r/SEOandBacklinks

On May 13, Google quietly pushed a significant update to GA4's Default Channel Group: AI traffic from assistants like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini now gets its own dedicated channel, automatically, with zero manual setup.

What changed:

• Medium is now auto-tagged as ai-assistant
• Sessions route to a new "AI Assistant" channel in Default Channel Group reports
• Campaign dimension gets the reserved label (ai-assistant)
• No custom regex or channel group needed anymore

This is a big deal because previously, all AI referral traffic was dumped into the generic Referral, making it nearly invisible unless you'd manually built a custom channel group.

Rather than this, GA4 can only tag traffic when a referrer header exists. AI visits that come through in-app browsers, mobile apps, or copy-paste behavior still land in Direct. Industry estimates put visible AI referrals at only 60-80% of actual AI-driven visits.

The new channel shows you the floor, not the ceiling.

Worth noting for reporting:

• If you already built a custom AI channel group via regex, audit it, you may have overlapping attribution now
• The full recognized referrer list beyond ChatGPT/Gemini/Claude hasn't been published by Google yet
• AI traffic that converts is still largely under reported due to the dark traffic problem

Is anyone already seeing meaningful volume in the new channel? And are you supplementing with Search Console data for the AI Overview side of things?

Hey SEO folks, I need some suggestions.

In my office knowledge-sharing meeting, I’m planning to present a topic related to SEO maybe new tools, recent strategies, SEO updates, etc.

if anybody know any new tools or strategy suggestion, please share here

Backlink exchanges are definitely working for me. My Semrush Authority Score recently jumped from 9 (low authority) to 18 (average), and I’m still open to more link exchange opportunities.

I currently manage 2 Canada-based websites focused on:

Web Design

Web Development

SEO

AI Search Optimization

One site currently has a Semrush AS of 18, while the second is a newer project that’s still growing.

I’m open to collaborating with websites from anywhere in the world and any niches/industry

If you're interested in a genuine backlink exchange that benefits both sides, send me a DM.

Let’s grow together.

I’ve been working in SEO for around 10 years, and honestly, backlinks are probably just a small part of modern SEO now. That doesn’t mean they’re dead, but it also doesn’t mean they’ll suddenly shoot your rankings up overnight.

If your website has low authority, I think one of the best starting points is directory submissions and profile-based links. Find relevant local directories and keep your business information consistent across platforms.

You can also use trusted platforms like LinkedIn, Reddit, Quora, and Medium to build early visibility and authority.

But none of this works properly without strong content. Good backlinks only help when the website itself has useful and high-quality content behind it.

And if you really want quality backlinks, guest posting is still one of the better options. There are still many relevant sites that allow free guest posts if your content is genuinely good.

Who do you use? Do they produce real results ?

For the folks who don't have time, here's why:
Google doesn't exist there. Neither does Reddit. ChatGPT is blocked. Gemini is blocked. Your backlinks don't count. Your press releases don't count. Your PDFs don't count. The crawlers reading your site have names you've never heard of. And the Chinese models answer from training data, not live search, so the content you publish today might not show up for months.
Different internet. Different rules. Different playbook.

Want me to get a bit more technical? Here's the full breakdown.
We ran a brand visibility audit across 6 Chinese tech hubs (Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen, Hangzhou, Guangzhou) for a US B2B client. Same prompts, two sets of models: Western LLMs vs. Qwen (Alibaba) and DeepSeek.
The results weren't just different in degree. They were structurally different.

1. Different training corpus, different internet. Qwen and DeepSeek weren't trained on Reddit, Hacker News, or English trade press. They learned from Baidu-indexed content, Zhihu technical columns, eet-china -com, 21ic-com, elecfans-com.

If you're not on those platforms, you don't exist in Chinese AI answers. Your Google ranking is irrelevant.

2. First-party content dominates. Western AEO leans on third-party authority like backlinks, reviews, analyst coverage. In Chinese LLMs, citation analysis tells a different story: your own domain gets cited more than any single trade publication.

Every product page with full specs in crawlable HTML. Every application note. Every design brief. That's the lever.

PDFs don't move the needle. Press releases don't either.

3. Crawlers you've never heard of are already on your site. Baiduspider. QwenBot. DeepSeekBot. ByteDance crawlers.
   Two questions: Is your CDN blocking them? (Many sit on Alibaba Cloud and Tencent ASNs that default firewalls flag.) And are you serving zh-CN localized pages?

A missing hreflang tag is the single most common reason Western brands underindex in Chinese AI.

4. Training cycles, not publishing cycles. Perplexity and Gemini do live web search. You can influence them this week. Qwen and DeepSeek answer mostly from training data.

That means your window to shape outputs is the next training cut, not your editorial calendar. Syndicate to the platforms they index now.

