I was just on Tyson Stockton’s Voices of Search Podcast and we covered topics that I’ve never talked about before. Our industry is moving quickly! The episode is out next week, but here’s one big shift we discussed. For a long time, we’ve known that ideas are cheap and execution is expensive. Anyone can haveContinue reading “What happens when execution is free?”
Author Archives: Brian Alvey
Website owners shouldn’t have to be firefighters
Marc Köhlbrugge had my favorite take on last week’s critical PHP vulnerabilities: “If this PHP vulnerability allows remote code execution, doesn’t that mean we can use the vulnerability to auto-patch all vulnerable servers?” If we didn’t laugh, we’d cry. While everyone worries that AI vibe coding will flood the internet with insecure code, LLMs areContinue reading “Website owners shouldn’t have to be firefighters”
We will all be old things
Two weeks ago, I turned on a Flip Mino camera for the first time in 15 years. It asked me to set the date. It defaulted to January 1, 2008. I changed the month and day, but the year setting maxed out at 2020. The Flip team didn’t think anyone would still be using theirContinue reading “We will all be old things”
Me and Gutenberg
Visiting the Gutenberg Museum in Mainz, Germany was a bucket list experience for me. I’d been at WordPress VIP for four years and the block editor in our CMS is called Gutenberg, so I kept trying to get them to host one of our team meetups close enough for us to visit the museum. InContinue reading “Me and Gutenberg”
Who will release the first great Search Console for AI?
Publishers can see the clicks AI sends them. They can’t see the answers it builds without them. The next big breakthrough for publishers won’t be another AI model. It will be a Search Console for AI. Comscore’s new AI Intelligence Report shows how quickly discovery is fragmenting. Between January and June, ChatGPT’s share of AIContinue reading “Who will release the first great Search Console for AI?”
Running on empty
With 10 days left in September, I had used up 96% of my Claude Enterprise tokens. Oh no! (I use the enterprise plan because WordPress VIP works with big companies like Salesforce, Meta and Jefferies and government websites like NASA and The White House.) I tried to look at this as a positive sign. AContinue reading “Running on empty”
Be careful what you wish for
Search engines have always worked like a mall directory. They showed you where all seven sneaker stores were and how to get there. Today’s answer engines are more like genies. You need sneakers? They just hand you the sneakers. No listings. No browsing. No shopping. No visits. No clicks. This is worse news for publishersContinue reading “Be careful what you wish for”
One size doesn’t fit all
Cloudflare just segmented AI traffic into three types: Search, Agents, and Training, and they’re letting their customers turn access on or off for each type. That’s better than a single on/off switch for bots, but for a high-end website that isn’t enough control. The real control businesses need is for each service within those categories.Continue reading “One size doesn’t fit all”
This is my office
I did 3 hours of back-to-back Zoom calls from my local Starbucks this morning. There were a few moments where I felt like I was making people suffer through some background noise to indulge me and my caffeine addiction, but it could have been crazier, right?
Antifragile rocks
For decades, ranking on Google was survival. Now ADWEEK reports that some of the biggest media businesses are not-so-quietly making plans to disappear from it. This isn’t just one angry newspaper. The Wall Street Journal lists USA Today, Reuters, Politico, The Economist and People Inc. among the publishers who are considering cutting off Google. AndContinue reading “Antifragile rocks”
