iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Jes Scholz @jes-scholz.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

Chasing attributable clicks isn't smart SEO. It's dangerous nonsense. There are two brands with functionally identical products. One spends six months polishing high search intent landing pages, shaving milliseconds off load times and celebrating every organic click.

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Jes Scholz @jes-scholz.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

🧵 The AI-Assistant reporting in GA4 is misleading. Yes, you can see ChatGPT, Perplexity, Copilot, Claude and Gemini. But AI Overviews and AI Mode are tracked under Organic or Direct. Meaning the majority of AI surface views are obfuscated in your report.

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Jes Scholz @jes-scholz.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

The 10-second strip test exposes what's broken is most content strategies. Take your last 5 articles and 5 of a competitor. Remove the header logo. Show them to someone. Could they tell which brand published which? Once the logo disappears, many brands become indistinguishable from competitors.

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Jes Scholz @jes-scholz.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

Strip the logo off your best-performing content. Drop it on a competitor's site. If nothing looks out of place, it was never building your brand. It was building the category. Read how to avoid this in this month's SEO Brief, on distinctiveness 👇

seobrief.substack.com

When the logo comes off, is it still you?

Read about distinctiveness. The thing that decides whether all your work on visibility is building your brand, or just feeding a feed.

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Jes Scholz @jes-scholz.bsky.social · 16/06/2026

If you need a nail in the coffin to stop treating subdomains and subfolders as interchangeable, Preferred Sources provided it. Articles earn most Preferred Source button clicks: 🟣 Articles average 0.4% CTR 🟣 Homepages only 0.06% CTR That's a problem if those articles are exiled to blog.domain

Google preferred sources webpage over two ballot boxes

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Jes Scholz @jes-scholz.bsky.social · 04/06/2026

Google has officially launched Search Profiles in the US. But I know how to access it for every brand globally thanks to my friend Nathan. Simple enter your Knowledge Graph ID here: kgmid-converter.nathanjeffery.net

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Jes Scholz @jes-scholz.bsky.social · 15/05/2026

I’m seeing more SEO teams proudly ship content nobody would remember 10 minutes later. Perfectly structured. Technically flawless. AI optimised. And completely interchangeable with the other 9 results on the SERP. So, I'm writing a 3 part series to help brands stand out. Part 1 is out now:

seobrief.substack.com

Algorithms reward showmanship. Are you delivering it?

Stop optimising for compliance. Start optimising for attention. And watch organic performance soar.

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Jes Scholz @jes-scholz.bsky.social · 13/05/2026

“LLM ranking factors” studies read like we’ve solved AI SEO. I get the urge to reverse-engineer AI search into a checklist. But retrieval isn’t ranking. No correlation study explains why an AI ignored your content to cite a 14-word forum reply from Dave_86. An honest look at your strategy might.

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Jes Scholz @jes-scholz.bsky.social · 06/05/2026

A lot of SEO content is technically correct. And completely forgettable. We've over-optimised for Google, and accidentally removed a core element driving organic visibility. Showmanship. Understand if your brand is making the mistake here: seobrief.substack.com/p/the-brief-...

seobrief.substack.com

SEO algorithms reward showmanship. Are you delivering it?

Stop optimising for compliance. Start optimising for attention. And watch organic performance soar.

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Jes Scholz @jes-scholz.bsky.social · 28/04/2026

Most brands think they have an AI visibility problem. Often they have an identity issue. Don't blame AI if you don't clearly state what you solve, who you serve, and why you matter. Not only on your own site, but also externally.

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Jes Scholz @jes-scholz.bsky.social · 01/04/2026

Stop saying to executives “We need to build topical authority for our brand entity in the knowledge graph to get more organic clicks”. That's nothing but SEO jargon leading to the wrong KPI. Say “We need to strengthen brand recall by Google to increase share of voice”.

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Jes Scholz @jes-scholz.bsky.social · 24/03/2026

I keep seeing sites full of fragmented schema. Ensure yours isn't one of them with: 1️⃣ Schema App's Paths Tool: Understand how types connect to create a graph 2️⃣ Classy Schema's Structured Data Viewer: Visualise relationships to spot orphans 3️⃣ Schema org validator: Catch errors & check attributes

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Jes Scholz @jes-scholz.bsky.social · 18/02/2026

Dear SEOs: In a year of tighter cash flow, ‘it depends’ isn't good enough. Know how to forecast your targets.

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Jes Scholz @jes-scholz.bsky.social · 11/02/2026

The first AI performance report from a platform has arrived in BWT. I've used it to: 🟣 See what people as asking via branded grounding queries 🟣 Review competitor name queries to understand AI systems positioning 🟣 See what's not included; pages expected to perform but don't

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Jes Scholz @jes-scholz.bsky.social · 06/02/2026

Most SEOs are committing a marketing cardinal sin. The sycophancy of agreement. AI systems and social algorithms reward sameness. Search surfaces are, ironically, one of the last bastions that show different sides. Google will often support the overarching sentiment, then quietly add a but.

