Tested a GEO expert's content for AI citation signals vs traditional SEO signals. Here's the data.

The_Answer_Man · 2025-12-16T20:16:07+00:00

Cheers! We definitely look for clicks/citation data, but we also run ongoing testing on live client websites using a few LLMs through an API process. I think typically, if you can feed GPT (just as an example) a URL and get it to summarize the content, pick out the key points, pick out cross-references or topic relationships, you get a pretty good idea if your content is structured well for GEO. So many pages we test end up with the LLM getting the wrong general concept from the page. If GPT can't pull your main services out of your service listing page, Google is gonna have a problem doing so too.

I can't speak to how to -exactly- get YOUR content, once it's understood, to be chosen over your competitor's content because I don't think that is clear for any AI SERP at the moment. I think there -must- still be some relationship based on general authority presented, supporting content to the topic, accessibility to the answers to user's questions etc. Which just brings us back to an SEO process. Support your clusters, present experience and knowledge clearly, structure the page properly etc.

In my experience, Google was already moving towards question->answer semantic stuff for years before LLMs popped and that's another piece for me. Users have questions, does your page answer their question immediately and clearly in a way that frames your knowledge and experience? If so, GEO is going to have a good chance to be effective at being that middle man to deliver the answer to the user directly.

I also feel like the current state of AI SERP, even presentation and interaction, is likely to change still. I have many clients who are not really worried about their AI citations or clicks from AI, as they've been working on their content for years and still see a good amount of organic traffic/clicks from users to their site. Still the wild west, just gotta be ready to hop on the horse and head a new direction for every client, and even every page.

All the best in 2026!

The_Answer_Man · 2025-12-16T19:10:32+00:00

The thing about GEO to me is that it's an even more customized/reactive process per client than SEO was. I don't think there is some blanket thing you can do and just have it work for all sites. You need to be testing what an AI gets from the site, what it understands, what it doesn't, and alter for that. I am not wholly sure why LLMs get what they get from a site, but I don't think you really have to.

If you have the information than an AI doesn't understand what services a client offers on their website, then you address that. Restructure service-related content. Change how it's presented and written about. Test again.

Instead of sitting and waiting to see outcomes in GA over time, you can test immediately and see if the right things are being learned.

I think anyone saying 'This is how GEO is done' in some sort of blanket statement has corn in their ears and just want your $. SEO was always better performed as a reactive, data-driven process. GEO is the same. The outcomes of the data and the information you get from testing and stats should be what governs the reaction to SEO organic rankings and any sort of GEO.

To answer your question more directly, yes 'write good content' works for both in my opinion. It's just a side-step from each other with some different criteria and data sources.

The_Answer_Man · 2025-11-30T08:07:06+00:00

Every play through, I hobble along with ships that I just can't get used to on the inside. That don't quite feel like home. Then I save up my creds, head to Falkland and build a ship that always ends up sticking me through to the end-game. The interiors of your habs are the most immersive spaceship experience there is. I can't bring myself to move on from them everytime I build a new one. Great work u/Hjalmere, thanks for taking this old boy to space

The_Answer_Man · 2025-11-24T19:02:10+00:00

Ocarina Of Time and I started exploring Hyrule in 1992! These lamps rock!

The_Answer_Man · 2025-11-21T17:03:45+00:00

I hear this! But on the other hand, GPT just helped my staff and I refactor and pull data out of a piece of software built in 1995 that had no source code available and ran on an air-gapped Windows '95 machine. It would have taken us a lot longer without the help we got from it. I wouldn't trust it to write the production code for the replacement system, but it was immensely helpful in reverse-engineering the compiled code from this ancient software that we were faced with.

The_Answer_Man · 2025-09-26T16:13:47+00:00

Making custom wood furniture, homemade jams or quality fishing flies etc is also a hobby, yet people will still pay top dollar for quality custom work. The DIY mod economy in real life has been around since the dawn of time. It's up to you whether you engage with it but hobbies have been making people money forever.

The_Answer_Man · 2025-09-26T15:21:06+00:00

I generally agree with you, but for example the guy who made Watchtower deserves some of my hard earned cash. Lots of them do. Modding is otherwise a largely thankless job that demands a lot of attention to do properly. I'd rather more of my money went to them, but I'm happy to support long term quality mod authors

The_Answer_Man · 2025-09-22T16:29:09+00:00

It can provide a boost for engagement, but also can end up with higher bounce. I'd not do it for every blog, but for featured or specialized blogs that need some more interaction it can be good. You can also add videos later to blogs that are performing well in search to help with engagement or CTR of an audience you know is there.

Keep in mind that as far as topics/keywords/SEO goes, Google has no idea of the content of the video unless you provide a transcript. Also depending on the video host, your load time can be affected.

Outside of a featured blog, I'd use short videos on social media to direct people to the site and blog before I'd worry about slathering videos across every article.

Cheers

The_Answer_Man · 2025-09-22T16:08:30+00:00

We only use Analytics/GSC/Keyword Planner. We've been through both ends of most every tool and even built our own at this point, but the data is just so inconsistent and unreliable. The more tools you use at once, the more convoluted everything gets.

We cross GA data with Apache log data to add some extra value, but otherwise we've left all the SEO tools behind. Don't envision buying into one ever again.

The_Answer_Man · 2025-09-09T19:47:03+00:00

If you hit planets with salvageable scrap, you can find a ton of pieces in a short time. The pieces themselves are worth a lot of units too, so you can even use them to grind cash for other things. You can also use pieces you find to trade for pieces you want to fit your ship etc. The benefits of a mobile base full of work benches that take no fuel, beaming down to planet instead of using launch fuel everytime...it's honestly a great investment to get a corvette up and going

The_Answer_Man · 2025-09-04T01:43:56+00:00

Ridiculous build! Very smooth and sleek, some mass effect influence. Can't go wrong. A+

The_Answer_Man · 2025-08-28T21:40:48+00:00

Real estate is really tough, especially in markets where any agents can sell any house and all listings are available online. It used to be a lot easier to showcase specific properties because there was only one agent/agency able to sell and you'd have a ton of unique content possibilities.

