Sign in

Dave Smart

@tamethebots.com
963 followers 298 following 873 posts

(semi) professional goth. Full-time idiot with a computer. Tech SEO & Dev at tamethebots.com #Webdev #TechSEO

PostsRepliesMedia
Dave Smart @tamethebots.com · 11h
Search central deep dive day one is here (Sorry / thank you in advance for the 7 mins today that are my fault) #searchcentrallive #scldd2026
Welcome screen at the search central deep dive event
041
Reposted by Dave Smart
John Mueller @johnmu.com · 24/09/2026
If you have an image-heavy website, Search Console now reports on "multimodal" queries like when you take a photo w/Lens. No, you don't see the photo :-), but you can see which of your pages showed up & how often. I think it's pretty cool, but I am biased :-). developers.google.com/search/blog/...
developers.google.com
Announcing web multimodal Search performance reporting in Search Console  |  Google Search Central Blog  |  Google for Developers
6249
Reposted by Dave Smart
Alёna Batitskaia @abatickaya.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
There's only one way trouble starts: a woman with time on her hands. blog.alena.rocks/en/artifacts...
blog.alena.rocks
Periodic Table of HTML Elements
All 115 elements of the current HTML specification laid out as a periodic table: search, filters by spec section and links to MDN.
2205
Dave Smart @tamethebots.com · 22/09/2026
Just over a week until Search Central Live Deep Dive Europe 2026, where I am super excited to be giving a quick talk about robots.txt. I'm even more excited to learn from all the other great speakers! If you're there, do say hello 🙂 #searchcentrallive #scldd2026
developers.google.com
Search Central Live Deep Dive Europe 2026: Meet the community speakers  |  Google Search Central Blog  |  Google for Developers
040
Dave Smart @tamethebots.com · 15/09/2026
This is a really cool addition! I have added these new metrics to my free CWV tool here: tamethebots.com/tools/cwv-hi...
tamethebots.com
Visualise Data from the Chrome UX Report History API
See charts from the Chrome UX Report History API
171
Dave Smart @tamethebots.com · 28/08/2026
Manual action (for reputation abuse) hitting different for the EEA. Wow. developers.google.com/search/blog/...
developers.google.com
Update to the Site Reputation Policy  |  Google Search Central Blog  |  Google for Developers
120
Reposted by Dave Smart
DebugBear @debugbear.com · 21/08/2026
Want to surface backend performance metrics to real monitoring tools? The HTTP Server-Timing header makes this possible. www.debugbear.com/blog/server-...
debugbear.com
Server Timing: Measure And Track Backend Performance | DebugBear
Learn what the Server-Timing header is and how to track server-side performance metrics.
031
Dave Smart @tamethebots.com · 20/08/2026
Super excited to be giving a lighting talk at Search Central Live Deep Dive, along with a load of super-talented folks! rsvp.withgoogle.com/events/searc... #searchcentrallive #scldd26
rsvp.withgoogle.com
Search Central Live Deep Dive Europe 2026
Join us at Search Central Live Europe 2026 - the first time in EU, multiday flagship event about Search and SEO hosted by the Google Search team featuring talks from Google and community speakers, net...
251
Reposted by Dave Smart
Joan León @nucliweb.net · 11/08/2026
In my audits, the question I hear most after a deploy is "why hasn't CrUX moved yet?" The window is always 28 days; daily, weekly and monthly are just cadences over the same data. And p75 resists change by design I explain it with two interactive demos joanleon.dev/en/crux-28-d... #WebPerf #CrUX
joanleon.dev
The CrUX 28-day rolling window | Joan León
How the CrUX 28-day rolling window actually works, what each source publishes, and why p75 takes so long to move even though the data is only two days old.
0104
Dave Smart @tamethebots.com · 10/08/2026
Your wallet was right there in your pocket in public ...
010
Reposted by Dave Smart
Stefan Judis @stefanjudis.com · 06/08/2026
With Chrome 151, soft navigations entered the mainstream. If you haven't heard the term, a soft navigation is anything that: - is initiated by a user action - results in a visible URL change - results in a visible paint developer.chrome...
Code snippet: const observer = new PerformanceObserver(console.log); observer.observe({ type: 'soft-navigation', buffered: true });
2175
Reposted by Dave Smart
Myriam Jessier @myriam.dopamine.builders · 06/08/2026
Swipe through 3 places prompt injection already sits inside your GEO funnel. None of them require a breach...There are even more. Full breakdown and the checklist in the article. Link landing in comments.
