No Hacks: Web Strategy for the AI Age
No Hacks is the weekly podcast about website optimisation, SEO, and web strategy in the age of AI search. If you work on websites and want to understand how AI agents, LLMs, and AI-powered search are changing everything, this is your show.
Your next million website visitors won't be human. And most websites are completely unprepared. AI agents can't navigate them. LLMs don't cite them. Search engines no longer rank them the same way.
Each week we dig into what's breaking, what's working, and what to do about it, covering AI SEO, AI Overviews, agent experience optimisation (AXO), CRO, structured data, and the future of organic search and discovery.
Built for SEO professionals, web strategists, developers, and CRO specialists who'd rather adapt early than scramble later.
Hosted by Slobodan Manic, consultant and speaker on Agent Experience Optimisation and AI-ready web strategy.
New episodes weekly. Subscribe to the companion newsletter at nohacks.co/subscribe
Episodes
221 episodes
221: Machine-First Architecture: The Framework for Building Websites That Work for AI and Humans
In 2009, Luke Wroblewski's "mobile first" changed how every website gets built. Start with the harder constraint, and the rest gets better. Now the harder constraint is not a small screen. It's no screen at all. Sani introduces Machine First Ar...
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Episode 221
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26:06
220: Google Patented Replacing Your Landing Page With AI
Google was granted patent US 12536233B1 in January 2026, describing a system that scores your landing page and, if it falls below a quality threshold, replaces it with an AI-generated version personalized to each searcher. This episode breaks d...
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Episode 220
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17:36
219: Your Homepage Is Not Your Homepage Anymore with Rand Fishkin
Rand Fishkin, co-founder of SparkToro and one of the most influential voices in digital marketing history, shares research proving that AI brand recommendations are wildly inconsistent. You'd need to ask ChatGPT 1,500 times to get the same bran...
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Episode 219
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54:29
218: Five Years of No Hacks - The Guest Host Takeover
Five years. 218 episodes. 110 hours of content. To celebrate, five returning guests flip the script and interview Sani about the agentic web, the future of web optimization, and what makes this podcast tick. Kelly Wortham, Iqbal Ali, Talia Wolf...
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Episode 218
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38:59
217: The Browser Wars Are Back. This Time With AI Agents!
In the 1990s, Microsoft and Netscape fought for control of the browser, the gateway between humans and the internet. Netscape went from 90% market share to zero in five years. Now, with over 30 agentic browsers launching in under 18 months, the...
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Episode 217
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29:17
216: The Machine Layer - Building Trust in the Age of AI Search with Duane Forrester
Duane Forrester, 30-year search veteran who co-launched Schema.org and built Bing Webmaster Tools, explains why AI systems prioritize trust above all else. We discuss machine comfort bias, chunk-level content op...
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Episode 216
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1:03:12
215: The Agent-Broken Web - Why AI Can't See Your Website
Your website might rank #1 on Google but be completely invisible to ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity. In this episode, let's break down why a huge chunk of the web is fundamentally broken for AI systems - not because of bad content, but because ...
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Episode 215
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29:40
214: How Google Just Took Control of AI Commerce (UCP + Apple Deal Explained)
Google just made two massive moves in 48 hours, and together, they could reshape how AI interacts with commerce forever.First: the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), an open standard that lets AI agents shop on your behalf. Discovery, ch...
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Episode 214
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29:48
213: Why Google & ChatGPT Are Ignoring Your "Dead" Content with Jono Alderson
For the last 20 years, digital marketing had one goal: drag a human across a "threshold", onto your website, so you could control the message and sell the product.In 2026, the threshold is gone.In this episode, Jono Alderson argue...
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Episode 213
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41:36
212: Goodbye 2025 - Digital Tinnitus and the Non-Human Future
If 2025 felt like a constant, high-pitched ringing in your ears, you aren't alone. We call it "Digital Tinnitus", the exhausting result of two years of AI hype, "pivot or die" mandates, and confident mediocrity.In this 2025 f...
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Episode 212
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11:13
211: Why AI is Killing Your Clicks: The New Metrics for a Zero-Click World with Joe Doveton
The ground beneath the digital marketing industry is shifting. For decades, the mantra was simple: optimize for traffic, measure clicks, and track conversions. But with the rise of Generative AI, Large Language Models (LLMs), and Answer Engines...
