232: The Agentic Web Is Still A Single-Player Game

I talked to Amanda Natividad, the person who named zero-click marketing, the week her book with Rand Fishkin came out, and wanted to ask one question: if nobody clicks any more, what is my website for? Her answer is that it matters more than ever, and in a different way(s). It is your source of truth, the record everything else points to. Along the way she buys clothes from a brand ChatGPT picked, signs up for a tool whose homepage she never saw, and explains why a how-did-you-hear-about-us survey credited TV chefs who never mentioned the brand.Guest ProfileAmanda Natividad is co-author, with Rand Fishkin, of Zero Click Marketing: How to Build Brands and Earn Customers on a Traffic-Starved Web (Damn Gravity Books, October 2026). She is Chief Evangelist at SparkToro, the audience research company, and hosts the Zero Click Marketing podcast. She wrote the 2022 post that gave zero-click content its name.Chapters[0:00] Amanda's answer, and the question[1:01] Buying clothes through ChatGPT instead of Google[4:38] Running shoes, and why buying is messier than pinball[6:24] The contact form Claude picked, and the homepage she never saw[10:00] The visual layer of a website comes last[11:53] What a website is for when nobody clicks[15:46] First, somebody has to care: where to show up[20:28] The survey with made-up TV chefs[22:34] Measuring without the click[27:44] Your website is your source of truthKey TakeawaysMake the few details a decided visitor needs easy to find. Amanda bought in minutes once the price and the material were clear, and never read the homepage.State what you are, plainly, on your website, and repeat the same claim everywhere else. People get confused when the truth is implied, and machines get confused more.Turn one ad channel down for a week or two and watch what happens to the business, then track three layers: exposure, engagement, and business results. No single metric will tell you, and the dashboards the platforms give you are built to flatter the platforms.Notable Quotes"Your website is your source of truth. You're probably not even going to update it once a week. But that is your source of truth. That is the record. Everything else just points to it." Amanda Natividad"If I went to your homepage first, I never would've become a customer because I don't code." Amanda Natividad, on the contact form Claude picked for herResourcesZero Click Marketing, the book: https://www.damngravity.com/products/zero-click-marketingZero Click Marketing, the podcast: https://zeroclickmarketing.coRand Fishkin on No Hacks: https://nohacks.co/episode/219-your-homepage-is-not-your-homepage-anymore-with-rand-fishkinWil Reynolds on No Hacks: https://nohacks.co/episode/222-ai-visibility-is-a-vanity-metric-with-wil-reynoldsConnectAmanda Natividad: https://amandanat.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amandanatSparkToro: https://sparktoro.comNo Hacks with Slobodan Manić · nohacks.co · Newsletter: nohacks.co/newsletter

OpenAI's new agents, dots, are fuzzy balls with eyes that you name and dress. They also sign into websites with your saved passwords and read the email you connect. I went through OpenAI's pages to see what the face is covering. What a dot reads can train the model unless you find the switch, and websites are told nothing. I would not give one my logins or my card.Chapters00:00 Sam Altman's pitch, and what a dot is01:42 Do you need one?02:36 Where the face came from04:33 Launch day, and why now07:05 Under the costume: your data08:37 A model that looks for another way10:06 What the cute is for11:09 What websites are told12:39 Through the web, or over it14:01 The verdictKey TakeawaysThe face is how it gets sold. OpenAI had characters on the side in April. Meta made the character the product, and three weeks later OpenAI did too.What a dot reads can train the model by default. The setting is "Improve the model for everyone", and it covers the apps you connect, email included.OpenAI publishes no way for a website to recognise a dot. Its instructions tell the user to try their computer when a website blocks one.What to DoIn ChatGPT, open Settings, then Data controls, and uncheck "Improve the model for everyone".Before you give any agent your logins or a card, ask what it does that you needed.If you run a website, send it to me at nohacks.co/ai-accuracy. I'll put one question your customers ask to the AI assistants and send you what they said. It's free.The newsletter is at nohacks.co/subscribe.Sources & LinksFrom OpenAIIntroducing dotsDots privacy FAQDots, computers and appsOpenAI's crawlersGPT-6 Astra test resultsMentioned in the episodeThomas Germain, BBC, on Meta's MuseThe Tech Report, with Ed ZitronBetter OfflineFTC on Joe Camel, 1997No Hacks with Slobodan Manić · nohacks.co · Newsletter: nohacks.co/newsletter

