SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
SEO, short for search engine optimization, is the work of helping search engines understand your website and helping people find it when they search. That's how Google's own starter guide puts it, and the guide adds one more part: helping searchers decide whether your page is worth a visit. Google also says no secret trick puts a site first.
Source: Google Search Central, SEO Starter Guide, checked October 29, 2026
What SEO (Search Engine Optimization) means for your business
Old-school SEO is still a big part of what we do. It covers the basics. Can Google crawl and index your pages? Do your titles and headings use the words buyers type? Do your pages say something worth reading? Do other sites link to you and mention you?
Google's guidance on its AI features says, "The best practices for SEO remain relevant for AI features in Google Search (such as AI Overviews and AI Mode)." It also says there are no extra requirements to appear in them, so we'd do the SEO work first.
OpenAI and Anthropic each run their own crawlers for ChatGPT and Claude. So we'd also check that those can reach your site, and that your name, address and services read the same everywhere they're listed.
If your traffic has slipped and you can't tell whether it's Google, AI answers or your own site, getting found in Google and in AI answers is the work we'd start with.
Source: Google Search Central, AI features and your website, checked October 29, 2026
Last reviewed October 29, 2026. All terms
How AI answers it today
On October 29, 2026, Google's AI Overview defined SEO as earning unpaid search rankings and cited Wikipedia, Google's starter guide, YouTube, Reddit and marketing sites. ChatGPT gave a similar plain definition with no sources cited, and neither answer mentioned AI answers at all.
Our run through ChatGPT and Google's AI Overview, October 29, 2026. A sample, not what every buyer sees.
Related terms in crawlers and technical access
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