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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Nov 11 2025
Report Links Original Research to Higher B2B ROI via @sejournal, @MattGSouthern

TopRank Marketing and Ascend2 released a survey involving 797 B2B leaders. They discovered that 97% consider thought leadership as essential for achieving success throughout the entire marketing funnel.

The report frames the findings as building an “Answer Engine” for how buyers discover information across SEO and GenAI answer platforms (ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI search).

The authors analyzed differences between high-ROI and lower-performing marketers. Here’s what stands out.

What The Research Says

Respondents report strong results from original, data-driven content. 93% percent of teams that use original research say it effectively drives engagement and leads, and 48% call it “very effective.”

When asked to compare formats, 35% rated original research significantly more valuable than AI-generated content for building trust, and another 32% said it’s more impactful overall.

The study positions trusted experts and partners as part of a broader “trust system” that validates research-based content. The takeaway is quality over quantity. Partnerships work best when they add credibility and insight, not just reach.

Formats & Distribution

Marketers point to video, live or virtual events, and interactive experiences as the most effective vehicles for thought leadership.

Topic selection is guided primarily by customer signals. Direct customer feedback leads at 53%, followed by CRM/customer data and market-trend analysis at 44% each. Seasonal moments and industry events also influence planning.

High-performing teams run integrated multi-channel programs that weave SEO, advertising, experts and partners, media, email, and social into a cohesive plan.

Barriers To Success

One persistent barrier is channel concentration. About one-third cite over-reliance on a few channels or tactics as a top reason programs underperform.

Measurement is a key friction point: 41% cite difficulty proving ROI as a cause of underperforming content. High-performing programs use full-funnel analytics linking brand metrics to demand and revenue.

Why This Matters

The survey data questions two common strategies: relying on AI-generated content to foster trust and viewing SEO solely as a top-of-funnel tactic. Original research tends to be more trusted, which aligns with longer B2B sales cycles.

Additionally, successful programs link SEO to multi-channel activation and pipeline development. If your analytics don’t connect search performance with closed-won deals, that disconnect likely accounts for inconsistent ROI.

Looking Ahead

For 2026, center your plan on original research and treat search and GenAI answer platforms as connected discovery surfaces. Pair the research with credible experts, then extend it through video, events, and interactive pieces where it fits.

Featured Image: Roman Samborskyi/Shutterstock

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Nov 11 2025
Google Is Not Diminishing The Use Of Structured Data In 2026 via @sejournal, @martinibuster

A recent announcement on the Google Search Central blog gave a Redditor the impression that Google was significantly reducing the use of structured data, causing them to ask if it’s worthwhile to use it anymore.

The person on Reddit posted:

“Google just posted a new update — they’re removing support for some structured data types starting in January 2026. Dataset already works only in Dataset Search, and rich results are getting more selective.

So… is schema still worth it? Or are we moving past it entirely?”

Matt Southern covered the blog post (Google Deprecates Practice Problem Structured Data In Search), focusing on the specific structured data that Google was deprecating. Google’s blog post, authored by John Mueller, could, if read quickly, be accidentally interpreted to be more alarming than it was intended to be.

Google’s announcement explained:

“We’re constantly working to simplify the search results page, so that it’s quick and easy to find the information and websites you’re looking for. As part of this effort, we regularly evaluate all of our existing features to make sure they’re still useful, both for people searching on Google and for website owners.

Through this process, we’ve identified some features that aren’t being used very often and aren’t adding significant value to users. In these cases, we’ve found that other advancements on the search results page are able to get people what they’re looking for more seamlessly. So we’re beginning to phase these lesser-used features out.

For most searches, you likely won’t notice a major difference — most of these features didn’t trigger often and weren’t interacted with much by users. But overall, this update will simplify the page and improve the speed of search results.”

Ending with the following sentence:

“Starting in January 2026, we’ll remove support for the structured data types in Search Console and its API.”

Google’s Search Features Are Always Changing

Someone responded to the initial post to reassure them that Google’s search features and the structured data that triggers them are always changing. That’s true. Google Search has consistently been in a state of change and never more visibly on the front end as it is today with AI search.

Google’s John Mueller responded to the Redditor who noted that Google is constantly changing by affirming that markup types (which includes Schema.org structured data) are always changing.

He responded:

“Exactly. Understand that markup types come and go, but a precious few you should hold on to (like title, and meta robots).”

