Google
Search Console Lags Are a Weak Core Update Signal
SEOs read two-day Search Console lags as a core update warning, but Google's own records give them little to stand on.
AEO Sherpa: news and guides on AI search and answer engine optimization
Field guides
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ChatGPT Pulls In Subdomains, Ray Says. Google Adds Alerts
Lily Ray says ChatGPT's site: searches reach subdomains, and Google's help page says a parent owner is told when a child property opts out of AI features.
Robots.txt for AI Crawlers: Which Bots to Allow, and Why
Blocking the wrong user agent can quietly remove you from ChatGPT, Claude, or Perplexity answers. A field guide to the main AI crawlers, what each one does, and a sensible default.
What Is Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)? A Plain-English Guide
AEO is the practice of making your content easy for AI systems to find, understand, and cite. Here is how it differs from SEO, what actually moves the needle, and where to start.
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Latest
All stories →- Google
Google Is Moving Searchers Into AI Mode. Publishers Are Paying for the Trip.
An AI Mode button on the homepage, an "Ask anything" box under AI Overviews, and a billion monthly users. What the shift means for anyone who depends on clicks from Google.
- Google
Some Links in AI Overviews Now Open AI Mode, Not Your Website
A chart from Peec AI shows external links inside AI Overview answers jumping in September. A screen recording shows other links sending users deeper into Google. Here is what is known, and how Search Console counts each one.
- Research
Reddit Beats Brands and the Press in Australian AI Shopping Answers, Study Finds
Findrix asked ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, and AI Overviews 23,000 buying questions across nine Australian markets. Reddit was cited more than any other site, and brands' own websites supplied about two thirds of what the engines read.
- News
EmDash 1.0 Ships, With a Plugin Registry No Company Controls
Cloudflare's open-source CMS built on Astro is now stable. Its plugin registry runs on AT Protocol, and every plugin runs in a sandbox with only the permissions a site owner approves.
- Opinion
Why We Started AEO Sherpa
Search is turning into conversation, and the rules for being found are being rewritten in public, one product update at a time. Somebody should keep careful notes.
- Guides
How to Write Pages That AI Answer Engines Actually Quote
AI systems lift passages, not pages. Six writing patterns that make your content easy to extract and safe to cite, with before-and-after examples.
- Platforms
Perplexity Cuts Search API Prices for AI Agents With "Fast Search"
The new option runs on Photon, a retrieval engine Perplexity rebuilt in Rust. It costs a fifth of standard search and answers in about 160 milliseconds, with measurable trade-offs on hard questions.
