iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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

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Dave Smart @tamethebots.com · 27/08/2026

It's not quite the URL, it's domain & breadcrumb (developers.google.com/search/docs/...) which is a bid different. But yeah, site at least is there, but actual URL attribution is likely going to get a little skewed I'd imagine.

screenshot of a google search result, showing the url / breadcrumb

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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 🤘

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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

Dave Smart @tamethebots.com · 23/07/2026

I yearn for simpler times.

020

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

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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

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 · 16/06/2026

Still, could be worse 😉

An abomination of peas and other veg in gelatin

020

Dave Smart @tamethebots.com · 16/06/2026

This brings back fond childhood memories. I used to love it. If we were being extra fancy, we'd have it mixed with jelly.

Pink Blancmange in a bunny shape on green jelly

140

Dave Smart @tamethebots.com · 01/06/2026

Around Manchester on the 18th, catch me and some great speakers at techSEO north! Find out more about the event here: techseonorth.com And grab your free ticket here: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/techseo-no..., there's snacks.

Speaker announcement for Dave smart's talk at seo north.

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Dave Smart @tamethebots.com · 24/05/2026

I believe this is the merch in the gift shop. Beats t-shirts and branded water bottles I guess.

Screenshot of a clothes store with the sign AEO Jeans.

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Dave Smart @tamethebots.com · 11/05/2026

me 1 min after the q&a has finished

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Dave Smart @tamethebots.com · 28/04/2026

Also added the ability to add a custom robots.txt, scoped to either the origin you're testing, or all, based on an excellent suggestion from John McAlpin. tamethebots.com/tools/fetch-...

screenshot of the new custom robots.txt feature.

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Dave Smart @tamethebots.com · 27/04/2026

If you leave JavaScript enabled, the Diff tab will highlight some things that have been added, removed or changed by JavaScript: - Title - meta tags - canonicals - <a href> links - JSON Schema

screenshot showing the new output of differences between rendered and unrendered html.

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Dave Smart @tamethebots.com · 27/04/2026

Couple of quick changes on my fetch & render tool: tamethebots.com/tools/fetch-..., you can now choose to disable JavaScript, so you can see what things like AI bots might see:

screenshot showing the new enable/disable JavaScript control

151

Dave Smart @tamethebots.com · 24/04/2026

Goddamit. I guess I'll have to resubmit all these again.

a fake screenshot of a spam report with this text:

I knows you is a shitehouse and a bastard, and I know you put Legos on the floor so Grandmas stand on them at 3:27 am.
Oh, and you're spammy and I want you to know Dave says so.

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Dave Smart @tamethebots.com · 22/04/2026

Quick lunchtime fun play with WebMCP, seems remarkably simple to implement, at least for this simple case. Live on tamethebots.com/tools/cwv-hi..., but you'll need chrome canary / enable the flag etc: developer.chrome.com/blog/webmcp-... I can definitely see this being helpful in some cases

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Dave Smart @tamethebots.com · 15/04/2026

www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-ne...

Altered version of the.popular friendship ended meme saying friendship ended with shoes, no ai is my best friend

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Dave Smart @tamethebots.com · 09/04/2026

Lighthouse 13.1.0 is out, and brings a new audit, checking the baseline status of features used on the page. Release notes here: github.com/GoogleChrome... Or give it a spin in my fetch and render tool: tamethebots.com/tools/fetch-...

Screenshot of the new baseline report in lighthouse 13.1.0

041

Dave Smart @tamethebots.com · 04/04/2026

Waiting for this disclaimer

Sing that says

"Caution, don't try this at home"

010

Dave Smart @tamethebots.com · 02/04/2026

www.theguardian.com/science/2026...

Meme of a young child with face covered in black marker, with the phrase "space shitters clogged"

000

Dave Smart @tamethebots.com · 31/03/2026

Running hypervisors on these bad boys, cpanel licence extra.

A picture of the 1978 electronic toy "speak and spell"

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Dave Smart @tamethebots.com · 31/03/2026

I've also added a link to open the URL in Search Console's performance report:

Screenshot showing the new View in GSC button

000

Dave Smart @tamethebots.com · 23/03/2026

A perennial question amongst my peers, friends and family 😂

A screenshot from Nikki's very excellent article saying "Why Dave keeps happening"

110

Dave Smart @tamethebots.com · 12/03/2026

Definitely missed a clickbait title opportunity of "Vampires Hate this One Simple Trick" headline here

Screenshot of Google discover listing with the title including 'Rectal garlic insertion for immune support'

010

Dave Smart @tamethebots.com · 06/02/2026

At the risk of overselling how much of a real world issue this is (it really isn't for 99.99% of sites I'd imagine), I added functionality to tamethebots.com/tools/fetch-... to cap text based files to 2 MB to simulate this.

screenshot from the tame the bots fetch and render tool showing the new the 2 MB limit option

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Dave Smart @tamethebots.com · 05/02/2026

Bet they wrote it in this first

an image of the burn book from mean girls, with LLM written on it to make it a "LLM Burn Book"

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Dave Smart @tamethebots.com · 04/02/2026

Want to check yours for peace of mind? Open devtools, and the network panel, filter by documents and hard reload the page, it's the bigger figure.

Screenshot of chrome devtools network panel, filtered by document, highlighted to show the uncompressed html file size.

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Dave Smart @tamethebots.com · 01/12/2025

I did misread this item title a couple of times. One typo away from some awkward questions from my wife...

amazon order for some unfortunately titled CUCM Cleaning Brush,Hard Bristle ...

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Dave Smart @tamethebots.com · 23/10/2025

Been seeing this for a bit, guess it's random scrapers hoping folks won't block traffic if they think it's from a 'brand' name. Guess that's what we get when the referrer header is based on the honour system and you can put what the heck you like.

120

Dave Smart @tamethebots.com · 17/10/2025

Oh good, the spammers have found sharing Google sheets as a way to sell their shitty links again. Sigh

Screenshot of notifications on my phone from someone unsolicited sharing a Google sheets with link building

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Dave Smart @tamethebots.com · 09/10/2025

The pull signs, and total lack of handles lead me to believe this is an area only accessible to those with sticky hands. I think I have found the secret Spiderman society HQ

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Dave Smart @tamethebots.com · 08/10/2025

It would have been rude not to, after all. What's the saying? "when in Rome, be in Dublin and have a pint of Guinness." Something like that anyway.

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Dave Smart @tamethebots.com · 08/10/2025

Arrived in Dublin for the Google product experts summit, and what a glorious day it has laid on.

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Dave Smart @tamethebots.com · 01/10/2025

Added a MCP Server for @not-a-robot.com and my robots.txt testing tool. Get the details here: tamethebots.com/tools/robots...

Screenshot of the MCP server in action, correctly reporting on an URL being blocked by robots.txt

041

Dave Smart @tamethebots.com · 30/09/2025

That's 22.7% less youth corrupted for sure. I like the app experience, it doesn't tell you you can't see the silly pictures, but in a very current state of the union way, it did (further down) contain an ad to buy a English flags. Probably also step ladders that reach up lampposts ad somewhere too.