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@RyanJones EVOLVING SEO FOR EVOLVING SEARCH ENGINES Ryan Jones

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@RyanJones Ryan Jones SVP @WeAreRazorfish Stable Genius – WTFSEO.com @RyanJones Linkedin.com/in/jonesy www.RyanMJones.com Also the guy behind: WTFSEO.com SEODataViz.com ServerHeaders.com & SEOnews.pro And NOW: SERPrecon.com

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@RyanJones I’ll mention Google a LOT – but they weren’t first…..

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@RyanJones AI is NOT a Search Engine

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@RyanJones Inverted Index Next Token Prediction VS

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@RyanJones 6 Examples: it’s not doing logic/math. It’s giving most likely completion.

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@RyanJones 7 It’s all Just Probability. Example: next word prediction https://poloclub.github.io/transformer-explainer/

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@RyanJones 8 Or “Beam Search” Go Read This Article: https://ig.ft.com/generative-ai/ Example: next word prediction

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@RyanJones 9 Which Can Lead to Weirdness…

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@RyanJones 10 Because it’s tokens and vectors, not words.

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@RyanJones Let’s talk about: Retrieval Augmented Generation & Factual Grounding

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@RyanJones 12 AI Overviews are summarizing results, but not just the results for your query. Opportunity: you can get cited in a popular query by ranking for a related query!

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@RyanJones 13 People who searched this, also searched these things.

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@RyanJones 14 How are websites cited?

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@RyanJones 15 You have to rank for the summary Takeaway: Even though it might be summarizing one document, it could cite one that ranks for that summary

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@RyanJones 16 Bing Example: WebMD is cited here, but the text in this citation doesn’t appear on the WebMD page

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@RyanJones 17 Example Answer says “according to stadium-maps.com” However that’s not one of the sites cited. Thanks @njmott for screenshot

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@RyanJones 18 Proof: Google is telling us what text it “searched” to find a citation in the URL Hat tip @kevindoory for noticing this

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@RyanJones 19 Guess what ranks #1 for that snippet of text……

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@RyanJones Do I have to Rank to Be “Sourced” in AI? Source: Brightedge MAY 2024 SEPT 2024

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@RyanJones 21 Example DO NOT RANK ON PAGE 1

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@RyanJones How Often are AI Overviews Showing up? Source: Brightedge

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@RyanJones Where are AI Overviews Showing up? Source: Brightedge

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@RyanJones Let’s Talk About Spam

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@RyanJones 25 An Example of AI SPAM Hat tip: @lilyray for the example

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@RyanJones 26 Opportunities for Misinformation might increase Hat tip: @rustybrick for the example

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@RyanJones 27 Opportunities for Misinformation might increase Hat tip: @rustybrick for the example

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@RyanJones 28 Best Cigars.. No AI

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@RyanJones 29 Best Cigars For Kids However…..

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@RyanJones 30 Google LOVES Reddit

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@RyanJones 31 And Reddit has figured that out

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@RyanJones The Future of AI and Search

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@RyanJones 33 Google Wants to Build the Star Trek Computer

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@RyanJones 34 What Is Google Saying? AI Improves search – doesn’t replace it. - Sundar Pichai

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@RyanJones 35 Woo Hoo! Where’s My Clicks? There Might Be an Effect on Clicks

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@RyanJones 36 Affiliate sites are going to feel this. Remember, Google has a review platform that they can easily use AI to summarize.

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@RyanJones Is SEO Dead? WTFSEO

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@RyanJones The total number of searches on Google has increased every year since its inception People are just searching more – and search is built into more things

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@RyanJones What Should SEO’s Do?

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@RyanJones 40 First: Populate your Freaking META Descriptions H/T Sean Stahlman for this one

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@RyanJones 41 Multiple brands means: All 4 citations are our client ☺

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@RyanJones 42 We did a “quick answers” question project for Grey Goose. Bonus: 70% of those questions are now cited in AI too!

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@RyanJones 43 Take Advantage & Optimize! See what Gemini Generates for popular queries. Look up related keywords & questions. Apply that to your copywriting This is why I showed you the patents & how it works!

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@RyanJones 44 Or Reverse Engineer it! This script: 1. Scrapes google 2. Feeds content from top results, related questions, related queries to Gemini 3. Asks it to create a summary 4. Uses BERT to extract relevant queries and passages from that summary 5. Let’s the SEO team create content based on those! 6. Gets us more citations!

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@RyanJones 45 How Do I Know If I’ll Rank?

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@RyanJones

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@RyanJones 47 How Do I Know If I’ll Rank?

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@RyanJones 48 Be Like Bill: Focus on the VERBS For some queries – users never wanted a website. Focus on the ones where they do.

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@RyanJones 49 What Is Google Saying? - Sundar Pichai

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@RyanJones I JUST WANT THE NUMBER. Accept that not all users want websites

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@RyanJones 51 NOT THIS

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@RyanJones 52 I’M NOT WORRIED Retrieval Augmented Generation (the step before the AI answer is generated) is no different than a Search Engine. • Still based on a user query • Still links to websites • It’s still looking for relevant passages on relevant pages. • There’s (hopefully) still spam algorithms. • It still needs to crawl, index, and retrieve.

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@RyanJones 53 WHICH MEANS… • We still need to understand user intent and do keyword research • We still need to meet our user’s needs and create helpful, authoritative content. • We still need to make our sites crawlable, accessible, and indexable. • We still need to do SEO, but it’s becoming real marketing!

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@RyanJones Let’s Get The Common Questions Out Of The Way

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@RyanJones You CAN opt-out with the nosnippet attribute.
text ignored

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@RyanJones You CAN but should not Block AI

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@RyanJones WHY NOT? It’s sending traffic! Source: Parse.ly

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@RyanJones THANK YOU Ryan Jones SVP @WeAreRazorfish Stable Genius – WTFSEO.com @RyanJones Linkedin.com/in/jonesy RyanMJones.com Also the guy behind: WTFSEO.com SEODataViz.com ServerHeaders.com & SEOnews.pro Use code: “welcome3” to get 10% off for 3 months!