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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

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Dave Smart @tamethebots.com · 14h
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 · 24/09/2026
Whoop! Thanks @johnmu.com!
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Dave Smart @tamethebots.com · 24/09/2026
Thanks! Could well just be coincidence! Very cool new feature though
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Dave Smart @tamethebots.com · 24/09/2026
Do you know if the Big Query export and api are still sending the combined? or is it worth making a note or two that some traffic is just now excluded.
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Dave Smart @tamethebots.com · 24/09/2026
Am i right that these impressions were all grouped under 'web' before, (the sum of web: text and web: multimodal) before? I am seeing corresponding drops in impressions and clicks starting the 10th on a few properties, which lines up with the new data.
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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
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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.
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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
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Dave Smart @tamethebots.com · 15/09/2026
Hey, cool! Thanks and really glad you like it!
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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
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Dave Smart @tamethebots.com · 28/08/2026
Googlechu used Thunder Shock against Diglett (casino spam section), the move had no effect.
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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
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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 · 24/08/2026
A content injection attack you're happy to see. Well done Chitters.
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Dave Smart @tamethebots.com · 24/08/2026
Whoop! Happiest of birthdays to you @ilovechoclates.bsky.social ! 🎉🎂
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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.
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Dave Smart @tamethebots.com · 21/08/2026
no worries, also FWIW, the polyfil version worked before the chromium updates anyway, & you'd need to polyfil. Also keep in mind that not all bots are equal, especially AI / LLM ones, & that has implications, same as the nextjs 'version' of this, I did write that up: tamethebots.com/blog-n-bits/...
tamethebots.com
Shuffling Rabbits: How LLMs Handle Out of Order HTML Streaming in Next.js
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Dave Smart @tamethebots.com · 21/08/2026
But FWIW, you can test testing.tamethebots.com/nativestream in the rich results test for a good idea of how it will work search.google.com/test/rich-re...
testing.tamethebots.com
Streaming Photo Gallery
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Dave Smart @tamethebots.com · 21/08/2026
Looks promising, but no blog post yet, chromium version Google use in the wrs only recently caught up, so need to do some more testing, wait for indexing and write it up.
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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...
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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.
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Dave Smart @tamethebots.com · 10/08/2026
Your wallet was right there in your pocket in public ...
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Dave Smart @tamethebots.com · 07/08/2026
but for sure interesting they're getting in on the tracking game!
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Dave Smart @tamethebots.com · 07/08/2026
I am always a bit disappointed by the fact that they push their Content Signals (which AFAIK no one honours) & serving markdown, which outside of claude-code (useful if you're publishing dev doc). only docs.parallel.ai & exa.ai even ask for markdown, other than cloudflare's test that is.
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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 });
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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.
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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.
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Dave Smart @tamethebots.com · 04/08/2026
Always some overachiever to ruin the party. (I think self made mugs are pretty cool though, can drink nothing from a medal, touché olympic boy.)
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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.
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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.
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Mark Williams-Cook @markwilliamscook.com · 30/07/2026
Venn diagram showing that only a tiny fraction of AI content meets Google's guidelines.
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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.
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Dave Smart @tamethebots.com · 29/07/2026
What was wrong with the Old Video SEO title? Did they cancel it before the 3rd season?
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Dave Smart @tamethebots.com · 29/07/2026
Brilliant stuff mate! 👏
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Dave Smart @tamethebots.com · 29/07/2026
Take a look at this great deep dive Tony did on WRS rendering time and other things! 🤘
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Dave Smart @tamethebots.com · 29/07/2026
Also, lack of commitment to the bit, they could have searched their own site for this kind of thing to send ebay.io/m/MCzhR2
ebay.io
Fraser Art Horse Head Wall Mount | eBay UK
Fraser Art Horse Head Wall Mount. Condition is Used. Dispatched with Royal Mail Tracked 48.
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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.
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Dave Smart @tamethebots.com · 28/07/2026
It's very good. Chris has built a belter.
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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
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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
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Dave Smart @tamethebots.com · 23/07/2026
Thanks John, it was a fun one to run!
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Dave Smart @tamethebots.com · 23/07/2026
I yearn for simpler times.
old MS ART style cake sale mock up
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Dave Smart @tamethebots.com · 23/07/2026
if you ever manage to find time to finish the article, would be super excited to read it and link to it!
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Dave Smart @tamethebots.com · 23/07/2026
Yeah, that deterministic behaviour makes sense!
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Dave Smart @tamethebots.com · 23/07/2026
Really sorry to hear your Dad's rough mate. Definitely sending my best to you. And I am definitely not surprised you were on it too!
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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.
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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
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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.
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Dave Smart @tamethebots.com · 16/07/2026
we're good, we're blessed it's really just an inconvenience personally.
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