AI search
37 posts
2026-09-08The AI Act's chatbot rule is live. It may not be yours
Article 50 has applied since 2 August 2026, but it binds the provider of a chatbot, not everyone who embeds one. Work out which side you are on.
2026-09-08AI shopping assistants sell. Your feed decides if you're in
AI-referred shoppers convert far better, but the channel is tiny and every programme runs on merchant feeds. What Google, OpenAI and Shopify actually read.
2026-09-0845% of Americans now ask AI for a local business
BrightLocal puts 45% of US adults on AI for local recommendations, up from 6%. What the engines actually cite, and what an Irish business does about it.
2026-09-08ChatGPT ads hit $1bn a year. They buy nothing in the answer
OpenAI's ad business passed a $1bn run rate in under 200 days. Four studies find the advertiser is almost never the brand the answer cites.
2026-09-08Cloudflare splits AI bots in three on 15 September
On 15 September Cloudflare replaces one AI bots switch with three categories and new defaults. Check what your site is set to before it is set for you.
2026-09-08The EU just called ChatGPT a search engine
Brussels designated ChatGPT a Very Large Online Search Engine. On the Commission's own table it is now bigger than Bing. What that means for you.
2026-09-08Most AI citations never say your name
AI engines cite sources they never name and name brands they never link. Two studies disagree on the size. Measure both columns separately.
2026-09-08Google's parasite-SEO penalty stops at the EEA border
From 30 August, a Google site reputation manual action no longer affects EEA results. What that changes if you compete with publisher directories.
2026-09-08Google must hand its European click data to rivals
Under the DMA, Google has to license anonymised European query and click data to rival engines. Agreements go out on 17 September. What it means for you.
2026-09-08Google gave every site an AI off switch. Don't use it.
Search Console now lets any site leave AI Overviews and AI Mode. The citation data says flipping it costs you clicks. Read the new report instead.
2026-09-0844% of Irish people plan holidays with AI
A loveholidays survey puts 44% of Irish adults on AI for trip planning. We asked the engines who they name back, and followed every citation.
2026-09-08No review profile? A 1% AI citation rate
Seer's study of 804,491 AI answers, paid for by Trustpilot, puts brands with no review profile at a 1% citation rate. What the number really means.
2026-08-29Read the fan-out. Write the answer. Win the citation.
AI engines run hidden sub-searches behind every question. See them, write to the gaps they expose, then measure the citations you gain.
2026-08-28What actually gets you cited in AI answers
We read the GEO studies. Quotations beat schema, llms.txt does nothing, and AI-written pages get cited fine. Ranked by how good the evidence really is.
2026-08-06Shelbourne 76/100: 4.5 stars, half the platforms
We audited The Shelbourne across ten review platforms. It scored 4.5 stars on the five where it was found - and two of those five are other hotels.
2026-08-0519 AI citations for Dublin hotels, from six domains
We asked Google and ChatGPT for the best hotel in Dublin and followed every citation. Nineteen of them, six domains, fourteen pointing at Google Maps.
2026-08-05Swedish is 0.61% of the training data
English is 45% of CulturaX and Swedish 0.61%. And 14 of 23 Swedish news sites block OpenAI's retrieval bot. How AI builds its picture of Sweden.
2026-08-03Shelbourne 82/100: what a good AI audit looks like
We ran an AI Vision scan on The Shelbourne's website. It scored 82 out of 100 with zero failures, and the ceiling it hit is not in the score.
2026-08-01A five-star hotel, a 62/100 site: the Shelbourne audit
We pointed Site Pulse at theshelbourne.com. It has an llms.txt and welcomes every AI crawler, then tells them its author is called originate_admin.
2026-07-30The state of GEO in 2026, and who Baseline Labs are
AI Overviews now appear in 43% of searches, up from 15% a year ago. What changed in AI search in 2026, what practitioners get wrong, and who we are.
2026-07-26Swedish AI shopping traffic now converts better than Google
AI referral traffic to Swedish e-retailers grew 275% in a year, purchases 472%. Conversion beats Google. How to become the shop the AI recommends.
2026-07-26Aldi or Lidl? How AI Answers, and Who It Cites
Price: Aldi. Quality: Lidl. And neither website gets cited. July 2026 data on how ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI settle Germany's shopping question.
2026-07-26AI Overviews reach France: what the CTR data predicts
Google switched on AI Overviews and AI Mode in France on July 22, 2026. International CTR data already shows what the arrival does to clicks.
2026-07-26ChatGPT Picks the Hotel: 70% of Italy's Hotels Invisible
One in three Italian travellers plans trips with AI, yet 70% of Italy's hotels are invisible to AI assistants. What hoteliers, agriturismi and B&Bs do now.
2026-07-25The AI citation supply chain you don't own
A handful of sites you don't own - Reddit, Wikipedia, YouTube - decide whether AI answers mention you. New 2026 data maps who feeds each engine.
2026-07-25Google finally let you measure AI search
In June 2026 Google put AI search impressions in Search Console and let UK publishers opt out. Here is what changed and what to measure now.
2026-07-13Why AI recommends your competitor - and how to change it
Ask ChatGPT for the best option in your category and it names a shortlist you might not be on. Where that shortlist comes from and how to get onto it.
2026-07-08Galway or Dublin? What every AI engine says when you ask
Ask any AI engine 'Galway or Dublin?' and you get the same it-depends verdict - Dublin for careers, Galway for lifestyle. Here's the GEO lesson underneath.
2026-07-08Marmite vs Vegemite: why the AI never picks a side
Ask an AI to choose between Marmite and Vegemite and it won't. It hedges, flubs the B12 facts, and strips out the ethics-and-ownership story.
2026-07-07AI visibility for Swedish companies: how GEO works
Four in ten Swedes use AI tools. When they ask about your industry, are you named? How GEO works for the Swedish market.
2026-06-29What people actually do to game AI answer engines
Seeded Reddit threads, prompt injection, llms.txt, schema spam - we sorted every 'AI search hack' into what's durable and what's about to collapse.
2026-05-07Most brands are losing AI citations and don't even know it
Only 14% of marketers track AI citations, while AI answers reshuffle 70% of the time. Why citation monitoring is now table stakes.
2026-04-23Stop optimising for keywords - optimise for sub-questions
Google's AI fans every query into sub-questions - and ~95% of them have no search volume. Keyword tools are blind to how AI actually retrieves.
2026-04-02'Block all AI bots' is now actively costing you visibility
AI vendors split crawlers into training vs search bots. Block everything and you vanish from ChatGPT search. How to block training bots and stay visible.
2026-03-28You can rank #1 on Google and be invisible to AI
28.3% of ChatGPT's most-cited pages have zero Google visibility. Ranking and AI citation are diverging - here's the data.
2026-03-12AI sends less traffic, but it's worth far more
ChatGPT referrals converted at 15.9% vs 1.76% for Google organic in one B2B study. But the evidence conflicts - here's the honest picture.
2026-02-18llms.txt does nothing for Google Search - so what's it for?
Google's docs confirm Search ignores llms.txt and adoption studies show near-zero effect. So why do Stripe, Vercel and Anthropic still ship it?