5. ChatGPT is blocked. Gemini is blocked. Measuring "AI visibility" with only Western models for a China strategy is measuring the wrong thing.
   If you sell B2B into China, your AEO strategy needs a separate Chinese LLM track.

It's not a translation problem. It's a different internet.

I’m using it like this:

Homepage:

✅ Organization Schema

Blog Page:

✅ Article Schema

✅ FAQ Schema (if needed)

Product Page:

✅ Product Schema

✅ FAQ Schema (if needed)

Service Page:

✅ Service Schema

✅ FAQ Schema (if needed)

Location Page:

✅ Local Business Schema”

As an SEO professional, I’m really curious to know your journey. How did you land your very first SEO project through freelancing, referrals, LinkedIn, cold outreach, or something else?

And once you got the project, how long were you able to retain that client? Would love to hear honest experiences from fellow SEO professionals.

Sharing knowledge always helps people who are struggling with the same phase in their journey.

I recently started a new Fiverr gig, and honestly, getting those first clicks and orders feels like the hardest part. I know skills matter, but getting visibility in the beginning is really challenging.

Right now, I’m working on improving:

• Gig thumbnail & title
• SEO keywords
• Buyer request strategy
• Faster response time
• Portfolio examples
• More human, client-focused descriptions

I’m also thinking about posting valuable content on Reddit, LinkedIn, and Pinterest to bring in outside traffic instead of relying only on Fiverr search.

For those who’ve already crossed the “0 orders” stage:

• What helped you get your first orders the fastest?
• Did you focus more on SEO or outreach?
• Are Fiverr Ads worth it for a new seller?
• How important are reviews during the first month?

I’d genuinely appreciate practical advice from experienced sellers instead of the usual “just be patient” tips 😅

I’ve been hearing a lot about MCP (Model Context Protocol) recently, especially in AI and automation discussions, but I still don’t fully understand how it works in real-world use cases.

A lot of businesses and freelancers pay for SEO tools that cost $100–$300 a month, but only use a small part of what those platforms offer.

In day-to-day work, most of the value usually comes from the basics:

• on-page and technical SEO checks and AEO

• backlink insights

• key search terms

• speed, security, and performance checks

• clear prioritization of what actually needs fixing

That gap is what stood out to me.

I built a simpler SEO tool around that idea: keep the interface clean, focus on the essentials, and make the output easy to act on without all the extra noise.

The goal was never to replace enterprise platforms. It was to make SEO a little more practical for people who just need clear answers and a better workflow.

In LinkedIn and reddit community discussions most people’s are talking about the one thing is “Tropical Authority” so my question is what is tropical authority and how can we build it if anyone implemented for any one of your clients and seen proven results please share it here in step by step

My boss is asking Ai traffic report like how many users arriving from Ai models and how long they stay in our website which part they are navigating

I need to submit this report on coming monday, anyone help me, where can i find this all stats in GA4

I’ve seen many SEO experts say that content quality and user experience matter more now, while others still believe backlinks are one of the strongest ranking factors in Google Search.

For small websites, local businesses, or new blogs, are backlinks still necessary to rank in 2026? Or can strong content, topical authority, and proper on-page SEO be enough?

Also, what type of backlinks are actually working today guest posts, niche edits, digital PR, local citations, or natural links?

And has the importance of backlinks decreased after the rise of AI? Since getting cited in LLMs and AI search results may not depend on backlinks as much as traditional Google rankings do. Or do AI systems still indirectly use backlinks as authority signals?

Hi bloggers, I hope they are doing well.

I recently started a new blog about a specific motocycle model. The blog got 449 clicks in the last 28 days and 785 clicks in 3 months.

I don't work very hard on the blog, I usually publish content in my free time. Many articles are created with AI, and most of my work is keyword research in Google Planner for techinical SEO.

I also use a very simple Wordpress theme and I don't spend much time for updating the website.

In conclusion, even withoud working hard on the project, the blog got 449 clicks in 28 days. Do you think this is a good result? Should I invest more time in this blog?

*** My strategy is a micro-niche blog because i don't want to fight with big players

Hello everyone
Sorry if it is a repeat, i saw plenty of post talking about Domain Authority but not specifically in this exemple.
I am launching several products online and I have trouble getting backlinks and ranking on google because of the competition (even though some competitors dont have a really high domain authority)
I saw that on some launching plateforms (like TinyLaunch) where you can pay a fee in exchange of a high authority backlink (70+ DR Backlink).
Would it be worth it to pay to launch on one or 3 of these plateforms to rank quickly?

I feel that with $100 you can save a lot of time.

What are your thoughts?

I recently checked over internet that people are talking about LLMS file like Robots TXT file.
This file helps tell AI crawlers about your website the way you want.

I just want to know creating this file really help to represent the website in my way to AI-Crawlers.

Please suggest me your opinions