iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Here's an awesome SEO tip that leverages the topical authority Google already gives your site:

Darren Shaw @whitespark.ca · 29/09/2026

It’s 2026 and your definition of a “local citation” needs an update. If you still think citations just mean getting your business listed in a bunch of directories, you’re about 14 years out of date.

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Darren Shaw @whitespark.ca · 28/09/2026

🚨 Google News: Google's AI assistant is about to start calling your business. Google just started testing a new Gemini feature called “Call for Me” on Pixel 11 phones in the United States.

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Darren Shaw @whitespark.ca · 25/09/2026

This might be one of the creepiest AI hallucinations I’ve seen (yet). A college student on Reddit was using Claude to study German vocabulary when it suddenly said it needed to stop because it was going to be sick.

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Darren Shaw @whitespark.ca · 24/09/2026

Here are 7 ways to make your content more citable by AI: 1. Use bullet lists and numbered Items 2. Use clear section headings 3. Name specific companies and tools 4. Include hard numbers and data 5. Include a comparison 6. Add a "How to Choose" section 7. Put the year in the title

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Darren Shaw @whitespark.ca · 23/09/2026

Google Search Console is hiding a goldmine of your best keywords you didn’t even know you were ranking for.

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Darren Shaw @whitespark.ca · 22/09/2026

AI is ruining the eyebrow heading, which is one of my favorite SEO tricks. The eyebrow heading is this small line of text that is above the main headline on a page.

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Darren Shaw @whitespark.ca · 21/09/2026

Your AI is getting dumber over time because it remembers too much about you. An interesting article in Android Authority points out that ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude can accumulate old or conflicting information over time, and that can start bleeding into future answers.

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Darren Shaw @whitespark.ca · 19/09/2026

Literally stressing yourself out while the other party’s chilling 😔

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Darren Shaw @whitespark.ca · 18/09/2026

Can you spot the SEO mistake the page below is making? Hint: This is a screenshot of their “services” page.

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Darren Shaw @whitespark.ca · 17/09/2026

This Claude project will save you hours on research and make your content so much better. Steve Toth created a prompt that turns Claude into an Information Gain Researcher, and the amount of useful data it can dig up is kind of crazy.

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Darren Shaw @whitespark.ca · 16/09/2026

🚨 Breaking Data Nerd News: Google just gave us an awesome update to their WordPress plugin, and if you’re not using it, you’re a loser. Site Kit is the official WordPress plugin from Google that pulls your GA4 and Search Console data straight into the WordPress dashboard.

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Darren Shaw @whitespark.ca · 15/09/2026

AI Slop Is Killing Your Marketing Once you’ve seen one AI flyer, you’ve kind of seen them all. A recent Gartner study found that 50% of consumers would prefer to buy from brands that DON’T use generative AI in their content.

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Darren Shaw @whitespark.ca · 14/09/2026

🚨 Google Business Profile News: view counts for Google Posts are back. If you go to your Google Business Profile and click Posts, you’ll now see a view count on each post.

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Darren Shaw @whitespark.ca · 11/09/2026

What’s your go to response to SEO questions?

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Darren Shaw @whitespark.ca · 10/09/2026

Citations are back, baby! They were on the decline for many years as a local search tactic, but AI search has shot them back into the spotlight. Here’s your citation playbook for better AI search visibility:

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Darren Shaw @whitespark.ca · 09/09/2026

Hey friends. Could you help with a quick local SEO study? It takes less than 2 minutes. I want to see if we can adjust the sort order of photos on a Google Business Profile by getting people to engage with a specific photo.

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Darren Shaw @whitespark.ca · 09/09/2026

🚨 Google just gave us an incredibly powerful keyword research tool, and most people haven’t noticed it yet. Google Trends has added a new way to explore searches by category, without entering a keyword first. Here’s how it works:

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Darren Shaw @whitespark.ca · 08/09/2026

This new research on AI search completely changed my perspective. Bill Widmer tracked more than 13,000 citations across ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity, and got two very surprising results:

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Darren Shaw @whitespark.ca · 07/09/2026

Our Local Ranking Grids are giving ✨ pristine ✨ sublime ✨ gorgeous ✨ Can’t say the same for that last one.

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Darren Shaw @whitespark.ca · 04/09/2026

I analyzed 1.8 million Google Business Profiles across 4,209 categories. Here’s what I learned: 1. Specific primary categories perform better. Businesses using more specific primary categories had a 36% higher top-10 results presence than those using broader categories.

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Darren Shaw @whitespark.ca · 03/09/2026

🚨 I think we just discovered something new in local SEO. We know that keywords in the business name impact rankings on Google Maps, but did you know that WHERE those keywords are placed also has an impact?

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Darren Shaw @whitespark.ca · 03/09/2026

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Darren Shaw @whitespark.ca · 01/09/2026

You know about Ask Maps. Now say hello to Google’s brand new Tell Maps 👋 Tell Maps is Google’s newest AI feature that allows users to *tell* Google about a local business (e.g. “this bakery is known for its canelés” or “there is parking in the back”).

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Darren Shaw @whitespark.ca · 28/08/2026

Google gave us a checklist for what good website content should look like, and Steve Toth turned it into an incredible custom AI webpage grader.

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Darren Shaw @whitespark.ca · 27/08/2026

I tested the Google Maps hack for moving the pin of a Service Area Business that is ranking in the wrong location. You won’t believe what happened…

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Darren Shaw @whitespark.ca · 26/08/2026

This might be the clearest explanation yet of how AI-generated text can be detected. James Padolsey wrote a brilliant article explaining how AI text watermarking actually works. He compares AI writing to rolling weighted dice.

