Mark Williams-Cook

🎉 It's 2026, which means it is time to announce @withcandour.co.uk's charity of the year! This year, I'm delighted we will be supporting Leeway Domestic Violence and Abuse Services, with an initial £10,000 donation and on-going support and fundraising activities throughout the year.

My cats.txt / llms.txt experiment got a shout out on the Google Search Central channel, thanks John Mueller! 😻 Article for those that missed it: markwilliamscook.substack.com/p/how-catstx...

Andrew Cock-Starkey (@optimisey.com) believes that AI is taking over top-of-funnel exploration, with users returning to traditional search once they know what they want, so you should focus your content on their next questions, not the ones they start with. maj.to/3PkS4f3

Laura Iancu (@searchpedia.bsky.social) believes that, whether using AI conversationally or strategically, everyone in search and marketing needs to start approaching the AI environment with far greater mindfulness. maj.to/3OCOkFR

Inbox becoming harder to manage with new generation of LLM spam in human clothing,

If you're starting to use JEV, there are a lot of websites posing as TypeSafe AI's JEV using exact match domains, which Google happily ranks. Screenshot is a website posing as the 'official' JEV site to get API keys, but will charge you x10 what it costs if you go direct to the TypeSafe AI website.

thehackernews.com/2026/10/urge...

AlsoAsked will be offline for maintenance while we apply the critical security patches for PHP that have been announced. thehackernews.com/2026/10/php2...

PHP Remote Code Execution affecting all installs, CVSS score 9.2 🫠 Only PHP 8 being patched. Nice knowing you, few million Wordpress sites 🫡

I've programmed video games as a hobby since I was about 12 using BlitzBasic and AMOS on the Amiga, until recently using UE/Unity. I've released a couple, even an iPhone game. It was always a struggle solo. Since "AI", I have lost motivation to do it and I'm not entirely sure why.

AI Bubble Teetering on the Brink as OpenAI Admits to Massive Financial Failure in Leaked Documents "Financial Times just revealed that OpenAI’s annualized revenue... is roughly $20 billion lower than anybody had previously expected, including, it seems, OpenAI itself." futurism.com/future-socie...

Iva Jovanovic (@iva-jovanovic.com) believes that keeping your site structure clean and hierarchical, with descriptive internal link anchor text and an organised navigation menu, makes it easy for both users and Googlebot to find and understand every page. maj.to/3P8lHjF

A beginner's guide on how to use Chrome network data to figure out bits and bobs on how Google/ChatGPT etc are working, including real-world examples, how I got value from them. markwilliamscook.substack.com/p/wiretappin... cc @metehan777.bsky.social @suganthan.bsky.social

When the client is reading out a list of 'feedback' from Claude about your SEO.

Halloween's about, get the skulls out 💀

I am sure someone is counting "new AI feature usage" from the click metrics where the stuff I didn't want for just takes the most prominent UI position from something actually useful. 99.9% of the time in Google Slides, I want to upload an image. Not generate one. Accidentally click all the time.

Bravery should be marketing's most important KPI. Unfortunately, it doesn't have an ROI forecast, so the board won't approve it. We reward fictional certainty, punish honest expertise, and call ourselves 'data-driven'. www.jonoalderson.com/conjecture/b...

Giulia Panozzo (@sequinsnsearch.bsky.social) warns that using AI-generated influencers to build authority can do more harm than good. People seek reviews for genuine human perspectives, not fake endorsements. The biggest risk isn’t just an SEO penalty it’s eroding trust. maj.to/47aViHD

@brightonseo.com : "Do you want to check your slides before you go on stage?" Me: "They're mostly cartoon pictures of ducks, so I think it will be fine whatever" 😂 🦆

Had AXA doctors appt. The notes I received contained egregious errors; incorrect medication, invented medical history, additional 'causes' that had not been discussed. After some complaining and investigation, can you guess? Yes, doctors using AI notetakers and not checking things. Awesome.

Still waiting to hear: “Due to unexpectedly low call volume, your call will be answered next.” I always get the other one.

Me with a 20 year old Reddit account watching brands trying to do "GEO" on Reddit:

Just published my latest piece in Substack! If you’ve been paying attention, you’ve probably also connected the dots: All signs point to a major Google update on the horizon. open.substack.com/pub/lilyrayn...

Replacing your CMS with AI-generated pages? Enjoy discovering why content management systems exist, one production bug at a time. You’ve just inherited a thousand publishing problems your CMS used to solve without you noticing. www.jonoalderson.com/conjecture/y...

