search engine optimising

This post was sponsored by Erase.com. The opinions expressed in this article are the sponsor’s own. Why does AI pull a 2023 Reddit thread into a 2026 comparison query?What makes AI cite some complaints about my brand and skip others?How do I get AI to stop citing old complaints in unrelated queries? Four signals decide what AI exposes, and once you know them, you can work them. Q1 2026 analysis surfaces four consistent patterns in what AI engines cite: recency plus volume, specificity that names features, platform authority (Reddit, major review sites), and recurrence across sources. The complaints that hit all four are the ones that show up unprompted in queries where users were looking for solutions, not problems. The fix isn’t a single takedown request; it’s a four-step audit-and-rebuil...

This post was sponsored by Erase.com. The opinions expressed in this article are the sponsor’s own. Why is my brand appearing in AI comparisons I didn’t ask to be in?How do I find out what AI tools are saying about my brand?What’s the difference between traditional reputation management and AI reputation management? Any issues with your brand’s reputation are what AI decides to show searchers, unprompted. Throughout Q1 2026, we’ve seen a behavioral shift in how prospects discover brand reputation issues. AI-assisted research tools now autonomously surface negative content, such as reviews, complaints, forum threads, social media discussions, inside comparison queries, without users deliberately searching for problems. When someone asks ChatGPT “which CRM should I choose,” these AI engines ...