Greg Ahern

We're observing a material shift in referral traffic sources, specifically an increase attributable to AI-driven entities. Understanding the mechanics of this traffic is crucial for effective site management and optimization. Server log analysis surface User-Agent string revealing visits from a new cohort of crawlers associated with large language model (LLM) based applications. These aren't your traditional search engine spiders exclusively focused on indexation. We're talking about agents representing services like Google's own AI features, Anthropic's Claude, Microsoft's Copilot integrated with Bing, and Perplexity AI, among others. These bots are actively fetching content, driven by user queries within their respective AI interfaces, which subsequently results in a referral back to the source URI. Quantifying this requires granular analysis of your access logs. By filtering and aggregating requests based on identifying User-Agent patterns, you can establish a baseline metric for AI bot visit frequency and volume. This data is invaluable for understanding the impact of these agents on your infrastructure and content reach. Controlling how these agents interact with your site is where the robots.txt protocol becomes paramount. It's about preventing indexation anymore and/or managing resource allocation and guiding specific user agents to appropriate sections of your site. Implementing well-defined Disallow and Allow directives, potentially even leveraging User-Agent specific rules, allows you to curate the crawl behavior of these diverse AI entities. This ensures that helpful agents, those that contribute to content visibility and referral traffic, can operate efficiently, while simultaneously mitigating potential issues with overly aggressive or unwanted scraping that could strain server resources or expose sensitive data. In essence, the rise of AI search bots necessitates a more sophisticated approach to log analysis and crawler management. It's a technical challenge that requires understanding the nuances of how these new agents identify themselves and interact with web resources to properly harness their potential for traffic generation while maintaining site integrity. Here's a great list of AI crawlers: https://lnkd.in/gZSgr4QC

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Agent mode is the biggest upgrade to ChatGPT since GPT-4. Here are the 10 workflows early adopters are building, and you can too. Just get stuck in. Play around. See what it can do. Here are 10 real agent use cases people are running today. No code, just prompts: 🧳 Plan trips (flights, hotels, restaurants, itinerary) 🖋️ Fill forms & submit your business to directories 🔍 Research competitors & summarise findings 🥑 Plan meals & build a shopping list 🖼️ Create slide decks, reports, or formatted docs 🤝 Prep for meetings & write follow-ups 📬 Triage emails, write replies, manage your calendar 🧑‍💻 Tailor CVs, write cover letters, track applications 🎉 Plan events, compare venues, write invites 🏡 Search rentals & compare listings You can learn AI by reading. But you’ll only get better by building. Start small. Try one. See what happens. What’s one task you’d love to delegate to an agent? ♻️ Share if you found this useful — someone in your network might too. 🔔 Follow Alex Issakova for more ways to build with AI (without burning out).

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Your competitor’s blog post about ‘best tools’ might be the reason AI isn’t quoting you. AI models are pulling citations from vendor blogs more often than most people realize: Perplexity, Gemini, and Google’s AI Overviews each cite vendor blogs in about 7% of cases. ChatGPT does it less (~1%), but it still happens. The blogs getting cited look the same: “Best X Tools” listicles. A company puts itself at the top, lists competitors underneath, and builds a comparison post. AI models grab that content to answer category-level queries. Thinkific, LearnWorlds, Monday.com, Pipedrive, SE Ranking, and HP have all had their vendor blogs show up as AI citations. Why? Because in categories with thin third-party coverage, AI doesn’t filter for bias. It surfaces whatever looks comprehensive. That means competitor comparison blogs aren’t just marketing. They’re shaping the dataset AI relies on. If you’re not publishing your own, you’re letting your competitors decide how you get represented in AI search... And who shows up when your customers ask for the “best.” --- Want growth hacks like this that can catapult your business forward?    Sign up to my weekly growth hacks newsletter for easy to implement hacks every Sunday:  https://lnkd.in/eGMgpwUA

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Ever heard of schema?? Well, most health brands are missing this technical SEO unlock hiding in plain sight... 🧩 If your site relies on content to drive growth, but you haven't touched your schema markup, you’re probably leaving serious visibility on the table. Schema is the structured data that tells Google--and now AI Overviews--exactly what your content means, not just what it says. And as search shifts toward GEO (Generative Engine Optimization), it’s quickly becoming the difference between ranking and, er, being replaced. Our SEO/GEO leads at Healthyish Content have been testing schema across 20+ top health & healthcare brands, and the pattern’s undeniable: ✅ Faster indexing ✅ Richer search results ✅ Stronger AI visibility (thanks to higher rankings in Google) Our amazing team at Healthyish Content just published a full guide breaking it all down: → Which schema types matter most for health brands → How it fuels AEO + GEO visibility → Why it’s the foundation of modern healthcare SEO Make sure your health content isn’t getting quietly left behind and start (or optimize better) at the link in the comments below 👇

