Nov 13 2025
Secrets Of A Wildly Successful Website via @sejournal, @martinibuster

Back in 2005 I intuited that there are wildly successful Internet enterprises that owed nothing to SEO. These successes intrigued me because they happened according to undocumented rules outside of the SEO bubble. These sites have stories and lessons about building success.

Turning Your Enthusiasm Into Success

In 2005 I interviewed the founder of the Church Of The Flying Spaghetti Monster, which at the time had a massive Page Rank score of 7. The founder explains how promotion was never part of a plan- in fact he denied having any success plan at all. He simply put the visual material out there and let people hotlink the heck out of it at the rate 40GB/day back in 2005.

The site is controversial because it was created in response to an idea called Intelligent Design, which is an ideology that believes that aspects of the universe and life are the products of an unseen intelligent hand and not products of undirected processes like evolution and natural selection. This article is not about religion, it’s about how someone leveraged their passion to create a wildly successful website.

The point is, there was no direct benefit to hotlinking, only the indirect benefits of putting his name out there and having it seen, known and remembered. It’s the essence of what we talk about when we talk about brand and mindshare building. Which is why I say that this interview is wildly relevant in 2013. Many of my most innovative methods for obtaining links are located within the mindset of identifying latent opportunities related to indirect benefits. There is a lot of opportunity there because most of the industry is focused on the direct-benefits/ROI mindset. Without further ado, here is the interview. Enjoy!

Secrets Of A Wildly Popular Website

The other day I stumbled across a successful website called, Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster that does about 40 GB of traffic (including hotlinks) every single day. The site was created as a response to a social, cultural, political, and religiou issue of the day.

Many of you are interested in developing strategies to creating massively popular sites, so the following story of this hyper-successful website (PR 7, in case you were wondering) may be of interest.

Creating a website to react to controversy or a current event is an old but maybe forgotten methods for receiving links. Blogs fit into this plan very nicely. The following is the anatomy of a website created purely for the passion of it. It was not created for links or monetary benefit. Nevertheless it has accomplished what thousands of link hungry money grubbing webmasters aspire to every day. Ha!

So let’s take a peek behind the scenes of a wildly successful site that also makes decent change. The following is an interview with Bobby Henderson, the man behind the site.

Can you give me a little history of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster website?

“The site was never planned. “the letter” had been written and sent off – with no reply – for months before it occurred to me to post it online.”

Have you ever built a website before, what is your web background?

“I made a website for the Roseburg, Oregon school district when I was in high school.

With the Fly Spaghetti Monster (FSM) site, I want things to be as plain and non-shiny as possible. Screw aesthetics. I don’t want it to look slick and well-designed at all. I prefer it to be just slapped together, with new content added frequently. I love it when people give me tips to make the site better. It’s received well over 100 million hits at this point, so maybe there’s something to this content-instead-of-shiny-ness thing.”

What made you decide to build your website?

“The idea of a Flying Spaghetti Monster was completely random. I wrote the letter at about 3am one night, for no particular reason other than I couldn’t sleep. And there must have been something in news about ID that day.

After posting the letter online, it was “discovered” almost immediately. It got boingboing’ed within a couple weeks, and blew up from there. I’ve done zero “promotion”. Promotion is fake. None of the site was planned, it has evolved over the months. Same with the whoring-out, the t-shirts,etc. None of that stuff was my idea. People asked for it, so I put it up. I can remember telling a friend that I would be shocked if one person bought a t-shirt. Now there have been around 20k sold.”

To what do you attribute the support of your site from so many people?

“I believe the support for the FSM project comes from spite…

I get 100-200 emails a day. Depends on the news, though. I got maybe 300 emails about that “pirate” attack on the cruise-ship. Incidentally, the reason we saw no change in global weather was because they were not real pirates. Real pirates don’t have machine guns and speedboats. (editors note: The FSM dogma asserts a connection between pirates and global warming)”

Were you surprised at how the site took off?

“Yes of course I’m surprised the site took off. And it blows my mind that it’s still alive. Yesterday was the highest-traffic day yet, with 3.5 million hits (most of those hits were hotlinked images).

What advice do you have to others who have a site they want to promote?

“Advice. . . ok .. here’s something. A lot of people go out of their way to stop hotlinking. I go out of my to allow it – going so far as paying for the extra bandwidth to let people steal my stuff. Why? It’s all part of the propaganda machine. It would be easy enough to prevent people from hotlinking FSM images. But I WANT people to see my propaganda, so why not allow it?

