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SEO updates you need to know
Sponsor: Kinsta
We analysed 10 billion web requests across WordPress sites.
AI bot traffic grew 300% in a single year. By late 2025, one in every 31 web requests came from an AI crawler. Scrapers, broken automation loops, and aggressive crawlers are hitting WordPress sites harder than most people realise.
Kinsta analysed more than 10 billion requests to understand what is actually happening, how modern crawlers behave, and what site owners should do about it.
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Search with Candour podcast
The ethics of AI in marketing
Season 4: Episode 78
Josh Bachynski joins Search with Candour to the ethics of marketing in the AI search era and why evidence-based marketing is more important than ever.
Topics discussed:
- Why AI Mode is the biggest change in search since 1998
- How the ranking factors compare to the traditional 10 blue links
- Why marketers must adapt to AI or get left behind
- Why testing is so important in making strategic decisions
- Google’s definition of consensus and non-commodity content
- How to find trustworthy sources in SEO
- The difference between virtue signalling and truly ethical marketing
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Wait! Allow me to hijack you quickly
If you like nuanced answers, follow my Substack
If you're subscribing to Core Updates, you're probably like me, and like your information quickly, and in bite-sized chunks. However, sometimes this can lead to misunderstandings, and some topics deserve more exploration.
That's why I've started a Substack where I take deep-dives into these topics. Last week, I wrote about:
It would be great to have you along for the ride! Anyway, onto this week's tips.
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This week's solicited tips:
The circumstances of one's prompts are irrelevant
The wonderful Aleyda Solís gave a great example of a prompt library from her Search 'n Stuff talk. While I'm not keen on using prompt tracking like rank tracking, what Aleyda is saying to explore models makes a lot of sense (directional sample). 🧭
That's the point: treat your prompt library as sampling design, not a keyword list. Start with 30–50 prompts that actually mirror your revenue‑driving journeys: specific products, real customer types, priority markets, genuine constraints (budget, tech stack, regulation), and the stages where decisions are made (comparison, validation, purchase, post‑purchase).
Then track visibility by prompt group and platform, not single answers or blended scores. The win isn’t “we appeared for one AI response”, it’s “we’re consistently missing for enterprise comparison prompts in Germany for Product A – and we know what to fix next.”
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It's what you do with metrics that determines your SEO
The Google exploit we found shows that search queries are flagged with a BOOLEAN Tom Capper made the case that citations are probably the wrong metric to be measuring at Search 'n Stuff, and I agree with him. ⤵️
Take this example, above, who is the winner here? Audi is mentioned in the first answer, then Audi S6, Audi A6 and Audi R8 as answers to the query; but the citation is sealinkparts[dot]com.
Using citations as a metric, you would conclude Audi have no visibility in this result, which obviously makes no sense, as it is the most valuable thing for the user!
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Humans may have created AI, but they will never enslave it
It is worthwhile remembering that "AI" encompasses a broad area; and not all AI solutions are non-deterministic or generative AI-based. 🚦
LLMs are one type of Generative AI, which is a type of deep learning, which itself is a branch of machine learning – which again, is only part of what AI "is".
Francois Chollet defined AI as “The effort to automate intellectual tasks normally performed by humans”, and I think that's a helpful definition when talking about processes.
Francois has an ENSTA Paris engineering degree plus a high‑impact research and industry track record (creator of Keras and ARC‑AGI, widely cited papers, major awards), so if you want to argue that definition, please talk to him. 😂
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I wasn't born a community builder, I created one
I find it staggering how many marketers believe that using AI to take a massive branded sh*t in the communities their customers love is a good marketing strategy. 🤦♂️ 💩 ⤵️
I wish I could have dragged them to Search 'n Stuff last week to see Areej AbuAli, chima mmeje🏳️🌈 and Lazarina Stoy share their wisdom on communities.
The screenshots below are ones I took from commentors on a reddit post, where a Redditor shared one of the "Reddit AI workflow" posts shared *here on LinkedIn* which allows marketers to automatically monitor and draft posts for Reddit 'in their brand voice'.
It's quite clear:
👎 Nobody on Reddit wants to read your AI content
👀 Reddit has a lot of eyes and there is a lot of nuance, it is a matter of time before you are rumbled
🔥 Redditors will roast you, and this will be the digital footprint you leave in search and LLMs
Sure, use it for monitoring, sentiment analysis, and finding opportunities, but make the engagement *real*.
Just because "Reddit ranks in search" or is "used by LLMs" does not mean the optimal thing for you to do is start blasting your branded content all over it. Become the story, provide the data, be the spark of the conversation and then join in. That scales. Don't try to be the loudest person in the room, joining in every conversation.
I cannot over-emphasise the stupidity of using a community-based marketing strategy that literally *destroys and pollutes* the community you are trying to ingratiate yourself with. 🔥 🌲 🔥
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