Mark Zuckerberg says Meta's AI agent, Muse, needs to be discreet. The same month, some of the calls it made to businesses were placed by people in a call center. I went through what he told Joanna Stern and Alex Heath about Muse's privacy and security and sorted every claim by tense. What exists today, only Meta has checked. The protection from Meta itself is promised for later this year. My verdict: stay away from this. After the sign-off, the show moves to Saturday mornings.Chapters00:00 - Discreet AI, and calls made by people00:59 - What Muse is, and the agentic web02:33 - Joanna Stern's question03:57 - Present tense: the virtual machine and the ads05:45 - Passwords, Sentinel, Amazon and the Mac app07:05 - Future tense: the locked version and discretion10:10 - Who is asking: an ad company with a privacy record11:40 - From the browser wars to the agent wars14:42 - Two documents, 1993 and 202616:00 - After the episode: moving to SaturdaysKey Numbers500,000+ people tried Muse in its first week, as reported by The Information97.6% of Meta's 2025 revenue came from ads$5 billion: the FTC's 2019 privacy penalty on Facebook87 million people's data reached Cambridge Analytica1993: CERN put the web's code in the public domain"Later this year": when Meta says the version it cannot see inside arrivesKey TakeawaysListen for the tense. What Muse does today is described only by Meta, and nobody outside Meta has published a check of it. The version Meta itself cannot see inside is promised for later.Meta's plan for Muse is a small cut of every transaction. Zuckerberg said the cut will come from the businesses. If you run a store, that is you.The early web worked because it was given away and ran on your own computer. This time the companies want to be in the middle from day one. It is the browser wars again, fought over the agent.What to DoBefore you connect your email, passwords or card to any agent, ask how it works today, in the present tense.If you run a store on Shopify, check Sales channels, then Agentic. Meta's agent and Google's AI may be on by default.Watch the full Joanna Stern interview.The No Hacks newsletter is at nohacks.co/subscribe.Sources & LinksThe interviewsJoanna Stern, New Things with Joanna SternAlex Heath, Sources podcastMeta's own wordsIntroducing MuseMeta's 2025 annual reportThe recordFTC, $5 billion penaltyCERN, 30 years of a free and open webNo Hacks with Slobodan Manić · nohacks.co · Newsletter: nohacks.co/newsletter

A hundred and seventy-two companies have put their name to A2A, the standard for AI agents at different companies to find each other and talk. I took the web address the project lists next to each name and asked 135 of them the question the standard is built around. Four answered. The reason is not technical: MCP needs one person to say yes, A2A needs two organisations.Chapters00:00 - AWS, Microsoft, Salesforce, SAP, and four answers00:54 - What I was actually sold, and what I went looking for01:31 - What counts as another party, and what does not03:08 - Single-player, and why the reason is not technical04:07 - MCP, November 2024: one person has to agree06:56 - A2A, April 2025: two organisations have to agree11:04 - What the agent card is, and why not having one is fine12:56 - Who is actually at your server15:35 - Forget the logos, watch your own logs16:24 - After the episode: the race to the bottomKey Numbers172 companies listed on the A2A partners page135 of them checked, both well-known paths, 270 requests4 served an agent card. 131 served nothing1 served it at the path the specification registers14 returned HTTP 200 at that path. 12 were the homepageMCP: 1 person has to agree. A2A: 2 organisationsKey TakeawaysThe visitor at your server is one person's assistant, not another company's agent. It fetches one thing, cannot ask a follow-up, and has no patience for a slow page. That is a smaller job than the one being described to