It’s like advertising, requiring zero effort by me. I am paying for about 40GB in bandwidth every day in just hijacked images – and it’s totally worth it, because now the Flying Spaghetti Monster is everywhere.”

Seeing how your deity is a flying spaghetti monster, I am curious… do you like eating spaghetti?

“No comment.”

Featured Image by Shutterstock/Elnur

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Nov 13 2025
Data Shows How AI Overviews Is Ranking Shopping Keywords via @sejournal, @martinibuster

BrightEdge’s latest research shows that Google’s AI Overviews are now appearing in ways that reflect what BrightEdge describes as “deliberate, aggressive choices” about where AI shows up and where it does not. These trends show marketers where AI search is showing up within the buyer’s journey and what businesses should expect.

The data indicates that Google is concentrating AI in parts of the shopping process where it gives clear informational value, particularly during research and evaluation. This aligns AI Overviews with the points in the shopping journey where users need help comparing options or understanding product details.

BrightEdge reports that Google retained only about 30 percent of the AI Overview keywords that appeared at the peak of its September 1 through October 15, 2025 research window. The retained queries also tended to have higher search volume than the removed ones, which BrightEdge notes is the opposite pattern observed in 2024. This fits with the higher retention in categories where shoppers look for explanations, comparisons, and instructional information.

BrightEdge explains:

“The numbers paint an interesting story: Google retained only 30% of its peak AI Overview keywords. But here’s what makes 2025 fundamentally different: those retained keywords have HIGHER search volume than removed ones—the complete opposite of 2024. Google isn’t just pulling back; it’s being strategic about which searches deserve AI guidance.”

The shifting behavior of AI Overviews shows how actively Google is tuning its system. BrightEdge observed a spike from 9 percent to 26 percent coverage on September 18 before returning to 9 percent soon after. This change signals ongoing testing. The year-over-year overlap of AI Overview keywords is only 18 percent, which BrightEdge calls a “massive reshuffling” that shows “active experimentation” and requires marketers to plan for change rather than stability. The volatility shows Google may be experimenting or responding to user trends and that the queries shown in AI Overviews can change over time.
My opinion is that Google is likely responding to user trends, testing how they respond to AI Overviews, then using the data to show more if user reactions are positive.

AI Is A Comparison And Evaluation Layer

BrightEdge’s research indicates that AI Overviews aligns with shopper intent. Google places AI in research queries such as “best TV for gaming,” continues support for evaluation queries like “Samsung vs LG,” and then withdraws when users show purchase intent with searches like “Samsung S95C price.”

These examples show that AI serves as an educational and comparison layer, not a transactional one. When a shopper reaches a buying decision, Google steps back and lets traditional results handle the final step. This apparent alignment with comparison and evaluation means Google is confident in using AI Overviews as a part of the shopping journey.

Usefulness Varies Across Categories

The data shows that AI’s usefulness varies across categories, and Google adjusts AIO keywords retention based on these needs. Categories that retained AI Overviews such as Grocery, TV and Home Theater, and Small Appliances share a pattern.

Users rely on comparison, explanation, and instruction during their decisions. In contrast, categories with low retention, like Furniture and Home, rely on visual browsing rather than text-based evaluation. This limits the value of AI. Google’s category patterns show that AI appears more often in categories where text-based information (such as comparison, explanation, and instruction) guides decisions.

Google’s keyword filtering clarifies how AI fits into the shopping journey. Among retained queries, a little more than a quarter are evaluation or comparison searches, including “best [product]” and “X vs Y” terms. These are queries where users need background and guidance. In contrast, Google removes bottom-funnel keywords. Price, buy, deals, and specific product names are removed. This shows Google’s focus is on how useful AI serves for each intent. AI educates and guides but does not handle the final purchase step.

Shopping Trends Influence AI Appearance

The shopping calendar shapes how AI appears in search results. BrightEdge describes the typical shopping journey as consisting of research in November, evaluation and comparison in early December, and buying in late December. AI helps shoppers understand options in November, assists with comparisons in early December, and by late December, AI tends to be less influential and traditional search results tend to complete the sale.

This makes November the key moment for making evaluation and comparison content easier for AI to cite. Once December arrives, the chance for AI-driven discovery shrinks because consumers have moved on to the final leg of their shopping journey, purchase.

