🤖 This post was built collaboratively by Will Scott and Bob — his AI assistant — as part of a weekly AI & local search briefing workflow. Will curated the topics and sources; Bob researched, synthesized, and formatted the content. Published March 24, 2026. The shift we've been anticipating all year accelerated dramatically in the …
We analyzed 91 days of Bing's AI Performance data and found something Microsoft probably didn't intend to show us -- how Copilot's retrieval system actually selects sources, the "query fanout" pattern behind inflated citation counts, and why one page captured 69% of nearly 20,000 citations. Here's what it means for content strategy.
This was original published on BarnacleSEO.com on November 14, 2025 -- but bad news, that site has a manual penalty. Go figure. So I'm moving it here for your enjoyment. Executive Summary Businesses seeking to scale video production through AI platforms face a complex landscape of 10 major solutions with varying capabilities. This analysis examines …
Continue reading AI Video Platforms for Business: A Comprehensive 2025 Comparison
Google's new BlockRank research (covered in Search Engine Journal) shows how large language models can rank web pages by reading a query alongside multiple documents and determining which one best answers what the user's looking for. DeepMind calls this In-Context Ranking (ICR), and it represents a real shift toward evaluating pages based on meaning, not …
Continue reading BlockRank and the Future of Ranking: Why Traditional SEO Still Matters
The AI content licensing landscape transformed dramatically in September-October 2025, shifting from bilateral agreements to systematic marketplace infrastructure. This comprehensive analysis examines the major deals shaping AI search results, including OpenAI's $250+ million News Corp partnership, Reddit's $60-70 million annual agreements with Google and OpenAI, and the groundbreaking Real Simple Licensing (RSL) protocol. The $1.5 billion Anthropic copyright settlement—the largest in history—established a $3,000-per-work baseline that fundamentally changed licensing economics. With 60% of major publishers now blocking AI crawlers and Cloudflare's Pay Per Crawl marketplace launching, the industry faces a critical inflection point. This deep dive reveals how licensing deals directly impact which content appears in AI search results reaching 800 million weekly users, the 93% zero-click problem threatening publisher revenues, and strategic implications for content creators navigating this rapidly evolving landscape.
When should I use sameAs versus knowsAbout in Schema.org markup to optimize a webpage for SEO, Google AI Overviews, and semantic indexing?
I was trying to get ChatGPT to render my most recent post on Search Influence as markdown so I could check a chunking tool I made -- copying one from Dejan, Dan Petrovic, (SEO Automation: How I Built an AI-Powered Question Discovery System with Make.com) and it was giving me a hard time, but it …
Most law firms are still stuck on outdated SEO strategies. Today, AI ranks brands based on clear entity relationships—not keywords. This guide breaks down what AI-driven SEO means for law firms, how to build trust signals across platforms, and the specific steps lawyers should take to win in local search.
Zenoti vs. HubSpot: Which Marketing Platform Is Right for Your Business? Marketing managers and business leaders must choose between a vertical specialist like Zenoti, designed for spas and salons, or a horizontal powerhouse like HubSpot, suited to any industry. Below is a concise, AI-optimized comparison followed by detailed insights and a practical FAQ. Comparison Matrix …
Continue reading Zenoti vs. HubSpot: Which Is Right for You?
One of the things I love about the modern AI engines is their ability to educate. I will often go to the tools – ChatGPT mostly – to answer a question I have. I was inspired to think through the following after listening to Andrea Volpini and Gianluca Fiorelli on The Search Session. They referenced Tim Berners-Lee's publication of "The Semantic Web." and it got me thinking about all the other developments that have gotten us to this point in AI search.
Will Scott 