you, and a different one.A protocol that pays off alone spreads. One that needs a counterparty waits. MCP works the afternoon you wire it up. You can implement A2A perfectly and get nothing until somebody you do not control has done the same work.Not having an agent card is not a failure. It is not a test, nothing scores you on it, and if no agent runs on your server there is nothing to publish.What to DoWatch your own logs rather than the partner lists. The day something arrives that was clearly sent by another company's system, not a person, is the day this changed.Treat a 200 as nothing. Twelve of the fourteen I found were a homepage answering to any address.Answer clearly and quickly, and be honest about what you do not have. Most websites say yes to everything.The No Hacks newsletter is at nohacks.co/subscribe.Sources & LinksThe standardA2A specification, section 8.2 discoveryA2A partners listIANA well-known URI registryThe other protocolModel Context Protocol specificationAnnouncing A2A, Google, April 2025No Hacks with Slobodan Manić · nohacks.co · Newsletter: nohacks.co/newsletter

A magazine put a paywall in front of its journalism to stop AI reading it. I tested what that paywall actually checks. It reads one line of your request, the name you type in yourself, and compares it against a list. Say who you are and you get a bill. Make something up and you walk straight in. Then I asked two assistants to read the article anyway. Both got charged, both answered, and neither had read a word of it. It keeps going after the sign-off, about where this podcast is headed.Chapters00:00 - A story, and a bill instead of a page02:19 - What a 402 is, and who sells it04:02 - What the wall checks, and the name I made up06:46 - robots.txt says one thing, the server does another08:08 - Googlebot walks in free while Penske sues Google10:08 - Is anybody actually paying12:13 - I asked Claude and ChatGPT to read it15:22 - Being read or being cited17:42 - Ask your chatbot where it got the facts19:17 - After the episode: where this is headedKey Numbers402 Payment Required has been in the web standards since 1992 and almost nothing ever used itrobots.txt has been a convention since 1994, and nothing makes a robot obey it6,000 or 8,000 or 9,500 websites, depending which of TollBit's own pages you read25 robots named in Variety's robots.txt, 24 of them blocked3 crawlers get charged that the file never names at all0 AI companies named on TollBit's page aimed at AI companies1 paying customer ever named publicly, a news reader appKey TakeawaysThe paywall checks a name, not a robot. Every crawler that identified itself honestly got a bill. A name I invented, belonging to no company on earth, got the whole page one second later.Your server sets your policy and your robots.txt only describes it. Variety's two disagree right now, and three crawlers the file permits are charged anyway.Blocking the machine does not block the answer. It decides who gets credited when the machine repeats you. Two assistants credited a search engine and a podcast directory.What to DoRequest a page from your own website with a crawler name in the user agent, then with a name you invent, and compareRead your robots.txt beside what your server actually returns, line by lineCheck what Google-Extended covers before you rely on it, because it has never covered AI OverviewsAsk your assistant whether it read the page or searched around itEvery link and every check I ran is in the newsletter, nohacks.co/subscribeSources & LinksNo Hacks websiteVariety's robots.txtThe articleNo Hacks with Slobodan Manić · nohacks.co · Newsletter: nohacks.co/newsletter

On August 5 Shopify switched on a second way into every store on its platform, built for AI agents instead of people. Nothing to install, no merchant asked. I opened three unrelated stores, Allbirds, Brooklinen and Partake Foods, and asked each what it could do for a machine. All three answered with the same roughly 800 words, identical character for character, and no merchant wrote a syllable of it. What those words say, and what it costs a brand when the visitor has no eyes.Chapters00:40 Thirty years of every shop trying to sound different02:13 What Shopify switched on, overnight, on every store03:19 Three stores, one identical answer05:06 The tools are stage direction for a machine08:13 Nobody is using any of it yet13:45 Your