Page 2 Rewind: Why Publishers Need to Rethink SEO for AI Search with Marshall Simmonds

https://page2pod.com - While we're between seasons, we're revisiting some of the most impactful conversations we've had on The Page 2 Podcast.  In this episode, SEO pioneer Marshall Simmonds, founder of Defined Media Group, explores the past, present, and future of search. Marshall shares firsthand stories from the earliest days of SEO, including his work with About.com, the New York Times, and direct collaboration with search engines as they refined crawling and indexing. The conversation then shifts into today’s biggest challenge for publishers and marketers: AI-driven search, LLM crawlers, declining referral traffic, murky attribution, and the growing fight over content ownership and monetization. 🧠 In This Episode • How Marshall Simmonds helped shape early SEO at About.com and the New York Times • Why search engines have always valued human-vetted content and authority • The role of log file analysis in understanding Google, OpenAI, and LLM crawler activity • Why publishers are facing a major reckoning around traffic, attribution, and intellectual property • How AI Overviews and generative search are changing the value of organic visibility • Why E-E-A-T principles mattered long before Google gave them a name • The debate around robots.txt, LLM.txt files, and whether AI crawlers respect publisher controls • Why holistic marketing, brand authority, email, social, and technical SEO matter more than ever • How SEOs should evaluate emerging AI search tools, reporting platforms, and attribution gaps • Why SEO is not dead—and why this may be one of the most exciting eras in search This episode offers a rare historical and strategic view of SEO from someone who helped build the foundation of the industry and is now helping publishers navigate its AI-driven future. Subscribe to the Page 2 Podcast for more conversations with the people shaping SEO, digital marketing, publishing, and the future of search. What do you think publishers should do about AI crawlers and declining search traffic? Drop your thoughts in the comments. Sponsored by Moving Traffic Media → https://www.movingtrafficmedia.com Follow the Page 2 Podcast ✅ Page 2 Podcast on Youtube → https://www.youtube.com/@thepage2podcast922 ✅ Page 2 Podcast on Linkedin → https://www.linkedin.com/company/page2podcast ✅ Page 2 Podcast on Facebook →  https://www.facebook.com/ThePage2Podcast/ Follow Jon Clark ✅ Jon Clark on Bluesky → https://bsky.app/profile/jonclark.co ✅ Jon Clark on Linkedin → https://www.linkedin.com/in/ppcmarketing/