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Jes Scholz @jes-scholz.bsky.social · 30/01/2026

Sktech of woman looking at GA4 AI chatbot traffic

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Jes Scholz @jes-scholz.bsky.social · 14/01/2026

I deleted over 60% of articles from a real estate website. The CMO was nervous for 3 weeks. Then clicks began to climb. The blog was full of "perfect" SEO content. EEAT compliant. Ranking. Yet, mostly ignored. Few clicks. No shares. No deeper site engagement. Because it read like ChatGPT wrote it.

Woman carrying an elephant with caption "your SEO content is an anti-advertisement"

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Jes Scholz @jes-scholz.bsky.social · 17/12/2025

My SEO ins and outs for 2026. What are your predictions?

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Jes Scholz @jes-scholz.bsky.social · 12/12/2025

The December 2025 Core Update is here, but the GSC data is not. We already can't fully rely on GSC for accuracy. Now timeliness has gone as well. These are not 'nice to have' features. They are the product. Respect that Google. Deploy the data.

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Jes Scholz @jes-scholz.bsky.social · 08/12/2025

ChatGPT agent conversions sit at only 17%. Most abandoned because of poor website usability. The top 5 conversion blockers are: 🟣 Requiring registration to early 🟣 Hard to fill forms 🟣 Poor filter functionality 🟣 Usability of on-site search boxes 🟣 Pop ups covering the active window

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Jes Scholz @jes-scholz.bsky.social · 02/12/2025

How will AI search change the role of websites? At the core, it wont. A website is your brand's digital home. It stores your base facts and relationships. It empowers conversations and conversions. This role is consistent.

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Jes Scholz @jes-scholz.bsky.social · 17/11/2025

So you successfully manipulated Reddit. Now what? I saw a LinkedIn “growth hack” inserting product recommendations into Reddit to gain AI citations. It wasn’t the post that annoyed me. It was the response. Thousands applauding the “amazing insights”. Without questioning the consequences.

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Jes Scholz @jes-scholz.bsky.social · 29/10/2025

What if your best marketing actions come from complaints? These expose the moments where expectations and brand promise diverge. The cause is either execution drift, only fixed by owning it… Or positioning misalignment... e.g. you can't be cheap & top quality. www.zoomsphere.com/blog/what-if...

zoomsphere.com

What If Your Best Content Comes From Complaints?

Your most powerful marketing content might be hiding in customer complaints. Discover how to turn negative feedback, refund requests, and one-star reviews into authentic, high-performing content that ...

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Jes Scholz @jes-scholz.bsky.social · 15/10/2025

Agent behaviour isn’t broken. Your site is. In ChatGPT Agent Mode, 63% of first clicks bounce. The most common causes are: 🟣 Bot challenges 🟣 301 redirect to an irrelevant location 🟣 4xx or 5xx status codes 🟣 Registration walls 🟣 Slow load speed 🟣 Landing pages don't satisfy the search intent

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Jes Scholz @jes-scholz.bsky.social · 07/10/2025

🧵 In 2025, I never thought I'd be using the same text-based browser I did in 1995. But here we are. Thanks to AI agents. Agents don't browser like humans. They don't always consume content in the visual browser of Chromium. In my testing with ChatGPT, 46% of agent visits began in 'reading mode'.

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Jes Scholz @jes-scholz.bsky.social · 09/09/2025

Where does AI search sit in context of the wider web? As an exercise in perspective, I estimated how people use different platforms to search for information in the same way they would on Google. Credit to Forbes, SEMRush, Sparktoro & DemandSage for the input data.

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Jes Scholz @jes-scholz.bsky.social · 11/08/2025

Is bot protection costing you tomorrow’s SEO sales? Brands like Wayfair, Lululemon and Glassdoor are shutting the door on agent-driven conversions, likely without realising it. A robots.txt allow doesn't guarantee access. Bot protection tools often challenge AI agents, stopping them mid-journey.

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Jes Scholz @jes-scholz.bsky.social · 06/08/2025

Wrote up my thoughts on crawling in the AI era. The piece covers: 🟣 Why you should allow (most) AI crawlers 🟣 How to win AI citations 🟣 Why indexing will always be essential 🟣 Why crawling is not only about googlebot What are your thoughts?

searchengineland.com

Crawling for AI search: Balancing access, control, and visibility

Crawling has always shaped visibility – but AI search raises the stakes. Learn how to stay seen without losing control.

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Jes Scholz @jes-scholz.bsky.social · 04/08/2025

Perplexity Comet & ChatGPT agent browsers are at the SEO frontier. Brands don't care, but should. For years, Google mined Chrome data to inform visibility. AI companies want the same edge. Under the guise of speeding up tasks & easing cognitive load, we're being pushed toward agentic browsing.

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Jes Scholz @jes-scholz.bsky.social · 01/08/2025

Google alone won't future-proof your SEO. We all know the tea. ChatGPT now pulls from Google’s index when Bing’s falls short. That doesn't mean you can retreat into a Google-only mindset. SEO isn't Google vs Bing. Effective SEO goes beyond both. It's about corpus optimisation.

