The long wait for the bears
Every autumn a small bay town fills with visitors waiting for the water to freeze and the bears to walk out onto it.
Read it →Field-tested SEO for B2B software teams: how pages rank, how AI answer engines pick their sources, and what to fix first. New posts every Tuesday and Thursday.
Pick a desk. Every desk has its own colour, so you always know which part of search you are in.
Measurement How to Measure SaaS Video and Social Content With Search Console Platform Properties Google now reports how YouTube, X, Instagram and TikTok accounts perform in Search. Here is how a B2B SaaS team can set it up and read the numbers without fooling itself. Owen Mercer 7 min
Technical SEO How to Prevent User-Generated Spam on a SaaS Site After Google's October 2026 Guide Update Google updated its user-generated spam guide on October 26 with advice on blocking indexing of link-shared content. Here is how a SaaS team with a community, docs or shared pages can apply it. Grant Whitaker 7 min
AI Search Google's Preferred Sources Button: Should a B2B SaaS Site Add It? Google lets readers pick preferred sources and gives sites an embeddable button. For a B2B SaaS blog, the value depends on whether you appear in Top Stories or AI answers at all. Owen Mercer 7 min
Technical SEO How to Audit a SaaS Site for Chrome's New HTTP Warnings Chrome now asks users before loading an insecure HTTP page. Here is how a B2B software team finds the stray HTTP URLs on its domains, fixes them and keeps them from coming back. Grant Whitaker 7 min
Content Strategy How to Update SaaS Comparison Pages as AI Overviews Cover Commercial Keywords A new Semrush study says AI Overviews now appear on 88% of tracked commercial keywords. Here is how a B2B software team should rework alternatives, versus, pricing and review pages. Molly Ashcroft 7 min
AI Search What SISTRIX's 96,418-URL Study Means for SaaS Page Structure and AI Citations A new SISTRIX study compared cited and uncited pages from the same domains. Here is which structure tactics held up, which did nothing and what a B2B software team should change. Molly Ashcroft 7 min
Measurement How to Verify Rank Tracker Data After Reports of Google Poisoning SERP Results Ahrefs says 5 to 20 percent of results served to SERP data tools are affected. Here is how a B2B SaaS team can check its rankings before reporting a drop or a win. Molly Ashcroft 6 min
AI Search How to Track Gemini Referral Traffic in GA4 After Google Added UTM Tags Gemini links now carry undocumented UTM tags, and GA4 sorts them by rules you can read. Here is how to test where your Gemini visits really land before you report them. Owen Mercer 7 min
Technical SEO Which Image Formats Should a SaaS Site Use? What Google Says About JPEG XL Google Images and Discover do not support JPEG XL yet. Here is a practical format plan for product screenshots, icons and blog photos on a B2B software site. Grant Whitaker 7 min
Technical SEO How to Serve a 503 During an Emergency PHP Patch Without Losing Rankings PHP2Shell patches are pushing sites offline. Here is how to return a 503, how long it is safe, what happens to robots.txt and how to check recovery. Grant Whitaker 7 min
AI Search Gemini 4 Argon in Google AI Mode: How to Test Whether Your SaaS Brand Appears in Both Answers Argon reached AI Mode for paid subscribers on October 13. Here is what is known, what is a guess and how to run a clean side-by-side test. Owen Mercer 7 min
Measurement Is AI Visibility Tracking Worth It? What Three New Traffic Studies Say for SaaS New studies find AI assistants send a sliver of Google's traffic, and AI ranking reports swing from run to run. Here is how a SaaS team should measure and budget. Molly Ashcroft 7 min New here? Pick a reading track: a short, hand-picked path through one part of search, from first audit to AI citations.
Every autumn a small bay town fills with visitors waiting for the water to freeze and the bears to walk out onto it.
Read it →Each January a highway forms on a frozen river. By April it is gone again, and the towns along it plan their whole year around those few months.
Read it →Grain elevators, grocery stores, even broadband: in rural towns, owning things together is back.
Read it →Practitioners who run SEO for software companies. Follow the ones you like.
“The river was here first. We are just borrowing it for a few months.”
“Honey water, wood fire, no arguments before noon.”
“It is a game first. Whoever laughs loses, and I usually lose.”
“You don't come here to see a bear. You come to wait for one.”
“Nobody out here was waiting for a saviour. We were waiting for a meeting.”
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