My team and I have been helping brands reach their SEO traffic and conversion goals through content and links for over 10 years. Recognized by industry leaders and household brands as an authority in both organic content and digital PR.
Content Caffeine #50: Broken SEO tools, 34% of AI citations come from this, and demand capture vs demand creation in search
And the increased traffic isn’t translating into transactions. What I found interesting is that PR and media coverage accounts for 34% of AI citations. The good news for SEOs and marketers is that we don’t need to fundamentally change what we do on our/our clients’ websites. But those AI citations increase brand visibility and trust so we need to consider how to influence the results. IdeasFocus less on trying to manipulate an algorithm and more on building authority signals that AI models pull from. A few practical ways to do this:
Does this playbook look familiar to you? Create things worth referencing and put them where journalists, creators, decision-makers, and (now) AI can find them. Have you gained any media coverage recently? Reply with your examples and I’ll feature some in the next newsletter. Broken tools and messy reportingSince Google dropped the ability to show a hundred search results per page last week, Google Search Console is also struggling to report organic ranking data. Brodie Clark reported a significant decline in desktop impressions, which resulted in a sharp increase in average position. Clark wrote a LinkedIn post noting, “Either way, if you’ve just checked GSC and are noticing a significant drop to overall impressions in the past couple of days of data, you’re not alone.” Glenn Gabe pitched in on the &num=100 parameter: …there are sites seeing a big drop in clicks when Google implemented the num=100 change. If that's the case, then it sure looks like BS traffic was coming through Google. Questions:
Reply with your thoughts and we'll see who gets closest to the right answer! QuoteworthyAI search is the fastest-growing channel we’ve ever tracked. But growth and quality are two different things. Organic search continues to outperform on conversions and remains the engine of digital growth. The most successful marketers aren’t choosing one over the other – they’re adapting for AI while doubling down on the organic strategies that have always driven results. —Jim Yu, Co-founder, BrightEdge [Source] ~16 million videos snatched AI companies are finding ways around YouTube's terms of service to download videos and use them for training. Who's grabbing the content?Major tech companies like Meta, Amazon, and ByteDance have used these data sets to train their AI models without permission from the creators. It's interesting that filmmakers' works appear to be a prime target—probably due to the high-quality content. Repeat offendersIn the same way that authors had their books pirated, AI companies are using this as a workaround to train their tech. Bear in mind that this tech is designed to replace the people running these channels. Similar to written content, your videos are now being fed into a machine so that it can copy you. If you have a YouTube channel, head to the Atlantic article to check whether your videos have been scraped. Related: The AI-Scraping Free-for-All Is Coming to an End "AI firms scraped the web to build models that will continue to scrape the web until there’s nothing left." Do you follow me on LinkedIn? I share regular tips and stories I don't have room for here. Come and join me.
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Content Caffeine
My team and I have been helping brands reach their SEO traffic and conversion goals through content and links for over 10 years. Recognized by industry leaders and household brands as an authority in both organic content and digital PR.
Content Caffeine For content-obsessed marketers and SEOs Hi there, It's been a privilege and pleasure to write this newsletter for you in 2025, and I appreciate the time you take to open, read, and reply to my letters. Your support and interest are my incentive to keep going in 2026 - thank you! Happy Holidays and a very Happy New Year to you! Today's highlights include: 7 Bold SEO and AI Search Predictions for 2026 11 SEO rules that AI can't override Why Google's spam problem is getting...
Content Caffeine For content-obsessed marketers and SEOs Hi there, Is the end of 2025 approaching fast enough for you? Like me, your list of things to achieve before the holidays is probably too long. Do yourself a favor and delegate, defer, or delete something now :) Also, Google is still working on the next core update, but they wouldn't do that to us at New Year…would they? Today's highlights include: Teaching AI: Brand Building and Digital PR Why every AI search study tells a different...
Content Caffeine For content-obsessed marketers and SEOs Hi there, I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving. If you're relaxing on the sofa today, I've put together some lighter reading to go with your leftovers. Today's highlights include: The signals to monitor in search GEO 'gold rush' Using Web Guide for SEO Random snippets As always, thanks for being here. I'll be back on December 11.Nicole P.S. Scroll to the end for a little entertainment. I want to share your: Big news, latest resource,...