Web Dev SEO
Learn about the search engine optimization techniques web developers need to know to create a good experience for users and search engines.
Google Releases Modern Web Guidance 1.0 For AI Coding Agents
Google’s Modern Web Guidance 1.0 adds a codebase audit to its free skill set for AI coding agents.
Your CMS Is Still Failing SEO Basics – 11 Fixes To Demand
Cut recurring developer tickets with essential CMS SEO controls, smarter automation, and safeguards against indexing and redirect mistakes.
Hackers Hijacked DebugBear’s DNS To Serve Malicious JavaScript
DebugBear told customers to remove its Core Web Vitals monitoring script. Site owners should also check exposed accounts and unauthorized changes.
Google Reminds Sites To Serve A 503 During PHP Patch Downtime
Taking a site offline to patch PHP? Serve a 503 from outside PHP and keep robots.txt reachable. Days of server errors may get URLs dropped.
Critical PHP Core Vulnerabilities Affect Websites, Including WordPress
PHP’s emergency security fixes are available today, October 21, and website owners should ask their hosts to install them immediately.
The Text-Only Version Of Your Website Strips Out The Wrong Layer
Strip the visual layer and a machine can still use a website. Strip the structure, as markdown does, and it can only read about it.
Job Boards Say Google Indexing API Requests Get No Response
Job site operators report months-long waits for Google Indexing API approval, with no stated review timeframe in Google’s documentation.
Brand Protection In AI Search: How To Audit And Defend Your Brand’s Identity
Spot false claims and impersonators in AI search, then match each brand protection problem to the right correction, report, or preventive action.
Should I Block AI Crawlers At Robots.txt Or Server Level? – Ask An SEO
Robots.txt relies on bot compliance, while WAF, CDN, and server-level blocks enforce it. A breakdown of which layer stops AI crawlers for good.
WebMCP Connects AI Agents To Actions Inside Websites
OpenAI, Shopify, and Cloudflare are putting WebMCP into live products, giving AI agents a structured way to use websites without relying on visual clicks.
AI Is Changing Website Security. Here’s What SEO Teams Should Know
More than 100 organizations, including OpenAI, Google, and Microsoft, urge governments and website owners to prepare now for escalating AI cyberattacks.
Cloudflare Gives AI Agents Wallets That Pay For What They Access
Cloudflare announced wallets and optional identity handles for AI agents on August 4, extending paid access past crawlers to any caller and any resource.
Open Knowledge Format v0.2 Adds A Trust Layer – No AI Agent Reads It Yet
No agent reads your OKF bundle. Write one anyway: v0.2’s provenance and staleness fields expose every claim your website cannot defend.
Cloudflare’s PACT Is Not Live Yet – Decide Which Track Your Traffic Needs
Cloudflare and three rival browsers agreed on one protocol. That’s rare. It still only solves half of the agentic access problem.
Cloudflare’s AI Crawler Rules Can Block Googlebot
Cloudflare now lets all sites manage AI crawlers as Search, Agent, or Training, with Sept. 15 defaults that can block Googlebot for sites blocking training.
Microsoft Web IQ Gives AI Agents Bing Grounding APIs
Microsoft announced Web IQ, a set of grounding APIs that connect AI agents to Bing’s index. Pricing and general availability remain unclear.
Machine-First Architecture: How To Build Websites Machines Can Identify, Read, Cite & Use
Designing for the most constrained consumer, a machine, produces a better foundation for every visitor. Here’s the full build sequence.
Pichai Says Google Is ‘A Bit Behind’ On Agentic Coding
Sundar Pichai says Google is “a bit behind” in agentic coding, citing a lack of developer-facing products as one reason for the gap.
Mueller Explains Why Google Uses Markdown On Dev Docs
Google’s John Mueller says markdown pages can help developer documentation, but most sites should focus on current SEO needs before agentic traffic.
Google’s llms.txt Guidance Depends On Which Product You Ask
Google Search says llms.txt isn’t needed for AI features, while Lighthouse now checks the file for agentic browsing readiness in an experimental audit.
Google Is Testing New Bot Authorization Standard
Google is testing a cryptographic protocol for verifying bot traffic that could make unwanted crawlers easier to identify.
Your Website Is A Source, Not A Megaphone
AI-driven consumption is forcing brands to rethink content structure, clarity, and portability beyond traditional page-based experiences.
Google Tells Developers To Build For AI Agents, Not Just Humans
Google’s web.dev guidance advises developers to treat AI agents as a distinct visitor type and recommends practices similar to accessibility practices.
The Fully Non-Human Web: No One Builds The Page, No One Visits It
The web is splitting into transactional systems run by AI and experiential spaces for humans, forcing brands to rethink visibility, trust, and measurement.
Google CEO Says AI Could ‘Break Pretty Much All Software’
Google CEO Sundar Pichai said AI models could expose more software vulnerabilities and agreed it was plausible AI is affecting zero-day exploit markets.
Cloudflare’s New Markdown for AI Bots: What You Need To Know
Cloudflare launched Markdown for Agents, converting HTML pages to markdown automatically when AI crawlers request it through content negotiation.
Google Updates Googlebot File Size Limit Docs
Google updated its Googlebot documentation to clarify file size limits, separating default limits that apply to all crawlers from Googlebot-specific details.
OpenAI Search Crawler Passes 55% Coverage In Hostinger Study
Hostinger analyzed 66.7B bot requests across 5M+ hosted sites and found AI training crawlers are blocked more often, while OpenAI’s search bot expands.
Google’s Mueller Explains ‘Page Indexed Without Content’ Error
Google’s John Mueller says “Page Indexed without content” errors typically indicate server or CDN blocking of Googlebot, not JavaScript issues. Here’s what to check.
WordPress Meets Vibe Coding: White-Labeled Platform & API For Search-Ready AI Websites
Find out how WordPress & vibe coding can come together for rapid client website creation, under your agency’s brand.