HIGH SALIENCE / GUIDES
AI Search Guides
Plain explanations of how AI search works and what moves it, checked against primary sources and our own research data. Written for marketing and growth leaders who have to decide what to fund. When you would rather have the work done for you, that is our AI search agency service.
AI Search Engine Optimization
How ChatGPT, AI Overviews, AI Mode and Perplexity build answers, what Google says you can skip, and what actually moves visibility.
llms.txt
What the file is, what Google says about it, and what server logs show about who actually reads it.
GEO vs SEO
What changes and what stays the same, with original data on how often AI recommendations skip the brands that rank.
AEO vs SEO
Where answer engine optimization came from, how it differs from SEO, and how to run both as one program.
GEO vs AEO
Two names for nearly the same work: the small differences, and how to judge vendors when the labels blur.
AI Visibility
The three metrics that matter, why single scores mislead, and a measurement method you can run yourself.
How to Get Cited by ChatGPT
How ChatGPT picks its sources, the crawler it uses, and seven steps to get cited and recommended.
How to Rank in AI Overviews
The only eligibility rules Google publishes, how query fan-out picks links, and what earns a place.
Zero-Click Search
The latest data on searches that end without a click, and how to market and measure around it.
Is SEO Dead?
What search volume, zero-click data and Google's own documentation say about SEO in 2026.
AI Citations
Where 6,443 ChatGPT citations came from, and how AI answers choose their sources.
AI Crawlers
GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot and Google-Extended: which affect AI search and which only affect training.
Reddit SEO and AI Visibility
Reddit ranked in Google's top ten for 631 of 700 software questions. ChatGPT's live answers mentioned it zero times. What that means.
Semantic SEO
How Google moved from keywords to meaning, and how to apply it for search and AI answers.
LLM SEO
Training data vs live retrieval: the two ways models learn about your brand, and what you control in each.
Topical Authority
What Google has actually said about topic authority, what it has not, and how depth pays off in AI answers.
Entity SEO
How search engines and AI systems recognize your brand, and how to make them describe it correctly.
Perplexity SEO
How Perplexity finds and cites sources, which crawler to allow, and how to earn citations.
AI SEO Strategy
A six-step framework for Google and AI answers together, built on what we have measured.
Google AI Mode SEO
How query fan-out picks sources, what Google says you need, and where its AI answers get their links.
Brand Mentions
Being named is not being chosen: what 2,100 ChatGPT answers show about brand mentions, and what Google says about them.
AI Share of Voice
How to calculate it, the counting mistake that inflates it, and benchmarks from 21 software categories.
E-E-A-T
What Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trust mean, why Google says it is not a ranking factor, and why it still matters.
Knowledge Panels
How Google creates them, how to claim and edit yours, and why a resolved entity matters for AI answers.
Query Fan-Out
How AI Mode and AI Overviews split one question into many searches, and why that pulls sources from outside the top ten.
ChatGPT Ads
Who sees them, where they appear, how to buy them, and why they do not change which brands ChatGPT recommends.
ChatGPT Shopping
How ChatGPT chooses products and merchants, what changed with Instant Checkout in 2026, and how to get listed.
AI Overviews Tracking
What Search Console now shows, what it does not, and a tracking method that avoids the usual counting errors.
ChatGPT vs Google
How their answers differ, how often they agree, and how to be found in both. Data from 2,200 questions.
Digital PR
Why earned coverage matters more when AI answers cite third parties, and where Google draws the line on link spam.
FAQ Schema
Google retired FAQ rich results in May 2026. What the markup still does, and where the effort should go instead.
Featured Snippets
How Google chooses them, how to opt out, where People Also Ask fits, and how snippets relate to AI Overviews.
Looking for a quick definition? See the AI search glossary. For shorter answers to specific questions, read the High Salience blog.