SEO Consultant, Product Advisor, Speaker, Author, Community Builder | Ex Ahrefs & IBM. “The Technical SEO’s technical SEO” Tech SEO Connect, Triangle SEO Meetup
The World of AI
Joined June 2013
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Today is my last day at Ahrefs after 6.5+ years. Incredibly proud to have helped shape such an amazing product.
I plan to do some consulting and build some things. Let me know if you need help. Potentially open to the right in-house opportunity.
Likes / shares appreciated🙏
Patrick Stox retweeted
Once again, if you couldn't make it, you can watch the Tech SEO Connect Livestream.
We have amazing content, but also amazing experiences. This is how day 1 went and why you might want to be here in person.
We always try to have the best local pastries, donuts, and snacks. I was amused when Mike said he ate 3 donuts and they were the best donuts he ever had, especially when we had just talked about him losing a bunch of weight. Sorry Mike! We also have amazing baristas with some of the best local coffee, not your typical hotel or convention center terrible coffee. We did drip, espresso drinks, and coffee mocktails in the afternoon.
We had a piano player, a violinist, a sketchnote artist recording the sessions, a sign painter who does a lot of signs for local businesses, the poetry fox who is the official poet Laureate of this city and he dresses as a Fox and writes custom poems for you on a typewriter. I know several folks who got multiple.
We had custom Lego figurines, tshirts, and hoodies for people.
Then we setup a bar in a 1930s train car and another bar on a covered basketball court. We had a guy on stilts juggling. We had some amazing snacks and English muffin pizzas.
Then we had another party with 4 DJs including the amazing Lily Ray.
Today is going to be even wilder.
If you couldn't make it to Tech SEO Connect in person, you can still see all the amazing content on the free Livestream. Sign up at techseoconnect.com/
What you miss by not being here is all the amazing food, experiences, and conversations. Last night we had welcome drinks in a 1930s art deco bar, amazing tapas and more drinks (always including non-alcoholic) at another local restaurant, and we had @VeryWellVersed rapping at another local venue after that.
That was the welcome night. I'll share more about day 1 of the conference soon, but I will confidently say we are the first conference to put a bar in a historic train car.
Once again, if you couldn't make it, you can watch the Tech SEO Connect Livestream.
We have amazing content, but also amazing experiences. This is how day 1 went and why you might want to be here in person.
We always try to have the best local pastries, donuts, and snacks. I was amused when Mike said he ate 3 donuts and they were the best donuts he ever had, especially when we had just talked about him losing a bunch of weight. Sorry Mike! We also have amazing baristas with some of the best local coffee, not your typical hotel or convention center terrible coffee. We did drip, espresso drinks, and coffee mocktails in the afternoon.
We had a piano player, a violinist, a sketchnote artist recording the sessions, a sign painter who does a lot of signs for local businesses, the poetry fox who is the official poet Laureate of this city and he dresses as a Fox and writes custom poems for you on a typewriter. I know several folks who got multiple.
We had custom Lego figurines, tshirts, and hoodies for people.
Then we setup a bar in a 1930s train car and another bar on a covered basketball court. We had a guy on stilts juggling. We had some amazing snacks and English muffin pizzas.
Then we had another party with 4 DJs including the amazing Lily Ray.
Today is going to be even wilder.
If you couldn't make it to Tech SEO Connect in person, you can still see all the amazing content on the free Livestream. Sign up at techseoconnect.com/
What you miss by not being here is all the amazing food, experiences, and conversations. Last night we had welcome drinks in a 1930s art deco bar, amazing tapas and more drinks (always including non-alcoholic) at another local restaurant, and we had @VeryWellVersed rapping at another local venue after that.
That was the welcome night. I'll share more about day 1 of the conference soon, but I will confidently say we are the first conference to put a bar in a historic train car.
Patrick Stox retweeted
If you couldn't make it to Tech SEO Connect in person, you can still see all the amazing content on the free Livestream. Sign up at techseoconnect.com/
What you miss by not being here is all the amazing food, experiences, and conversations. Last night we had welcome drinks in a 1930s art deco bar, amazing tapas and more drinks (always including non-alcoholic) at another local restaurant, and we had @VeryWellVersed rapping at another local venue after that.
That was the welcome night. I'll share more about day 1 of the conference soon, but I will confidently say we are the first conference to put a bar in a historic train car.
