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markwilliamscook.com
Mark Williams-Cook
@markwilliamscook.com
2.1K followers 440 following 1.6K posts
💌 Core Updates SEO newsletter: https://coreupdates.com 💻 Director at Candour https://withcandour.co.uk 💬 Founder at AlsoAsked https://alsoasked.com 🤝 Organiser at SearchNorwich https://searchnorwich.org Fractional idiot. 100% gossip 0% innovation.
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markwilliamscook.com
Mark Williams-Cook @markwilliamscook.com · Jan 14
🎉 Happy to announce for 2025 that @withcandour.co.uk will be working with local charity Norfolk Clubhouse, who support persons facing mental health challenges.

Charity Trustee and Head of Search Tabby Farrar presented June Webb with our initial £10,000 donation 😇
Charity cheque presentation
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markwilliamscook.com
Mark Williams-Cook @markwilliamscook.com · 7h
There will be real stickers 🐈
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Reposted by Mark Williams-Cook
glenngabe.bsky.social
Glenn Gabe @glenngabe.bsky.social · 1d
Here come the AI Search core systems. My latest post -> AI Search & the growing importance of developing strong core visibility systems, site-level quality scoring, & anti-spam systems

IMO, there is no way the AI Search platforms can let people game visibility while destroying user trust over time.
AI Search and the growing importance of developing strong core visibility systems, site-level quality scoring, and anti-spam systems
Glenn Gabe explains the growing need for AI Search platforms to develop strong core ranking systems, site-level quality scoring, and anti-spam systems.
www.gsqi.com
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markwilliamscook.com
Mark Williams-Cook @markwilliamscook.com · 1d
If you see me at @brightonseo.com, make sure you ask me for a sticker. We need to get this standard official 🐈
an "i support cats.txt" sticker
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markwilliamscook.com
Mark Williams-Cook @markwilliamscook.com · 2d
I've never fallen over at the beach, but I did bang my head on a tap this time and it bled for 30 minutes if that counts?
markwilliamscook.com
Mark Williams-Cook @markwilliamscook.com · 2d
You should internally link to pages that are the most likely candidates to help the user on that journey.

I'm sorry to say this, but cosine similarity between vectorised pages does not necessarily reflect that, and could well cost you money.
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markwilliamscook.com
Mark Williams-Cook @markwilliamscook.com · 2d
📊 New data from @alsoasked.com shows Google is aggressively increasing the number of AIOs in People Also Asked questions, with it over doubling in three months from 18% to 38% of English queries 🤯
A bar chart titled, "The percentage of People Also Ask answers that are AI-generated is growing." The chart shows the percentage of AI-generated People Also Ask (PAA) answers over three months in 2025: Jul 25: 17.8% Aug 25: 26.6% Sept 25: 37.9% A note states, "10.27 million English language live PAAs analysed, Jul-Sep 2025." The logo for AlsoAsked is at the bottom left. The data clearly shows a consistent and significant increase in the percentage of AI-generated answers in PAA results.
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markwilliamscook.com
Mark Williams-Cook @markwilliamscook.com · 2d
Why does the urinal have a tablet? 😭
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markwilliamscook.com
Mark Williams-Cook @markwilliamscook.com · 2d
Especially enjoyed the 'deep dive' sessions in Antalya this year 😉
A full-length underwater photo of a scuba diver wearing a black wetsuit, mask, and fins. The diver is suspended in the blue water near a coral-encrusted rock formation in the lower right, with a small school of fish swimming nearby. The diver is facing the camera, giving a waving hand signal with both hands, palms open. Sunlight streams down from the surface above.
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Reposted by Mark Williams-Cook
jessmccabe.bsky.social
Jess McCabe @jessmccabe.bsky.social · 3d
The stress of the EHCP process alone is enough to drive parents round the bend, no one is doing this without good reason.
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markwilliamscook.com
Mark Williams-Cook @markwilliamscook.com · 4d
When I researched this, I couldn’t find Google denying site-wide scores, only domain-wide ones.

I think distinguishing between site-wide and domain-wide is important.
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markwilliamscook.com
Mark Williams-Cook @markwilliamscook.com · 6d
Best event of 2025
searchnstuff.co.uk
searchnstuff.co.uk @searchnstuff.co.uk · 6d
☀️ What a start to Day 1!

Big cheers to @aleyda.bsky.social, @divingfor.fun, @markwilliamscook.com, and @eliasdabbas.bsky.social for bringing the morning energy and setting the tone for the day.