Structured Data Curation Is Automatic

Keeping up with Schema.org structured data is easy with any modern content management system through plugins or as part of a native functionality because they are responsive to Google’s structured data guidance. So in general, it’s not something that a publisher or SEO needs to think about. Publishers on WordPress just need to keep their plugins updated.

Featured Image by Shutterstock/pathdoc

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Nov 10 2025
How To Cultivate Brand Mentions For Higher AI Search Rankings via @sejournal, @martinibuster

Building brand awareness has long been an important but widely overlooked part of SEO. AI Search has brought this activity to the forefront. The following ideas should assist in forming a strategy for achieving brand name mentions at a ubiquitous scale, with the goal of achieving similar ubiquity in AI search results.

Tell People About The Site

SEOs and businesses can become overly concerned with getting links and forget that the more important thing to do is to get the word out about a website. A website must have unique qualities that will positively impress people and make them enthusiastic about the brand. If the site you’re trying to build traffic to lacks those unique qualities then building links or brand awareness can become a futile activity.

User behavior signals have been a part of Google’s algorithms since the 2004 Navboost signals were kicking in and the recent Google antitrust lawsuit shows that user behavior signals have continued to play a role. What has changed is that SEOs have noticed that AI search results tend to recommend sites that are recommended by other sites, brand mentions.

The key to all of this has been to tell other sites about your site and make it clear to potential consumers or website visitors what makes your site special.

  • So the first task is always to make a site special in every possible way.
  • The second task is to tell others about the site in order to build word of mouth and top-of-mind brand presence.

Optimizing a website for users and cultivating awareness of that site are the building blocks of the external signals of authoritativeness, expertise, and popularity that Google is always talks about.

Downside of Backlink Searches

Everyone knows how to do a backlink search with third-party tools but a lot of the data consists of garbage-y sites; that’s not the tool’s fault, it’s just the state of the Internet. In any case, a backlink search is limited, it doesn’t surface the conversations real people are having about a website.

In my experience, a better way to do it is to identify all instances of where a site is linked from another site or discussed by another site.

Brand And Link Mentions

Some websites have bookmark and resource pages. These are low hanging fruit.

Search for a competitor’s links:

example.com site:.com “bookmarks” -site:example.com

example.com site:.com “resources” -site:example.com

The “-site:example.com” removes the competitor site from the search results, showing you just the sites that might mention the full URL of the site which may or may not be linked.

The TLD segmented variants are:

example.com site:.net "resources" 
example.com site:.org "resources" 
example.com site:.edu "resources" 
example.com site:.ai "resources" 
example.com site:.net "links" 
example.com site:.org "links" 
example.com site:.edu "links" 
example.com site:.ai "links" 
Etc.

The goal is not necessarily to get links. It’s to build awareness of the site and build popularity.

Brand Mentions By Company Name

One way to identify brand mentions is to search by company name using the TLD segmentation technique. Making a broad search for a company’s name will only get you some of the brand mentions. Segmenting the search by TLD will reveal a wider range of sites.

Segmented Brand Mention Search

The following assumes that the competitor’s site is on the .com domain and you’re limiting the search to .com websites.

Competitor's Brand Name site:.com -site:example.com

Segmented Variants:

Competitor's Brand Name site:.org
Competitor's Brand Name site:.edu
Competitor's Brand Name site:.Reddit.com
Competitor's Brand Name site:.io
etc.

Sponsored Articles

Sponsored articles are indexed by search engines and ranked in AI search surfaces like AI Mode and ChatGPT. These can present opportunities to purchase a sponsored post that enables you to present your message with links that are nofollow and a prominent “sponsored post” disclaimer at the top of the web page – all in compliance with Google and FTC guidelines.

Brand Mentions: Authoritativeness Is Key

The thing that some SEOs never learned is that authoritativeness is important and quite likely millions of dollars have been wasted on paying for links from low-quality blogs and higher quality sites.

ChatGPT and AI Mode are found to recommend sites that are mentioned in high quality authoritative sites. Do not waste time or money paying for mentions on low quality sites.

