Welcome to a new edition of the Ahrefs’ Digest.
Here's our meme of the week:
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Quick search marketing news
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Apple’s working with Google: Gemini will power Siri and Apple Intelligence in the future.
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Gemini introduces Personal Intelligence: You can now personalize Gemini by connecting Google apps with a single tap.
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Google Trends Explore adds new Gemini-powered insights.
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Ads are coming to ChatGPT soon.
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Best of the week
SEO Brand Marketing: Create a Brand Guide That Drives Search Visibility: When everyone uses similar tools and targets the same keywords, your brand becomes the differentiator. Here’s how to create one that improves your visibility in both search and AI results.
Our Top 5 Blog Posts of 2025 (And What Made Them Work): 56% of our most-viewed posts (across every channel) were research blogs. If you have proprietary data or access to information that other people don’t—use it.
ChatGPT Gets Googled More Than YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok: ChatGPT matched the search interest of platforms that took years (sometimes over a decade) to build their brand demand. It did it in under two and a half years.
How to Rank in AI Overviews: What Actually Works (Based on Data, Not Speculation): Most advice on ranking in AI Overviews is speculative, so we’ve analyzed millions of AI Overview responses, reviewed third-party research, and studied Google’s guidance to find out what actually works.
Every Marketer Says You Need “Taste”. Here’s What That Actually Means:
The Internet removed the gatekeepers of publishing content. Today, AI has removed the gatekeepers of creating content. Production is no longer the bottleneck. The new, scarce skill is the skill of knowing what’s worth making.
A Reflection on SEO & AI Search in 2025: Lily Ray’s first ever Substack post! Read to find out her observations, hot takes, and thoughts about where search is headed in 2026.
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Latest from our podcast
This week’s podcast guest is Jay Acunzo, author, keynote speaker, and the former Head of Content at HubSpot and Google. Here’s what we covered:
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Why "Marketing More" is a trap in the AI era
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Why 100 fans beat 100,000 followers
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The Disney Strategy: Why you should stop trying to be "The Best"
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Using Unsolicited Response Rate (URR) to measure resonance
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How to close deals faster by making people care
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Why generic content is dead (and how to find your "Premise")
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Why brands need personalities to survive
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5 steps to differentiate your brand
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Your homepage copy isn't your message
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Future-proofing your content for 2026
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The right way to use LLMs in creative work
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Why you can't automate thought leadership
Listen to the full episode on YouTube, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts.
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Latest from our YouTube
Top SEO Experts Build Me an AI Search Strategy (GEO)
Everyone talks about ranking in AI search, but very few can show what actually moves the needle. So Sam asked five of the smartest SEOs he knew to help him build a GEO plan that works in the real world.
See you next week,
Si Quan
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