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Episode 211
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37:40
210: AI Agents Are Here (And They Hate Your Website) with Jes Scholz
There is a new user on the internet. It doesn't have eyes, it reads code, and it has zero tolerance for bad UX.In this episode, I sit down with Jes Scholz (SEO Futurist & Marketing Consultant) to discuss the "Great Correction"...
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Episode 210
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37:04
209: The Zero-Effort Lie - How AI Is Accelerating the Death of the Internet
The promise is irresistible: generate anything you want, instantly, with zero effort. We’ve been told that AI is the great democratizer, but in this episode, we argue it’s actually the most catastrophic lie of the digital age.The truth i...
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Episode 209
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16:17
208: How AI Is Forcing Brands to Be More Human with Brent Csutoras
As the world rushes to adopt AI, what if the most future-proof skill isn't mastering the machine, but mastering human connection? In this episode, Sani sits down with Brent Csutoras, a true OG of the internet who has been a core member of the R...
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Episode 208
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1:08:52
207: The Empathy Advantage - Bryan Eisenberg on Why Stories, Not Tools, Will Win in the Age of AI
What do you do when you feel like you've swallowed an elephant? For Bryan Eisenberg, a pioneer of Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO), that feeling was both a personal crisis and the inspiration for his new book.In this deep and insightfu...
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Episode 207
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1:00:48
206: The Vibe Coding Trap and What to Do Instead
Welcome to No Hacks, the podcast that cuts through the noise to reveal the truth about the future of work and the impact of AI. In this episode, we're taking a look into the phenomenon of "vibe coding" – the idea that you can simply desc...
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Episode 206
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32:35
205: AI, Search, and the Jobs of Tomorrow with Olga Andrienko
The world of work is changing faster than ever, and AI is leading the charge. What does this mean for industries like SEO, marketing, and content? And more importantly, what does it mean for your career?In this episode of No Hacks
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Episode 205
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49:56
204: #ChatGate - Your ChatGPT Conversation Could Be Indexed and Anyone Could Read Them
In this emergency solo episode I walk you through #ChatGate, the discovery that thousands of “shared” ChatGPT conversations are now fully searchable on Google. We de-mystify the site: operator, trace the unusual timeline that puts OpenAI...
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Episode 204
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15:13
203: No Juniors, No Google, No Chill: Survival Tips for the AI Shake-Up with Erin Weigel and Lukas Vermeer
What does life look like when search engines, junior tech jobs, and even human therapists start losing ground to generative AI? In this lightning-charged round-table, host Sani sits down with experimentation legends Erin Weigel
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Episode 203
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42:30
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202: Behavioral Design Secrets from YouTube, Google, and Duolingo with Katie Dove
Why don’t users do what they say they’ll do? Why does great UX still fail sometimes? And what do the world’s top companies know about behavior that most of us miss?In this episode, Sani sits down with Katie Dove, behavioral design...
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Episode 202
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32:50
201: Know Your Customer, Grow Your Brand: Email Marketing Masterclass with Omar Lovert
What separates email campaigns that convert from those that get ignored? It all comes down to understanding your customers, deeply.In this episode, Sani welcomes back Omar Lovert for a masterclass on customer-centric email marketi...
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Episode 201
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40:51
200: Magician vs. Conductor: How to Build (and Fix) Products with AI in 2025
Heads-up: I use some salty language. Nothing hateful, just passionate about this topic. Skip if that’s not your vibe.It’s 2 AM, your side-project just went viral, and the signup flow is on fire. Do you keep “vibe-coding” blind prompts, o...
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Episode 200
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13:15
199: Data Minimalism, Experimentation, and Ethical AI with Matt Gershoff
In this episode, Sani sits down with Matt Gershoff, CEO and Co-founder of Conductrics, to talk about how being intentional, not just fast, leads to better experimentation, better customer relationships, and better outcomes....
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Episode 199
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43:37
198: Google Doesn’t Need Your Blog Posts Anymore, Here’s What to Do Instead with Jono Alderson
Is content marketing finally dead? In this no-BS conversation, I’m joined by digital strategist Jono Alderson to unpack the new reality of SEO, content, and how Google’s evolution is leaving traditional marketing behind.Jono expla...
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Episode 198
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9:33
197: Is the Internet Dead? The Rise of Bot-to-Bot Web & the Decline of Human Content with Anne Berlin
In this episode of No Hacks, host Sani is joined by technical SEO strategist Anne Berlin to explore one of the most disturbing and fascinating topics on the web today: the Dead Internet Theory. Is most of what we see online actually created by ...
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Episode 197
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10:16