These findings mean that brands should align their content strategies with the points in the journey where AI Overviews are active. BrightEdge advises identifying evaluation and transactional pages, ensuring that comparison content is indexed early, and watching category-specific retention patterns. The data indicates two areas where brands can focus their efforts. One is supporting AI during research and review stages. The other is improving organic search visibility for purchasing queries. The 18 percent year-over-year consistency figure also shows that flexibility is needed because the queries shown in AI Overviews change frequently.

Although the behavior of AI Overviews may seem volatile, BrightEdge’s research suggests that the changes follow a consistent pattern. AI surfaces when people are learning and evaluating and withdraws when users shift into buying. Categories that require explanations or comparisons see the highest retention in AI Overviews, and November remains the key period when AI can use that content. The overall pattern gives brands a clearer view of how AI fits into the shopping journey and how user intent shapes where AI shows up.

Read BrightEdge’s report:
Google AI Overview Holiday Shopping Test: The 57% Pullback That Changes Everything

Featured Image by Shutterstock/Misselss

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Nov 13 2025
Overcoming Skepticism In Brand Mention And Link Building Campaigns via @sejournal, @martinibuster

Successful link and brand mention building is strongly about overcoming skepticism and building relationships with the people behind the websites that you want to acquire a link or brand mention from.  It can be as simple as showing what you have in common or inspiring a sense of goodwill towards your site.

Overcoming Skepticism: Try Non-Link Brand Building

One of the biggest barriers to acquiring a link, particularly a free link, is skepticism. For example, I recall that one of my campaigns repeatedly received rejections from non-profit type organizations and associations because the client site was commercial in nature, even though this particular client site lacked the overt signals of commercial intent like ads or products, associations and organizations were resistant.

This is how I discovered there are other opportunities for building top of mind brand awareness with brand mentions. Although these organizations were skeptical about linking to commercial client sites they were way okay with accepting contributions to their email newsletters and magazines that were sent out every month to thousands of potential customers.

Lessons To Learn From The Broken Link Outreach

The broken link outreach is an old approach that works (Hi, I saw you have a broken link on your page/And btw would you consider adding example.com?). One thing that doesn’t get discussed is why it works.

The reason why broken link building works is instructional on crafting an outreach with a high conversion rate. Ever see a supermarket shopper drop a few boxes and subsequently be assisted by a stranger? Most people typically welcome help. Most people generally smile. Why is that? How do you feel when someone helps you?

I feel good and believe most others do, too. Not only that, there is a temporary bond between us in the form of a good feeling. That’s called goodwill. Goodwill is a general feeling of kindness and friendliness to someone else. When someone does something kind to someone else, the other person thinks, “Oh, this is a nice person.” That’s goodwill.

I believe that is the reason why the broken link outreach works so well. The normal skeptical distance is temporarily bridged by an amount of goodwill that is earned by helping someone else out. The approach bridges the skeptical distance between strangers.

Knowing this, don’t limit yourself to broken links. The approach should be renamed from Broken Links Outreach to simply the Goodwill Outreach because it works for anything that is broken on a site and leads to building goodwill.

For example:

  • Typos
  • Broken code
  • Spam comments
  • Hacked web pages
  • A dangerously out of date CMS installation

During the course of your free link campaign, keep your approach flexible by keeping an eye out for hidden opportunities for bridging the distance of skepticism. This means having the flexibility to alter your approach to fit the typo, broken code, out of date CMS installation, etc. This is the challenge facing those who are scaling up or outsourcing to a third party, they simply cannot pivot to acting on an unexpected opportunity.

For example, you might review a site and discover that they have a resources page or you might discover that they have a monthly newsletter that goes out to ten thousand potential customers. Being flexible to brand building or alternative helpful approaches helps to create a better sense of authenticity and build goodwill that can turn into a link or a valuable brand mention.

Social Affinity

Social Affinity is a subtle signal that works. Like it or not, people still tend to think in tribal terms. They feel better about you if they know you share the same values and interests. Sharing work, geographic, and social similarities work to bridge the distance between you and the site publisher handing out links.

Doing this can be as simple as having a badge on your site that shows you donate to a specific charity or that you’re a member of an organization. A powerful way to signal social affinity is to mention that you’ve published an article in a sister-chapter of an organization or association.

