Rob Bonham

Let me make this clear THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A TOXIC BACKLINK. No no no and no again, NO SUCH THING. Next DO NOT SUBMIT DISAVOWS unless you categorically know what you are doing. Disavowing LINK SPAM can cause ranking losses - yes that's right! Disavow is NOT a toy, it's not something you should just "submit" to because a tool told you to. You DO NOT need a disavow in 95%+ of cases. Here's why: 1. Google is SIGNIFICANTLY better at devaluing link spam at source - so even if a site that looks terrible is linking to yours, chances are Google will be ignoring it anyway 2. IF you are benefiting from link equity from link spam you can: > Disavow now and lose the equity and take a hit > Lose the link equity naturally later effectively extending the benefit of it 3. Disavows are GENERALLY for those who get a manual action for unnatural links - this USED to be a much bigger problem in the past then it is now. In the past manual actions would come as a result of a HUMAN reviewing your prominence in search and looking at the kind of links / pattern of links, but, this is mainly AUTOMATED now OR, automated to the point of flagging links for a manual review (which is much rarer now) In short, Google has spam brain, so this is there to naturally fend off and devalue links that appear to be "manipulative" NOW there are nuances to this. FIRSTLY, negative SEO attacks CAN still have an effect (sadly) but far less than in the past, in the past it was SIGNIFICANTLY easier to impact a site negatively with link spam. With NEGATIVE SEO attacks i.e. mass referring domains in with dodgy anchors or irrelevant anchors - SpamBrain catches a majority of this and the links will do nothing more than appear in your link tool of choice i.e. AHREFS In RARER cases where there IS a correlative effect there needs to be a review conducted heres why: Negative links CAN provide short term benefit in respect of "new link equity" - for domains that haven't yet been flagged for spam, they may temporarily transfer link equity which can BENEFIT your rankings and ultimately traffic - so, at the point Google catches up, that link equity can be SUBTRACTED and you can see ranking degredation as a result (this is NOT a penalty). Negative links CAN confuse Google at scale - but, generally this is short lived - i.e. anchor text saturations / domain signals etc. Disavows are a "last resort" and are generally useful IF: 1. You've had an unnatural links warning / manual action for links in Google Search Console 2. You have significant ranking volatility outside of any core update but during a period of intense new inbound referring domain growth It's become HARDER for negative SEO attacks because: 1. Historically a lot of domains used for negative link spam had garbage content - now Google tends not to index anything garbage (or less of it) so the domains ultimately lose their index and any "link value" 2. Spambrain (obviously) but this isn't foolproof #seo

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SEO Tip: Your log files can show exactly how much your content is part of real user conversations with ChatGPT and the topics you’re being included in. Standard analytics like GA4 can’t tell you what’s happening when people engage with your content through ChatGPT or Custom GPTs. These interactions aren’t web visits in the traditional sense as they don't render a full page visit with JavaScript, so most of the story is invisible in your dashboards. But your server log files see it all. By reviewing logs for the ChatGPT-User agent (using a tool like Screaming Frog’s log analyzer), you get real data on: How many actual user conversations included your content Which specific URLs ChatGPT is pulling in to answer questions What topics and resources your site is being sourced for For example, in just one day, our log file analysis showed: 486 ChatGPT-User visits to 167 unique pages Only 3 sessions in GA4 for the same period This is insight you can’t get anywhere else. These visits are from real user conversations, via ChatGPT bots. And because you can see which URLs are being accessed, you can pinpoint exactly what info ChatGPT is using your site for with its users. Why care? ChatGPT-driven visits are converting at much higher rates (8x for us, 23x for Ahrefs). If your pages are included in LLM answers, you’re already part of these new discovery journeys, even if your analytics don’t show it. Pro move: Check your log files for the ChatGPT-User agent: Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko); compatible; ChatGPT-User/1.0; +https://openai.com/bot This user agent is for when users ask ChatGPT or a CustomGPT a question, it can visit a web page with this ChatGPT-User agent. ChatGPT-User is not used for crawling the web See what pages are being used and what questions you’re helping answer. If you want to measure your true influence in the AI era, this is where to start.

