From the journal

What we are thinking about.

Notes from running 8 publications and building tools for them. Restaurant SEO, local marketing, the boring parts that move the needle.

Asos Throws Marketing Spaghetti at the Wall: Balanced Strategy or Just More Noise?
ai-seo Nis 25, 2026

Asos Throws Marketing Spaghetti at the Wall: Balanced Strategy or Just More Noise?

Asos’s new ‘balanced’ marketing strategy is less innovation and more marketing grift, doubling down on buzzwords while ignoring core business issues.

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The ‘More With Less’ Delusion: How Top Marketers Are Still Falling For Budget Squeeze Bullshit
ai-seo Nis 25, 2026

The ‘More With Less’ Delusion: How Top Marketers Are Still Falling For Budget Squeeze Bullshit

Nine out of ten marketers managing £45bn ad spend claim budget pressure, but it’s just an excuse for strategic failure and agency complacency. Here’s why.

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SEO Agencies in 2026 Are Mostly Selling You Snake Oil - Here's How to Spot the Grift and Fix It Yourself
ai-seo Nis 25, 2026

SEO Agencies in 2026 Are Mostly Selling You Snake Oil - Here's How to Spot the Grift and Fix It Yourself

If you’re still trusting SEO agencies in 2026, you’re probably funding a grift masquerading as expertise. Here’s how to call bullshit and reclaim your rankings.

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Structured Data for Google AI Overviews: The Biggest Missed Opportunity No Publisher Is Exploiting
ai-seo Nis 25, 2026

Structured Data for Google AI Overviews: The Biggest Missed Opportunity No Publisher Is Exploiting

Everyone’s obsessed with flashy SEO hacks, but the real goldmine—structured data powering Google’s AI overviews—remains untouched by lazy publishers and clueless agencies.

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AI Content Detectors Are Lying to You: The Grift of Fake Plagiarism Scanners in SEO
ai-seo Nis 25, 2026

AI Content Detectors Are Lying to You: The Grift of Fake Plagiarism Scanners in SEO

If you think AI content detectors actually catch plagiarism or maintain quality, you’re dead wrong. They're a lazy agency cash grab and Google-approved nonsense.

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The Applebot-Extended Visibility Myth: How a Ghost Bot Is Hijacking Your Crawl Budget
ai-seo Nis 25, 2026

The Applebot-Extended Visibility Myth: How a Ghost Bot Is Hijacking Your Crawl Budget

Applebot isn’t the SEO ally you think it is. That so-called extended visibility is a cargo cult narrative masking a stealth crawl budget vampire.

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Core Web Vitals Are Overrated Noise: Why Google's Speed Signals Are Peak Nothingburger in 2026
ai-seo Nis 25, 2026

Core Web Vitals Are Overrated Noise: Why Google's Speed Signals Are Peak Nothingburger in 2026

The SEO world’s obsession with Core Web Vitals is a sad circus of vanity metrics and lazy agency parroting. Here’s why these signals are meaningless noise in 2026.

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GSC Discover Traffic Attribution Is Broken Beyond Repair - Stop Trusting These Vanity Metrics
ai-seo Nis 25, 2026

GSC Discover Traffic Attribution Is Broken Beyond Repair - Stop Trusting These Vanity Metrics

Google Search Console’s Discover traffic numbers are a masterclass in broken attribution. If you’re relying on those stats, you’re chasing ghosts and inflating your ego.

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Schema.org Adoption Is a Dumpster Fire: Why Most Publishers Are Wasting Time on Half-Baked Markup
ai-seo Nis 25, 2026

Schema.org Adoption Is a Dumpster Fire: Why Most Publishers Are Wasting Time on Half-Baked Markup

The SEO world loves to pretend adding a few Schema tags is a silver bullet. Spoiler: most publishers are drowning in broken, incomplete, and outright useless structured data.

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Yoast and Rank Math AI Features Are a Lazy Joke: How These Plugins Still Can't Generate Real SEO Value
ai-seo Nis 25, 2026

Yoast and Rank Math AI Features Are a Lazy Joke: How These Plugins Still Can't Generate Real SEO Value

Yoast and Rank Math's new AI gimmicks are nothing but smoke and mirrors — a lazy band-aid on decades of plugin bloat and SEO grift that delivers zero tangible ROI.

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IndexNow Is a Zero-Impact PR Stunt: Why Microsoft's Link Submission API Is SEO Snake Oil in 2026
ai-seo Nis 25, 2026

IndexNow Is a Zero-Impact PR Stunt: Why Microsoft's Link Submission API Is SEO Snake Oil in 2026

IndexNow is being paraded as the next big thing in SEO, but it's a glorified link submission API that delivers zero tangible value. Here’s why the whole thing is SEO snake oil in 2026.

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How The Good Noticings Podcast Ditches Clickbait for Genuine Positivity in a Toxic Social Media Jungle
ai-seo Nis 25, 2026

How The Good Noticings Podcast Ditches Clickbait for Genuine Positivity in a Toxic Social Media Jungle

The Good Noticings podcast rejects the content industry’s obsession with outrage and hot takes, proving that positivity and authenticity can cut through the noise.

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The CMO Shakeup Nobody’s Talking About: Growth Isn’t Marketing’s Side Hustle Anymore
ai-seo Nis 25, 2026

The CMO Shakeup Nobody’s Talking About: Growth Isn’t Marketing’s Side Hustle Anymore

The recent wave of CMO shakeups reveals a brutal truth: marketing’s old playbook is dead. Growth isn’t a side hustle anymore — it’s the entire job.

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Legacy Brands and the Illusion of Reinvention: What Crayola’s Latest Strategy Gets Wrong
ai-seo Nis 25, 2026

Legacy Brands and the Illusion of Reinvention: What Crayola’s Latest Strategy Gets Wrong

Crayola’s recent rebrand efforts reveal a deeper issue: legacy brands mistaking nostalgia for innovation, and emotional resonance for strategic evolution.

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The Week’s Most Eye-Rolling Ad Stunts: Marc Jacobs, Ikea, and the Same Old Noise
ai-seo Nis 25, 2026

The Week’s Most Eye-Rolling Ad Stunts: Marc Jacobs, Ikea, and the Same Old Noise

This week’s roundup of ad campaigns from Marc Jacobs to Ikea reveals a familiar pattern: flashy packaging over meaningful innovation. Here’s why the industry’s playing it safe is killing creativity.

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Possible 2026: The Fontainebleau Fanfare and the C-Suite Climb That Could Break Marketing’s Echo Chamber
ai-seo Nis 25, 2026

Possible 2026: The Fontainebleau Fanfare and the C-Suite Climb That Could Break Marketing’s Echo Chamber

Possible’s 2026 expansion at Eden Roc aims to transform it into marketing’s Davos with exclusive programming and C-suite dealmaking, but is it substance or style? Spoiler: it’s a gamble.

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Beehiiv’s Feature Spree: Polishing the Platform or Just Noise in the Creator Wars?
ai-seo Nis 25, 2026

Beehiiv’s Feature Spree: Polishing the Platform or Just Noise in the Creator Wars?

Beehiiv is aggressively adding features to challenge Substack and others, but piling on bells and whistles risks turning it into yet another bloated platform that creators will abandon.

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Sports Marketing’s Lazy Pivot: Agencies Hiring Ex-Athletes Won’t Save Your Brand
ai-seo Nis 25, 2026

Sports Marketing’s Lazy Pivot: Agencies Hiring Ex-Athletes Won’t Save Your Brand

Hiring ex-athletes and leaning on AI won’t save your sports marketing campaigns. The real win comes from obsessing over fans, not quick fixes.

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