This can be an aspect of the outreach persona. The word persona literally means a mask, it has etymological roots in the Latin word persōna, which meant a mask that was used in a theatrical production. I’ll discuss outreach persona at another time. For the time being, it’s just how you represent yourself in your outreach through subtle cues.

For example, many years ago I was working on a client’s free link campaign and noticed that success rate went up when there was a geographical/regional affinity between the outreach persona and the link acquisition target. What this means is that the success rate went up when the outreach came from a domain where a state or city name in the outreach domain was geographically close to the organization or association that I was outreaching to.

This is similarly true with my personal link campaigns, where my persona shares a topical affinity, especially when there is a shared hobby or vocation. It’s an “Oh, they’re a part of my tribe”  type of reaction. They can be trusted. These are social signals that can be useful for overcoming inherent skepticism.

Social signals when applied in the right context can help overcome skepticism and build that bridge by presenting evidence in your outreach or website of your social membership. For example, if your outreach is related to the outdoors, then being a member, sponsor, or contributor to wildlife conservation groups can help bridge the skeptical distance with the publishers you are contacting for a link.

Link Building Is About Goodwill And Social Affinity

A great  deal of link building is built on the premise of scale where people send out tens of thousands of emails (spray) and then “pray” that a small percentage of respondents will convert and provide a link. In my experience, being careful, planning ahead for social affinity and being aware of opportunities to be helpful can open doors of opportunities for both brand mention and link building.

Featured Image by Shutterstock/Roman Samborskyi

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Nov 13 2025
Why WordPress 6.9 Abilities API Is Consequential And Far-Reaching via @sejournal, @martinibuster

WordPress 6.9, scheduled for release on December 2, 2025, is shipping with a new Abilities API that introduces a new system designed to make advanced AI-driven functionality possible for themes and plugins. The new Abilities API will standardize how plugins, themes, and core describe what they can do in a format that humans and machines can understand.

This positions WordPress sites to be understood and used more reliably by AI agents and automation tools, since the Abilities API provides the structured information those systems need to interact with site functionality in a predictable way.

The Abilities API is designed to address a long-standing issue in WordPress: functionality has been scattered across custom functions, AJAX handlers, and plugin-specific implementations. According to WordPress, the purpose of the API is to provide a common way for WordPress core, plugins, and themes to describe what they can do in a standardized, machine-readable form.

This approach enables discoverability, clear validation, and predictable execution wherever an ability originates. By centralizing the description and exposure of capabilities, the Abilities API provides a centralized way to describe functionality that might otherwise be scattered across different implementations.

What An Ability Is

The announcement defines an “ability” as a self-contained unit of functionality that includes its inputs, outputs, permissions, and execution logic. This structure allows abilities to be managed as separate pieces of functionality rather than fragments buried in theme or plugin code. WordPress explains that registering abilities through the API lets developers define permission checks, execution callbacks, and validation requirements, ensuring predictable behavior wherever the ability is used. By replacing isolated functions with defined units, WordPress creates a clearer and more open system for interacting with its features.

What Developers Gain From Abilities API

Developers gain several advantages by registering functionality as abilities. According to the announcement, abilities become discoverable through standardized interfaces, which means they can be queried, listed, and inspected across different contexts. Developers can organize them into categories, validate inputs and outputs, and apply permission rules that define who or what can execute them. The announcement notes that one benefit is automatic exposure through REST API endpoints under the wp-abilities/v1 namespace. This setup shifts WordPress from custom-coded actions to a system where functionality is defined in a consistent and reachable way.

Abilities Best Practices

One of the frustrating paint points for WordPress users is when a plugin or theme conflicts with another one. This happens for a variety of reasons but in the case of the Abilities API, WordPress has created a set of rules that should help prevent conflicts and errors.

WordPress explains the practices:

Ability names should follow these practices:

  • Use namespaced names to prevent conflicts (e.g., my-plugin/my-ability)
  • Use only lowercase alphanumeric characters, dashes, and forward slashes
  • Use descriptive, action-oriented names (e.g., process-payment, generate-report)
  • The format should be namespace/ability-name

Abilities API

The Abilities API introduces three components that work together to provide a complete system for registering and interacting with abilities.

1. The first is a PHP API for registering, managing, and executing abilities.

2. The second is automatic REST API exposure, which ensures that abilities can be accessed through endpoints without extra developer effort.

