👉 63% of agents selected the first result – proof that being first still matters, even if ranking first doesn’t 👉 92% of agents relied on the Bing Search API 👉 46% of visits began in reading mode, using a text-based browser 👉 63% of first clicks immediately ended with the agent bouncing 🧵 2/3

Literally made this exact point on Marketing Movers podcast today. “Well done, I found you. Now I don’t trust you”

Woke up way too ill to deliver some in-person training. Wfh. Made tea, immediately exploded mug on the kitchen floor. Tried to work for a while. Turned up at 3pm for 2pm meeting, despite apparently checking calendar 14 times today. How is your day?

I'm actually quite excited about this. I think it's the first event (to my albeit poor memory) I've done with @lilyray.nyc and I definitely my first thing for Moz. moz.com/webinars/fut...

Looks like X is juicing web visit numbers by opening a browser WebView in the background whether the user visits the link or not. They've re-invented pop-under fraud (allegedly). news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4580...

🔎 SEO TL;DR - BrightonSEO: Notes, Nuggets & Nerdiness from the Stage Between half-term family fun, catching up with familiar faces, and trying to test all the learning from the event, this edition is fashionably late 😅 👉 seotldr.substack.com/p/brightonse... #bSEO #ecommerce

You've heard about colouring books... But have you heard about a ˗ˏˋ CSS colouring book!? ˎˊ˗ Introducing the @nordcraft.com CSS colouring book today! Get out your CSS pencils and get colouring! 😃 nordcraft.com/coloring-book

Our 100th podcast episode is out! open.spotify.com/episode/3yrt... This one is a bit sillier than the others, but I liked to poke people about their favorite moments in the past episodes... what's your favorite moment?

Sounds like it has potential 😏

Are you interested in literal hell?

If you're using a cloud provider to host images / videos / other content, you can and should verify the host in Search Console, so that you're aware of potential issues that affect Google's crawling & indexing, & Safe Browsing. Use a DNS CNAME to the bucket, then verify with DNS. More: (1/n)

I find it very hard to intellectually escape from hard determinism, which is depressing. But I guess I was always going to think that? 🤔

Are you worried about declining traffic? Join our live AMA with @lilyray.nyc and @markwilliamscook.com 📆 Monday, November 10, 2025 ⌚ 6pm GMT / 1pm EST / 10am PST Don’t miss this session if you’re planning your next big SEO move. moz.com/webinars/fut...

New in Search Console Insights: Query Groups. Makes it easier to track how things are changing (or not) for a group of similar queries from traditional search, AI Overviews, and AI Mode. #SEO #AEO developers.google.com/search/blog/...

We're hiring for a Digital PR specialist at @withcandour.co.uk. It's hybrid, you'll get a profit share in the agency, private health care, a ton of benefits, as well as *gasps* being treated like an adult 😄 withcandour.co.uk/about/news/d...

While I understand it is highly likely that the systems that "count" links around ranking, and the systems that choose which links to show in Sitelinks are probably very separate; this isn't a good look for Google and highlights an exploitable system.

Last Thursday, I gave my second #BrightonSEO talk - "Lessons Learnt from Crawling 1000+ websites" where I shared 12 useful lessons learnt from my success and failures crawling 1000's of web sites over the last 30 years speakerdeck.com/charlesmeade...

brightonSEO Oct '25 is a wrap, and the highlight for me was the joy I got bringing 28 wonderful people, all whom have helped me in some way and enriched my life together for the @alsoasked.com meal and watching them meet each other. 🤩

Thanks @myriam.dopamine.builders for explaining why the Germans weren’t quite as keen taking handfuls of Wix socks at BrightonSEO as me.

saw this on twitter and had to share here

Big news -> OpenAI launches its ChatGPT Atlas web browser, available initially for macOS, & “coming soon” to Windows, iOS, & Android My livestream notes: Atlas has 3 core features. Chat is with you all the time. Browser memory is the second. And third, agent... ChatGPT will take action for you.

I am sure this will be hugely unpopular with a lot of people; but I think AI prompt visibility tracking is generally a big and expensive waste of time. 🤷‍♂️

If you’ve never tried it, I highly recommend the wilful disregard of perfectionism.

I know it's not funny, but, gosh, the Louvre jewelry heist is amazing. I will absolutely use this whenever our DnD master goes "yeah that's a bad plan, it can't work". They used a ladder, on the side of the building, left with scooters. This is absolutely a DnD plan. How many nat 20 did this take?

Local SEO: The leak shows business hours are stored as structured data, making their accuracy a critical signal of reliability.

aws reseller (derogatory)

So... I'm doing a thing... First episode out tomorrow. open.spotify.com/episode/1bMC...

🇺🇸

Thank you so much for the shoutout, @jlwchambers.bsky.social and @markwilliamscook.com. I'm so honoured to be a part of your list of #brightonSEO speakers for the October edition of @brightonseo.com 🇬🇧 youtu.be/Ju63UfPjr3U?...

Here come the AI Search core systems. My latest post -> AI Search & the growing importance of developing strong core visibility systems, site-level quality scoring, & anti-spam systems IMO, there is no way the AI Search platforms can let people game visibility while destroying user trust over time.

If you see me at @brightonseo.com, make sure you ask me for a sticker. We need to get this standard official 🐈

You should internally link to pages that are the most likely candidates to help the user on that journey. I'm sorry to say this, but cosine similarity between vectorised pages does not necessarily reflect that, and could well cost you money.

📊 New data from @alsoasked.com shows Google is aggressively increasing the number of AIOs in People Also Asked questions, with it over doubling in three months from 18% to 38% of English queries 🤯

Especially enjoyed the 'deep dive' sessions in Antalya this year 😉

The stress of the EHCP process alone is enough to drive parents round the bend, no one is doing this without good reason.

Best event of 2025

@markwilliamscook.com telling us what we all wanted to hear Traditional search will be around for a long time @searchnstuff.co.uk

Implementing (crazy) tactics to rank in LLMs? Interesting, Google won't fix the issue (and Gemini is susceptible to the hidden commands for now), yet ChatGPT, Copilot, and Claude proved secure against the hidden text -> Google won’t fix new ASCII smuggling attack in Gemini

Live footage of Keir Starmer this morning 😄

After the very rancorous online debate, it looks like housefresh.com more than made their recovery post-HCU decimation. I wonder how much is: -> Algo updates -> Manual intervention (it was very public) -> Equity earned *because* of the loss (links/brand searches) -> Things they changed

The first "UK Porn Block" / "Child Safety" data breach is out. https://www.theguardian.com/games/2025/oct/07/discord-data-breach-proof-of-age-id-leaked I knew it would be quick, but not that quick.

Thank you to all the animal lovers and digital enthusiasts who joined SEO Charity yesterday! Love to see good humans like @fajela.bsky.social and @antonshulke.bsky.social using their powers for good 🐾 🖤 speakerdeck.com/jammerbot/tr...

Image SEO: A clickMagnetScore actively penalizes images that get a lot of clicks from irrelevant "bad queries," directly fighting visual clickbait.

✨The literacy of light — through colour and form. In Norwich Cathedral’s north aisle, John McLean’s Trinity windows unfold like a line of visual prose. Unseen but powerfully present..

Something tells me Google's August 2025 spam update—which lasted 26 days(!)—was more significant than we realize Seeing many *legitimate* sites with significant movement beginning mid-September, reminiscent of the declining slopes we saw with the Helpful Content updates 📉

Time to start thinking about writing this year's Christmas quiz for the @withcandour.co.uk party 😆