Duane Forrester Decodes

About Duane Forrester Decodes

AI is rewriting how brands get found, cited, and trusted. Duane Forrester breaks down what that means for practitioners and marketing leaders who can't afford to get it wrong. duaneforresterdecodes.substack.com (https://duaneforresterdecodes.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast)

Publisher

Duane Forrester Decodes

Category

business · technology

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

26 Apr 2026

Latest episode

18 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

27 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   18 Oct 2026

   Getting Indexed No Longer Means Getting Visited

   Show Notes: Getting Indexed No Longer Means Getting Visited The opt-out setting and the rules behind it Google Search Central Help: Search generative AI control (https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/16908024): Google's documentation for the Search Console setting that excludes a site from AI Overviews, AI Mode, and generative features in Discover, including what it does not affect. Search Engine Journal: Google Search Console AI reports rolled out worldwide (https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-search-console-ai-reports-rolled-out-worldwide/): Coverage of the August 31, 2026 global rollout of the opt-out control and the Generative AI performance report. GOV.UK (http://GOV.UK): CMA secures fairer deal for publishers and improves Google search services in UK (https://www.gov.uk/government/news/cma-secures-fairer-deal-for-publishers-and-improves-google-search-services-in-uk): The UK Competition and Markets Authority's June 2026 conduct requirement covering the opt-out, attribution, and no-retaliation rules. Research on clicks and AI answers Pew Research Center: Google users are less likely to click on links when an AI summary appears (https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/07/22/google-users-are-less-likely-to-click-on-links-when-an-ai-summary-appears-in-the-results/): Browsing data from 900 US adults showing an 8% click rate on traditional results with an AI summary versus 15% without. Wang, Gleason, Bart, Wilson, and Metaxa: AI in Search Reduces Publisher Referrals Without Improving User Experience (https://alphaxiv.org/abs/2608.18352v1): Preregistered field experiment with 1,100 Google users; forced AI Mode cut external click-through by 18.8 percentage points (preprint, not yet peer reviewed). Is the remaining traffic better? Microsoft Clarity: AI traffic converts at 3x the rate of other channels (https://clarity.microsoft.com/blog/ai-traffic-converts-at-3x-the-rate-of-other-channels-study/): Study of more than 1,200 publisher and news sites on AI referral volume and sign-up conversion. Kaiser and Schulze, Marketing Science: ChatGPT Referrals to E-Commerce Websites (https://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/full/10.1287/mksc.2025.0489): Peer-reviewed analysis of 973 e-commerce sites over twelve months comparing ChatGPT referrals with traditional channels. The travel agent precedent U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: Travel Agents, Occupational Outlook Handbook (https://www.bls.gov/ooh/sales/travel-agents.htm): 2025 employment of 61,500, a flat 2025 to 2035 projection, and AI tools named as a factor limiting demand. Perk: How online booking has changed the travel agent landscape (https://www.perk.com/blog/how-online-booking-has-changed-travel-agent-landscape/): Analysis of BLS data showing roughly a 70% drop in travel agent employment between 2000 and 2021. Travel Weekly: How many travel agents in U.S.? Depends on whom you're asking (https://www.travelweekly.com/Travel-News/Travel-Agent-Issues/How-many-travel-agents-Depends-whom-asking): ASTA's dispute with BLS counts and its use of the Census figure. Host Agency Reviews: How much do travel agents make? (https://hostagencyreviews.com/blog/how-much-do-travel-agents-make-travel-agent-salary): Industry income research on independent advisors and the earnings edge for luxury and adventure specialists. rom Duane The SERP Stops Being the Default Between 2028 and 2030, and the Place It Moves To Already Exists (https://duaneforresterdecodes.substack.com/p/the-serp-stops-being-the-default): Last week's forecast for when the ranked results page stops being Google's default first view. The Machine Layer on Amazon (https://www.amazon.com/Machine-Layer-Visible-Trusted-Search/dp/B0G2WZKM59/ref=sr_1_1): Duane's book on how AI search and answer systems work underneath. Get full access to Duane Forrester Decodes at duaneforresterdecodes.substack.com/subscribe (https://duaneforresterdecodes.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

2. 