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I had no idea so many SEO companies would hate my software AI Trust Signals… but they do...and not for the reasons I expected. Turns out, there are a lot of SEO companies doing bad work and not being honest with their clients. And when their clients finally ask hard questions, things get...well...interesting. Here’s a recent example (true story): A lady heard me speak, ran her website through AI Trust Signals, and her scores came back rough. She forwarded the results to her SEO company and asked for an explanation. Their response? “It’s a pile of $hit.” 💩 That was their technical analysis. (seriously, I'm not kidding) But it also triggered alarm bells for her. So she started digging. Eight weeks later, here’s what she uncovered: • GDPR violations • Her entire e-commerce section not visible to Google Shopping • Falsified SEO reporting • A laundry list of mistakes no competent agency should ever miss Her words to me: “You name it… it happened.” She fired the agency and is now fixing what was an extremely broken website. And the crazy part? I'm starting to see similar stories all the time now. When some SEO companies see a low score on AI Trust Signals, the default response isn’t curiosity… it’s defensiveness: “It’s trash.” “It’s wrong.” “Don’t trust it.” Anything to avoid accountability. Why? Because too many firms are still clinging to a world where everything revolves around ten blue links, “keywords,” and link-building spreadsheets. And that world is disappearing...fast. The day is coming when we’ll laugh at how we used to get information online. If you’re using an SEO company, don’t assume they’ve kept up. The shift from “rank me on Google” to “make AI recommend me” is rewriting the industry. Some agencies will adapt. Many won’t. Your job is to know the difference...before the market finds out for you. ----------- Your take? I'd love to hear your thoughts below. 👇

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Agencies often talk crap on other agencies and it's a pointless exercise but here's why I find it amusing Hiring is hard Running a company of 10 is hard Running a company of 40 is harder Most agency owners can never scale above either 40 heads or 40 clients because they don't replace themselves The reason I am at 450 clients and 500 employees is because processes (sops etc) simply outperform talented people who ignore checklists My interns beat anyone Thrasio hired for example, they with ultimate sophistication ignored commandment 1 of selling on Amazon. They let their top sellers go out of stock. Boutique agencies claim better talent allows them better results, often posting on social media like a solo fashion show Not only is this misleading but it's also their only claim they can make because they can't or haven't yet scaled their own company to merit a higher level argument But with that said, it's not me against you (other agencies), it's all of US vs Amazon There is simply no need to attack other agencies to gain ground, the ground is infinite and I get more client referrals when I help my competitors anyway Business is not a zero sum game, on the contrary it's an infinite value giving game This is why I give away everything Some of you will hate on me just because I am successful But most of you who learn something and apply it to your own business will grow And to the few who come back and say thank you for all the content? You're the reward that keeps me going

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SEO is dead. Adobe has proved it. Adobe Analytics shows a 3,500% increase in traffic to U.S. retail sites from generative AI sources in May 2025 (from July 2024). Think about your last 10 searches. How many did you ask ChatGPT instead of Google? Most people haven't realized what just happened. We've shifted from optimizing for search engines to optimizing for Large Language Models. Adobe's new LLM Optimizer, announced at Cannes Lions, is the first enterprise tool designed specifically for this new reality. Here's what's brilliant about Adobe's move: 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐲'𝐫𝐞 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐟𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐝. 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐲'𝐫𝐞 𝐝𝐞𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐧𝐞𝐰 𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐠����𝐫𝐲. While everyone's still thinking "SEO," Adobe is thinking "GEO" - Generative Engine Optimization. The tool identifies which content gets cited by ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, and Perplexity, then provides one-click optimization recommendations. This is massive for three reasons: 1) 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡 𝐛𝐞𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐨𝐫 𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐟𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐞𝐧𝐭    People get answers directly from AI now     No more clicking through 10 blue links 2) 𝐓𝐫𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐲𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐛𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐝    Most platforms track human visitors, not AI agents accessing your content     You're optimizing blind 3) 𝐀𝐝𝐨𝐛𝐞 𝐬𝐚𝐰 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐞 𝐨𝐩𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭     They're targeting SEO leads, content strategists, and digital marketers     The people already managing search strategy The companies that understand this shift now? They'll dominate the next decade of digital discovery. The ones still focused on Google rankings? They're optimizing for a world that no longer exists. LLM Optimizer connects AI visibility directly to business outcomes - tracking how LLM exposure converts to qualified traffic and revenue. This isn't theoretical anymore. It's measurable. It's actionable. It's here. Adobe just handed enterprise marketing teams the roadmap for the AI discovery era. LLM Optimizer is officially coming this fall. Date to be determined. 𝐐𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐢𝐬: 𝐀𝐫𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐲 𝐭𝐨 𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐩 𝐨𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐢𝐳𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐚𝐬𝐭 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐨𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐢𝐳𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐮𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞?

