Shalin Siriwardhana

Shalin Siriwardhana

Search, growth, and digital strategy notes.

Personal notes on SEO, AI search, content strategy, and durable organic growth.

A close-up shot of a person holding a smartphone, using the camera to scan a physical product on a store shelf, with the screen showing a visual search interface.

Notes / SEO / Oct 29, 2026

How Can I Tell If My Images Are Optimized for Multimodal Search?

The very first step to ensuring images can be retrieved as part of a multimodal search is to ensure they are crawlable and. The practical question is what this changes for SEO, content quality, and AI search visibility.

8 min read
A close up shot of a person's hand holding a smartphone displaying a friendly custom 404 error page with a search bar, resting on a wooden cafe table.

Notes / SEO / Oct 29, 2026

Google Recommends Using Custom 404 Error Pages

The most interesting part of the podcast is how they contextualized 404 errors as a business and user experience issue rather. The practical question is what this changes for SEO, content quality, and AI search visibility.

6 min read
A close up shot of a restaurant owner's hand using a smartphone to toggle a switch on a Google Business Profile screen, with a blurred dining room in the background.

Notes / SEO / Oct 29, 2026

Google Lets Restaurants Directly Opt Out of Ordering Providers

A screenshot in the LinkedIn post announcing the setting shows a "Manage provider" panel for a placeholder provider,. The practical question is what this changes for SEO, content quality, and AI search visibility.

6 min read
A close-up shot of a person's thumb hovering just millimeters above a smartphone screen, which displays a social media post with a short, branded link.

Notes / SEO / Oct 29, 2026

Bitly’s New Data Says SEOs Are Half Right About Short Links

Start with the part of the old argument that holds up. When Bitly asked consumers what makes them hesitate before clicking a. The practical question is what this changes for SEO, content quality, and AI search visibility.

8 min read
A close up shot of a person's hand holding a physical notebook and a pen, resting on a wooden table next to a closed laptop.

Notes / SEO / Oct 28, 2026

Human first SEO: the Risks of Optimizing for AI Over Users

A practical view on Human first SEO: the Risks of Optimizing for AI Over Users: the Operator's View, focused on the signal to. The practical question is what this changes for SEO, content quality, and AI search visibility.

6 min read
A close-up shot of a person's hand pointing to a specific country on a physical world map, with a small compass resting beside the map.

Notes / SEO / Oct 28, 2026

The Hreflang Magic Trick, It Routes, It Doesn’t Rank

Before there's a cluster to canonicalize, a canonical to score, or an alternate URL to serve, Google has to discover the URLs. The practical question is what this changes for SEO, content quality, and AI search visibility.

6 min read
A close up shot of a person's hand holding a smartphone displaying a search results page with several repetitive, low quality entries, resting on a wooden table.

Notes / SEO / Oct 28, 2026

Google Signals a Wider Crackdown on UGC SEO Spam

The first change is the addition of a few words that add these sharing platforms as the kinds of sites that the guidelines apply. The practical question is what this changes for SEO, content quality, and AI search visibility.

6 min read
A close up shot of a person's thumb hovering over a smartphone screen displaying a Google Discover AI summary card with small source icons at the bottom.

Notes / SEO / Oct 28, 2026

Google: Disabled Discover Clicks Were a Bug in an Experiment

Patel was replying to Lily Ray, who had quote posted Andell's report the morning of Oct. 23. Patel wrote: Hey Lily, this was a. The practical question is what this changes for SEO, content quality, and AI search visibility.

6 min read