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The Algorithm Finally Learned to Read: Why Google and LinkedIn Just Changed Everything

  • Writer: rporterwhite
    rporterwhite
  • Dec 18, 2025
  • 3 min read

Google and LinkedIn just made the same move. Both replaced signal-counting with AI that actually reads.


Google's had E-E-A-T guidelines forever, but now LLMs can detect authentic expertise. LinkedIn's 360Brew does the same: reads your profile, reads your posts, checks alignment. It's about time!



What Actually Changed


LinkedIn deployed 360Brew in late 2025. It’s a 150-billion-parameter AI model that replaced thousands of separate ranking systems with one unified brain. Instead of tracking clicks and connections, it reads. It understands that "revenue intelligence platform" and "CRM integration" are related concepts, even if you never used those exact terms.

The old system asked: "Did this post get engagement?"


The new system asks: "Does this content demonstrate real expertise? Does it align with what this person actually knows?"


Google tightened its E-E-A-T evaluation with the December 2025 core update. E-E-A-T stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness — and Google's had these guidelines for years. But now, with LLM capabilities baked into the algorithm, Google can actually understand whether content comes from someone with genuine knowledge or just someone who's good at keyword research.


Both platforms made the same fundamental shift: from counting signals to understanding meaning.


What Died


Keyword stuffing. They both run on AI that understands context now. Google and LinkedIn can both read the semantic meaning of your content. Cramming keywords doesn't fool an AI that actually comprehends what you're saying.


Engagement pods. They read if comments are real. LinkedIn's 360Brew specifically detects forced or misleading engagement patterns. Generic "great post!" comments from the same group of people? The algorithm knows.


Generic "10 tips" listicles. They spot recycled advice. When the AI has read millions of posts about "design system best practices," it knows which ones are just repackaging existing information and which ones offer something new.


What Wins vs. What Loses


What wins: "We scaled our design system and cut dev time 75%. Here's what failed first."


What loses: "Top 10 design system best practices."


The difference? One demonstrates actual experience. The other could have been written by anyone who spent 20 minutes on Google.


LinkedIn's data backs this up: posts with clear, specific insights about real work now get 3-7x more reach than generic advice. And when reach did happen, it wasn't the old "viral in the first hour" pattern; it was sustained engagement across different professional clusters over days.


Google's seeing the same pattern. Sites with demonstrated expertise and first-hand experience are gaining visibility, while generic content farms are losing it. The December 2025 update hit affiliate sites particularly hard (71% affected), especially those without original insights or expert oversight.


Why This Matters


For years, visibility and credibility required different skill sets.


You needed SEO tactics for search, engagement hacks for social, and actual expertise for your job.


Now the platforms can read. Which means visibility and credibility just became the same thing.


Your LinkedIn headline says "Enterprise SaaS Sales VP" but you're posting about crypto, meditation, travel photography, and AI art? The algorithm literally can't figure out what you're expert in. Your content doesn't get matched to relevant audiences.


Your website publishes thin content or AI-generated posts without expert review? Google's algorithm knows. It can tell the difference between content written by someone who's done the work and content written by someone who's just hitting publish.


What This Means for You


The shift rewards one thing: consistency between who you say you are and what you actually know.


On LinkedIn, that means:


  • Your profile (headline, About section, experience) acts as your "topical anchor"

  • Your posts should align with that expertise 80%+ of the time

  • Topic clarity wins over topic variety


On Google, that means:


  • Author credentials and first-hand experience matter more than ever

  • AI-generated content without expert oversight gets filtered out

  • Sites need to demonstrate clear expertise in their niche, not try to rank for everything


The good news? Have you been building real expertise all along? You're about to rise. Have you been building superficial visibility? You'll feel the decline.


Because these algorithms don't amplify noise. They amplify meaning.


Finally.


Learn More


Want to dig deeper into how these algorithms work? Here are some resources:


On LinkedIn's 360Brew:



On Google's E-E-A-T Evolution:


 
 
 

The AI Search Visibility Problem (And a Simple Solution)

  • Writer: rporterwhite
    rporterwhite
  • Nov 19, 2025
  • 2 min read

By Robyn White


Every marketer I talk to knows the shift is happening. ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Gemini have become search engines. People are asking AI assistants to recommend products, compare services, and find solutions instead of scrolling through Google results.

But here's the question that keeps coming up: How do you know if you're showing up or not?


The Measurement Gap


Traditional SEO gave us rankings. We could track our position for "best project management software" or "eco-friendly yoga mats." We had traffic numbers, click-through rates, and conversion data. The metrics weren't perfect, but they existed.

AI search offers nothing.

You can't check your ranking in ChatGPT. There's no dashboard showing how often Perplexity recommends your brand. Most companies are genuinely guessing whether their AI visibility strategy is working.


Why This Matters More Than You Think


When someone asks Google for restaurant recommendations, they get a list of options and click through to decide. When someone asks Claude or ChatGPT, they get a curated answer with maybe three recommendations or just one.

The AI decides what's worth mentioning. You're either in that answer, or you're invisible, and right now, most brands have no idea which side of that line they're on.


Vibecoding a Solution


Over the weekend, I built a free tool to test whether simple tracking could work. No fancy APIs, no complex integrations, just a straightforward way to see what AI platforms are saying about your brand.

I built it fast with Claude, focused on what would actually be useful, and didn't get stuck in perfect-solution paralysis.