If you couldn't make it to Tech SEO Connect in person, you can still see all the amazing content on the free Livestream. Sign up at techseoconnect.com/
What you miss by not being here is all the amazing food, experiences, and conversations. Last night we had welcome drinks in a 1930s art deco bar, amazing tapas and more drinks (always including non-alcoholic) at another local restaurant, and we had @VeryWellVersed rapping at another local venue after that.
That was the welcome night. I'll share more about day 1 of the conference soon, but I will confidently say we are the first conference to put a bar in a historic train car.
Patrick Stox retweeted
🚀 The #SEOFOMO State of Technical SEO in the AI Search Era in 2026 is here 👇 From answers by 165 tech SEO specialists sharing how their priorities, workflows and career expectations are changing with AI. Let’s go through five of the main findings:
1. Technical SEO is getting more priority, but the fundamentals still need defending
47% say technical SEO receives more priority than a year ago, while another 39% report no change. And 56% consider it highly or extremely impactful compared with other SEO activities.
Yet some tech SEOs describe stakeholders overlooking foundational implementations in favor of AI specific initiatives, or treating AI search as disconnected from SEO.
2. AI is saving time, but quality control remains a leading challenge
61% identify faster audits, analysis or issue identification as a change AI has brought to their daily work.
At the same time, AI output accuracy and quality control is the most frequently identified individual concern in our analysis of the challenge responses.
3. AI search is expanding the work faster than SEO specialists can reliably measure its impact
67% have added or updated structured data to support AI search visibility, 55% have improved page structure for extraction, and 52% have reviewed robots.txt or CDN/firewall rules.
However, SEOs are working to make content accessible and understandable while struggling to establish how AI systems use it, which changes influence citations, and what those citations contribute to business results.
4. Faster analysis still runs into implementation bottlenecks
59% identify limited developer capacity as an implementation barrier, followed by competing business priorities at 47% and platform or infrastructure limitations at 41%.
Development queues still determine what gets done, approvals take time, and some teams face broader responsibilities without additional resources. AI can accelerate parts of the workflow, but delivering improvements still requires capacity, ownership and coordination.
5. Career optimism sits alongside pressure to prove the value of expertise
66% expect AI to have a positive impact on their technical SEO career opportunities over the next two years, compared with 16% expecting a negative impact.
That optimism coexists with concerns about clients trusting AI advice over expert judgment, stakeholders assuming agents can handle technical SEO autonomously, and expectations of greater output. In practice, only 4% report having used AI to apply changes without approving each change. Practitioners see opportunities, while continuing to defend the judgment and oversight their work requires.
Read about these and other insights with commentary by tech SEOs like @patrickstox @thetafferboy @dawnieando Laura Iancu @emmajanemint @bngsrc @DarwinSantosNYC @nathanless @Suzzicks @jonoalderson @dergal @ghostmou @chrisgreenseo, and more!
Check it out: hub.seofomo.co/surveys/seofo…
It's hard to believe @techseoconnect is just 1 week away. Things really came together and this is going to be such a fun event with so many amazing speakers and attendees.
For those that can't make it in-person, did you know we livestream these sessions for free every year on our YouTube? This year we setup a registration form so you can get the livestream reminder. techseoconnect.com/
Patrick Stox retweeted
📊 Technical SEO in the AI Search Era in 2026 – Take the SEOFOMO Survey and Win an #SEOFOMO tumbler + Hoodie 👇
How are technical SEO priorities and workflows changing as AI search and AI tools evolve? If you’re a technical SEO or an SEO who does technical SEO activities as part of their tasks, then this survey is for you!
It will only take 5 minutes to answer the questions, it’s anonymous and it will allow us to better understand the challenges and trends when doing technical SEO.
The results will be shared for free in the SEOFOMO newsletter and Website (no need to be subscribed) on November 1st, 2026. You have until October 30, 2026 to fill it out.
Need more incentives? When answering the survey you can also opt-in to participate in the giveaway of an SEOFOMO tumbler and hoodie.
Take it here: hub.seofomo.co/surveys/seofo…
Patrick Stox retweeted
Look who is hosting a Reddit AMA this week! @patrickstox 🔥
Seldom will you find that much SEO experience in one person. From SEO at IBM to years of looking at thousands of sites when working with @Ahrefs, Patrick has definitely seen it all!
Come over and ask your questions about SEO and GEO/AEO here: reddit.com/r/SEO_for_AI/comm…
(And make sure to subscribe to the subreddit too!) 🙏
Hate it because it's not a good take.
Yes, they transfer a tiny amount of authority.
But they don't support hreflang, crawl priorty, last mod, or as many pages. Try this with a big site and have thousands of these html pages with all the links. Bunch of useless pages.
