Great breakdown on the GEO/AEO landscape. The snowflake analogy for GenAI conversations nails why AI visibility feels so unmeasurable compared to traditional SEO metrics. I've definitely seen that trough of despair you mention where initial dasboard excitement fades when teams realize they can't actually action most of the insights. The black hat warning is especially timly given how tempting quick wins look right now.
Great piece Scot! And my man Marc Sirkin texted me about it this morning. As you know first hand when you interviewed me last February on Tweener Talks, I was focusing on how to combat the changing landscape to make sure our company and clients would be "SEEN, HEARD, and CITED by humans and machines alike for maximum results." I laid out my 4P strategy. In fact, in November of 2024 I registered the domain whatisAEO.com. I quickly moved away from trying to figure out AI visibility because of the probabilistic (non-deterministic) nature of LLMs combined with the shifting sands of them trying to figure out what authority ranking would ultimately end up being. I desperately tried to warn other business and GTM leaders to focus on showing up in credible places and owned channels. Many spent the last 12-15 months debating this and that. All of this again is to just say Thank You. Sincerely. -Greg Boone
Great insights and story Greg. In our ecommerce vertical we are fortunate to have the product catalog to lean on for content and context expansion. For others your strategy is spot on!
Incredible piece, Scott. In my nearly 10 years at Search Engine Land we covered and lived through the black hat era of SEO and you absolutely nailed it here - it's happening again - history really does repeat itself.
Great breakdown on the GEO/AEO landscape. The snowflake analogy for GenAI conversations nails why AI visibility feels so unmeasurable compared to traditional SEO metrics. I've definitely seen that trough of despair you mention where initial dasboard excitement fades when teams realize they can't actually action most of the insights. The black hat warning is especially timly given how tempting quick wins look right now.
Thanks Neural Foundry - excellent feedback and much appreciated. Always good to hear we're not alone in the things we are hearing out there!
Great piece Scot! And my man Marc Sirkin texted me about it this morning. As you know first hand when you interviewed me last February on Tweener Talks, I was focusing on how to combat the changing landscape to make sure our company and clients would be "SEEN, HEARD, and CITED by humans and machines alike for maximum results." I laid out my 4P strategy. In fact, in November of 2024 I registered the domain whatisAEO.com. I quickly moved away from trying to figure out AI visibility because of the probabilistic (non-deterministic) nature of LLMs combined with the shifting sands of them trying to figure out what authority ranking would ultimately end up being. I desperately tried to warn other business and GTM leaders to focus on showing up in credible places and owned channels. Many spent the last 12-15 months debating this and that. All of this again is to just say Thank You. Sincerely. -Greg Boone
Great insights and story Greg. In our ecommerce vertical we are fortunate to have the product catalog to lean on for content and context expansion. For others your strategy is spot on!
Here is an real-time AEO Experiment
https://www.fatbikehero.com/p/the-sovereign-signal
Incredible piece, Scott. In my nearly 10 years at Search Engine Land we covered and lived through the black hat era of SEO and you absolutely nailed it here - it's happening again - history really does repeat itself.