SOLID Web Service

10/26/2026

The joy—verging on disdain—we've seen this year from folks using AI to "replace" design and development professionals has been stunning. At least now there's a word for it: vibe coding.

Last month Merriam-Webster added "vibe coding" to the dictionary. Collins Dictionary named it their 2025 word of the year.

The idea of non-technical people building technical things is stirring up both panic and enthusiasm, depending on whose vibes we're talking about.

The risks are real. In March 2025, a non-technical founder proudly posted that he’d built his SaaS app with “zero hand-written code.” Two days later, attackers were exploiting basic security holes. Within a week, the app was shut down.

10/22/2026

ChatGPT drove just 0.62% as much traffic as Google organic search, according to an analysis by Marie Haynes. Including other LLMs raised that figure to just 0.73% of Google organic traffic. ChatGPT visitors converted at higher rates, but Google organic drove 27 times more conversions than all LLMs combined.

Haynes called generative engine optimization (GEO) “a distraction.” She argued that Google is the AI search platform sending traffic to businesses today. The study covered 100 websites and more than 145 million sessions over 12 months of GA4 data.

Despite higher conversion rates from AI referrals, Google organic generated 27 times more conversions across sites tracking results.

10/21/2026

Google has apparently stepped up its efforts to block automated rank-tracking tools, including occasionally feeding them inaccurate search results. That's making life interesting for SEO professionals trying to deliver reliable ranking reports.

At SOLID Web Service, we've experienced these headaches firsthand with our reporting tools.

The good news? Your website rankings aren't necessarily going haywire. The bad news? The tools we use to measure them might be.

It's hard to hit a moving target when Google keeps moving the target—and occasionally replacing it with a decoy. 🎯

Google seems to be successfully blocking enough of the attempts of scrapers from trying to scrape data from its search results page over the past few weeks than it has in a long time. We reported this a few weeks ago, and I am surprised to see that many tools still struggle with Google Search report...

08/17/2026

As always, Tom hits timely issues with the perfect cartoon. The "A" in "AI" should stand for anxiety. So many clients and collogues have strong opinions about the roll AI should play in business.
At SOLID, AI is a tool—not a substitute for human expertise. Our focus remains on creating useful, original content built around what our clients actually know, do, and experience.

08/10/2026

The most dangerous words that can be spoken before a project kicks off is, "how hard could it be?" Tom Fishburne's cartoon on Conway's Law is a perfect depiction of the "ready, fire, aim" leadership mentality.
I" heard somewhere years ago that the reason the classic TV remote control is so ridiculously complicated is that each button has its own product manager, lobbying hard for the features of that button. I think of that every time I stay in an Airbnb and can't figure out how to turn on the TV. It inspired this cartoon.
In 1967, a computer scientist named Melvin Conway introduced an idea that explains this phenomenon and system design in general. It eventually became known as Conway's Law."

07/31/2026

Congratulations to SOLID Web Service client Capitol Imaging Services on being recognized as one of the Top 10 Largest Imaging Center Operators in the United States by Radiology Business.
We are incredibly honored to have been a small part of the remarkable growth of this organization over the years. From supporting their digital presence and content strategy to helping showcase the incredible work happening across their expanding family of centers, it's been a privilege to partner with a team so committed to patient care and innovation.
Congratulations to the entire CIS family on this well-deserved recognition. We can't wait to see what the future holds!

CIS Named a Top 10 US Imaging Operator…

07/16/2026

It's Go Live Day at SOLID Web Service, and we couldn't be more excited to introduce the newest member of our client family — aeroXgeo!

AeroX is a professional aerial survey and drone mapping company serving construction, land development, industrial, and infrastructure clients across Louisiana, East Texas, Mississippi, and beyond. They deploy professional-grade fixed-wing VTOL and multicopter platforms to deliver engineering-grade geospatial data — think high-accuracy topographic surveys, LiDAR point clouds, 3D terrain models, and CAD-ready deliverables — faster and more efficiently than traditional ground survey methods.

In short: they fly, they map, and they deliver data your engineers can actually stake to.

We had a blast building this one. Head over and take a look at their brand new site! 👇
🌐 www.aeroxgeo.com

AeroX Geospatial | Precision, survey-grade aerial mapping for the projects that can't afford to be wrong. LiDAR, and CAD-ready deliverables.

05/18/2026

If only people worked as hard at creating quality content as they did trying to trick the algorithms. [sigh]
The latest idea to become scammy is that you place a plain-text file at the root of your website that summarizes your site's content, purpose, and key information in a format that's easy for AI systems to read and parse. Proponents argue it helps AI models better understand your site when generating answers in tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Google's AI Overviews.
Search Engine Land's warning against it is well-founded for a few reasons. There's no evidence that any major AI system actually reads or prioritizes these files. It's an unproven tactic that could distract from content work that actually moves the needle. And Google has made clear that it uses the same signals it always has — quality, authority, and relevance — to decide what content surfaces in AI Overviews, not proprietary files.

This new guide talks about the differences, if any, between SEO, AEO, GEO and so on and touches on commodity content, AI agents and much more.

05/15/2026

https://searchengineland.com/inside-chatgpt-search-web-run-fan-out-queries-ai-visibility-477339

New research reveals how ChatGPT fetches pages, selects sources, and summarizes content — with practical prompts to test your own site.

03/26/2026

Updates to the Google algorithm can cause short-term disruption, but (hopefully) create long-term results. Check out the latest update geared toward reducing low-quality content on the internet!

Curious if your content will not only survive, but thrive in the new SEO landscape? [email protected]

The March 2026 spam update rolled out in less than a day. Google called it a normal spam update that impacted all languages and locations.