Author: Rich Sanger SEO
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Reading The New Rules of AI Search: How Much Has SEO Really Changed?
I started reading Crystal Carter’s The New Rules of AI Search on my trip to BrightonSEO in San Diego, and I approached it the same way I tend to approach books like this: slowly, with a lot of notes, and with an eye toward the ideas I wanted to come back to. By the time…
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Search Is a Team Sport: Lessons From BrightonSEO San Diego 2026
Search has always been a team sport. SEO has depended on developers, writers, PR teams, designers, subject-matter experts, and others for as long as I have been doing it. What has changed is the number of players on the field and the number of places where their work can influence whether a brand gets found,…
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5 Themes That Defined MozCon 2026
I made a last minute decision to travel to New York City for MozCon 2026. I’m glad I did! Full disclosure. 50% of the reason i went down was so I could hit my old pizza joint in my hometown in New Jersey. Nothing like a Federici’s pizza followed up with some ice cream from…
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When Does Reputation Management Become Reputation Laundering? SEO, AI, & the Responsibility of Influence
I’ve been wrestling with a particular question for several years. In fact, much of what lies behind this article began as notes and outlines I started writing a few years ago. I often found myself wondering what responsibility comes with the ability to influence what information people encounter online. At the time, I was thinking…
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The Evolution of SEO in One Year: From Traffic Loss to Entity Understanding
Last week was a good week to be an SEO in Boston. As someone who lives in the area, it’s not often that major search events come to your backyard. Between the SEOFOMO meetup hosted by Aleyda Solís and WhitePress and three days of SMX Advanced, the search industry effectively took over Boston for a…
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Google Search Console Gets AI Reporting After Previously Saying It Wasn’t Planned
Google has officially announced dedicated reporting for generative AI experiences in Google Search Console. The new reports will provide visibility into how often pages from your site appear in AI-powered search experiences, including AI Overviews, AI Mode, and generative AI features in Discover. For many SEOs, this announcement is long overdue. Google is now providing…
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Google I/O 2026: Google Search Is Becoming Intelligent Search | What This Means for SEO, Search Console, and Website Traffic
At Google I/O 2026, Google made something very clear: Search is no longer just a search engine with AI features layered on top. Instead, it is becoming an AI-powered system designed to understand complex questions, maintain context, perform tasks on a user’s behalf, and even build custom tools directly within Search. Liz Reid, Google’s Head…
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Google’s New Guidance on AI Search: SEO, Query Fan-Out, and What Still Matters
For the past two years, the SEO industry has spent a great deal of time trying to determine what, if anything, fundamentally changed when Google introduced generative AI into Search. Do you need to create an llms.txt file? Should you break your content into tiny chunks? Is there a special way to write for AI…
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How Customers Find and Choose Local Businesses Online (Google, Reviews, Websites & AI)
I recently had the opportunity to present a webinar for Boston Business Mentors on a topic at the center of local SEO and digital marketing: how customers find businesses online and decide which one to contact. The presentation, How Your Business Gets Found Online, was designed for small business owners, but the underlying ideas apply…
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Google’s Ask Maps and Immersive Navigation: What This Means for Local Business Visibility
Google has announced a major update to Google Maps, introducing Ask Maps and Immersive Navigation. On the surface, these features appear to improve how users explore places and navigate routes. But underneath that, they may also signal something larger: a shift in how Google Maps understands businesses, evaluates relevance, and recommends local options to users.…
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