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Darren Shaw @whitespark.ca · 25/08/2026

🚨 Breaking News: Google’s Local Services Ads will now charge you for leads even if you don’t answer your phone.

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Darren Shaw @whitespark.ca · 24/08/2026

🚨 Google Images is getting a major redesign as it celebrates 25 years since its creation. When JLo wore that iconic green Versace dress to the Grammys in 2000, so many people searched for photos of it that the demand helped inspire Google to build Google Images.

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Darren Shaw @whitespark.ca · 21/08/2026

my disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined 😞

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Darren Shaw @whitespark.ca · 20/08/2026

📢 SEO nerd alert: Your pages could be competing with each other in search, and this tool can show you exactly which ones by analyzing and comparing every page on your website by meaning, rather than simply checking whether they contain the same words.

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Darren Shaw @whitespark.ca · 19/08/2026

ChatGPT’s market share just dropped below 50% for the first time since 2022. According to Sensor Tower, ChatGPT crossed that line in March 2026.

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Darren Shaw @whitespark.ca · 18/08/2026

Local SEO hack: Use your competitors’ review questions to find out what services Google has suggested for their business (and steal them) For context, review questions are the additional questions Google asks when you’re leaving a review on a Google Business Profile (info on services, parking, etc)

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Darren Shaw @whitespark.ca · 17/08/2026

🚨 Google is testing Local Services Ads directly inside AI Mode answers. Anthony Higman First Shared This News, And He Absolutely Hates It (typed in Higman-case just for him)

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Darren Shaw @whitespark.ca · 14/08/2026

My GenZ marketing team wrote me this script for a Google Business Profile audit 😬

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Darren Shaw @whitespark.ca · 13/08/2026

Can AI agents actually understand and use your website? Most businesses have no idea. There’s a free tool from Mersudin Forbes that will check it for you: 1. Go to agentchecker*ai 2. Click “Audit your site” 3. Paste in your website URL 4. And click “Run A Free Quick Check”

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Darren Shaw @whitespark.ca · 12/08/2026

You need to TikTokify your Google Ads strategy. You only have 1 second to stop the scroll. If you haven’t adapted your Google Ads strategy to the TikTok playbook, you’re way behind. Claire and I cover this and more on the latest Whitespark Local Update podcast.

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Darren Shaw @whitespark.ca · 11/08/2026

🚨 Huge Google Maps update: Google is turning Maps into an AI agent that can do things for you. With the new Ask Maps experience, you’ll be able to say something like: “Order spicy seafood noodles for me to pick up on my way home”

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Darren Shaw @whitespark.ca · 10/08/2026

This AI tool was so dangerous, Google removed it in less than 24 hours.

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Darren Shaw @whitespark.ca · 07/08/2026

No AI Slop. Just make real content.

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Darren Shaw @whitespark.ca · 06/08/2026

Just published: New research on Google reviews. We analyzed 765 Google Business Profiles to study the extra questions Google asks when you leave a review, like: - How much did it cost? - Did they have vegetarian options? - How is the parking here?

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Darren Shaw @whitespark.ca · 05/08/2026

🚨 ChatGPT just got access to Yelp’s 330 million local business reviews: Yelp is licensing its reviews, ratings, photos, and business information to OpenAI, giving ChatGPT real-time data for local recommendations.

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Darren Shaw @whitespark.ca · 04/08/2026

Google’s local results are being replaced by AI. @joyhawkins.bsky.social recently discovered the new AI-driven local results (which I’m calling the “AI Local 6 Pack”). Listen or watch @clairecarlile.bsky.social and me discuss this and more on today's Whitespark Local Update episode.

youtu.be

Google’s New AI Local 6-Pack & Reddit Research with Claude | E42 The Whitespark Local Update

YouTube video by Whitespark

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Darren Shaw @whitespark.ca · 03/08/2026

🚨 Huge Search Console update: Businesses worldwide can now track how their Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and X content performs across Google Search, Discover, and Google News.

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Darren Shaw @whitespark.ca · 31/07/2026

Steal my secret Claude prompts 😂

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Darren Shaw @whitespark.ca · 30/07/2026

ChatGPT has a hidden field that tells you WHERE it searches for data before returning an answer. @markwilliamscook.com dug into what happens behind the scenes when ChatGPT searches the web, and he found this hidden label called "result_source."

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Darren Shaw @whitespark.ca · 29/07/2026

A massive study of LLM visibility factors by Ben Wills analyzed 403,000 prompts across 10 different AI models to identify what correlates with being recommended by AI. Amy Toman (@bubblesup.bsky.social) and I discuss this in detail on today’s episode of the Whitespark Local Update podcast.

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Darren Shaw @whitespark.ca · 28/07/2026

How Reddit convinced AI that JD Vance died of rabies (he didn’t actually die of rabies): Reddit users flooded the subreddit r/poisonai with posts and comments repeating the same fake story. Then, other websites picked it up.

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Darren Shaw @whitespark.ca · 27/07/2026

Your Google Business Profile categories are helping Google’s AI understand what your business actually does. And as AI queries become more specific, your categories matter more than ever. Here’s what to do:

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Darren Shaw @whitespark.ca · 25/07/2026

Hey all my SEO peeps. I just gotta tell you about this awesome new bidet I’ve been using… 🤣

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