SEO and AI search

How a page ranks in Google and gets cited by ChatGPT, Claude and AI Overviews. These notes cover the first lines, structured data, llms.txt, crawler access and the numbers worth tracking.

19 articles

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How to get cited in Google AI Overviews and ChatGPT in 2026

Only 38% of AI Overview citations rank in Google's top 10, and about 12% of ChatGPT, Gemini and Copilot citations do. Six steps to get cited by both.

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Multimodal GEO: 6 steps to get images and video cited by AI

Only 3 of 6 major AI crawlers read image alt text, and none watch the video on your page. Six steps that move both into the text AI engines read.

Two overlapping circles: on the left a single highlighted answer above result lines, on the right a written answer with citation chips, and a lit checklist in the overlap

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GEO vs AEO: what actually differs, and what changes in 2026

AEO grew out of featured snippets. GEO came from a Princeton paper at KDD 2024. The mechanics, the crawlers and the reporting split. The checklist does not.

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llms-full.txt vs llms.txt: what each does and when to add it

llms-full.txt is a full-text export of your site; llms.txt is just an index. Here is how they differ, what the 2026 data shows, and when to ship each.

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AI search traffic converts 4.4x better: the SaaS capture playbook

AI answers cut Google clicks to 8% of visits. But AI-referred visitors convert 4.4x better than organic. How SaaS teams capture and measure that traffic.

One search bar above two large overlapping circles of source tiles, white on the left and grey on the right, with a few glowing white tiles in their thin shared lens

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AI Overviews vs AI Mode: why they cite different sources in 2026

Google merged AI Overviews and AI Mode into one search box in 2026, yet they still share only 13.7% of citations. Here is why, and how to earn both.

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Brand mentions vs backlinks: what predicts AI citations in 2026

Ahrefs measured 75,000 brands: branded web mentions correlate 0.664 with AI visibility, backlinks 0.218. Here is what that changes in the work.

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Google's scaled content abuse policy: the AI pipeline that survives

Google's June 2026 spam update ran on SpamBrain in two days. What the scaled content abuse policy actually checks, and how to build a pipeline it clears.

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Sitemap strategy for a large content site: split, index, lastmod

A single sitemap caps at 50,000 URLs and 50MB. Here is how to shard a large blog into a sitemap index, keep lastmod honest, and get new posts crawled in hours.

An article page on the left wired to three structured records on the right: a record of fields, a chain of three crumbs and question-answer pairs

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How to add JSON-LD to a blog article the right way in 2026

JSON-LD is Google's recommended structured-data format. Here is the exact Article, BreadcrumbList, and FAQPage markup we ship on every post, with Next.js code.

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Technical SEO checklist for a B2B SaaS launch in 2026

Before a SaaS site goes live, eight technical SEO checks decide whether Google and AI engines can find it: Core Web Vitals, schema, crawl access, indexing.

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Content freshness in 2026: the 90-day rule for SEO and GEO

AI assistants in 2026 skip stale content. A 90-day refresh cycle that moves data, facts, and structure brings them back to the page.

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GEO KPIs in 2026: Citation Rate, Mention Rate, Position

Citation rate, mention rate, position: the three GEO KPIs worth tracking in 2026. Everything else is a dashboard moving without meaning.

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Cloudflare AI crawler allow list: GPTBot and ClaudeBot

Cloudflare blocks AI crawlers on new domains by default. The WAF rule, the robots.txt, and the checks that keep GPTBot and ClaudeBot reading your pages.

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The 7 schema markup types every blog needs in 2026

Article, BreadcrumbList, Organization, Person, WebSite, FAQPage, HowTo. Which schema types still earn rich results in 2026, and which are pure AI citation fuel.

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llms.txt: what it is, what to put in it, and if you need one

llms.txt is a markdown index that hands LLMs a curated map of your site. Here is what to put in it and whether it actually moves AI citations.

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How to write the first 200 tokens so AI engines cite your article

The first 30% of an article drives 44% of AI citations. A practical guide to an opener ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity quote cleanly.

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The 12 GEO best practices that actually move citation rates in 2026

Twelve GEO practices we apply on every article, with the measured lift from Princeton, Averi, and Search Engine Land citation benchmarks.

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What is Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) vs SEO

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is how content gets cited inside ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI answers. Here is what it changes versus SEO.

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