AI & SEO

What ChatGPT Actually Reads: A Reverse-Engineering Study and What It Means for AI-Era SEO

A French research group reverse-engineered ChatGPT's web retrieval. Of 58,000 URLs retrieved, only 760 were actually opened. Most answers are written from a 200-character snippet. Here is what this means for SEO.

Iqbal Abdullah · August 13, 2026

What Neil Patel Gets Right (And Wrong) About Surviving the SEO Collapse

Neil Patel argues that SEO is now about being found everywhere. I agree with the diagnosis but not the prescription. For small businesses, owning your domain matters more than being everywhere.

Iqbal Abdullah · July 27, 2026

Why a Keyword Difficulty Score of Zero Does Not Guarantee a Top Ranking

Low keyword difficulty is tempting, but the score alone won't get you on page one. Here's what the tools don't tell you.

Iqbal Abdullah · July 14, 2026

The AI Visibility Spam Emails Are Wrong. Here's Why.

A wave of spam emails claims AI search will make your brand invisible unless you pay for "GEO" services. Here's what the data — and leading SEO researcher Lily Ray — actually says about AI visibility, and why the panic is premature.

Iqbal Abdullah · July 2, 2026

The Markdown Mirage: Why Stripping Your Website Won't Help AI Crawlers

A new AI SEO trend suggests serving stripped-down Markdown versions of your website to help LLMs crawl faster. Google's John Mueller and Martin Splitt say this strips away the exact signals search engines need to understand context, trust, and site structure. Here's why the trend is backwards, and what to do instead.

Iqbal Abdullah · June 18, 2026

ChatGPT Has 3.2% of Search. That Number Is Both Reassuring and Dangerous (Part 3)

SparkToro's data shows AI tools hold just 3.2% of desktop search. That looks small, and it is. But if you focus only on the current number and ignore the structural mechanics underneath, you will be caught off guard by the shift that is already happening.

Iqbal Abdullah · March 31, 2026

Not All Searches Are Equal, and Pretending They Are Will Cost You (Part 2)

SparkToro's research lumps Amazon product searches, YouTube video queries, Instagram lookups, and Google searches into one basket. That is a category error, and if you base your marketing strategy on it without understanding why, you will misallocate your budget.

Iqbal Abdullah · March 26, 2026

SparkToro Says Google Has 73% of Search And I Have Questions (Part 1)

SparkToro's latest research claims Google has only 73.7% of desktop search when you count 41 major websites. The number is interesting, but the methodology behind it deserves serious scrutiny before anyone rewrites their marketing strategy.

Iqbal Abdullah · March 17, 2026

The Age of AI Recommendations — Can Your Company’s Product Pages Pass AI Screening?

AI must become a partner in the purchasing process, and instead of merely listing specifications, it needs to clarify “who” and “what value” will be gained. Structuring pages so that they are recommended by AI expands the chances of being selected.

Iqbal Abdullah · February 18, 2026

SEO Is Not Dead, but GEO Is Not Optional

Two Japanese data-driven articles published days apart arrive at opposite conclusions about SEO. One says it's dead, the other says it isn't. They're both right, and understanding why matters more than picking a side.

Iqbal Abdullah · February 9, 2026