What it tracks:

  • How often your brand appears in AI responses

  • How you compare to competitors

  • Which platforms mention you most

  • Trends over time


The tool is manual. You run the same queries across platforms, record the responses, and track patterns. Simple, but it works.



What I Learned Building It


The most fascinating discovery? ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Gemini answer the same question completely differently.

Ask them all for "best CRM software for small businesses," and you'll get four distinct answers with different brands featured, different reasoning, and different confidence levels. Each model has its own evaluation criteria and training data, which means you can't necessarily optimize for "AI search" as a single channel. You need to understand what the LLMs look for: proof of brand quality, proof your product or service successfully solves customers' problems, and proof people like you.


What Comes Next


Every brand needs to answer this question: "Are we visible where people are actually searching?"


Right now, most of us are trying to figure it out. We can see that investing in SEO continues to work, as does understanding where and how our customers are singing our praises. After all, there's a reason Google has started including Instagram posts and reels in its search results.

The tool I built is free, open-source, and ready to use. It's not sophisticated, but it gives you visibility into a channel that's otherwise completely opaque. Start tracking and see where you show up in order to learn what works.


Because AI search isn't coming, it's already here.


Ready to start tracking your AI visibility? The VisAIbility Tool is free and open-source.



 
 
 

The GenAI Holiday Blitz Is Coming—Is Your Site Ready?

  • Writer: rporterwhite
    rporterwhite
  • Jul 31, 2025
  • 4 min read

This post was originally published on Women x AI


As the calendar turns to the second half of the year, if you're in retail, you're already strategizing about how to make the numbers this holiday, especially with all the headwinds this year. Tariffs. Inflation. Supply chain snafus. Cyber Monday in December. Annnnd then there's AI.


You've probably introduced some AI tools to your site. Chatbots, marketing automation, and pricing optimization are incredible steps in the pursuit of growth. Though we've noticed AI can have a sneaky way of adding work rather than reducing it.


While you've been busy optimizing for margins, your customer has changed how they shop online. Turns out, SEO and paid search are not dead (Alphabet Q2 Earnings), but they're no longer the only game in town.


Instead of traditional search, customers have increased their use of GenAI assistants like ChatGPT, GoogleAI, Perplexity, Claude, and others to find the perfect gifts for everyone on their list. From general research and product recommendations to price comparisons and deal hunting, this shift is part of a broader trend outlined in a recent survey from Adobe for Business. Adobe's survey also shows this trend is growing quickly with no signs of slowing down as AI platforms launch newer, faster, and more robust experiences.


Prepping your site and brand to take advantage of these new shopping behaviors could give you an edge, and the good news is, you're not too late to make updates.


Get GenAI Holiday Shopper Ready in Three Steps:


The first step is something NOT to do: Don't drown in the tsunami of information. The sheer volume of news articles, podcasts, and yes, blogs, addressing this topic is dizzying.


Remind yourself that SEO isn't obsolete, so keep up with all your best SEO practices:

  • Comprehensive, well-written product detail page information, including refreshed descriptive language that conveys new info and addresses the shoppers' needs.

  • Authoritative content that positions your products as the industry leader, for example, surveys, "state of the industry reports," and white papers.

  • On-point social media, including vlogs and video posts, like YouTube tutorials, TikTok Shorts with behind-the-scenes glimpses from your brand, and LinkedIn video posts.

  • Clear brand representation when your products meet your potential customers' needs. For instance, go beyond product details and include benefit-oriented messaging.


And guess what, everything you do for SEO, you're doing for AI. This is one of the sources LLMs use to compile summaries and link your site.


Second, establish a benchmark for AI discovery, traffic, and referrals. You want metrics to help inform where to invest, build, and grow next year.


One way to establish this foundation is to capture how your brand appears within AI summaries and overviews. To get started, create personas of your shoppers and have them "shop" the AI models like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity, for your products to see what comes up.


Some prompt examples:

  • "I need recommendations for [product category] that [specific requirements]."

  • "What is/are the best [product/s]?"

  • "I'm comparing [competitor products]. Which would work better for [use case]?"

  • "Where should I shop for [product] online? I care most about [personal priorities]."


Then, take note. Is your brand there? If not, why not?


Dig into the brands being shown and review where the AI model is pulling data from. Yes, you can ask the AI to identify its resources, though some platforms are better at sharing sources than others.


Third, lean into AI now to help with your contingency planning. Ask your enterprise-level AI model to offer solutions for the challenges you can imagine, and to suggest some you haven't thought of yet.


You can even pressure check the plans you have in place. Using an AI model to brainstorm and think through possible scenarios is a great way to prep for the unknown.


What's Coming Next?


Agentic AI is in the ether. Over the next one to two years, autonomous AI agents will work on your behalf to shop for you, including finding personalized products, enabling virtual try-on, and even negotiating prices for you!


The shift away from traditional online shopping habits could ultimately mean that product discovery on your site will need to be optimized for both AI agents and humans.


One other important takeaway is to think deeply about who owns this in your organization because strategy and accountability will be key to implementation.


The adage "the only constant is change" has never been more relevant. What's new this year is the speed at which things are changing.


To stay sane, remember, yes, there's a lot to learn, but successful retailers follow their customers. Keep them at the center of all you do, and you'll find the path that works for your brands.


Sources and Further Reading:






 
 
 
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