u/digitalKeda

As AI-powered search continues to grow, many website owners are trying to understand what helps a new website get mentioned or cited in AI-generated answers. Unlike traditional SEO, there doesn't seem to be a clear roadmap yet.

If you've successfully increased AI mentions for a new website, what strategies have worked for you? Have you focused on high-quality content, digital PR, brand mentions, structured data, topical authority, or something else? I'd love to hear your real-world experience and what's actually making a difference.

SEO is constantly evolving, and while everyone talks about backlinks, content, and keywords, some ranking factors don’t get nearly as much attention. In your experience, what’s the most underrated ranking factor that consistently makes a difference? Share your insights and real-world examples—your answer could help others improve their SEO strategy.

Google has officially confirmed that its spam policies now apply to AI Search (AI Overviews & AI Mode)

The problem? Some people are trying to influence AI answers by posting fake recommendations, reviews, and brand mentions across blogs, forums, and other websites.

For example, if hundreds of sites keep saying "XYZ Hosting is the best hosting provider," AI may start recommending it—even if those claims aren't genuine.

Google says this kind of manipulation is considered Spam, but it also admits it's much harder to detect because these posts often look like real user opinions.

The biggest takeaway Instead of trying to trick AI into mentioning your brand, focus on creating helpful content and building real authority. That's the strategy most likely to work in the long run.

What's your opinion?

Do you think AI Search will become easier to manipulate than traditional Google Search, or will Google eventually solve this problem?

With AI-powered search experiences changing how users interact with Google, many SEO professionals have noticed shifts in impressions, clicks, and user behavior. Have AI Overviews changed your SEO strategy, or are you seeing similar results as before?

Every career comes with lessons, but some mistakes cost us far more than others—whether it's time, money, missed opportunities, or career growth. Looking back, what's one mistake you made early in your career that you wish someone had warned you about? Share your experience and what you learned so others can avoid making the same mistake.

Every career comes with lessons, but some mistakes cost us far more than others—whether it's time, money, missed opportunities, or career growth. Looking back, what's one mistake you made early in your career that you wish someone had warned you about? Share your experience and what you learned so others can avoid making the same mistake.

WP Rocket has introduced a new feature that lets users speed up their most important pages with a built-in free CDN. Instead of configuring a separate CDN service, you can now accelerate up to three priority pages directly from the plugin.

The feature is designed to help improve loading speed and Core Web Vitals with minimal setup, making it especially useful for landing pages, homepages, or other high-traffic pages. While larger websites may still benefit from a full-site CDN, this is a great addition for smaller websites or anyone who wants to test CDN performance without extra cost.

What do you think about this update? Will you be trying it on your WordPress site?

WP Rocket has introduced a new feature that lets users speed up their most important pages with a built-in free CDN. Instead of configuring a separate CDN service, you can now accelerate up to three priority pages directly from the plugin.

The feature is designed to help improve loading speed and Core Web Vitals with minimal setup, making it especially useful for landing pages, homepages, or other high-traffic pages. While larger websites may still benefit from a full-site CDN, this is a great addition for smaller websites or anyone who wants to test CDN performance without extra cost.

What do you think about this update? Will you be trying it on your WordPress site?

WordPress offers dozens of SEO plugins, but if you had to rely on just one, which would it be and why? Have you found a plugin that genuinely improved your rankings, workflow, or website performance? Share your experience and what makes that plugin your go-to choice.

There are plenty of AI plugins for writing content, generating images, and basic SEO tasks, but it feels like WordPress still has a lot of untapped potential.

If you could add one AI feature to WordPress, what would it be?

Some ideas:

AI that automatically updates outdated content.

AI internal linking based on topic relevance.

AI technical SEO audits with one click.

AI that optimizes content for AI search and AI Overviews.

AI that detects and fixes Core Web Vitals issues.

What feature would actually make your workflow easier, and why?

Curious to hear ideas from WordPress users, SEOs, developers, and digital marketers.

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With AI Overviews, AI-powered search engines, and LLMs changing how people find information, traditional SEO seems to be evolving fast.

Are you changing your content strategy, focusing more on entities, building topical authority, optimizing for AI citations, or doing something completely different?

Have you noticed any traffic changes because of AI search?

Are you creating content differently than you did a year ago?

What tactics are actually working for you in 2026?

I'd love to hear real experiences from SEO professionals, bloggers, WordPress site owners, and digital marketers. Share what's working, what isn't, and where you think SEO is heading next.

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I was reading about Claude Fable 5, and it feels like AI is moving beyond the "write me a blog post" stage. The interesting part is that it's built to handle bigger and more complicated tasks, like planning a complete SEO strategy, researching a topic in depth, analyzing data, helping with technical work, and even working through long projects without needing constant prompts.

For people in SEO and digital marketing, this could be a much bigger change than another content-writing tool. Imagine asking AI to audit a website, create a content plan, suggest technical fixes, and organize an entire campaign instead of doing each task separately. Another thing that caught my attention is that the most advanced AI capabilities may not be available to everyone, with some versions being reserved for trusted organizations. It makes me wonder if the future of AI will create a gap between those with access to the most powerful tools and everyone else.

What do you think? Is this the next big shift for SEO and digital marketing, or is the industry overestimating what AI can actually do?

Google has started rolling out Search Profiles, a new feature that lets creators and publishers have their own customizable profile directly in Google Search and Discover.

Think of it like a mix of Linktree + social profile + Google Knowledge Panel.

For example:

If someone searches for a travel creator, instead of finding their website, YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok separately, Google can show one profile containing:

1 Bio

2 Website

3 Social accounts

4 Latest videos

5 Latest articles

6 Follow button

Everything is in one place.

The interesting part is what this means for SEO.

For years the goal was:

Rank pages → Get clicks → Get traffic

Now Google seems to be moving toward:

Build a brand → Gain followers → Become a recognized entity

This could be especially important as AI Overviews and AI-powered search continue reducing traditional website clicks.

At the moment, Search Profiles are mainly available to creators with large social followings, but the bigger takeaway is Google's direction: helping users follow creators and brands directly inside Search rather than just sending traffic to websites.

Microsoft recently introduced Web IQ, a Bing-powered system designed specifically for AI agents rather than traditional search users.

The big question for SEOs is: what happens when AI tools can read websites, extract information, and answer users directly without sending them to the original source?

For example, imagine someone asks an AI assistant:

"What are the best budget smartphones under $500 in 2026?"

Instead of showing 10 search results, the AI could scan reviews, comparison articles, product pages, and expert opinions from across the web, then generate a complete recommendation instantly.

The user gets the answer they need, but the websites that originally created the content may never receive a click.

This doesn't mean SEO is dead. It may simply mean the goal is changing. Instead of focusing only on rankings and traffic, SEOs may need to focus more on building trusted brands, topical authority, entities, and content that AI systems consider reliable enough to cite.

Are we witnessing the beginning of the end for traditional SEO traffic, or just the next evolution of search?

Google's May 2026 Core Update has officially finished rolling out, and I've seen some surprisingly large ranking shifts across different websites. It seems like sites with strong expertise, topical authority, and genuinely helpful content performed better, while others relying heavily on scaled or SEO-focused content struggled. With AI becoming a bigger part of search, it feels like Google is putting even more emphasis on quality, trust, and user value. Has anyone else noticed significant gains or losses since the update?