Krešimir Ćorluka shares that SEO is not dying, but bad SEO most certainly is. Talking points include: What is bad SEO? What doesn’t work anymore? What fundamentals work now? Where are SEOs confused with what works now? How do you learn and stay on top of what works now? How do you futureproof your future success? A lot of the stuff the average SEO has been doing has had the wrong fundamentals. Technical SEO, backlinking and good content is more important than ever. But, most SEOs weren't doing these things right so now they're confused with what LLMs expect of us. This stuff works and jumping on every new technique is killing your SEO gains, especially like the stuff we've seen with listicles, Reddit SEO, trying to manipulate Quora etc. Do the fundamentals right and only then can we go on to experimenting.

Arnout Hellemans advises that you don’t have to provide AI crawlers with full access to all of your content.

Arnout says: “People really need to look at their technical setup.

With that, I mean the rendered version versus the raw HTML – especially with a lot of AI crawlers not rendering yet, and also because I've seen a lot of discrepancies in that area.”

Is the rendered version typically quite different for different search engines?

“As with a lot of things in SEO, it depends.

Sometimes, when websites are built using JavaScript frameworks, the content is actually different in the raw HTML versus the rendered HTML.

Titles might be different. There might not be schema markup, there might be different headings, etc., because those can be changed by the execution of JavaScript.

That can severely impact the discoverability of your page.”

One of the ways that you can enhance your website foundation is to combine high technical SEO standards with great user experience, shares Iva Jovanovic.

Iva says: “Technical SEO and user experience will remain the foundation for websites, even when optimizing for AI chatbots.”

Why do AI chatbots like user experience?

“To start with, crawlability has been a topic in SEO for years and years. It's now gaining even more importance because of the way that chatbots crawl websites. They crawl a bit differently.

We're used to Googlebot and other search engine bots adapting to what the websites are serving, and adapting to crawling them. Chatbots are not exactly the same. A lot of studies and research confirm that many of the chatbots do not crawl JavaScript, for example. So, a lot of websites that have been using JavaScript, that Googlebot has been able to crawl, are now not going to be as accessible to chatbots. GPTBot, ClaudeBot, and even Perplexity don't crawl JavaScript.

Aside from that, the bots crawl websites a little more simply, and it's really important to structure your website properly for that, so that the chatbots can access your link. Also, make sure all the links are there, avoid having 404s and redirects, have a pure structure of the website, pure links, and make sure the link juice is going on.

Even before, websites that used JavaScript were not rendered as much. A long time ago, using JavaScript, you could hide links and do spammy stuff. Later on, Googlebot developed a way to make sure your JavaScript is crawled properly, and Martin Splitt has talked about it many times.

However, it is frustrating for developers who are used to using JavaScript in frameworks like React and Vue to create their websites, especially in SaaS businesses. Now, the way that the bots will render it is a bit different. It's going to be a bit difficult for developers and SEOs to find common ground in that.”

To commence our technical SEO discussion, Jono Alderson advises against settling for an average website.

Jono says: “Stop accepting technical mediocrity.”

What does mediocrity look like in the world of technical SEO?

“We all know it, and we see it all the time. We have accepted that it's normal for websites to be rubbish.

Whether they're the ones we work on, our clients’, or the ones we browse, things are slow, we hit 404 errors, there's a bunch of JavaScript loading so that when you click the thing, it doesn't respond quickly, stuff doesn't quite show on screen properly, the font's too small, things are ugly, it takes four minutes for something to add to the cart, and then the cart was empty all along.

Somehow, we're all okay with this. It's so normal for all of these interactions to be this bad that we just get on with it – and, for the most part, Google has coped with that and made the most of the web being janky, broken, and poorly built.

However, as we enter the age of AI, the rules change slightly because those systems aren't as good at unpicking that mess. They’re simply not as incentivised to. When you look at their commercial, political, and product roadmaps, and the way they interact with websites, it's a very different machine. They are much less tolerant of faults, errors, omissions, and gaps – and they won't put in the same resources that Google has to wade through that.

We all feel how janky the web is, and see it all the time, and we just kind of accept it. It's nice to take a step back and say, actually, this isn't good enough. It's not how it should be.”

In the previous tip, Eva Cheng shares the value of combining social and content with digital PR. Charlotte Crowther adds to that by also incorporating traditional PR.

Charlotte says: “Don't ignore digital and brand PR. They are becoming really entwined with SEO, GEO, and LLMs.

Ignoring branded digital PR is going to have a large impact on your visibility, particularly as we're seeing a move towards a zero-click world.”

What are the differences between traditional, digital, and brand PR? Where are they blurring, and where do they remain separate?

“Back when marketing first started, we thought of marketing as an entire piece, and traditional PR fed into that.

With the rise of SEO, particularly in the early 2000s, there came a brand-new side of things, which was link building. That has since morphed into what many of us now know as digital PR. However, we've been seeing a blurring of the lines.

We can no longer look at traditional PR (newspapers, radio, TV) and digital PR (online content) as two separate things because a brand is living and breathing. It should be the same message everywhere a consumer sees it.

It's making sure that we're working together, making content work as hard as possible for that brand – but also, really importantly, staying true to that brand, true to the brand voice, and true to the brand values so that, no matter where a consumer sees you, everything aligns.”

Jeremy Moser discusses how to create a SERP monopoly with off-page SEO. Talking points include: How to crowd SERPs with your brand and capture more mindshare at the bottom of the funnel - Why leveraging paid off-page strategies can still work - Zero click searches are less common at MOFU and BOFU searches, your goal is going narrow and deep and capturing market-share at decision making stages - Topic Taker strategy is not just for traditional blue link SEO, it currently is the most impactful AEO lever you can pull and the window won't last forever...

Eva Cheng shares that aligning social and content strategies will boost your digital PR success.

Eva says: “Make your digital PR work harder with social and content alignment.”

What does digital PR look like in 2026?

“Digital PR in 2026 is all about trying to get your work featured within AI searches.

We’re now seeing that a lot of people are relying on AI for the simplest queries, like the best restaurants to go to, travel tips, and advice for something that is a lot simpler and easier than Google.

Even with Google’s AI overviews, the main focus at the moment is trying to get that exposure, so that AI recognises it and pulls it through for your brand.”

One of the key reasons why you should be embracing digital PR in 2026 is that AI pays a keen ear to what the press is saying.

James says: “You need to be earning press mentions if you want your brand to be recommended by AI-powered search.”

Why do you suggest press mentions over other content online?

“When I talk about AI-powered search, I'm talking about Google's AI overviews and AI Mode, but also the AI chatbots like ChatGPT and those sorts of platforms.

They disproportionately pull their sources from trusted and authoritative sources: third-party mentions on the web. It just so happens that a large percentage of those are what we would class as press publications.

It's all rooted in the idea that you can't be recommended as the best if you're the only person who's saying it. When AI-powered platforms are making summaries and recommendations, they're pulling from a multitude of sources, almost for validation that you should be recommended. One of the most effective ways to do that is to get mentioned in the right way in press publications.”