Some Ways To Search

Product/Service/Solution Search

Name Of Product Or Service Or Problem Needing Solving site:.com “sponsored article”
Name Of Product Or Service Or Problem Needing Solving site:.net “sponsored article”
Name Of Product Or Service Or Problem Needing Solving site:.org “sponsored article”
Name Of Product Or Service Or Problem Needing Solving site:.edu “sponsored article”
Name Of Product Or Service Or Problem Needing Solving site:.io “sponsored article”
etc.

Sponsored Post Variant

Name Of Product Or Service Or Problem Needing Solving site:.com “sponsored post”
Name Of Product Or Service Or Problem Needing Solving site:.net “sponsored post”
Name Of Product Or Service Or Problem Needing Solving site:.org “sponsored post”
Name Of Product Or Service Or Problem Needing Solving site:.edu “sponsored post”
Name Of Product Or Service Or Problem Needing Solving site:.io “sponsored post”
etc.

Key insight: Test whether “sponsored post” or “sponsored article” provides better results or just more results. Using quotation marks, or if necessary the verbatim search tool, will stop Google from stemming the search results and prevents it from showing a mix of both “post” and “article” results. By forcing Google to be specific, you’re forcing Google to show more search results.

Competitor Search

Competitor’s Brand Name site:.com “sponsored post”
Competitor’s Brand Name site:.net “sponsored post”
Competitor’s Brand Name site:.org “sponsored post”
Competitor’s Brand Name site:.edu “sponsored post”
Competitor’s Brand Name site:.io “sponsored post”
etc.

Pure Awareness Building With Zero Internet Presence

This method of getting the word out is pure gold, especially for B2B but also for professional businesses such as in the legal niches. There are organizations and associations that print magazines or send out newsletters to thousands, sometimes tens of thousands, of people who are an exact match for the people you want to build top of mind brand name recognition with.

Emails and magazines do not have links and that’s okay. The goal is to build name brand recognition with positive associations. What better way than getting interviewed in a newsletter or magazine? What better way than submitting an article to a newsletter or magazine?

Don’t Forget PDF Magazines

Not all magazines are print, many magazines are in the form of a PDF. For example, I subscribe to a surf fishing magazine that is entirely in a proprietary web format that can only be viewed by subscribers. If I were a fishing company, I would make an effort to meet some of article authors, in addition to the publishers, at fishing industry conferences where they appear as presenters and in product booths.

This kind of outreach is in-person, it’s called relationship building. 

Getting back to the industry organizations and associations, this is an entire topic in itself and I’ll follow up with another article, but many of the techniques covered in this guide will work with this kind of brand building.

Using the filetype search operator in combination with the TLD segmentation will yield some of these kinds of brand building opportunities.

[product/service/keyword/niche] filetype:pdf site:.com newsletter
[product/service/keyword/niche] filetype:pdf site:.org newsletter

1. Segment the search for opportunities search by TLD .net/.com/.org/.us/.edu, etc.
Segmenting by TLD will help you discover different kinds of brand building opportunities. Websites on a Dot Org domain often link to a site for different reasons than a Dot Com website. Dot org domains represent article writing projects, free links on a links page, newsletter article opportunity, and charity link opportunities, just to name a few.

2. Consider Segmenting Dot Com Searches
The Dot Com TLD will yields an overabundance of search results, not all of them useful. This makes it imperative to segment the results to find all available opportunities. Even if you’re

Ways to segment the Dot Com are by:

  • A. Kinds of sites (blog/shopping related keywords/product or service keywords/forum/etc.)
    This is pretty straightforward. If you’re looking for brand mentions be sure to add keywords to the searches that are directly relevant to what your business is about. If your site is about car injuries then sites about cars as well as specific makes, models, and kinds of automobiles are how you would segment a .com search
  • B. Context – Audience Relevance Not Keyword Match
    Context of a sponsored article is important. This is not about whether the website content matches what your site, business, product, or service are about.  What’s important is to identify if the audience reach is an exact match to the audience that will be interested in your product, business, or service.
  • C. Quality And Authoritativeness
    This is not about third-party metrics related to links. This is just about making a common sense judgment about whether a site where you want a mention is well-regarded by those who are likely to be interested in your brand. That’s it.

Takeaway

The thing I want you to walk away with is that it’s useful to just tell people about a site and to get as many people as possible aware of it. Identify opportunities for ways to get them to tell a friend. There is no better recommendation than the one you can get from a friend or from a trusted organization.  This is the true source of authoritativeness and popularity.

Featured Image by Shutterstock/Bird stocker TH

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