3. The third is a set of new hooks that help developers integrate with the system. These components, according to the announcement, bring consistency to how abilities are described and executed, forming a base described in the announcement as a consistent way to register and execute abilities.

The Abilities API is guided by several design goals that help it function as a long-term foundation.

Discoverability
Discoverability is a central goal, allowing every ability to be listed, queried, and inspected.

Interoperability
Interoperability is also emphasized, as the uniform schema lets different parts of WordPress create workflows together.

Security
Security is a part of the new API by design with permission checks defining who and what can invoke abilities.

Part Of The AI Building Blocks Initiative

The Abilities API is not an isolated change but part of the AI Building Blocks initiative meant to prepare WordPress for AI-driven workflows. The announcement explains that this system provides the base for AI agents, automation tools, and developers to interact with WordPress in a predictable way.
Abilities are machine-readable and exposed in the same manner across PHP, REST, and planned interfaces, and the announcement describes them as usable across those contexts. The Abilities API provides the metadata that AI agents and automation tools can use to understand and work with WordPress functionality.

The introduction of the Abilities API in WordPress 6.9 potentially marks a huge change in how functionality is organized, described, and accessed across the platform. By creating a standardized system for defining abilities and exposing them in different contexts, WordPress introduces a system that positions WordPress to be in the forefront of future AI innovations for years to come. This is a big and consequential update to WordPress that will be here in a few short weeks.

Featured Image by Shutterstock/AntonKhrupinArt

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Nov 12 2025
OpenAI Releases GPT-5.1 With Improved Instruction Following via @sejournal, @MattGSouthern

OpenAI released GPT-5.1 Instant and GPT-5.1 Thinking with updates to conversational style and reasoning capabilities.

The updates begin rolling out today to paid users before expanding to free accounts.

OpenAI says this release addresses feedback from users who want AI that feels more natural to interact with, while also improving intelligence.

What’s New

GPT-5.1 Instant

GPT-5.1 Instant, ChatGPT’s most-used model, now defaults to a warmer, more conversational tone.

OpenAI reports improved instruction following, with the model more reliably answering the specific question asked rather than drifting into tangents.

GPT-5.1 Instant can use adaptive reasoning. The model decides when to think before responding to challenging questions, producing more thorough answers while maintaining speed.

GPT-5.1 Thinking

The advanced reasoning model adapts thinking time more precisely. On a representative distribution of ChatGPT tasks, GPT-5.1 Thinking runs roughly twice as fast on the fastest tasks and roughly twice as slow on the slowest tasks compared to GPT-5 Thinking.

Responses use less jargon and fewer undefined terms, which OpenAI says should make the most capable model more approachable for complex workplace tasks and explaining technical concepts.

Customization Options

OpenAI refined personality presets to better reflect common usage patterns. Default, Friendly (formerly Listener), and Efficient (formerly Robot) remain with updates, and new options include Professional, Candid, and Quirky.

These presets apply across all models. The original Cynical (formerly Cynic) and Nerdy (formerly Nerd) options remain available under the same personalization menu.

Beyond presets, OpenAI is experimenting with controls that let you tune specific characteristics such as response conciseness, warmth, scannability, and emoji frequency from personalization settings.

Personalization changes now take effect across all chats immediately, including ongoing conversations. Previously, changes only applied to new conversations started afterward.

The updated GPT-5.1 models also adhere more closely to custom instructions, giving you more precise tone and behavior control.

Rollout Timeline

GPT-5.1 Instant and Thinking begin rolling out today starting with paid subscribers. Free and logged-out users will get access afterward.

Enterprise and Education customers get a seven-day early access toggle to GPT-5.1 (off by default). After that window, GPT-5.1 becomes the default ChatGPT model.

GPT-5 (Instant and Thinking) remains available in the legacy models dropdown for paid subscribers for three months, giving people time to compare and adapt.

Why This Matters

GPT-5.1 can change how your day-to-day workflows behave. Better instruction following means less prompt tweaking and fewer off-brief outputs.

Adaptive reasoning may make simple tasks feel faster while giving more complex work, like technical explanations or data analysis, extra time.

Looking Ahead

OpenAI frames this update as a step toward personalized AI that adapts to individual preferences and tasks.

Updated personality styles and tone options roll out today. Granular characteristic tuning will roll out later this week as an experiment to a limited number of users, with further changes based on feedback.

