From Rankings to Recommendations: Closing the Measurement Chasm

What to do when the old SEO measurement playbook stops making sense, the new tools contradict each other, and everyone still expects answers.

Transcript

1. Athens SEO 2026 Welcomes On Stage Technical SEO and Analytics Consultant Jonathan Moore
2. We’ve been weighing pigs for years
3. Numbers don’t explain what’s wrong
4. The signal comes after the damage
5. We know there’s an AI measurement chasm
6. No first party data from LLMs
7. Clicks have collapsed
8. The messy middle is messier
9. @SearchLDN We know there are flaws with prompt tracking
10. @SearchLDN AI responses are highly inconsistent https://sparktoro.com/blog/new-research-ais-are-highly-inconsistent-when-recommending-brands-or-products-marketers-should-take-care-when-tracking-ai-visibility/
11. We keep getting distracted by the latest thing
12. We can’t wait for perfect
13. We have to use workarounds
14. It’s not a data problem
15. It’s a question problem
16. The 3 R’s: Revenue, Recognition, Recommendations
17. Essentials
18. Fix your campaign tracking
19. Compare LLM sessions to organic and total sessions https://krmdigital.uk/blog/ai-in-ga4/ 500,000 1,000,000 1,500,000 2,000,000 2,500,000 All Traffic Organic LLM Sessions All Traffic Organic LLM
20. 50,000 100,000 150,000 200,000 250,000 Other PCP Home CMP PLP PDP Sessions Page template Organic Search LLM Next segment by page template https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/11523339?hl=en
21. Set up Search Console bulk data export https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/data-analytics/analyze-google-search-data-with-bigquery
23. Check out ML for SEO on how to interrogate this data https://academy.mlforseo.com/product-category/courses/
24. Or sign up to SEO Gets https://seogets.com/
25. Check your queries for SERP features https://dataforseo.com/apis/serp-api/google-serp-api
26. Set up Bing Webmaster Tools https://www.bing.com/webmasters/help/ai-performance-9f8e7d6c
27. Revenue Are we attracting, converting, and profiting from the right customers?
28. Are we making money? -£1,000 £0 £1,000 £2,000 £3,000 £4,000 £5,000 £6,000 £7,000 £8,000 £9,000 Revenue Total Organic LLM Linear (Total) Linear (Organic) Linear (LLM)
29. Check if revenue per session has dropped https://www.searchenginejournal.com/why-your-seo-kpis-are-failing-your-business-and-how-to-fix-them/564769/ £3.26 £3.35 £0.00 £0.50 £1.00 £1.50 £2.00 £2.50 £3.00 £3.50 £4.00 Q4 2024 Q4 2025 Organic revenue per session
30. Who are our most profitable customer segments?
31. Survey them
32. Recognition: Are we known, understood, and associated with the right things?
33. Start with positioning https://www.aprildunford.com/post/a-product-positioning-exercise
34. Be honest
35. Now create a basic prompt tracking library
36. Q1) Are we recognised as a brand? Q2) What are we known for? Q3) Do we show for our key attributes? Prompts need to answer these questions:
38. Q1) Are we recognised as a brand? Q2) What are we known for? Q3) Do we show for our key attributes? Prompts need to answer these questions:
39. Question: Are we recognised as a brand? Prompts: “What do you know about [brand] ?” “Who are [brand] s competitors? ” Tip: Try this with web search turned on and off
40. Question: What are we known for? Prompts: “What is [brand] known for ?” “What do [brand] sell ?”
41. Question: Do we show for our key attributes? Prompts: What is [brand] s unique selling points? I am [person Y] , looking for [service] , is [brand] a good choice?
42. Pick a model and run prompts
43. Check the answers for accuracy
44. Recommendations: Are we chosen, endorsed, and shown alongside the right competitors
45. Question: Are we recommended? Prompts: What is the best brand for [ service ]? I am [person Y] , looking for [service] , what are some brands I should consider?
46. Question: How often do we show up? Check if you are: • Actively recommended • Included as an option • Only mentioned in passing • Missing
47. Question: How do we show up? Check the sentiment and context: • Leading recommendation • Neutral mention • Wrong or misleading
48. Question: How do we show up? Check where and how you appear • Opening paragraph • Bullet point • Caveat • Source citations
49. Question: Who else shows up? Extract: • Mentions of other brands • Links to sources
50. Question: Where do we need to be mentioned? Extract: • Extract source domains • Find gaps where you aren’t mentioned
51. Turn this information into a grid per model
52. We can now diagnose problems
53. And assign metrics
54. Closing the Chasm
55. We can now think about scaling the process
56. USE NEW METRICS WITH CAUTION
57. BEWARE OF SHINY OBJECTS
58. Be a cynical optimist
59. Waikay is a solid, affordable start https://waikay.io/
60. As is Advanced Web Ranking https://www.advancedwebranking.com/
61. I also like Similarweb https://www.similarweb.com/
62. Monday morning.
63. Stop weighing the pig. Build the grids. Don’t wait for perfect.
64. Thank You! Jonathan Moore Technical SEO and Analytics Consultant Hire me! https://www.linkedin.com/in/moorejonathan /