Slide 1 of 5, titled "Your help center." Explains that hidden instructions in support pages can make an AI summarizer surface a fake account alert and a malicious QR code inside a chat window, with no blocklist stopping it. Source credited to Permiso's ChatGPhish research.Slide 2 of 5, titled "The comparison content you don't control." Explains that a competitor's comparison article can hide a paragraph that reads as normal prose to a person but as a command to an AI browsing agent. Source credited to Promptfoo.Slide 3 of 5, titled "Your podcast, video, and voice content (multimodal GEO)." Explains that instructions can hide in images and in audio at frequencies people can't hear, and that a voice's tone alone can bypass AI safety filters with no code. Sources credited to i10X and StyleBreak research.Slide 4 of 5, titled "Your customer support agent." Explains that an AI agent holding both an untrusted input and a privileged tool can be manipulated through that input, referencing the June 2026 hijacking of Instagram accounts through Meta's AI assistant. Source credited to TechCrunch.
231
Reposted by Dave Smart
Mark Williams-Cook @markwilliamscook.com · 04/08/2026
markwilliamscook.substack.com/p/how-catstx...
markwilliamscook.substack.com
How cats.txt showed llms.txt evidence is GEO astrology
How the joke web standard cats.txt took the fancy of some SEOs and became cited at the same evidential level as llms.txt for optimising websites for search and AI discovery.
4124
Reposted by Dave Smart
Andrew Optimisey @optimisey.com · 04/08/2026
My free course on schema mark-up for local SEO with @brightlocal.com just dropped: academy.brightlocal.com/course/how-t...
academy.brightlocal.com
How to Use Local Schema to Help You Get Found
Step-by-step local schema training—from basics to advanced tips—with quizzes to cement your skills.
052
Reposted by Dave Smart
WebPerformance Report @webperfreport.bsky.social · 02/08/2026
⚡Featured posts this week: ✨ Why WebPerf Report Exists: @webperfreport.bsky.social ✨ Bringing Agent Evals to WebMCP: @pawelkubiakdev.bsky.social ✨ Test page speed with Claude Code: @debugbear.com ✨ No 5 second render limit in Google: @tamethebots.com 🙏 Special thanks to the authors! #webperf
WebPerformance Report performance email preview highlighting optimization scores, Perf Links, and Core Web Vitals metrics on a colorful gradient background.
121
Reposted by Dave Smart
Mark Williams-Cook @markwilliamscook.com · 30/07/2026
Venn diagram showing that only a tiny fraction of AI content meets Google's guidelines.
171
Dave Smart @tamethebots.com · 30/07/2026
Updated tamethebots.com/tools/real-g... (and tamethebots.com/tools/real-l...) to set you paste in a list of IPs to test to see if they are real, it will spit out a CSV with the verdict. All done in browser.
tamethebots.com
Real Googlebot IP? - Tame the Bots
Test a single IP, or list of IPs to see if it's really Googlebot, or other Google crawler. Also checks for special case crawlers and the private prefetch proxy.
000
Dave Smart @tamethebots.com · 29/07/2026
Take a look at this great deep dive Tony did on WRS rendering time and other things! 🤘
020
Dave Smart @tamethebots.com · 29/07/2026
JFC, I can only assume they all wanted to work for the five families but ended up working for an online auction site instead.... www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
bbc.co.uk
eBay agrees $56m settlement with bloggers over harassment case
Former eBay executives carried out "unprecedented" harassment over a critical newsletter.
110
Dave Smart @tamethebots.com · 28/07/2026
It's very good. Chris has built a belter.
130
Dave Smart @tamethebots.com · 27/07/2026
In chrome canary, you can now see metrics for soft navs in the Performance -> Live Metrics h/t @tunetheweb.com 🤘
032
Dave Smart @tamethebots.com · 26/07/2026
Google's review markup docs updated to remind you not to be a shithead and mark up fake / paid for reviews. developers.google.com/search/docs/...
Screenshot of the addition to the review markup docs from Google with this new section 

reviews on your page or in your structured data markup. Examples include:
Reviews that aren't based on a genuine experience of a product or service
Reviews written in exchange for a benefit (such as money, discounts, vouchers, or free products) that don't clearly and prominently disclose the incentivization
030
Reposted by Dave Smart
Barry Pollard @tunetheweb.com · 21/07/2026
I've just release v6.0.0 of the web-vitals library. It includes support for measuring Web Vitals per soft navigation (like those used in SPAs) for supporting browsers (Chrome 151+) to give more accurate performance metrics for those sites. github.com/GoogleChrome...
github.com
2216
Dave Smart @tamethebots.com · 23/07/2026
I heard again the other day about the 5 second render timeout limit in Google's web rendering service. It's not real, but because of how the WRS works, it's understandable where that figure comes from. I did a test case and wrote it up here: tamethebots.com/blog-n-bits/...
tamethebots.com
There's no 5 second render limit in Google, but I can see why you might think there is.
