Search is changing, but most conversations about it feel stuck.
Every few months, there’s a new acronym, a new framework, a new “future of SEO” post — usually written with absolute certainty and very little evidence. What’s missing isn’t information. Its clarity is grounded in reality.
That’s why I’m building Beyond Search Engine.
Search no longer happens in one place
For a long time, “search” meant Google.
You typed a query, scanned ten blue links, clicked a result, and moved on. That mental model still dominates how many people think about SEO — but it no longer reflects how people actually discover information.
Today, discovery happens through:
- AI assistants and chat interfaces
- answer engines and summaries
- recommendations, rewrites, and citations
- systems that don’t always send traffic back
Search didn’t disappear.
It fragmented.
And most of the confusion around SEO, AEO, and GEO comes from trying to apply old mental models to a very different environment.
The problem with most SEO content today
A lot of modern SEO content has two issues:
- It’s speculative
- It’s incentivized to oversimplify
Predictions are framed as facts.
Single experiments are generalized into universal rules.
Tools are praised without being challenged.
That creates noise, not understanding.
This site is intentionally not optimized for:
- beginners
- shortcuts
- guaranteed outcomes
- mass appeal
There are already enough resources doing that.
What Beyond Search Engine is actually for
This site exists to document how visibility really works as search expands beyond traditional engines.
That means:
- observing how content is used by AI systems
- understanding what gets summarized, cited, or ignored
- separating what still matters in SEO from what doesn’t
- writing down results, even when they’re inconclusive
Some experiments will work.
Some won’t.
Both are worth documenting.
Why public experimentation matters
A lot of testing already happens — quietly.
Agencies test on client sites.
Publishers experiment behind paywalls.
Teams learn internally and never share the full picture.
That’s understandable, but it also creates a distorted public narrative where:
- only successes are visible
- failures quietly disappear
- confidence replaces evidence
Beyond Search Engine is built around a different idea:
Learning in public produces better questions — and better answers.
How this site will evolve
This isn’t a static “thought leadership” project.
Over time, this site will include:
- real-world observations from live websites
- breakdowns of what AI search systems actually do
- analysis of what doesn’t scale or stops working
- opinionated takes that may change as evidence changes
Nothing here is meant to be final.
Only honest.
Why now
The shift from search engines to answer engines isn’t coming — it’s already here.
But clarity usually lags behind change.
This site is my way of slowing things down enough to:
- observe carefully
- document responsibly
- and reduce confusion instead of adding to it
If you’re navigating similar questions, you’re in the right place.
What to do next
If you’re new here, start with the articles.
They’ll evolve as the experiments do.