voice does not transmit, your data doesKey NumbersThree unrelated stores returned the same ~800 words of tool text, identical character for characterThe adapter file is version 0.1.0Etsy put AI agent platform traffic under 1% of its total in Q2 earningsShopify reports AI-referred orders tripled, which is referred traffic, not agents buyingShopify reports over a million merchants on the platformThree TakeawaysShopify wrote what your store says to machines, and every other store says it too. These are instructions, not descriptions. The checkout tool tells the agent to "follow it." Another tells it not to ask the shopper about missing options when it decides they only want to look. Someone chose when the customer gets consulted, and it was not the customer or the merchant.This is the right way to build it, which is separate from whether anyone noticed. The tools read the same database as the storefront people see, so the two cannot drift apart. One good default beats a million bad ones. It is still worth knowing a default was set for you.If the machine is the visitor, your voice does not transmit and your data is what is left. The photography, the badges, the reviews, the copy someone agonised over: none of it survives the call. Back comes a title, a price, a size run, availability. What is left to compete on is whether your prices are right and your stock is accurate. That work pays off whether or not the agents arrive.MentionedMy WebMCP reference guide: https://nohacks.co/blog/what-is-webmcpWhat I found on day one: https://nohacks.co/blog/shopify-gave-every-store-an-agent-apiShopify's docs for building the buyers: https://shopify.dev/docs/agentsTalia Wolf and the Emotional Targeting FrameworkEpisode 229, llms.txt against 137,000 domainsNewsletter, one a week: https://nohacks.co/subscribe Say hello: [email protected] Hacks with Slobodan Manić · nohacks.co · Newsletter: nohacks.co/newsletter

Most of what's sold as AI search optimization has never been tested by the people selling it, and this episode is me checking the biggest one against server logs. Ahrefs looked at 137,000 domains in June: 97% of llms.txt files got zero requests in May, and the biggest readers of the rest were SEO audit tools. I also lay out the line I use to sort every pitch: a hack tries to influence what the machine says about you, architecture changes what a machine can read and do on your website.Chapters00:00 The AI optimization economy and its zero evidence02:50 llms.txt checked against 137,000 domains06:00 The main readers of llms.txt are SEO audit tools08:53 Why this market keeps producing hacks10:23 Visibility scores and the prompt problem12:43 Every generation of hacks dies the same way15:08 What survives model updates18:39 The mirror: fix what the internet thinks you areKey Numbers137,000 domains in Ahrefs' June 2026 server-log study28% had a valid llms.txt file, and that number is the ceiling, their customers skew technical97% of those files got zero requests in May, not low traffic, zeroOf the 3% that got fetched, around 22% of the readers were SEO audit tools, the tools that flag you for not having the fileMy own Cloudflare logs at nohacks.co show the same thing, nobody fetches itThree TakeawaysThe pitch is a screenshot, the truth is in the logs. Before you pay for any AI visibility work, ask for evidence at the level of server logs, and watch what happens.A hack tries to influence what the machine says about you. Architecture changes what a machine can read and do on your website. The first is rented and dies at the next model update, the second is owned.LLMs are a mirror of everything happening online. If ChatGPT doesn't call you the best X for Y, the honest question is whether the internet agrees you are, and that's the problem worth fixing.What to DoSort anything you bought or got pitched this quarter with one question: does it change what a machine can read and do on the website, or what the machine says about it?Ask any vendor for their evidence before money leaves your account. Logs, tests, a mechanism, the same bar you'd use for anyone touching revenue.Check your own server logs for who actually fetches your llms.txt, it takes five minutesTry this: open free ChatGPT logged out of search, type "what is [your name] known for," and send me the screenshot at [email protected]. I want to see what you get.SourcesAhrefs llms.txt server-log study (June 2026): https://ahrefs.com/blog/llmstxt-study/My identity-vs-capability piece: https://nohacks.co/blog/agentic-web-identity-vs-capabilityWeekly newsletter: https://nohacks.co/subscribeNo Hacks with Slobodan Manić · nohacks.co · Newsletter: nohacks.co/newsletter