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GoDaddy’s 25 Acquisitions: How It Built a Digital Empire... Over the last decade, GoDaddy has grown beyond just a domain registrar—it has become a powerhouse in domains, hosting, security, and digital commerce. A big part of that success? Strategic acquisitions. From domain marketplaces to WordPress management and AI-driven tools, GoDaddy has made 25 major acquisitions since 2012, shaping the industry. 📈 GoDaddy’s 25 Acquisitions (2012-2023): 🔹 2012 – Acquired Outright (accounting & bookkeeping platform). 🔹 2013 – Bought Locu ($70M), Afternic (domain marketplace), and Media Temple (web hosting). 🔹 2014 – Added Canary (calendar tool) and Mad Mimi (email marketing). 🔹 2015 – Acquired Elto (web dev marketplace) and a Marchex domain portfolio ($28M). 🔹 2016 – Bought FreedomVoice ($42M VoIP service) and ManageWP (WordPress site management). 🔹 2016 – Biggest deal yet: Host Europe Group ($1.79B hosting provider). 🔹 2017 – Secured Sucuri (website security). 🔹 2018 – Acquired Main Street Hub (social media marketing), Plasso (subscription billing), and Cognate (blockchain trademarks). 🔹 2019 – Bought Sellbrite (multi-channel eCommerce). 🔹 2020 – Added Over (content creation), Uniregistry (domain marketplace), Neustar's registry business, and Poynt ($365M payments solution). 🔹 2021 – Acquired Pagely (managed WordPress hosting). 🔹 2022 – Purchased DNAcademy (domain name training) and Dan.com (domain marketplace). 🔹 2023 – Expanded domain portfolio with .wiki, .tattoo, .ink, .gay, .health TLDs. 🔮 What’s Next for GoDaddy? With AI, Web3 domains, and eCommerce innovations growing fast, GoDaddy will likely keep expanding. Will we see more blockchain-based domains, AI-driven business tools, or something completely new? What do you think is next for GoDaddy? Drop your thoughts below! 👇🚀 #GoDaddy #Acquisitions #DomainNames #TechGrowth #BusinessExpansion #WebHosting #AI #Ecommerce #DomainBrokerService #Domains #Domaining #DNPost

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Keywords are DEAD? Landing pages are DEAD? Google is not a Search Engine? Watch the latest episode: https://lnkd.in/g-FAtbmF That’s what Frederick Vallaeys, CEO of Optmyzr, predicted in our latest podcast. 🤯 We dove deep into how AI is reshaping Google Ads & PPC, why automation is now a must, and the hidden cost of not using a PPC tool like Optmyzr. If you run Google Ads, you need to hear this. 🔥 #googleads #digitalmarketing #ppc #sea

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Most people are using AI agents the wrong way.  Just because you can add an agent doesn’t mean you should.  A poorly placed AI agent can slow things down and make automations worse.  The key is knowing when, where, and how to use them.  I break it all down in this video so you can build AI agents that actually work—and sell them for serious money.

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#AI search is rewriting the rules of visibility. If you’re in the home improvement industry, your old SEO playbook isn’t enough anymore. If you want AI-powered search (like Google SGE, ChatGPT, and Gemini) to recommend your business, you need to be seen as the go-to authority in your category—not just a contractor with a couple blog posts. ⸻ Think of your site like a toolbox. If you only have a hammer (your service page), but no drill bits (helpful content), no one—human or AI—will trust you to handle the whole job. This is called #Topical #Authority: 👉 It’s how clearly your site demonstrates deep expertise across your full scope of services, not just one or two pages. ⸻ 🔧 Here’s the content structure we deploy for home improvement clients at Channel Automation: 1. Core Service Page – E.g. Roof Repair in Austin 2. Support Topics – E.g. Signs your roof is leaking, Tile vs shingle cost comparison, Best time of year for roof inspections 3. Related Local Pages – Roofing in Round Rock, Pflugerville, Cedar Park 4. Internal Links – Everything is connected for both users and AI to crawl smoothly ⸻ This works because: ✔️ Every main service is backed by helpful, trust-building content ✔️ Internal linking helps AI map your expertise like a blueprint ✔️ You show up for more types of queries, not just “roofing company near me” ⸻ If your website looks like an island—no context, no supporting content—AI won’t trust it. And it won’t show it. 🔍 Want to make sure your content sends the right signals to AI? Let’s talk. Channel Automation can audit your current site and show you exactly where your topical authority is falling short—and how to fix it.