   11 Oct 2026

   The SERP Stops Being the Default Between 2028 and 2030, and the Place It Moves Already Exists

   Show Notes: The SERP Stops Being the Default Between 2028 and 2030, and the Place It Moves To Already Exists Google's own statements Google: A new era for AI Search (I/O 2026) (https://blog.google/products-and-platforms/products/search/search-io-2026/): Liz Reid's I/O announcement; Gemini 3.5 Flash as the default model in AI Mode, the rebuilt search box, AI Mode passing one billion monthly users. Search Engine Roundtable: Google Chrome Won't Make AI Mode the Default Search Experience (https://www.seroundtable.com/google-chrome-ai-mode-default-41458.html): Rajan Patel calling the Chrome Canary flag an error and saying Google isn't planning to make AI Mode the Chrome default. Search Engine Journal: Google Rolls Out New "Web" Filter for Search Results (https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-rolls-out-new-web-filter-for-search-results/516310/): The May 2024 launch of the links-only Web filter, announced by Danny Sullivan. Google: Q2 2026 earnings call, remarks from our CEO (https://blog.google/company-news/inside-google/message-ceo/alphabet-earnings-q2-2026/): Sundar Pichai on AI Mode costs hitting their lowest level since launch and AI Overviews and AI Mode merging into one experience. Alphabet Q2 2026 earnings call transcript (https://s206.q4cdn.com/479360582/files/doc_events/2026/Jul/22/2026_Q2_Earnings_Transcript.pdf): Full transcript, including the 1% decline in Network advertising revenue. Google: Everything you need to know from 2026 (Google Marketing Live recap) (https://services.google.com/fh/files/blogs/ai-era-marketing-guide.pdf): Google's own GML recap covering ads inside AI Mode and the "reinventing what an ad is" statement. Google Search Central: Mobile-first indexing has landed (https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2023/10/mobile-first-is-here): Google declaring mobile-first indexing complete in October 2023, the seven-year precedent used for the forecast timeline. Adoption and behavior data Pew Research Center: Google users are less likely to click on links when an AI summary appears (https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/07/22/google-users-are-less-likely-to-click-on-links-when-an-ai-summary-appears-in-the-results/): Browsing study of 900 US adults; 18% of searches produced an AI summary, with clicks on traditional results falling from 15% to 8% of visits. AI News: Similarweb's 2026 Generative AI Landscape on AI Overviews (https://artificialintelligence-news.com/news/google-ai-overviews-us-searches): AI Overviews on 43% of US searches, up from 15% a year earlier; AI Mode visit growth; the 5.4% increase in query length. Similarweb: Zero-Click Marketing and the 2026 data (https://aisearch.similarweb.com/blog/zero-click-marketing/): AI Mode at 0.34% of Google searches from January to April 2026, and AI Mode referral rates of 1.6% to 2.5% against 17% to 19% for traditional search. OpenAI: Scaling AI for everyone (https://openai.com/index/scaling-ai-for-everyone/): OpenAI's February 2026 announcement of 900 million weekly ChatGPT users. PPC Land: Google faces bipartisan brief urging tougher remedy (https://ppc.land/google-faces-bipartisan-brief-urging-tougher-remedy-over-21-ai-model-share/): Coverage of the amicus brief in the DOJ appeal, including its point that no industry-standard measurement of AI Overview prevalence exists. Regulation and litigation Advanced Television: CMA imposes Google publisher AI opt-out (https://www.advanced-television.com/2026/06/03/cma-imposes-google-publisher-ai-opt-out/): The UK Competition and Markets Authority's June 3, 2026 conduct requirement on AI Overviews and AI Mode opt-outs. SCL: European Commission investigates Google for using online content for AI purposes (https://www.scl.org/european-commission-investigates-google-for-using-online-content-for-ai-purposes/): The December 2025 EU investigation into AI Overviews, AI Mode, and publisher content. MLex: US DOJ, states argue appeal of Google Search ruling, ask for harsher remedies (https://www.mlex.com/mlex/antitrust/articles/2507211/us-doj-states-argue-appeal-of-google-search-ruling-ask-for-harsher-remedies): The July 2026 cross-appeal brief, including the "competitive window may close" warning. Related reading from Duane Forrester Decodes Cohorts, Clusters, and the Coming AI Ad System (https://duaneforresterdecodes.substack.com/p/cohorts-clusters-and-the-coming-ai): My August 2025 piece describing query-time, auto-generated ads, the system now arriving inside AI Mode. Three Predictions for 2027, and Why You Won't Be Able to Check Them (https://duaneforresterdecodes.substack.com/p/three-predictions-for-2027-and-why): The 2027 predictions piece referenced in this episode. Google Now Has the Math to Rank Without an Index, and the Results Page Does Not Survive It (https://duaneforresterdecodes.substack.com/p/google-now-has-the-math-to-rank-without): Last week's piece on the DeepMind research behind ranking without an index. The Machine Layer (https://www.amazon.com/Machine-Layer-Visible-Trusted-Search/dp/B0G2WZKM59/ref=sr_1_1): My book on how these systems work underneath search and AI answers. Get full access to Duane Forrester Decodes at duaneforresterdecodes.substack.com/subscribe (https://duaneforresterdecodes.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