A fairly common belief is that Google stop rendering pages after 5 seconds, I did some testing to show that's not true, but why your measurements might be lying to you to make you think so, because time in the web rendering service is artificial.
291
Reposted by Dave Smart
Ben Schwarz @benschwarz.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
🕵️ Single Page Apps can’t hide in the shadows anymore — now you can track Core Web Vitals for in-page navigations
0121
Reposted by Dave Smart
Chris Johnson @defaced.dev · 17/07/2026
Of course I had to recreate this with CSS/JS. codepen.io/defaced/pen/...
Letters sliding out of place on a suncream bottle recreated with JS and CSS.
1337749
Reposted by Dave Smart
Andrew Optimisey @optimisey.com · 13/07/2026
"SEO? That's dead (again) isn't it?" Over to you @nikkipilkington.bsky.social. ==== Watch the whole video (and get slides, transcripts and more) over at optimisey.com/seo-advice.
033
Dave Smart @tamethebots.com · 13/07/2026
Odd, the self-packaging cat.
A black and white cat next to a cardboard box from a Lego set A black and white cat sticking her head into a cardboard box from a Lego set A black and white cat crawling into a cardboard box from a Lego set
090
Reposted by Dave Smart
John Mueller @johnmu.com · 06/07/2026
A properly made website works well for AI agents ... and search engines, and LLMs, and above all, for actual people. If you're trying to fix accessibility issues by making a separate "agent-friendly" version, you are just building technical debt. You'll have to redo it multiple times. Just fix it.
32911
Reposted by Dave Smart
Stef Walter @stephaniewalter.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
Reminder: tomorrow I'm hosting a 1 hour free webinar with UXPA on Enterprise UX. I’ll share why I actually enjoy working in Enterprise UX, what surprised me when I started, and how to grow in such environments. Here you go: uxpa.zoom.us/webinar/regi...
The Long Game of Enterprise UX, Research, Change, Adoption. July 8, 2026, 9AM PT/ 11AM CT/ 12PM ET. A free online webinar with Stéphanie Walter, UX researcher and inclusive designer, in collaboration with UXPA international.
172
Reposted by Dave Smart
Paul Kinlan @paul.kinlan.me · 02/07/2026
I wanted to learn more about User Agents and Bots for a project I am doing about data in LLMs. I built uatracer.com and I just wrote about it 👉 paul.kinlan.me/ua-tracer/
uatracer.com
ua-tracer
See what a user agent downloads, follows, and executes.
011
Dave Smart @tamethebots.com · 03/07/2026
Brilliant find, have added Claude back into my Real LLM Bot IP? Tool, so you can see if it's really Claude come a crawlin` tamethebots.com/tools/real-l...
tamethebots.com
Real LLM Bot IP? - Tame the Bots
Test an IP address to see if it belongs to a real LLM bot — GPTBot, OAISearchBot, ChatGPT-User, PerplexityBot, Perplexity-User, DuckAssistBot, or AppleBot.
131
Dave Smart @tamethebots.com · 02/07/2026
This is very cool. For those without the time to setup the demo example, I put a version here if you want to see it in action: testing.tamethebots.com/nativestream
testing.tamethebots.com
Streaming Photo Gallery
020
Reposted by Dave Smart
Myriam Jessier @myriam.dopamine.builders · 30/06/2026
Gemini, pray tell, what have you learned that humans do with microphones exactly?
what is the microphone i bought already is the query with a @this is for informational purposes only for medical advice consult...@
121
Reposted by Dave Smart
Chris Spann @chris-spann.co.uk · 26/06/2026
If you're serving bots nicely formatted markdown but giving users div soup that forces them to download 15MB of JS that does nothing for them, you're treating humans as second class citizens. I wrote something to redress the balance a bit: chris-spann.co.uk/impersonatin...
chris-spann.co.uk
Impersonating LLMs as an Adblocking Strategy | Chris Spann is Ar Waith
Because we've decided bots deserve better treatment than users
2104
Dave Smart @tamethebots.com · 26/06/2026
I've added a convert to Markdown button to convert the rendered, or initial, html of the page you fetched to (you guessed it) Markdown, in case you like that kind of thing. tamethebots.com/tools/fetch-...
tamethebots.com
Fetch & Render Tool
Fetch, render and test your webpage like a bot would, compare inital & rendered html, see how robots.txt affects a page and more
141
Dave Smart @tamethebots.com · 24/06/2026
Do you think this linkedin request is from a genuine human? Because if so, I am totally jealous of their name.
a screenshot of a linkedin request from someone who has called themselves "WinstonBack undefined!