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Most agencies get addiction treatment SEO completely wrong. They target high-volume keywords that drive thousands of visitors. And their clients love seeing those traffic numbers go up. But here's what really happens → TRAFFIC rarely converts to ADMISSIONS. Why? Because they target broad addiction information keywords: → "Signs of alcoholism" → "Drug withdrawal symptoms" → "[Insert Celebrity Name} rehab" These searches come from people researching addiction. Not people seeking treatment. Real treatment seekers use different search terms: → "[City] rehab near me" → "Insurance coverage for rehab" → "Same day addiction treatment" Your traffic might drop 80% targeting these keywords. But your admissions will explode. Because you'll attract people ready for treatment → not just research. Quality beats quantity. Focus on INTENT over volume. Target searches from people who need help TODAY. That's how you build a sustainable treatment center.

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Let’s talk money. SEO salaries are one of the most debated topics in the industry. But here’s the truth: • They vary wildly by region. • They swing based on agency vs. in-house. • And often, the title doesn’t match the band. Some real data points we’ve seen: • A “Head of SEO” in Manchester earning $95K, while a Senior Manager in New York pulls $140K+. • A mid-level technical SEO in Boston at $120K, but in Dallas, the same role is closer to $80K. • Equity is creeping into senior SEO roles, but only at larger SaaS and eCom orgs. So what do you do as a candidate? 1. Know your market data. Don’t negotiate blind. 2. Frame your value in outcomes. Employers pay more when you show revenue impact, not just rankings. 3. Be willing to walk away. Sometimes the band isn’t wrong for you, the environment is. Have you ever left money on the table because you didn’t know what bands looked like in your market? There's a quick solution to getting there:  www.salaryguide.com

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I’m seeing a lot of SEOs scrambling to demonstrate they’re tracking LLM visibility. But here’s the question: *What* are they tracking? Cause if you’re porting over the same list of keywords that you’ve been ranking for Google, you’re missing something key: Most of us don’t AI the way we Google. That’d be like treating Data from TNG like a toaster. I don’t have a relationship with Google: I just use it as the start button of the internet. And the key to that ‘start button’ is a reductive keyword or phrase. From there, I *might* find my way to a website and form a relationship (real or imaginary, trusting or not) with a brand or content maker. But with LLMs, I form a relationship with the tool itself. I can be long-winded, take tangents, follow up with clarifications, inject humour, and more. Some even remember things I’ve told them that I’ve long forgotten. How I talk to AI isn’t reductive; it’s expansive. With AI, it’s not going to be straightforward KW:Result tracking anymore. It’ll be much messier, idiosyncratic, and gloriously human, with all the complexity that entails. #AIO #SEO #GEO #Content