We’re just getting started — stay tuned for more! ✨

#SearchNStuff2025 #Community #SEO #DigitalMarketing
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Reposted by Mark Williams-Cook
whitworthseo.bsky.social
Whitworth @whitworthseo.bsky.social · 6d
@markwilliamscook.com telling us what we all wanted to hear

Traditional search will be around for a long time

@searchnstuff.co.uk
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Reposted by Mark Williams-Cook
glenngabe.bsky.social
Glenn Gabe @glenngabe.bsky.social · 7d
Implementing (crazy) tactics to rank in LLMs? Interesting, Google won't fix the issue (and Gemini is susceptible to the hidden commands for now), yet ChatGPT, Copilot, and Claude proved secure against the hidden text -> Google won’t fix new ASCII smuggling attack in Gemini
Google won’t fix new ASCII smuggling attack in Gemini
Google has decided not to fix a new ASCII smuggling attack in Gemini that could be used to trick the AI assistant into providing users with fake information, alter the model's behavior, and silently p...
www.bleepingcomputer.com
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markwilliamscook.com
Mark Williams-Cook @markwilliamscook.com · 7d
LTT effect?
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markwilliamscook.com
Mark Williams-Cook @markwilliamscook.com · 7d
and here is the LTT video youtu.be/RNonfByE9xc?...
Companies are Suing Honest Reviewers and it’s Going to Get UGLY.
YouTube video by Linus Tech Tips
youtu.be
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markwilliamscook.com
Mark Williams-Cook @markwilliamscook.com · 7d
@ichbingisele.bsky.social also kindly replied:
a LinkedIn post by Gisele Navarro, Managing Editor at HouseFresh and COO at NeoMam Studios. The post is a comment on a separate post (edited) and reads: "There is so much stuff that has happened in the last two years that I would find it hard to say it was just one thing… We are always improving the site as much as we can (which isn’t a lot considering that it’s just Danny and I working on it), but I don’t think there’s a specific change we made that magically made it so that Google took us out of the box. Also, neither of us are technical people so most changes were design, UX and content-based. We also built a YouTube channel that has grown to become very popular and we had an incredible opportunity to collaborate with LTT, which helped us reach millions of people and pushed our brand searches further than ever before. Then I’d say that algorithm updates definitely made a difference to HouseFresh’s visibility and that of many small independent websites like ours. And the site reputation abuse spam policy levelled the playing field in the product review space, at least based on what I’ve seen. So yeah. I don’t think it was one thing but we were definitely taken out of the box. There was a time when we wouldn’t even rank for our name or queries where we were quoting text verbatim. It’s been a wild two years."
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markwilliamscook.com
Mark Williams-Cook @markwilliamscook.com · 7d
Danny kindly replied on LinkedIn and said "A big one was Google finally taking action against site reputation abusers across the entire product review space."
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markwilliamscook.com
Mark Williams-Cook @markwilliamscook.com · 7d
Also, RANCOROUS
A rancor
Reposted by Mark Williams-Cook
matttutt.me
Matt Tutt @matttutt.me · Jan 13
Live footage of Keir Starmer this morning 😄
Barney from the SImpsons saying "just hook it into my veins" with the OpenAI logo replacing the Duff beer logo.
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markwilliamscook.com
Mark Williams-Cook @markwilliamscook.com · 8d
Would love any inside insight @dannyashton.com @ichbingisele.bsky.social
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markwilliamscook.com
Mark Williams-Cook @markwilliamscook.com · 8d
After the very rancorous online debate, it looks like housefresh.com more than made their recovery post-HCU decimation.

I wonder how much is:

-> Algo updates
-> Manual intervention (it was very public)
-> Equity earned *because* of the loss (links/brand searches)
-> Things they changed
A line graph from Ahrefs shows the organic search performance of a website. The graph covers the period from February 2021 to October 2025. It plots two lines: one for referring domains (blue line) and one for average organic traffic (orange line). The referring domains line shows a steady increase from around 0 to just over 6,000. The average organic traffic line remains relatively flat at a low level until late 2024, at which point it begins to climb dramatically, reaching over 240,000 by October 2025. The orange line's steep, upward trend indicates a significant and rapid growth in organic traffic.
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markwilliamscook.com
Mark Williams-Cook @markwilliamscook.com · 8d
A side-by-side meme featuring Lisa Simpson. On the left, she is dressed up with makeup and jewelry, with the caption, "How content looks to site owner." On the right, she looks like Mr Burns, "How content looks to site visitor."
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Reposted by Mark Williams-Cook
shane.co.uk
Shane Jones @shane.co.uk · 8d
The first "UK Porn Block" / "Child Safety" data breach is out.

https://www.theguardian.com/games/2025/oct/07/discord-data-breach-proof-of-age-id-leaked

I knew it would be quick, but not that quick.
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markwilliamscook.com
Mark Williams-Cook @markwilliamscook.com · 8d
🤣
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Reposted by Mark Williams-Cook
not-a-robot.com
Jamie Indigo @not-a-robot.com · 20d
Thank you to all the animal lovers and digital enthusiasts who joined SEO Charity yesterday! Love to see good humans like @fajela.bsky.social and @antonshulke.bsky.social using their powers for good 🐾 🖤
speakerdeck.com/jammerbot/tr...
Trashcat's guide to black boxes: tech seo for LLMs
What can we learn from a feral adult cat posing as a precious kitten? New friends aren't always what they seem. Let's take a critical look at LLM model…
speakerdeck.com
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