3. 

   4 Oct 2026

   Google Now Has the Math to Rank Without an Index, and the Results Page Does Not Survive It

   Show Notes: Google Now Has the Math to Rank Without an Index, and the Results Page Does Not Survive It References mentioned in this episode, in the order they come up. Google Now Has the Math to Rank Without an Index, and the Results Page Does Not Survive It. This week's article on Duane Forrester Decodes. Link to be added on publication. Google DeepMind Develops New AI Search Ranking Model (https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-deepmind-develops-new-ai-search-ranking-model/589062/). Roger Montti, Search Engine Journal. The piece this episode builds on; the clearest walkthrough of the dual encoder and cross encoder mechanics. Autoregressive Ranking: Bridging the Gap Between Dual and Cross Encoders (https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.05588). Google DeepMind, UMass Amherst, UT Austin, January 2026. The paper: the linear-growth proof for dual encoders and the SToICaL training loss. Rethinking Search: Making Domain Experts out of Dilettantes (https://arxiv.org/abs/2105.02274). Metzler, Tay, Bahri, Najork, Google Research, 2021. The proposal that started the arc; carries its own disclaimer that it is not a product roadmap. Transformer Memory as a Differentiable Search Index (https://arxiv.org/abs/2202.06991). Tay et al., Google Research, 2022. The DSI prototype: a single Transformer mapping queries directly to document identifiers. DSI++: Updating Transformer Memory with New Documents (https://arxiv.org/abs/2212.09744). Mehta et al., Google, EMNLP 2023. The freshness problem: continually indexing new documents causes forgetting of old ones, plus the mitigations. WordNet (https://wordnet.princeton.edu). Princeton University. The lexical database used as one of the two evaluation sets; its noun hierarchy supplies the ground-truth rankings. Alphabet Second Quarter 2026 Results (https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1652044/000165204426000066/googexhibit991q22026.htm). SEC 8-K, Exhibit 99.1. Source for the $63.27 billion Google Search and other figure and the 17 percent growth rate. Google Marketing Live 2026 (https://blog.google/products/ads-commerce/google-marketing-live-2026-collection/). Google, May 20, 2026. The announcement of Gemini-built ad formats for AI Search, tailored to the individual query. Cohorts, Clusters, and the Coming AI Ad System (https://duaneforresterdecodes.substack.com/p/cohorts-clusters-and-the-coming-ai). Duane Forrester Decodes, August 2025. Where Intent Vector Bidding was coined and the query-time ad system described. Mechanism Design for Large Language Models (https://research.google/pubs/mechanism-design-for-large-language-models/). Dütting et al., Google Research. Best paper, The Web Conference 2024. The token auction: advertisers bidding on generated text token by token. The Machine Layer (https://www.amazon.com/Machine-Layer-Visible-Trusted-Search/dp/B0G2WZKM59/ref=sr_1_1). Duane's book on how content earns its place inside AI retrieval systems. Get full access to Duane Forrester Decodes at duaneforresterdecodes.substack.com/subscribe (https://duaneforresterdecodes.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

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