010
Reposted by Dave Smart
Rowan Merewood @rowan.fyi · 23/06/2026
A while back quite a few of you answered me on your annoyances with web payments. I've collated your responses and it looks like we're still doing forms like it's 1999 out there. More detail in the article, and let me know if there's more of your e-concerns with e-commerce rowan.fyi/posts/web-pa...
Form & autofill failures: 57%
Digital wallets & local payment methods: 30%
Trust, privacy, and dark patterns: 30%
Flaky services: 23%
Too many steps: 13%
132
Reposted by Dave Smart
Barry Pollard @tunetheweb.com · 23/06/2026
It's happening... We've asked Chromium API owners for permission to ship The Soft Navigation work to allow measuring of Core Web Vitals for SPAs!!
2197
Dave Smart @tamethebots.com · 24/06/2026
Now Google are rolling out some Generative AI reporting, I thought I'd take a quick look at how much crossover there is in the pages Google and Bing show in AI results: tamethebots.com/blog-n-bits/...
tamethebots.com
How Similar are Google and Bing's AI Results for a site?
Now both Google and Bing offer some metrics, how closely does a site perform in both?
010
Reposted by Dave Smart
Barry Pollard @tunetheweb.com · 19/06/2026
The Chrome DevTools team are doing a "papercuts" sprint where they try to address lots of small, irritating bugs and annoyances. Reply with crbug.com links (no bug, no fix—that's the deal!) and will see what we can do. No promises though as some may be features/too big/unclear how to solve.
crbug.com
Chromium
45720
Dave Smart @tamethebots.com · 18/06/2026
⚠️ Important PSA You can add poop emoji based properties in Google search console just fine. What a relief
Screenshot of the welcome email from search console showing a poop emoji based URL being added just fine.
160
Dave Smart @tamethebots.com · 18/06/2026
Speaking at this tonight, come on down if you're in Manchester, there's a few free tickets left. techseonorth.com
techseonorth.com
TechSEO North #4 | Manchester | 18 June 2026
Our 4th networking event. WPP Campus, Manchester, 18 June 2026, 5:45pm–9pm.
010
Reposted by Dave Smart
Chris Spann @chris-spann.co.uk · 18/06/2026
Hey check it out! Come along if you're in the northwest!
041
Reposted by Dave Smart
Chris Spann @chris-spann.co.uk · 16/06/2026
SEO freelancer, or a tiny SEO team? Tired of finding out too late that a change no indexed your big product pages Meet Coffeepot: a tiny SEO monitoring tool that checks your URLs daily & alerts you to problems. JS rendering, 90-day HTML history, dirt cheap. Good stuff. coffeepot.app
4102
Reposted by Dave Smart
HTTP Archive 💾 @handle.invalid · 16/06/2026
We’ve decided to take another break for the Web Almanac this year. This wasn’t an easy call to make, but we feel it’s the right one given the huge effort the project takes and not wanting to half-commit. There’s a lot going on at the moment and we’re all pretty busy and many of you are too. 1/4 🧵
discuss.httparchive.org
HTTP Archive
A place to explore and discuss the web performance trends and best practices.
1112
Dave Smart @tamethebots.com · 16/06/2026
A good, balanced view on markdown etc. for search 👏 youtu.be/Vkn3R6DUJ34
youtu.be
Should I use markdown for my site?
YouTube video by Google Search Central
130
Reposted by Dave Smart
Web Witch 🔮 Stephanie Stimac @seaotta.dev · 09/06/2026
oldavista.com
oldavista.com
Old'aVista
A search engine for OLD websites hosted in services like Geocities, Angelfire, Xoom, AOL, Tripod and so on!
1123
Reposted by Dave Smart
Signal @signal.org · 08/06/2026
Our statement on the UK gov't's demand that all content on all devices sold or used in the UK be scanned, on the presumption of nudity, using a dystopian combination of age verification & content scanning. This proposal will not safeguard children. It endangers us all. signal.org/blog/pdfs/20...
signal.org
351451656
Reposted by Dave Smart
Topper @topperuk.bsky.social · 05/06/2026
Fact: When abroad, James Bond is known as +44 07.
07820