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u/annseosmarty

Google I/O just confirmed that LLMs.txt file validation is coming to Chrome as part of their Agent Developer Tools
▲ 6 r/AISearchAnalytics+1 crossposts

Google I/O just confirmed that LLMs.txt file validation is coming to Chrome as part of their Agent Developer Tools

As a reminder, this came a couple of days after the official Google guidelines were published, claiming llms.txt or md are not needed.

To be sure, these are different teams and goals. Google’s guidelines are for *search* findability. This one is preparing you for the future when AI agents will perform actions on users’ behalf to help them find API directions, buy products, etc. Still, some alignment wouldn't hurt, would it?

https://preview.redd.it/97l13rb1vd2h1.jpg?width=1819&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2e1fb1ee68d14e78b86c18e8e6aa9d220ee3c96e

Source

reddit.com
u/annseosmarty — 1 day ago
▲ 2 r/SEO_for_AI

Non-commodity content = keep your voice heard through AI answers

Interesting concept for Google to start recommending. You need more non-commodity content!

annsmarty.com
u/annseosmarty — 3 days ago
▲ 2 r/SEO_for_AI

Google's official AI SEO "myth busting": What stood out to you?

  • Even though Google says there are no "hacks", it does include two new acronyms in the guidelines, kind of giving them life :)
  • The guidelines repeatedly stress that it is only for the searching layer of AI answers
  • Schema is pretty much only useful for rich snippets...
u/annseosmarty — 6 days ago
▲ 13 r/AISearchAnalytics+3 crossposts

Google appears to be removing the brand that created the listicle from Consideration as does ChatGPT

A lot of chatter about this on X, and I am seeing the same! Self-serving listices listing the brand is #1 may be used (and cited), but the brand is not mentioned...

Curious if others are seeing this:

X discussions for more examples:

u/annseosmarty — 10 days ago
▲ 7 r/SEO_for_AI

What to Do to Get Cited by AI? Is It SEO or GEO?

I get it: Citations are measurable so we want to get cited. But from the tactical standpoint, how much of it is “only GEO” or even new to SEO?

annsmarty.com
u/annseosmarty — 10 days ago
▲ 31 r/Weblinkr+9 crossposts

AI is not disrupting traditional search [Study] (AI Overviews do)

Datos published a study showing that AI is not outpacing search in growth or usage.

On an absolute basis, traditional search is outpacing AI tool growth.

https://preview.redd.it/xk9c8civ0qzg1.jpg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e4ba0db876c487965f3b4892fb893847e50aa6c6

Despite the "disruption", people are searching Google as much as ever...

https://preview.redd.it/t0ubt6o01qzg1.jpg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7173829912119a492cf098dde0ac35e1634cb5c6

Now, before you attack this thread, I am not claiming this should convince anyone to forget about LLM optimization. I believe SEO and GEO are inseparable.

If there's one thing that is actually disrupting SEO (or else its traditional metrics and KPIs), it is the AI Overviews as they are the biggest drivers of 0-click marketing at this point.

Source: LinkedIn / u/randfish

reddit.com
u/WebLinkr — 14 days ago
▲ 4 r/AISearchAnalytics+1 crossposts

AI is not a linear algorithm! It's a black box!

Two days ago, Glenn Gabe shared an interesting quote from Google's podcast:

>Nikola: "The reason it's not so easy to apply AI everywhere (in Search) is because the models function like a black box. You don't always understand what's happening underneath. It's a complex set of neural networks. The linear models are the easiest ones to understand and debug, because it's not like you can just put your AI or ML system into search and reap the most benefit from your side by side experiments."

THIS IS NOT the first time Googlers admit to being pretty helpless at debugging AI-powered search algorithm (we tend to think this is what happened with Helpful Content Algorithm). Back in 2024 I shared this quote:

>"Amit Singhal who led Search until 2016 ... argued against the other search leads that Google should use less machine-learning, or at least contain it as much as possible, so that ranking stays debuggable and understandable by human search engineers."

While this is overall interesting for traditional SEO, for "GEO" it opens up an important question: How optimizable is the AI system since it is not debuggable by its own engineers?

u/annseosmarty — 17 days ago
▲ 2 r/SEO_for_AI

Current GEO strategies tend to focus on optimizing for citations. But do we actually understand how those work?

u/annseosmarty — 17 days ago
▲ 8 r/AISearchAnalytics+1 crossposts

Some good ideas, not just for Claude analysis but overall for tracking in whichever AI analytics tool you are using!

For branded prompts, don't forget to keep them in a separate folder!