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How to get links in AI search? A recent leak of Claude's system prompt shows how likely it is to research and include links to specific sites Terrific summary via GPT Insights... "Whether Claude links to a source depends partly on the search categories ... but just as important is whether the content can be easily paraphrased – or if it includes something users can only get from the linked page." This includes assets like: • Interactive tools  🛠️ • Live, updated data sets 📊 • Genuine UGC (individual reviews, testimonials, ratings) ⭐ • Specific local, personal, or niche insights that AI can’t figure out 📍 • Value-add, expert perspective 🧠 In short, content that is the *opposite* of "commodity content" - this isn't content that anyone can create, but content that's unique and difficult to produce/scale and provides distinct value. Link in comments 🔗

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Not everything needs AI. Disciplined data practices and being selective about AI is important. Don't blindly AI-wash every corner of your stack despite the AI agent race happening in martech right now. You’re already seeing home pages being updated: We’re the first AI agent centric {{insert.martech.category}}. Nearly every tool in your stack is going to have agentic features. Your role over the next few years will include being an AI referee. > "If you're the marketing ops leader, and your 30 vendors are telling you to go turn on the AI for their application, you sort of become like an AI referee. You have to figure out like, well, do I turn it on for this one and not for this one? And is this one gonna overwrite what occurs here?" Rich Waldron, the CEO and Co-Founder of Tray.ai saw this shift coming. One of the categories of vendors that are uniquely positioned to serve as the orchestrators of AI agents for marketing applications are iPaaS tools. They’ve spent the last 15 years building best in class API integrations to your existing stack and facilitate the need for data access and interoperability. I had the honor of sitting down with Rich on Humans of Martech where we covered: • What makes an agent truly "Agentic" beyond the hype • Why your AI is only as good as your marketing ops • Why API-based AI beats browser-based automation • What the heck are vector DBs and RAG pipelines • How to become the automation hero your company needs • And so much more! -- Listen here 👇 YouTube: https://lnkd.in/gxWPjCVS Apple: https://lnkd.in/gGg-UPaA Spotify: https://lnkd.in/ghYDmCbZ Summary: https://lnkd.in/g_3dNGDc – Thank you to our sponsors for supporting the podcast: 📧 Customer.io — Marketing automation platform to build intricate, multi-step customer journeys across all channels. 🦸 RevenueHero — B2B scheduling and routing product to instantly connect prospects with the right sales reps to drive qualified meetings. 🦩 Census — Universal data layer that unifies & cleans data from all your sources and makes it available for any app and AI agent to use. 🎨 Knak — No-code email and landing page creator to build on-brand assets with an editor that anyone can use. -- My top 3 takeaways: 💡 AI that helps you analyze and recommend has been around forever. The future competitive advantage in your stack is going to come from AI that acts on your behalf. 💡 Build AI agents that execute complex tasks autonomously by converting visual workflows into "skills" that you can teach an agent. 💡 AI agent proliferation = opportunity and governance nightmares. Prioritize solutions that centralize agent management rather than adopting disconnected AI capabilities across your stack.

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Over the past year, I’ve noticed a growing trend: agencies rebranding traditional SEO fundamentals as “AI SEO”, complete with new acronyms, pricing models, and promises of secret optimization techniques. Yes, AI search is changing the landscape. But let’s be honest, most of what’s being sold as “new” isn’t actually new. It’s just smart marketing. In my new article just published on Search Engine Land  I break down: • How “AI SEO” is being positioned in sales pitches • Where the real differences exist (and where they don’t) • The risks of chasing short-term, platform-specific tactics • How to evaluate if an AI-focused service is actually worth your investment If you’re evaluating SEO partners right now, or being pitched on “AI search optimization”, this one’s worth a read. https://lnkd.in/evEEkpVM

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SEO is dead. Long live GEO. 🤖 If you're marketing Medicare Advantage plans, AI is already answering your prospects' questions—and it might be getting your benefits wrong. The complexity of MA content puts you in the highest risk category for AI misinterpretation. Here's why that's a compliance nightmare and how to fix it with defensive GEO. Full framework + 3 operational audits in today's newsletter 👇 https://lnkd.in/eKV-_WbS

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