The joys of running events and a conference. This morning was all Tech SEO Connect things with Matthew Kay in Durham, NC. Getting things locked and finalized. Back to work for a few hours, and then headed to Pendo tower in Raleigh to put on the Triangle SEO Meetup event tonight, also with Matthew and JR Oakes. Really appreciate Timothy Wilson and the Pendo folks hosting us in their amazing venue!
This kind of stuff can be exhausting, but the end result and community built is amazing. Rule 1, don't try to do everything yourself. Find people to help. 😂
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Patrick Stox retweeted
Join us Tuesday at Pendo for The End of Marketing as We Know It: Perspectives from the C-Suite, co-hosted with AMA Triangle.
A lot of resources can be wasted trying to measure everything. Sometimes it's best to just do what you think is right, but be flexible enough to pivot on certain things if that is what the data shows. I gotta say, reading this reminded me of @timsoulo, who is great btw.
Love this post by @jonoalderson
because it's true.
For most CMOs, good marketing is an act of bravery.
Data is unreliable and incomplete. So you make decisions based on judgment anyway. Might as well lean into it.
jonoalderson.com/conjecture/…
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Important topic and I'm curious the result. Also, I'm about to fill it out.
Are SEOs actually scared AI will take their jobs?
Rather than guess, I want data.
I’m surveying SEO/search professionals about AI, job security, career anxiety, and how sentiment has changed over the past year.
6 questions. <5 minutes. Anonymous.
Take it + please RT with your network.
docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F…
I don't like getting political, but come on. Call a thing what it is. I'm not "the enemy". 1st amendment, free speech. It's a thing, whether the president wants to believe it or not. Also, he's in the wrong for labeling it incorrectly...
The whole AI > SI thing reminds me of working in corporate. Everyone wanted to name things their own way so they have no competition when they measure against the wrong things and so that some exec can put their name on it and say they did something. It's absurdly incompetent.
Call a thing what it is! Right now we're confusing the entire vocabulary for years to come. What they call SI is actually already called ASI. These are defined and settled terms, or they were...
-ANI (Artificial Narrow Intelligence) = we are here.
-AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) = human level
-ASI (Artificial Super Intelligence) = what they just rebranded SI and this is supposed to be smarter than all of human intelligence combined. We're not even close.
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The whole AI > SI thing reminds me of working in corporate. Everyone wanted to name things their own way so they have no competition when they measure against the wrong things and so that some exec can put their name on it and say they did something. It's absurdly incompetent.
Call a thing what it is! Right now we're confusing the entire vocabulary for years to come. What they call SI is actually already called ASI. These are defined and settled terms, or they were...
-ANI (Artificial Narrow Intelligence) = we are here.
-AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) = human level
-ASI (Artificial Super Intelligence) = what they just rebranded SI and this is supposed to be smarter than all of human intelligence combined. We're not even close.
It's kind of crazy that Tech SEO Connect is one month away and we haven't even announced it. We'll be in Durham, NC on November 5th-6th.
Early ticket sales have never been this strong. People want to come back, which is awesome! I guess that's what happens in year 3 when you run an amazing and super fun conference.
We do want new people to come to the conference, so this is me saying get your tickets before they're gone. techseoconnect.com/
Manually in 2026? Nah, my AI is scraping, documenting, citing it's source, and checking if the citation actually exists. If all that fails, we're all screwed anyway...
Google updates the AI content guidelines to say you should "manually factcheck and review all AI-generated content for accuracy and trustworthiness before publishing"
seroundtable.com/google-upda…
Patrick Stox retweeted
Watching OpenAI DevDay, I kept thinking about how early @letaidocom (Letaido) / Agent A from Ahrefs brought together many of the capabilities now getting the spotlight.
Here are five capabilities Letaido offered back in April:
1. Always-on infrastructure. A dedicated environment where work can just keep on going, even if your laptop isn't open.
2. Shared workspaces to build together as a team.
3. Persistent memory so you have more context.
4. Agents that plan and execute multi-step tasks. They break down tasks and just keep working until things get done.
5. Software, apps, and dashboards that you can publish live to the web or for internal use.
Letaido also offers native access to Ahrefs data through your connected account, plus a choice of AI models. Check it out at letaido.com/
#ahrefspartner
Taking a break, but there are still a couple hours left to ask me things!
It has begun. For the next several hours you can ask me anything on this /r/seogaps AMA. reddit.com/r/seogaps/comment…
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