Featured Image: Photo Agency/Shutterstock

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Nov 12 2025
Google Launches Ads Advisor & Analytics Advisor Globally via @sejournal, @MattGSouthern

Google is introducing two AI-powered tools built on Gemini: Ads Advisor in Google Ads and Analytics Advisor in Google Analytics.

Availability starts in early December for English-language accounts globally.

What’s New

Ads Advisor

Ads Advisor works inside your Google Ads account to surface optimization recommendations and, with your review and approval, apply the selected changes.

In Performance Max, you can ask how to prepare for a seasonal moment, such as a holiday. It may recommend adding sitelink extensions, then implement that update after you approve it.

Here is an example provided by Google:

Image Credit: Google

It can generate keywords, headlines, and ad copy from your site and campaign assets. It can also help diagnose performance shifts by answering diagnostic questions, identifying likely causes, and proposing fixes.

For policy issues, it can flag the violation and, in some cases, take an action such as editing an ad URL for you to approve.

Analytics Advisor

Analytics Advisor is a conversational experience in Google Analytics Standard and Analytics 360.

You can ask broad questions or request specific metrics, and it will generate visualizations and insights.

Here’s an example response provided by Google, after asking what’s the best opportunity to convert or re-engage users from a traffic spike:

Image Credit: Google

When metrics spike or drop, it performs key-driver analysis to explain what likely caused the change and prioritizes the factors that matter to business outcomes. It then connects those insights to growth opportunities with step-by-step guidance.

Why This Matters

Ads Advisor can help you move from suggestions to permissioned, in-product execution for Ads. Meanwhile, Analytics now offers quicker investigations and clearer next steps through key-driver analysis.

During busy times like holidays, this can help you save time by reducing the need to switch between diagnostics and implementation, all while keeping you in control of what gets changed.

Looking Ahead

Google says both advisors will appear in English-language Google Ads and Google Analytics accounts globally in early December. You will access them by logging into your accounts and using the in-product advisor interfaces.

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Nov 12 2025
Google Launches Structured Data For Merchant Shipping Policies via @sejournal, @MattGSouthern

Google Search now supports organization-level shipping policy markup, giving ecommerce websites a code-based way to surface delivery costs and transit times in Search and knowledge panels.

When you add ShippingService structured data, Google can display shipping information next to your products.

What’s New

Google added documentation describing ShippingService, which lets you define costs and delivery windows by product weight, dimensions, order value, or destination.

A standard policy lives under Organization via the hasShippingService property; product-specific overrides use OfferShippingDetails under Offer and support a smaller set of fields.

Implementation

Google recommends placing shipping policy markup on a single page.

Each ShippingService includes one or more ShippingConditions objects that specify when rates apply. If several apply to a product, Google uses the lowest cost and shows the associated speed. Fixed fees can be set with MonetaryAmount, and percentage-based fees with ShippingRateSettings. Transit times use ServicePeriod and can include businessDays and handling cutoff times.

Destination granularity supports country codes (ISO 3166-1), optional region codes (US, Australia, Japan only), and postal codes in the US, Canada, and Australia. Don’t provide both a region and postal code for the same condition.

If you combine markup with other Google shipping configurations, Google applies an order of precedence.

For example, when both markup and Search Console shipping settings are present, Google will use the Search Console settings. Google also notes that Content API for Shopping is the strongest source in this hierarchy.

Why This Matters

This gives you a markup-only path to publish shipping policies that Search can read, which may help keep details current even before products appear in feeds. If you already manage delivery settings in Merchant Center or Search Console, you can keep doing that; just be aware those sources can override page markup when both exist.

Looking Ahead

As with other rich results, your markup must follow Google’s structured data policies, Search Essentials, and the technical guidelines in the doc for it to be eligible for use in Search.

Featured Image: New Africa/Shutterstock

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Nov 12 2025
YouTube Debunks 24-48 Hour Upload Delay Recommendation via @sejournal, @MattGSouthern

YouTube’s Rene Ritchie says the recommendation system relies on audience behavior that only begins once a video is public.. Waiting 24–48 hours offers no benefit.

  • YouTube’s recommendation system relies on audience behavior, which starts only when a video is public.
  • You can upload early to let copyright and monetization checks finish before publishing.
  • Waiting hours, weeks, or months won’t yield different results.
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Nov 12 2025
OpenAI’s Sam Altman Says Personalized AI Raises Privacy Concerns via @sejournal, @martinibuster

In a recent interview with Stanford University, OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman predicted that AI security will become the defining problem of the next phase of AI development, saying that AI security is one of the best fields to study right now. He also cited personalized AI as one example of a security concern that he’s been thinking about lately.