🎙️ Panel: “SEO & AI Search: Making Better Decisions with Imperfect Data in 2027.” Julia-Carolin Zeng moderates with @nataliavv.bsky.social, @markwilliamscook.com, @dergal.bsky.social and Charlie Whitworth. Experienced voices on deciding well when the data is never complete. #SearchNStuffAntalya

🎙️ Same AI, different realities. @markwilliamscook.com moderates a panel on what AI adoption actually looks like across industries, with Vanda Pokecz of Peec AI, Anthony Barone of StudioHawk and Naim Çetintürk of RS Holding. #SearchNStuffAntalya #SearchNStuff

AI/GEO LinkedIn job titles are becoming more of a spam indicator for me than "Guest poster"

Our ChatGPT traffic converts highest into leads.. But those are leads who have no idea who we are, have invested very little cognitive energy in figuring out what they want, and overall are probably some of the highest effort v lowest reward leads. YMMV.

Today, we’re making the Cloudflare Monetization Gateway available as part of a closed beta, and showcasing four customer use cases that are in production today. https://cfl.re/4y4IwWs #BirthdayWeek

Want to know how your peers are adopting AI? That's what Vanda Pokecz, Anthony Barone and Naim Çetintürk will cover on the panel Same AI, Different Realities: What Adoption Actually Looks Like Across Industries moderated by @markwilliamscook.com! You can still get last min tickets! #SearchnStuff

Glad to see SOMEONE is getting @johnmu.com and @methode.bsky.social to FINALLY tackle the big questions at Google Search Central Live. 🐱 Photo via @lindahogenes.bsky.social

The panels at Search 'n Stuff are bringing the energy and insights! Julia-Carolin Zeng will be moderating, SEO & AI Search: Making Better Decisions with Imperfect Data in 2027 and the panelists are @nataliavv.bsky.social, @markwilliamscook.com, @dergal.bsky.social and Charlie Whitworth.

SearchNorwichXL done. Went gud. Happy.

Super honored and thrilled to be a speaker at #SearchNorwichXL today 🙌

Had the best time at #SearchNorwichXL on Thursday. Thank you @markwilliamscook.com for the invite and shoutout to the entire @withcandour.co.uk team and speakers for the fantastic event! 🫶

Such a fab speaker lineup at Search Norwich XL. @markwilliamscook.com @dixonjones.bsky.social

Some assorted photos from SearchNorwichXL yesterday. Such a great event. Well done to @markwilliamscook.com and the team. Greatly enjoyed @divingfor.fun's "Angry German Man" rant about the state of the web - though it was more a call-to-action to build the web we want. ❤️ #SNXL

Setting up for SearchNorwichXL tomorrow 🫶🏻

But wait until AI does respond to requests to verify -> Qwoted removes an "art therapist" who was widely quoted on psychological topics by news outlets, after her photograph and output are found to be AI-generated "‘Dr Eleni Nicolaou’ has appeared more than 30 times in the media in recent months..."

Someone called about a getting a new website, said they found us through Claude, they have an RFP written by Claude "which they think is asking standard questions" but I was told "don't worry, you can use your AI agent or whatever to write the reply"....

This is what @lazarinastoy.com was saying in her Belgrade SEO presentation regarding suitable problems for 'classic' ML vs GenAI.

It's so cool there are so many Auto AI SEO tools now that can help speedrun getting you penalised by Google. It used to take some actual effort to obtain Google's ire.

It's okay. We have a 'human in the loop'.

I went to Turkey for my birthday and all I got was pasta. 🥁 😃

Do not underestimate the scale of this climate crisis. We are watching feedback loops accelerate, ice sheet collapse, ocean heat content, methane release, that could lock in irreversible warming. We have all witnessed the data, and it is not slowing down.

Me: "make an image of a table with this data" Gemini:

Be careful using LLMs to process log files. It is possible to exfil data by injecting prompts into HTTP headers to get LLM to call a URL controlled by attacker with data in query string.

SearchNorwichXL banners are in and looking grand! You can use code LASTCHANCE for 25% off to join us on 24th September to see some of the best speakers in SEO: searchnorwich.org Headline sponsor: WhitePress®

You don't get anything 'extra' currently for being a paid subscriber to my Substack, but I think I'm going to put some more time over there for subscriber-only posts with more detail. Thank you to everyone that has chosen to support me just because you enjoy my writing! 🫶