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“I think AEO/GEO is a load of crap,” spouted a CMO from a $250mm SaaS company, adding, “if you follow SEO best practices, you’ll be fine.” After I picked up my jaw from the floor, I pondered this purposeful provocation and asked myself, could she be right? Stick with me as I share what I think I know about AEO. Showing up in LLMs has significant business value. Members of the CMO Huddles community report that LLM-generated site traffic converts at 4-6x the rate of traditional Google traffic. These visitors are not your proverbial tire kickers. They’re ready to put you on their short list. So if you haven’t figured out how to track + respond to these visitors appropriately, stop reading this and get on that!  Brands that ranked high in Google searches are more likely to show up in LLMs This makes sense, since these brands tend to have broader digital footprints. But I’ve also read that this only applies to about 50% of LLM searches. So that means that in the other 50% of searches, lesser-ranked brands are finding a way into LLM synopses. And if that is the case, then they must be doing something other than SEO-like activities. [If this logic is faulty, don’t blame an LLM, I’m on my own here.] Yext research agrees with our provocateur CMO This brilliantly timed bombshell dropped into my email this week: “Yext just analyzed 6.8 million citations across ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity and found that 86% actually come from sources brands already control, like websites and listings. Reddit and forums? Just 2% once location and query intent are factored in.” I’ll give you a second to re-read this. Is Yext’s research relevant to AEO + B2B brands? Not sure. Perhaps their CEO, Michael Walrath, will weigh in here. If Yext's research includes B2B brands and complex queries, those of you investing heavily in AEO may want to reconsider. Another reason to hedge on AEO is that it is so damn hard to measure cause and effect right now. Every LLM search delivers unique results. The game is to measure the percentage of times you show up in an LLM query of 23 words on average. Now imagine one word is different each time. My head hurts thinking about the mathematical permutations. Hedging your AEO bet Many of the AEO “best practices” are things you should be doing anyway. Having extensive Q&As on your website is simply being user-friendly. Taking it a step further and having an answer bot like Webless that pulls from your website content is also being customer-centric. Another example is having competitive information (including pricing) on your website. Prospects need that info, and if you don’t provide it, the LLM will source it from somewhere else.  Like most humans, I hate gated content. Turns out, so do LLMs. So that's another example of doing the right thing that also may help with AEO. There's more to cover, but I'm out of space + am counting on my AEO-expert friends to fill in the vast gaps, including the technical stuff (like schema).

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I read two articles yesterday about SEO in the age of AI that stopped me in my tracks. Because both 100% confirmed what I'm seeing - the way to get content ranked in this age of AI-based search is to flip "SEO writing" on its head. What do I mean? Many site owners start with keyword research, competitive article research, write & optimize, publish, promote. Instead, work it backwards: come up with niche topics your customers really want to learn about that can't be easily answered in a snippet. Then research keywords, clustering them by questions and related topics. It works. I've done this for years and content I've created with this method has bumped up considerably in the SERPS. (Yes, there's a lot more to it - you're getting the quick tips version - but really interesting new dynamic at play here.)

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Real SEO Results: 27 Leads from a Simple Content Strategy Just implemented a targeted insurance coverage strategy for a Hawaii dentist client, inspired by Steve Toth. The approach: Created 12 focused "Does [insurance] cover [dental procedure]?" articles by: ➡️ Getting the list of accepted insurances from the client ➡️ Downloading each insurance's coverage PDFs ➡️ Using Claude AI to draft comprehensive, honest answers ➡️ Emphasizing alternatives and next steps when procedures weren't covered The results speak for themselves: 🗓️ 13 appointment requests 🤳 14 direct calls ... and most of these pages AREN'T EVEN on page 1 yet. That's 27 total leads - all from answering real questions that potential patients are asking. Imagine the impact if we expanded this to cover every procedure they offer. What I love about this approach: ➡️ Creates content actual customers are searching for ➡️ Grabs searchers while they're actively researching how to pay ➡️ Converts at higher rates than generic pages (250% higher!) ➡️ Builds topical authority in their specific service area ➡️ Delivers measurable ROI ASAP What content strategy is driving your best results right now?