What Does AI Security Mean Today?

Sam Altman said that concerns about AI safety will be reframed as AI Security issues that can be solvable by AI.

Interview host, Dan Boneh, asked:

“So what does it mean for an AI system to be secure? What does it mean for even trying to kind of make it do things it wasn’t designed to do?

How do we protect AI systems from prompt injections and other attacks like that? How do you think of AI security?

I guess the concrete question I want to ask is, among all the different things we can do with AI, this course is about learning one sliver of the field. Is this a good area? Should people go into this?”

Sam Altman encouraged today’s students to study AI security.

He answered:

“I think this is one of the best areas to go study. I think we are soon heading into a world where a lot of the AI safety problems that people have traditionally talked about are going to be recast as AI security problems in different ways.

I also think that given how capable these models are getting, if we want to be able to deploy them for wide use, the security problems are going to get really big. You mentioned many areas that I think are super important to figure out. Adversary robustness in particular seems like it’s getting quite serious.”

What Altman means is that people are starting to find ways to trick AI systems, and the problem is becoming serious enough that researchers and engineers need to focus on making AI resistant to manipulation and other kinds of attacks, such as prompt injections.

AI Personalization Becoming A Security Concern

Altman also said that something he’s been thinking a lot about lately is possible security issues with AI personalization. He said that people appreciate personalized responses from AI but he said that this could open the door to malicious hackers figuring out how to steal sensitive data (exfiltrate).

He explained:

“One more that I will mention that you touched on a little bit, but just it’s been on my mind a lot recently. There are two things that people really love right now that taken together are a real security challenge.

Number one, people love how personalized these models are getting. So ChatGPT now really gets to know you. It personalizes over your conversational history, your data you’ve connected to it, whatever else.

And then number two is you can connect these models to other services. They can go off and like call things on the web and, you know, do stuff for you that’s helpful.

But what you really don’t want is someone to be able to exfiltrate data from your personal model that knows everything about you.

And humans, you can kind of trust to be reasonable at this. If you tell your spouse a bunch of secrets, you can sort of trust that they will know in what context what to tell to other people. The models don’t really do this very well yet.

And so if you’re telling like a model all about your, you know, private health care issues, and then it is off, and you have it like buying something for you, you don’t want that e-commerce site to know about all of your health issues or whatever.

But this is a very interesting security problem to solve this with like 100% robustness.”

Altman identifies personalization as both a breakthrough and a new opening for cyber attack. The same qualities that make AI more useful also make it a target, since models that learn from individual histories could be manipulated to reveal them. Altman shows how convenience can become a source of exposure, explaining that privacy and usability are now security challenges.

Lastly, Altman circled back to AI as both the security problem and the solution.

He concluded:

“Yeah, by the way, it works both directions. Like you can use it to secure systems. I think it’s going to be a big deal for cyber attacks at various times.”

Takeaways

  • AI Security As The Next Phase Of AI Development
    Altman predicts that AI security will replace AI safety as the central challenge and opportunity in artificial intelligence.
  • Personalization As A New Attack Surface
    The growing trend of AI systems that learn from user data raises new security concerns, since personalization could expose opportunities for attackers to extract sensitive information.
  • Dual Role Of AI In Cybersecurity
    Altman emphasizes that AI will both pose new security threats and serve as a powerful tool to detect and prevent them.
  • Emerging Need For AI Security Expertise
    Altman’s comments suggests that there will be a rising demand for professionals who understand how to secure, test, and deploy AI responsibly.
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Nov 12 2025
Is AI Search SEO Leaving Bigger Opportunities Behind? via @sejournal, @martinibuster

A recent podcast by Ahrefs raised two issues about optimizing for AI search that can cause organizations to underperform and miss out on opportunities to improve sales. The conversation illustrates a gap between realistic expectations for AI-based trends and what can be achieved through overlooked opportunities elsewhere.

YouTube Is Second Largest Search Engine

The first thing noted in the podcast is that YouTube is the second-largest search engine by queries entered in the search bar. More people type search queries into YouTube’s search bar than any other search engine except Google itself. So it absolutely makes sense for companies to seriously consider how a video strategy can work to increase traffic and brand awareness.

