Michael Transon

If organic traffic is down this quarter, that doesn't mean a site's SEO program stopped working. In this episode of The Search Signal, Michael Transon makes the case that search is behaving more like a brand channel than a performance channel, with searches ending without a click and the tools used to measure visibility both getting less reliable at the same time. He lays out how to read rankings, AI mentions, and direct traffic together instead of relying on one...

Victorious’s Q3 2026 AI search report tracked which brands AI platforms name when buyers ask who to choose. Brands AI had already cited while buyers were researching the category got named 94% of the time, against 50% for brands with no early citation. Watch to learn what that means for research content and whether mentions or links do more to get a brand named.

Google released Universal Cart right before the busy holiday season, leaving ecommerce brands wondering how it will affect them. Watch to learn how Universal Cart works, who it matters for, and what you can do today to get set up on it.

Anthropic updated its usage policy to ban using Claude to build networks of fake sources that sway search results and AI answers. The rule takes effect November 12 and reaches every product built on Claude. Michael walks through why he reads this as good news, how the case that prompted it got caught, where faking still works, and what to build instead.

A lot of AI search advice still centers on a company's own website: fix the technical setup and publish better content, and visibility will follow. But when ChatGPT or Google's AI Mode answers a question about a category, it builds its answer mostly from other people's pages. In this episode, Michael Transon makes the case that a deliberate brand mention program, not a stronger website, drives AI search visibility. Watch to learn why expertise and co-occurrence have to come first,...

When marketing leaders ask whether their technical SEO covers them for AI search, Michael's answer is mostly yes. Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode run on Google's regular index, and most of a standard technical audit carries over to the other platforms. This week he sorts technical work into what to keep, what to start, and the short list of things to skip, including a training-bot decision that removes your own description of your company from what the next model...

For most of the last decade, brand was the marketing line item hardest to defend, because there's no click to track when a buyer arrives already knowing who you are. AI search changes that math. An assistant reads your website, your listings, your reviews, and every page that mentions you in passing, hands the buyer one summary, and decides whether to name you at all. This week Michael connects brand entity work to the brand building marketers already know how...

For 15 years, marketing measurement got more precise every year. AI search is moving the other way. An assistant's recommendation happens in a conversation you can't see, and no platform will tell you what was asked. So how do you measure and report on it? Listen to find out.

With searchers seeking recommendations on AI platforms, your bottom-of-the-funnel strategy has to account for increasing mentions in those answers as well as what they'll find when they finally visit your site.

Publishing informational content used to have a clear return: the post ranked, people clicked, and the traffic showed the work was paying off. Now that traffic to TOFU pages has fallen dramatically, is creating informational content still worthwhile? In this episode, Michael makes the case that the part of your content AI can't produce is the part that earns the citation.

The need for a full funnel search strategy doesn't go out the window because of AI search. In this episode, Michaels lays out the foundation for what an integrated AEO and SEO strategy should look like.

Google is rebuilding search around AI Mode, and in this episode, Michael Transon makes the case that it will become the default way people search. Listen as he walks through the evidence, from the rapid spread of AI Overviews to the rise of zero-click results, and explains why AI Mode's modest adoption numbers understate what's coming. Plus, get practical tips for how to update your strategy so you can stay visible on every Google surface.