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Jes Scholz @jes-scholz.bsky.social · 30/07/2025

Logging in to an account is becoming a security drill 😤 🟢 Enter email & password 🟡 Pass Captcha 🟠 Get authenticator code 🔴 Finally get inside, only to be logged out for "inactivity" after a short period of time Authentication should not be an endurance sport.

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Jes Scholz @jes-scholz.bsky.social · 28/07/2025

5 Twitter tips for SEOs Done well, social posting is a low-effort way to boost visibility on search surfaces, drive engagement and earn some extra sessions.

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Jes Scholz @jes-scholz.bsky.social · 21/07/2025

Let's talk business incentives in the battle of Search David vs Goliath. For the Goliath Google, more searches means more money. Every query is another revenue opportunity. It monetises discovery. It personalises to serve ads.

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Jes Scholz @jes-scholz.bsky.social · 20/07/2025

Clickbait titles without real value are like online dating profile pictures… They get the clicks, but the bounce rate is brutal.

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Jes Scholz @jes-scholz.bsky.social · 11/07/2025

🧵 Sometimes the easiest way to disappear online is to do nothing at all. A certain CDN has taken it upon itself to “protect” domains by blocking AI crawlers by default. Causing instant invisibility on a whole swath of search surfaces. But only on their free plan.

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Jes Scholz @jes-scholz.bsky.social · 11/07/2025

New video interview drop where I take issue with domain authority, talk about entity optimisation and, of cause, discuss AI search. Check it out: www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3Hd...

youtube.com

Jes Scholz: The Biggest Lie About Domain Authority

YouTube video by Digital Web Solutions

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Jes Scholz @jes-scholz.bsky.social · 08/07/2025

LLMs.txt is not an official standard. It's not widely adopted. No indexing platform checks it by default. Might it be useful someday? Maybe. But don't waste a sprint on it yet. Focus on what matters now for AI visibility, not a hypothetical future that is unlikely to eventuate.

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Jes Scholz @jes-scholz.bsky.social · 07/07/2025

Did you know Google actually has two Google AI Modes? One in Chrome and another in the Google App. The surface a user selects drastically affects which sources get cited. Check out this travel example. When optimising for AI visibility, check both faces of Google.

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Jes Scholz @jes-scholz.bsky.social · 02/06/2025

Sorry to burst the bubble, but ChatGPT is not doing "real-time retrieval". I've lost count of how many times this week I’ve read that ChatGPT or AI Mode is "retrieving information from the internet in real time with RAG”. It’s not. What’s actually happening is far more familiar.

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Jes Scholz @jes-scholz.bsky.social · 01/06/2025

The number of articles beginning with "In today's digital age..." on what are supposed to be reputable SEO industry publications is appalling.

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Jes Scholz @jes-scholz.bsky.social · 28/05/2025

Google: Our new AI tools in Gemini are fire. No-one (read OpenAI) is better than us at AI-ing your life. Also Google...

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Jes Scholz @jes-scholz.bsky.social · 21/05/2025

AI Mode is here. Now what? 🟣 Indexing isn't about URLs, focus on content chunks 🟣 Stop chasing sessions, focus on topically relevant brand visibility 🟣 Forget the funnel, focus on category entry points Follow these 3 principles & your SEO will be flexible enough to success on any surface.

Soccer playing scoring a goal against a robot goal keeper

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Jes Scholz @jes-scholz.bsky.social · 19/05/2025

In the wave of new SEO AI tooling, one critical element is often missing. Multi-lingual and non-US regional coverage. Take AI prompt tracking tools, for example.

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Jes Scholz @jes-scholz.bsky.social · 12/05/2025

Live mode in Gemini & ChatGPT is another nail in the coffin for “traffic” as an SEO KPI. Alexa taught us that voice assistants are great… for playing music, turning on lights, and knowing today's weather. Not much more. Voice search never delivered on the promised utility. Until now.

Image of a woman's face with Gemini & ChatGPT logos for eyes

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Jes Scholz @jes-scholz.bsky.social · 07/05/2025

Cookies are dying. LLM memories are born. And they’re reshaping SEO. Gemini and ChatGPT boast 1 million token context windows, giving them an exceptional short term memory. Layered atop of a persistent long term memory based on past chats, custom instructions and soon data from other applications.

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Jes Scholz @jes-scholz.bsky.social · 07/05/2025

Went to the doctors today. He Googled and started reading a treatment plan from an AI Overview. I've never been more concerned for medicine in my life. If health care comes down to 'who can Google the best', you can all now refer to me as Dr Jes.

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Jes Scholz @jes-scholz.bsky.social · 01/05/2025

Let's face facts. Despite the hype, ChatGPT isn't displacing Google in traditional search. So should you optimise for it? Especially when most websites report that AI chatbot sessions make up less than 1% of total sessions. My answer is yes. You need to care. And here's why:

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Jes Scholz @jes-scholz.bsky.social · 28/04/2025

Rewriting 1/3 of your deck just before the conference is fine... right? I do like this new slide... Google search is a destination you have to stop what you’re doing to go to visit. AI chatbots are companions you carry with you.

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