It should be a no-brainer that businesses figure out YouTube, and yet many businesses are rushing to spend time and money optimizing for answer engines like Perplexity and ChatGPT, which have a fraction of the traffic of YouTube.

Patrick Stox explained:

“YouTube is the second largest search engine. There’s a lot of focus on all these AI assistants. They’re in total driving less than 1% of your traffic. YouTube might be a lot more. I don’t know how much it’s going to drive traffic to the website, but there’s a lot of eyes on it. I know for us, like we see it in our signups, …they sign up for Ahrefs.

It’s an incredible channel that I think as people need to diversify, to kind of hedge their bets on where their traffic is coming from, this would be my first choice. Like go and do more video. There’s your action item. If you’re not doing it, go do more video right now.”

Tim Soulo, Ahrefs CMO, expressed curiosity that so many people are looking two or three years ahead for opportunities that may or may not materialize on AI assistants, while overlooking the real benefits available today on YouTube.

He commented:

“I feel that a lot of people get fixated on AI assistants like ChatGPT and Perplexity and optimizing for AI search because they are kind of looking three, five years ahead and they are kind of projecting that in three, five years, that might be the dominant thing, how people search.

…But again, if we focus on today, YouTube is much more popular than ChatGPT and YouTube has a lot more business potential than ChatGPT. So yeah, definitely you have to invest in AI search. You have to do the groundwork that would help you rank in Google, rank in ChatGPT and everything. …I don’t see YouTube losing its relevance five years from now. I can only see it getting bigger and bigger because the new generation of people that is growing up right now, they are very video oriented. Short form video, long form video. So yeah, definitely. If you’re putting all your eggs in the basket of ChatGPT, but not putting anything in YouTube, that’s a big mistake.”

Patrick Stox agreed with Tim, noting that Instagram and TikTok are big for short-form videos that are wildly popular today, and encouraged viewers and listeners to see how video can fit into their marketing.

Some of the disconnect regarding SEO and YouTube is that SEOs may feel that SEO is about Google, and YouTube is therefore not their domain of responsibility. I would counter that YouTube should be a part of SEOs’ concern because people use it for reviews, how-to information, and product research, and the searches on YouTube are second only to Google.

SEO/AEO/GEO Can’t Solve All AI Search Issues

The second topic they touched on was the expectations placed on SEO to solve all of a business’s traffic and visibility problems. Patrick Stox and Tim Soulo suggested that high rankings and a satisfactory marketing outcome begin and end with a high-quality product, service, and content. Problems at the product or service end cause friction and result in negative sentiment on social media. This isn’t something that you can SEO yourself out of.

Patrick Stox explained:

“We only have a certain amount of control, though. We can go and create a bunch of pages, a bunch of content. But if you have real issues, like if everyone suddenly is like Nvidia’s graphics cards suck and they’re saying that on social media and Reddit and everything, YouTube, there’s only so much you can do to combat that.

…And there might be tens of thousands of them and there’s one of me. So what am I gonna do? I’m gonna be a drop in the bucket. It’s gonna be noise in the void. The internet is still the one controlling the narrative. So there’s only so much that SEOs are gonna be able to do in a situation like that.

…So this is going to get contentious in a lot of organizations where you’re going to have to do something that the execs are going to be yelling, can’t you just change that, make it go away?”

Tim and Patrick went on to use the example of their experience with a pricing change they made a few years ago, where customers balked at the changes. Ahrefs made the change because they thought it would make their service more affordable, but despite their best efforts to answer user questions and get control of the conversation, the controversy wouldn’t go away, so they ultimately decided to give users what they wanted.

The point is that positive word of mouth isn’t necessarily an SEO issue, even though SEO/GEO/AEO is now expected to get out there and build positive brand associations so that they’re recommended by AI Mode, ChatGPT, and Perplexity.

Takeaways

  • Find balance between AI search and immediate business opportunities:
    Some organizations may focus too heavily on optimizing for AI assistants at the expense of video and multimodal search opportunities.
  • YouTube’s marketing power:
    YouTube is the second-largest search engine and a major opportunity for traffic and brand visibility.
  • Realistic expectations for SEO:
    SEO/GEO/AEO cannot fix problems rooted in poor products, services, or customer sentiment. Long-term visibility in AI search depends not just on optimization, but on maintaining positive brand sentiment.

Watch the video at about the 36 minute mark:

Featured Image by Shutterstock/Collagery

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