Hey y’all,

It was hot and stormy out by the Jersey Shore this weekend. Let’s chill out with a cool quick quiz from our very own VP, Marc!

1. Google made many AI-related announcements this year. Which of the following was not one of them?

A. Google now considers itself an AI-first search engine.

B. Google created a new AI-Assistant default channel in GA4 that includes AI Overviews and AI Mode clicks.

C. Google is adding AI Performance data in Google Search Console that will show Query Impressions, Clicks, Click-Through Rate, and Avg. Position for citations.

D. Google AI Mode has an intelligent search box.

2. Speaking of AI Overviews, what is the accuracy rate of its responses?

A. 70%

B. 80%

C. 90%

D. 100%

3. An EMARKETER Chart of the Day shared this question: What is your reaction to brands that clearly use AI-generated content in their marketing? How many respondents said, “It makes me trust the brand less”?

A. 31%

B. 51%

C. 71%

D. 7%

4. Claude and ChatGPT appear to take different approaches in determining citation visibility in answers to prompts. Which of these statements is not true?

A. ChatGPT uses web searches 90% of the time while Claude only uses them 37% of the time.

B. Claude’s fan-out queries often include years (looking for recency/freshness).

C. ChatGPT prefers a flame-out queries approach.

D. Claude’s citations overlapped with ChatGPT’s in only 8% of cases, but Claude’s results overlapped with Google rankings 65% of the time.

5. Extra Credit: Which of the following topics were covered in Natalie’s “Thoughts to Take with You”?

A. The one about… ellipses

B. The one about a mindfulness breathing exercise

C. The one about framing your life as a theater production

D. I forget, was there one about forgetfulness?

• Otterly.AI conducted a Claude Citation Study. Key findings included:
  • Reddit was surprisingly absent from citations, but LinkedIn was found to be the most cited of social citations (49%), even though social citations only accounted for 0.9% overall.
  • Brand sites took the cake for most citations (64%).
  • You don’t need to be a top-10 domain for your industry to be cited. If you create a page that specifically answers a prompt, you could gain AI authority on that.
  • Also: Anthropic’s Claude Fable 5 is back with new usage limits and safeguards against malicious purposes. 

• Google ended cache-served AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) in search. Google now routes searchers to the domain’s AMP host page instead of a version served from Google’s AMP cache. Web owners “no longer need AMP cache or to configure signed exchanges to serve your own URL for AMP.”

• You know llms.txt, but have you heard of llms-author.txt? We don’t recommend using it yet as it has not been officially proposed or standardized. Google’s John Mueller confirmed Google doesn’t use it.

• Playing in the YouTube space? How are you handling your long-form vs. short-form content mix? Highlights from Sprout Social’s tips:
  • Shorts are for quick discovery & reach. Use engaging hooks to keep users intrigued. 
  • Long-form videos are for deeper engagement.
  • Treat Shorts and long-form content as an interworking strategy where one feeds into another. Shorts open the loop; long-form closes it.

Geothermal energy. Ever heard of it? It’s about using the heat in the Earth’s core for renewable, sustainable energy. The issues are 1. Creating maps for the best places to access this heat and 2. Supporting funding. Project Innerspace is pushing this effort forward by “facilitating the rapid transfer of resources, technologies, and know-how from the oil and gas industry toward geothermal energy production.”

🎵🌍 Plus, their anthem is a BOP. 🤘

My favorite networking question is:

How did you get to where you are?

Evoked by the question is a story of bold moves, lucky breaks, well-learned mistakes, sage advice, gratitude, and inspiration to fuel your career journey.

Heck, you could ask anyone that question. It not only teaches you, but it helps the storyteller remember their path with pride and reverence.

Let the good (digital marketing) times roll, my friends. ✌️☮️

Natalie

1. Trick question because both b) and c) answers were only partially correct. Google is not reporting Clicks data for AI Overviews and AI Mode in GA4 or GSC.
2. c) According to this story in the NY Times, AI Overviews is accurate about 90% of the time. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? 
3. a) 31% of respondents said they would trust brands less when they saw clear use of AI-generated content. And, yes, 7% said it would make them trust the brand more.
4. c) Flame-out queries are not a thing but the other differences are true according to this story we shared. Still, there are more similarities than differences and DBE’s approach to SAIO is designed to attract all AI Search Engines. 
5. a), b), c), and d) were all topics.