Source: Linkedin

u/annseosmarty — 23 days ago
▲ 5 r/SEO_for_AI

Yesterday, I got notified of a post mentioning me as an active SEO account to follow on Reddit (thanks). After a single day, I decided to check if LLMs have picked up on the thread. Here are the results:

Model Planned used Was the thread cited? Did the thread influence the answer?
Google's web guide Public/free Yes Yes
AI Overview Public/free Yes Yes
AI Mode Public/free Yes Yes
Gemini 3 / Fast (Paid) Yes Yes
Perplexity Free/logged in Yes Yes
ChatGPT 5.5 (paid) No No
Claude Sonneet 4.6 (free) No No

Here's the web guide screenshot (it pulled names from both the thread and the comments!):

https://preview.redd.it/syn0m14yzcxg1.png?width=1282&format=png&auto=webp&s=9623507044ce246ab70938798a601d16d064c83e

Here's the AI Overview (after I switched to the classic search). It icludes usernames:

https://preview.redd.it/yua223ig0dxg1.png?width=1264&format=png&auto=webp&s=646c7fe9159fa558af54ffe540ae5c9541ac1ea6

AI Mode also pulled some citations from the thread:

https://preview.redd.it/mxqv1fnl0dxg1.png?width=1834&format=png&auto=webp&s=0589feee12e600c023f6ac666d38c9f87b79dad1

Perplexity only used the thread after I logged in (the public version didn't do much searching and pulled older threads)

Curious if Perplexity is pulling from its some sort of cache when answering public prompts

Gemini created a helpful table listing the names from the thread.

I like it how ChatGPT found my name \"familiar\" LOL

ChatGPT failed to find and cite the thread but just look at its fan-outs!

  • It actually knows which subreddits to search!
  • It *really* wanted to include John Mueller
  • It is a little confused with some advanced Google operators :)

https://preview.redd.it/arszuxsm3dxg1.png?width=868&format=png&auto=webp&s=e6f90d5294b8368898e9113b4a0f4a496ecd0af1

Claude didn't find the thread. But I am not using the PRO account. But look at its fan-outs! It also knows the big SEO subreddit but it also needs a calendar :)))

https://preview.redd.it/n7brew8c2dxg1.png?width=912&format=png&auto=webp&s=10ef2b0d344c7911aaf7296e27aed08c0dc59356

Takeaways:

  • The thread in question ranks, so this LLM visibility is likely driven by Google
  • A Reddit mention can influence AI answers pretty quickly (but, likely, not for a lifetime). If you and at least one of your competitors start using Reddit to manipulate this, that is going to be a fun race to watch :)
  • The thread did, in fact, influence the answer any time it was cited
  • ChatGPT search is, again, weird :)
reddit.com
u/annseosmarty — 27 days ago
▲ 9 r/SEO_for_AI

Reddit wouldn't stop recommending me to create this post, so here you go!

Please read the rules, try to be friendly, and you will love it here!

reddit.com
u/annseosmarty — 29 days ago
▲ 5 r/AISearchAnalytics+2 crossposts

I've been looking at my client's competitors in Peec, and the newer URL report caught my attention. This is how it works:

For every cited URL (yours, competitor's, or third-party), Peec returns an analysis that includes:

  • How often retrieved over time
  • Prompts it is retrieved for
  • AI chats that cite the URL and whether your brand is included in those answers.

This last thing was a little eye-opening as my client wasn't surfaced in any of those chats but the competitor was (and their URL was cited as noted). So basically, the competitor is found through it owned content!

This offers so much actionable insight into creating your editorial calendar:

  • Analyze the competitor's successfully cited URLs
  • See if those citations help the brand get included in the answer
  • Create content that solves the same problems (but better)
  • Wait for that content to rank (or help it) to increase its chances of getting cited
  • Watch your brand included in the chats!

https://preview.redd.it/9wm16wdwrywg1.png?width=1344&format=png&auto=webp&s=b0dd1ab1790178976c69533d82fbe7a8cf62e625

No need to chase each opportunity, but make sure to analyze the top citations with a strong retrieval pattern, i.e., those that are cited by various models over and over again.

reddit.com
u/annseosmarty — 25 days ago
▲ 12 r/SEO_for_AI

Those claiming LLMs pick URLs from elsewhere (and not Google), let's wait and see if Google's fight with listicles will end up impacting their LLM citation rates. Who's taking the bets?

u/annseosmarty — 30 days ago
▲ 5 r/AISearchAnalytics+1 crossposts

Ahrefs has published another study on how to get cited by ChatGPT. The findings are mind-blowing:

  • Although ChatGPT crawls dozens of pages to answer a single query, it only ends up citing ~50% of them
  • ChatGPT is using Reddit extensively to understand topics, gauge consensus, and build context—but it almost never gives Reddit the credit (67.8% of all non-cited URLs come from Reddit). I wonder what Reddit thinks of that...
  • Title relevance to fanout queries is an important factor in citation. Ultimately, if your URL and title don’t semantically align with the AI’s internal fanout queries, you’re less likely to get cited.
  • ChatGPT prefers fresh content, but tends to cite comparatively “older” content more often.

https://preview.redd.it/tnhj9uz6alwg1.png?width=1476&format=png&auto=webp&s=3904d42bf8b50f808c248a8cf1568f5be4d983bd

>Ultimately, the pages that get cited are the ones whose titles and content match the questions ChatGPT is asking behind the scenes, and that surface through the right retrieval channel.

Source

reddit.com
u/annseosmarty — 1 month ago