Recent Posts
Social•Feb 15, 2026
SEO Demand Spikes as Cleanup Work Multiplies
There will also be more work for SEOs who help clean up the mess 😅
By Lily Ray
Social•Feb 12, 2026
Bing's AI Search Report Misses Crucial Grounding Detail
Thanks to @ChouinardJC for flagging this important detail regarding Bing’s new AI search report and the grounding queries shown in it: https://t.co/8pHLKfFY1U
By Lily Ray
Social•Feb 11, 2026
Algorithm Shift Cuts Blog Traffic, Boosts AI Citations
I've been looking closely at organic traffic trends vs. LLM citations: The below site's blog was hit by recent algo changes: 1st screenshot: organic traffic to blog 2nd: ChatGPT citations to the blog 3rd: AI Mode citations 4th: AI Overview citations https://t.co/1bSsAAUsWh
By Lily Ray
Social•Feb 11, 2026
Grokipedia’s Organic Reach Slipping, AI Citations Rising
Updates on the Grokipedia drop in organic & AI search: 1st screenshot: Google US organic search visibility (@sistrix) 2nd: projected organic traffic decline (@ahrefs) 3rd: total ChatGPT citations (@ahrefs) 4th: AI Overview citations (@ahrefs) https://t.co/SAHtWofIWN
By Lily Ray
Social•Feb 10, 2026
AI SaaS Floods Web with 122 Spammy Listicles
Another example. I think this makes about 15 sites (and counting) with 100+ self-promoting listicles, whose blogs were hit hard between Jan 20-30. This is another AI SaaS company (shocker) with 122 self-promotional listicles and spammy review Schema. https://t.co/EG2AbExB6S
By Lily Ray
Social•Feb 10, 2026
Google's Review Rules Crush Self‑Ranked Listicles
I think some marketers forgot (or maybe didn't know in the first place?) that Google has specific guidance for how to write good reviews. This documentation originated from Google's Product Reviews updates - a specific ranking system they launched in 2023,...
By Lily Ray
Social•Feb 10, 2026
Excessive Spammy Listicles Trigger Multiple Google Core Penalties
Wow... this site tried everything and got hit by the March '25 core update, June '25 core update, Aug Spam Update, Dec core update & recent Jan algo update. It has *over 3,000 self-promotional listicles,* incorrect/spammy/duplicate AggregateRating Schema, & scaled AI...
By Lily Ray
Social•Feb 9, 2026
AI Search Citations Shift: ChatGPT Down, Gemini Up
You can also use @ahrefs Brand Radar to look at specific URLs that have lost SEO visibility - in this case, 2 specific self-promoting listicle URLs - to see the change in AI search citations to the page AIO/ChatGPT/Copilot citations also...
By Lily Ray
Social•Feb 9, 2026
Self‑promoting Listicles Lose Rankings, Cutting ChatGPT Citations
Another example of a site that started to lose rankings for many of its self-promoting "best" listicles in mid-January, and the downstream effect on ChatGPT citations for that domain at the same time (via @ahrefs Brand Radar)
By Lily Ray
Social•Feb 8, 2026
Google Demotion Slashes Grokipedia Clicks by 300K in Week
The Grokipedia drop is an interesting one to watch; it was inevitable that Google would eventually demote the site in search, but it was a question of when & how big the drop will ultimately be. So far from 1.7M...
By Lily Ray
Social•Feb 5, 2026
Google Discover Update Impact Lost in Volatile Data
Trying to analyze the impact of a Google Discover core update when Discover is already super volatile 🤣 https://t.co/5Q2kyfkgux
By Lily Ray
Social•Feb 5, 2026
Google and Bing Clarify Separate .md Pages for LLM Crawlers
Got answers from both Google and now also Bing (thx @facan) about using separate .md pages for LLM crawlers I’m not saying it’s right or wrong either way (jury is still out as many folks are testing the impact now),...
By Lily Ray
Social•Feb 5, 2026
Gemini's AI Boosts Ad Inventory From Complex Searches
I found this part interesting: “…the longer AI Mode queries are creating new ad inventory. Gemini’s understanding of intent “has increased our ability to deliver ads on longer, more complex searches that were previously challenging to monetize.” https://t.co/VuF4kuWVJK
By Lily Ray
Social•Feb 4, 2026
Review Sites Rebound After 2023 Update Declines
Interesting: Seeing some upward visibility trends among a few different review sites that saw big declines in 2023 (tied to core updates and 'Reviews' updates that year) The number 1 on the pink chart is the 2023 Reviews Update (August) https://t.co/6K8e0cZbpq
By Lily Ray
Social•Feb 4, 2026
Google AI Overviews Missing Source Citations, Raising Ethics Concerns
Hey Google... Whatever happened to including citations in AI Overviews? Where did the sources go? Almost all links here go to new Google searches/YouTube? Are you seriously testing this? It's beyond unethical & unfair to site owners. @rajanpatel @rmstein https://t.co/TmMrYVyA5l
By Lily Ray
Social•Feb 3, 2026
New Blog's Visibility Lags Despite 1,420 Posts
This software company's blog has only existed since July 2025. It has 1,420 indexed posts on Google. 61 of them are self-promotional listicles (4% of the blog). First chart shows their blog's visibility. Second chart shows the entire site's visibility. Playing with fire... https://t.co/3kNGq7CsBO
By Lily Ray
Social•Feb 3, 2026
Google AI Overviews Retain Penalized Pages Briefly
I still see that pages hit by algorithm updates/manual actions appear in Google's AI Overviews for a few days after they fall in traditional search results. Are others seeing the same?