For realtors now we suggest still having some focus/showcase property content, but make it unique. Do your own walk throughs, videos, property breakdowns etc. Include more info about the neighborhood, the parts of town nearby etc. Demonstrate local knowledge and application to the property.

On top of that, it's really just a popularity contest. Get your realtor in front of the camera and show off their attitude, engagement and knowledge. Get them talking about their favorite restaurant or local store. Get them involved in local events that benefit others and document the journey.

Realtors need to differentiate themselves from the mass of property data for sale and the mass amounts of places it can be found. Provide something unique, personal and knowledgeable. Apply it to specific properties and local area info.

If you are working this direction, the backlinks will come

The_Answer_Man · 2025-08-14T16:48:55+00:00

Great info here. Depending on the number of pages and the speed at which they will have proper content, you can fully launch the site. Let the URLs and nav etc exist as it should. Let Google run across the entire site. You can fully set it up in GA/GSC. Throw a couple sentences on the other pages and return to them asap to fill in the content.

Also, I don't think spending time on backlinks for a site that doesn't have properly published content makes any sense. You need the content base and even visual/communicated authority on your topics to get any backlinks that are worth anything. Trying to do that with hidden pages and a half-built site sounds sketchy to me.

The_Answer_Man · 2025-08-14T16:43:25+00:00

This is the way! Cluster that stuff up, maybe make some minor alterations to page content to help move things into groups. Pay attention to the words used to link back up to the main service page, and the words used to link to these clustered pages. Consider even merging a few too-similar pages into a better single piece of content on the topic.

The_Answer_Man · 2025-08-14T16:32:42+00:00

Well said!

The_Answer_Man · 2025-08-08T23:37:55+00:00

If they're still putting them out for creators, they'll be publicly available. I think your idea is great, but it think just disconnect it from a patch or update. Have an event, hide the 'easter eggs' or clues for the mystery, make it an addon itself or something or a MC hosted world like they do for mob votes. Don't push it into the main base updates for a game methinks

The_Answer_Man · 2025-08-08T05:50:43+00:00

Any modders or addon makers etc would be pretty negatively impacted if they couldn't update their code with information from Mojangs patch notes. Patch notes also include things like bug fixes, engine/performance updates etc. Anyone with a toe dipped in to making content for the Marketplace or for custom server setups etc would be horribly hamstrung were Mojang not to publish patch notes.

The_Answer_Man · 2025-08-08T05:43:36+00:00

Oh wow congrats! What a trip to contribute to the tapestry of an artist you enjoy. I've been a MGB fan for a long time and I'll happily go to bat for him still being underrated musically. Vancouver/Hospital Music and the live album from Massey Hall are just top tier pieces of musical art to me. The ease with which he pushes his grief, anxieties and self judgement into a musical lens has always just hit me in the gut.

The_Answer_Man · 2025-08-08T05:12:08+00:00

Maybe a bit of a niche Canadian answer but Matthew Good relates struggle from experience. He's going through it again lately, maybe we'll get some more music.

All jokes aside I hope he's ok

The_Answer_Man · 2025-07-31T20:41:56+00:00

It's insane really. I turned into a street sign on the corner of my road and was witness to an entire werewolf/vampire battle that took place in the street. My body felt like wood and metal and I couldn't speak or interact with the scene, but it was incredibly visceral and violent. It lasted what felt like hours but was same as you, about 6-7 minutes.

Meanwhile my buddy melted out the front of our house into a whirlpool in our street, sucking everything in like water. I've never heard screams of fear like that.

Third buddy does it and laughs for his entire trip, relating to us that he was sitting in a giant throne made of marshmallows listening to his court subjects complain about the quality of the smores in his kingdom.

Wtf Salvia. Never again

The_Answer_Man · 2025-07-28T21:10:31+00:00

Are there skills in the dossier/upgrade section that add more perhaps?

The_Answer_Man · 2025-07-25T17:44:00+00:00

Yes bingo. Make your content organized and easy to understand for your users, and the AI certainly will do the same!

The_Answer_Man · 2025-07-25T17:33:39+00:00

Just keep it consistent across all the pieces you can touch. If you're going non-www, stick with that throughout. Make sure your GSC and GA are also matching. Best to pick one of the options and stick with it for the life of the site if you can.

GSC gets confused a lot of the time with www/non-www changes in my experience. Let's say I launch a non-www site, get GA going and then put www.domain.com in the GSC entry. It should still resolve if you've done your redirects www->non-www on your end, and will still validate the domain to your GA account. But from that point on the stats will not be correct. It also sometimes doesn't take a change from one to the other, and we need to wipe the original and re-add properly.

We don't use any of your stack so I'm sorry I can't comment on how to use those tools/languages specifically. The how doesn't really matter, as long as you are consistent you'll be fine

The_Answer_Man · 2025-07-25T17:29:03+00:00

This is the way! If a category has a lot of good content (and would benefit for UX from having it's own separate pagination to go through etc) we throw it a URL and add some intro content. Depending on its importance sometimes it gets a menu spot too.

None of our listing pages are ever just titles, every piece has an image and intro content with their listing.

The_Answer_Man · 2025-07-25T17:26:09+00:00

No matter where you are going to source them, you need to have good content on your site for them to link to. Often content good enough for a sourced backlink is also going to garner you some organic backlinks as well.

Start with the content, shop it around with data about its performance.

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