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Mantis Analysis Reveals 56% of Oscars Content Blocked Due to Blunt Keyword Blocklists! At Mantis, we assessed more than 460,000 page views between Dec 28, 2024, and Jan 27, 2025, and found that a master keyword blocklist used by multiple ad agencies flagged 56% of the views as potentially problematic. That's a significant portion of the audience missed out on! With nearly half of consumers trusting the #Oscars as a key indicator of top films, celebrities and performances, brands are missing out on vital opportunities to engage with an audience that's actively tuned in during one of entertainment’s peak moments. It’s crucial for brands to think carefully about the technology they’re using to protect their advertising efforts. Mantis offers a far smarter, AI-powered solution that helps brands avoid these missed opportunities.   Read the full article by Kendra Barnett including my insights here ADWEEK https://lnkd.in/eVZRsbtF You can also catch this article in AdExchanger https://lnkd.in/et6eGzGn roundup/tuesday-2025-04-03/ and eMarketer https://lnkd.in/ew6C6XRz #KeywordBlocklist #BrandSafety #ContextualAdvertising #MantisResearch #Oscars2025

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Ever encountered an agency pitching you a free SEO audit? 90% of the time, they don’t know sh*t. Three major red flags you should be on the lookout for when someone wants to comb through your site and recommend fluff that doesn’t work (and matter). ⛳ Technical Focus They obsess over tactical nonsense Missing ALT tags Page speed scores H1 tags and meta description lengths. Easy to find with Screaming Frog, but fixing them won't get you more qualified leads. 𝗛𝗼𝘄 𝗜’𝗹𝗹 𝗱𝗼 𝗶𝘁 ⬇️ → Spot site architecture that confuses Google about practice areas → Identify internal linking that wastes crawl budget → Recommend schema markup that helps AI reference you on overviews ⛳ Competitor Research Basic keyword gap analysis using Semrush. No context about why or what's driving their success. 𝗛𝗼𝘄 𝗜’𝗹𝗹 𝗱𝗼 𝗶𝘁 ⬇️ Deep strategy analysis of what's actually working for other law firms in your market. → Which content formats convert? → What trust signals are they building? → How are they capturing local search traffic? ⛳ The Waterfall They ignore your conversion funnel entirely. No analysis of how search traffic connects to actual consultation bookings or case acquisition. 𝗛𝗼𝘄 𝗜’𝗹𝗹 𝗱𝗼 𝗶𝘁 ⬇️ I look at your waterfall - how your entire intake funnel is performing across different buyer stages. → Awareness How much qualified traffic are you capturing vs. competitors for high-intent keywords? → Interest What percentage of organic visitors engage with your content beyond the first page view? → Consideration How many visitors download your guides, read articles, and spend more than 3 minutes per session on your site? → Intent What's your organic traffic to consult conversion rate, and how does it compare to PPC traffic? → Evaluation How many web consults actually convert to funded cases? The constraint isn't technical perfection - it's actually waterfall optimization. Most audits tell you what's "broken” and give you a list of 50+ issues to work on, so you get pressured to hire them. I tell you what's blocking your waterfall flow and costing you cases… So I can show you: ☑️ What to fix ☑️ Why it needs to be fixed ☑️ & in what order of priority That’s the Tony and Rocket Clicks way.

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Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) isn’t replacing SEO—it’s evolving alongside it. After 18ish years in this field, I’ve seen SEO shift dramatically: 📱 From desktop-only to mobile-first 🔍 From one-word queries (try typing a phrase into T9 word) to questions and semantic phrases 🧠 From ranking for clicks to optimizing for answers So here’s the real takeaway: It’s not AEO vs. SEO—it’s AEO and SEO. SEO still matters. You need in-depth, well-structured content that proves your expertise (EEAT), with real value for readers and search engines. But AEO brings a new lens: ➤ Can you say the same thing in fewer words? ➤ Can your key points live in a snippet, summary, or AI-generated overview? Because today, not everyone’s even clicking (we've all seen the dips in search traffic). They’re skimming, scanning, or letting AI summarize. As a business, especially in the B2B space when we're all multitasking, you need both the gravitas and the digestibility. The long and the short of it. This isn’t about abandoning what’s worked. It’s about recognizing that what works… always changes. Stay open. Stay agile. Say it smart—and say it simply.

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