By Lily Ray
Social•Feb 3, 2026
Google Appears to Target Self‑promotional Listicles
As I was digging into companies affected by recent volatility on Google yesterday, I noticed a pretty major pattern I felt I had to share. Is Google finally cracking down on self-promotional listicle content? https://t.co/3pLNYcXoSZ https://t.co/DCPS2h1Y7o
By Lily Ray
Social•Feb 2, 2026
Google AI Snippets Use Meaning, Not Exact Words
Interesting - when Google's Web Guide uses AI to generate custom snippets (meta descriptions) for the page, it can incorporate words from the search query, even if those exact words aren't contained on the page. It looks for 'meaning' - not...
By Lily Ray
Social•Feb 2, 2026
Mass‑generated Resume Pages Suffer From Duplicate Templates, Bad Schema
This is a subfolder on a resume site with 500+ programmatic pages for "resume examples for ____ career" All use the exact same formula Page templates are highly similar All pages misuse AggregateRating Schema Lots of obvious AI content Worked until it...
By Lily Ray
Social•Feb 2, 2026
Big Firms Flood Blogs with Basic Explainer Content
I am seeing the /blog/ sections for various large companies dropping in the last week or two. The blogs seem to be full of tons of explainer content for basic concepts within their niche, like "what is ____" or "how to...
By Lily Ray
Social•Jan 30, 2026
New Test Suggests ChatGPT May Be Pulling Google Results
Interesting new test by @MalteLandwehr showing how ChatGPT likely uses Google, plus my thoughts: https://t.co/ndqonHJoTq
By Lily Ray
Social•Jan 30, 2026
Off‑site Marketing, PR, and Community Crucial for SEO Pre‑AI
Some folks will apparently be very surprised to hear that off-site marketing, digital PR, community management and online reputation management were indeed also important for SEO before AI search got here.
By Lily Ray
Social•Jan 29, 2026
Rel=sponsored: Google’s Hidden Training Tool for Links
Reminds me of when Google introduced the rel=sponsored attribute for links “Why should we do this?” “Idk, cuz it helps train Google I guess.”
By Lily Ray
Social•Jan 28, 2026
LinkedIn Flags AI‑generated Images with New Content Label
I made this image on ChatGPT and added it to LinkedIn. Never seen this "Content credentials" label appear before - looks like LinkedIn is telling people when images are 100% AI-generated. 🤔 (Sorry if not new, it's new to me!) https://t.co/ZXENZmGKox
By Lily Ray
Social•Jan 28, 2026
Search Shifts From Keywords to AI‑Driven Entity Understanding
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,...
By Lily Ray
Social•Jan 27, 2026
AI Auto‑Responses: A Sales Strategy Mistake
I can't think of a worse sales strategy than auto-responding to social media posts with AI-generated comments that pitch your company. Bad look.
By Lily Ray
Social•Jan 26, 2026
TikTok's Woes May Spark Rise of New Rival
Between this and the new privacy policy, sounds like TikTok is going to need a new competitor soon.
By Lily Ray
Social•Jan 23, 2026
Cute Videos with Affiliate Links Are Likely AI-Generated
If you see a really cute (like too cute to be true) video on here, followed by the top comment being an affiliate link to buy some product… it’s probably AI.
By Lily Ray
Social•Jan 21, 2026
SEO Visibility Spikes for Entertainment Title Pages
Interesting trend: There was recently an uptick in SEO visibility among these similar page types (@sistrix): - IMDB movie titles - Spotify track pages - Netflix movie titles - Spotify artist pages - Rotten Tomatoes movie pages - Goodreads book titles https://t.co/lyQjJf6ds1
By Lily Ray
Social•Jan 21, 2026
LLMs Pull Google’s Dynamically Rewritten Meta Descriptions
If ChatGPT (and other LLMs) are retrieving snippets from Google's search results, they aren't retrieving exact meta descriptions; they are retrieving whatever Google dynamically re-wrote the meta description to based on the query. 2020 study from @ahrefs: https://t.co/q8OMGtt50k
By Lily Ray
Social•Jan 20, 2026
Health Sites Tumble as AI Overviews Erode Rankings
Really wild to see authoritative health publishers who have dominated in SEO for many years get hit so hard by this last core update, across various media networks Wondering if there is some cycle where content is now being answered by...
By Lily Ray
Social•Jan 20, 2026
Launching My Substack: SEO & AI Search Outlook 2026
I finally did something I've been wanting to do for a long time: I launched a Substack 🥳 In my first piece, I shared a reflection about the SEO & AI search industry in 2025, what I think matters, and...
By Lily Ray
Social•Jan 15, 2026
Make Your Site LLM‑Ready with Concise Checklists
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...
By Lily Ray