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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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.
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.
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…
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!) 🙏
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.
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
Patrick Stox retweeted
The GOAT of technical SEO, ex-Ahrefs and IBM, @patrickstox agreed to run the AMA session in the /r/seogaps community on Sep 30.
Here are 3 questions I asked him:
- What are the biggest myths now about what helps to improve visibility in AI?
- How would you define the AEO or AI SEO Strategist role?
- What's your goal now after leaving Ahrefs: building a consultancy or your own agency?
This is a good time for you, too, to ask Patrick something you have doubts about in your job, communication with customers, forecasts, assumptions, and so on.
Patrick Stox retweeted
Believe it or not, we [@Ahrefs] have DOUBLED our API/MCP limits on all plans! 🔥
AI is making it stupidly easy for marketers to build their own tools.
The bottleneck isn't code anymore, it's quality data.
@Ahrefs operates one of the largest marketing datasets in the world, and now all our users can pipe it directly into whatever they're building.
Exciting times!
Patrick Stox retweeted
New: 2026 Google Ranking Factors Expert Survey
We surveyed 131 top SEO practitioners to score which factors most affect Google's organic search rankings.
The experts contributed over 13,000 data points across 9 MAJOR AREAS:
1. Relevance
2. Backlinks
3. Content Quality
4. Brand & Reputation
5. User Signals
6. Technical SEO
7. Internal Linking / Site Architecture
8. UX Signals
9. Google AI Ranking Factors 🆕
Big thanks to all of our contributors!
Patrick Stox retweeted
Let's be honest: You're not doing any real work today. You can still make your time useful by checking out this interview with @patrickstox, @bensenescu, @JeremyRiveraSEO, and I on the future of SaaS marketing tools for SEO and AI Visibility.
youtube.com/watch?v=pVo2nQbT…
Patrick Stox retweeted
Ask ChatGPT what your company does.
Did it get it right?
Grant Simmons is coming in from Virginia Beach to explain why AI gets brands wrong, and what actually fixes it.
Patrick Stox retweeted
📹 Technical Optimization for AI search: In the 6th episode of the AI Search Roadmap series I go through the top mistakes, principles, best resources and do's and dont's for technical optimization for AI search with the amazing @torylynne, @Jammer_Volts, and @patrickstox:
* Top tech optimization errors for AI search
* Steps and criteria for technical optimization for AI search
* Tools and resources for tech optimization for AI search
Thanks to @Similarweb for the episode and series sponsorship!
Watch it fully here: youtube.com/watch?v=Gi7tWAib…
Patrick Stox retweeted
Work in SEO or digital marketing and live in the Triangle?
Our free monthly meetup is back on Monday, August 17 in Raleigh.
Patrick Stox retweeted
T-shirt King. No one knows more about T-shirts than independent SEO consultant for hire @patrickstox, who blew chunks with me!
Too bad we didn't talk about T-shirts, but if programmatic SEO is just another word for reallllllly crapppppppy SEO in the AI era. Mount AI here we come @glenngabe!!!
Look for a new episode EACH Tuesday here or on the @SERanking channels!
Next up.... Irina Maltseva!
Patrick Stox retweeted
Our next meetup is later this month, and it's a big one!
@noahlearner is flying in from Denver, Colorado to present "Solving Business Problems with SEO Knowledge."
Patrick Stox retweeted
Ahrefs' Domain Rating (DR) API endpoint is now 100% FREE. 🔥
Now that AI lets anyone spin up their own tools and automations, the bottleneck isn't coding anymore — it's access to quality data.
And DR is one of the best shortcuts out there for sizing up how authoritative a website really is.
So we're just giving it away!
Grab it here:
docs.ahrefs.com/en/api/refer…
New to DR?
It rates the strength of any site's backlink profile on a 0–100 scale.
More here: ahrefs.com/blog/domain-ratin…
Now go build something cool. 😉
Patrick Stox retweeted
Today we released the May 2026 core update. We'll update our ranking release history page when the rollout is complete: status.search.google.com/inc…
Patrick Stox retweeted
We're trying something new at the Triangle SEO Meetup this month!
Instead of a single presentation, we're doing what we are going to call "SEO Show and Tell".
Patrick Stox retweeted
Technical SEOs, your final boss fight is here.
Introducing Keyword Hunt, a technical SEO puzzle by @snippet_digital
20 keywords are cloaked across the site using real technical SEO, AI SEO, and edge engineering.
The first 10 to crack get permanent Elite status in the Hall of Fame.
Happy hunting: keyword-hunt.com/