When you look at how LLMs choose sources, what signal do you think carries the most weight?

Some possibilities:

• Topical authority
• Brand/entity recognition
• Original research
• Structured data
• Content freshness
• External citations and mentions
• Something else

I'm interested in practical observations and experiments rather than assumptions. If you've tested something that consistently improved citations or visibility in LLMs, I'd love to hear about it.

I'm curious whether anyone has tracked how long it takes AI platforms to start citing newly published or significantly updated content.

Specifically:

• ChatGPT
• Gemini
• Perplexity
• Claude

Have you noticed consistent timelines?

I'm not asking about indexing in Google Search. I'm interested in when AI systems begin referencing or citing the updated information in their answers.

If you've run experiments, I'd love to hear what you observed.

As AI Search becomes a larger discovery channel, I'm seeing more people focus on mentions and citations.

Personally, I think those metrics are useful, but they only matter if they eventually contribute to leads, sales, or brand growth.

What does success look like in your reporting today?

• AI referral traffic
• Citations
• Brand mentions
• Conversions
• Something else?

Running a small business means wearing a lot of hats.

What's one task you automated that made a noticeable difference?

It could be:

• Customer support
• Invoicing
• Marketing
• Scheduling
• Inventory
• Follow-ups

I'd love to hear real examples that have worked.

There is a real split people miss. Answer bots like OAI-SearchBot, Claude-SearchBot, and PerplexityBot are how you get cited, while training crawlers like GPTBot and Google-Extended just feed models. Plenty of sites block the wrong group in robots.txt and quietly delete themselves from AI answers, then wonder why they vanished from Perplexity. Post it as a quick audit prompt: go check your robots.txt right now, and report back what you find, because this one line is costing people citations they do not know they lost.

"Google is showing more links in AI Overviews now. Is zero-click actually reversing?"
Google recently started surfacing more source links inside AI Mode and AI Overviews to push people toward original content and first-hand perspective. After two years of everyone declaring zero-click the end of SEO, this feels like a small swing back. Set it up as a genuine debate: is this a real reversal that rewards publishers again, or just Google managing optics while most answers still resolve on the results page? Ask people what their click-through has actually done in the last month.

As a small business owner, there's always another tool, platform, or service promising more leads.

Looking back, what's the one marketing investment that has consistently delivered the best return for your business?

It could be:

• SEO
• Google Ads
• Facebook or Instagram Ads
• Email marketing
• Word of mouth
• Networking
• Content marketing
• Something else entirely

I'm interested in hearing real experiences rather than generic advice. What has worked best for your business, and why?

Most SEO dashboards still focus on rankings, clicks, and impressions from traditional search.

But users are increasingly discovering brands through AI platforms like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, and AI Overviews.

I'm curious how everyone is measuring success today.

• Are you tracking AI referral traffic?
• Are you monitoring brand mentions in AI-generated answers?
• Have you changed your reporting for clients or stakeholders?

I'd love to hear what metrics you're using and what's actually proving useful.

There is a real split people miss. Answer bots like OAI-SearchBot, Claude-SearchBot, and PerplexityBot are how you get cited, while training crawlers like GPTBot and Google-Extended just feed models. Plenty of sites block the wrong group in robots.txt and quietly delete themselves from AI answers, then wonder why they vanished from Perplexity. Post it as a quick audit prompt: go check your robots.txt right now, and report back what you find, because this one line is costing people citations they do not know they lost.

"Google is showing more links in AI Overviews now. Is zero-click actually reversing?"
Google recently started surfacing more source links inside AI Mode and AI Overviews to push people toward original content and first-hand perspective. After two years of everyone declaring zero-click the end of SEO, this feels like a small swing back. Set it up as a genuine debate: is this a real reversal that rewards publishers again, or just Google managing optics while most answers still resolve on the results page? Ask people what their click-through has actually done in the last month.

Quick reality check, because this space feels like 90% course sellers and 10% stuff that shows up in logs.

The part that is real: the thing "reading" your page is increasingly a bot picking for a human who never sees your result. Two things move the needle there. One, bot access. Answer agents (OAI-SearchBot, Claude-SearchBot, PerplexityBot) get you cited, training crawlers just feed models.

Block the wrong one in robots.txt and you quietly vanish from Perplexity. Two, evaluability. If an agent cannot quickly extract what you do, who it is for, and what it costs, it moves to the competitor with cleaner data.

The part I am not sold on: llms.txt. Google added it as a Lighthouse signal in May but calls it informational only, and most tools do not read it by default. Mueller keeps pointing at WebMCP instead.

So my honest read: the agent shift is real, but half the "agentic SEO checklist" being sold is just clean technical SEO in a new costume.

What are you actually seeing? Has llms.txt driven measurable citations for anyone, or is it still theater?

Quick reality check, because this space feels like 90% course sellers and 10% stuff that shows up in logs.

The part that is real: the thing "reading" your page is increasingly a bot picking for a human who never sees your result. Two things move the needle there. One, bot access. Answer agents (OAI-SearchBot, Claude-SearchBot, PerplexityBot) get you cited, training crawlers just feed models.

Block the wrong one in robots.txt and you quietly vanish from Perplexity. Two, evaluability. If an agent cannot quickly extract what you do, who it is for, and what it costs, it moves to the competitor with cleaner data.

The part I am not sold on: llms.txt. Google added it as a Lighthouse signal in May but calls it informational only, and most tools do not read it by default. Mueller keeps pointing at WebMCP instead.

So my honest read: the agent shift is real, but half the "agentic SEO checklist" being sold is just clean technical SEO in a new costume.

What are you actually seeing? Has llms.txt driven measurable citations for anyone, or is it still theater?

For years, SEO was mostly about ranking on Google.

Today, users are discovering brands through Google Search, ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, AI Overviews, and other AI-powered platforms.

Do you think SEO is evolving into something broader, or is this simply another phase of SEO?

How are you adapting your strategy?