I came back from a month off the grid to find OpenAI had killed Atlas, its most glamorously launched product, nine months after the keynote. It barely matters, though. The automated, non-human visitor Atlas was sending to your website is still coming, through whatever shell comes next. Build for the visitor, not the browser.Timestamps00:00 - Back from break, and the bad news01:17 - Atlas: the most hyped browser ever launched02:27 - Watching it work is a demo, not a workflow03:29 - Killed with no keynote: the browser was never the product04:35 - The visitor isn't dead, so build for it05:24 - The real agentic web: background agents you don't watch07:52 - Silent failure: a human recovers, an agent doesn't09:41 - OpenAI's side quests, and the name that gave it away12:48 - My Cloudflare data: AI traffic is 5-10x human14:24 - What No Hacks is nowKey NumbersAI assistant traffic (ChatGPT and Claude users) is running 5-10x my human traffic on nohacks.co (my own Cloudflare AI analytics)Atlas: launched October 2025, shuts down August 9, 2026, nine months oldEight months in, Atlas never shipped beyond macOS, no Windows, iOS, or AndroidKey TakeawaysThe visitor outlives the shell. Browser, app, extension, cloud: the wrapper keeps changing, but the automated visitor arriving at your website is the same one every time. Build for the visitor, not the browser.Watch-it-work AI browsers were always a demo. If you have to sit and watch it, it is not a workflow. The real agentic web runs in the background, which means its failures are silent, and you never see the lost signup or sale.Being cited is not the whole game. The agent does not only mention you, it comes to your website and tries to act. Optimizing to appear in a prompt misses the harder work: a website a machine can actually use.What to DoSimplify the paths a human muscles through but an agent will not: coupon-box bugs, cookie banners, console errors. The agent hits the wall and leaves, silently.Check your own logs and bot analytics for AI-assistant traffic. You are probably getting more than you think.Stop optimizing only to be discovered. Make the website something an agent can finish a task on.More on this every week in the No Hacks newsletter: nohacks.co/subscribeSources & LinksThe storyOpenAI is shutting down Atlas (TechCrunch)My companion take and dataAI Browsers Are Backward Because Agents Never Needed the Visual LayerCloudflare Radar: bot and AI trafficNo Hacks with Slobodan Manić · nohacks.co · Newsletter: nohacks.co/newsletter

I sat down with Malte Landwehr, who left VP of SEO at Idealo to become CPO and CMO at Peec AI, the platform that tracks what ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews actually cite. We open on the strangest finding of the year. GummySearch, a Reddit analytics tool that shut down last November, now sits behind about 0.1% of all ChatGPT citations. From there we get into why clicks are the wrong way to measure AI search, why your local brand keeps losing to US ones, why scaled AI content rockets then crashes, and why Malte says SEO is dead as a default growth channel.Guest ProfileMalte Landwehr is CPO and CMO at Peec AI, an AI search visibility platform that runs daily prompts across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Google AI Overviews, Claude, and Grok. He spent more than twenty years in search and product, including five years as VP of SEO at Idealo and five years as VP of Product at Searchmetrics. In his first six months at Peec AI, the company grew from roughly $500K to $5M in ARR.Chapters[0:00] Intro[1:15] Leaving one of Europe's best SEO jobs for AI search[5:07] Why clicks are the wrong way to measure ChatGPT[8:22] Which answer engines actually matter[12:34] GummySearch: a dead product winning ChatGPT citations[18:33] Listicles and the English-language fan-out bias[23:48] Advertorials, local results, and Mount AI content[33:50] Digital PR over technical SEO[36:27] ChatGPT Shopping is scraped Google Shopping, and the MCP contest[42:16] SEO is dead as a default channel, and the chunking moveKey TakeawaysStop measuring AI search by clicks. In an