullet lists into structured metafields (AI can't parse your description blob) Set up Knowledge Base for brand voice and policies THE TRADE-OFF Checkout in Gemini = you lose the last touchpoint. No cross-sells. Customer never hits your site. More discoverability for less control. Math works for most. Understand what you're trading. Merchants who treat taxonomy like SEO win. The ones dumping specs into descriptions won't show up. Infrastructure is live. Question is whether your products are ready.

@kurtinc HUGE win not discussed (that I can find) ... AI convos can remember context - lifestyle variables, fitment, geography, etc. ... no more "shop by" filters to set up over and over and over