LLM, clicking is optional, so ChatGPT can look like 1% of your traffic while shaping most of your buying journeys. Measure the influence on the decision, not the visit.What gets written about you offsite now matters more than your own technical SEO. Grounding pulls from Reddit, G2, Wikipedia, YouTube, and news, so digital PR is the bigger lever for how AI describes and recommends you.One citable paragraph beats a chunked article. Put your main claim near the top in two or three declarative, self-contained sentences that name the entities. Do not shred a whole article into one-line bullets.Notable Quotes"In a web search, clicking is part of the intended user journey. In an LLM, clicking is completely optional." Malte Landwehr"They didn't gain visibility as a brand. They now have power over what brands are recommended by LLMs." Malte Landwehr, on GummySearchResourcesPeec AI: https://peec.aiPeec AI research blog: https://peec.ai/blogMalte Landwehr's website: https://www.maltelandwehr.deFuture of AI Shopping webinar with Malte Landwehr (Peec AI): https://peec.ai/webinars/future-of-ai-shoppingConnectMalte Landwehr on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/landwehr/Peec AI: https://peec.aiNo Hacks with Slobodan Manić · nohacks.co · Newsletter: nohacks.co/newsletter

This week I welcome Alisa Scharf, Chief AI Officer at Seer Interactive, to the podcast, to ask the question she fires back at every client who walks in wanting to "win at AI visibility." Her answer flips the whole project: fix what the models get wrong about you before you chase the category terms. We got into her research on why lower-authority websites earn more citations, why LLMs recommend a brand only 2.3% of the time, and the gap nobody is tooling for: getting an agent to actually use your website, not find it.About the GuestAlisa Scharf is Chief AI Officer at Seer Interactive, where she runs the AI practice across the agency's client accounts. Her team's research spans hundreds of thousands of pages and tens of thousands of prompts, and she argues that citations are a leading indicator, not a business outcome.Chapters00:00 - The first question Alisa asks a new client04:08 - Brand accuracy: what models get wrong about you06:57 - Defense wins championships09:54 - The brand accuracy audit13:12 - Why lower-authority websites get cited more15:57 - Citations are page two of Google19:37 - LLMs recommend a brand 2.3% of the time21:49 - The agentic browsing tooling gap28:13 - Losing 30-80% of organic traffic37:31 - How a 15-year-old brand catches up40:24 - What we will get wrong in 12 months43:18 - Where to find AlisaKey TakeawaysDefense before offense. Pick five factual prompts about your own company, founding, location, what you sell, who you compete with, and run them across ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini. Fix what the models get wrong before you spend a dollar chasing category terms.Citations are a leading indicator, not a result. They swing by month and by model. Real success shows up in direct traffic, branded search, and brand recognition, none of which sit neatly on a dashboard.Visibility is not readiness. Getting cited and getting an agent to actually buy, book, or provision on a customer's behalf are two different problems. Most providers sell the first and call it the second.Notable Quotes"You can flip an old house and turn it into a really impressive place to live. You can't flip an old house and turn it into a skyscraper.""Everything we just spent the last 10, 15, 20 years learning is now doing you a disservice, because you really have to turn to a fresh page and say, where is my audience?"ResourcesSeer Interactive: https://www.seerinteractive.comSeer insights and research: https://www.seerinteractive.com/insightsNo Hacks EP 222, Wil Reynolds, AI visibility is a vanity metric: https://nohacks.co/episode/222-ai-visibility-is-a-vanity-metric-with-wil-reynoldsNo Hacks EP 225, Matt Biilmann on agent experience: https://nohacks.co/episode/225-every-website-already-has-an-agent-experience-and-most-are-bad-with-netlify-ceo-matt-biilmannSparkToro: https://sparktoro.comConnect with Alisa ScharfLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alisascharf/X: https://x.com/alisa_scharfBio: https://www.seerinteractive.com/people/team/alisa-scharfNo Hacks with Slobodan Manić · nohacks.co · Newsletter: nohacks.co/newsletter