Combot blog
Notes on the AI visibility stack.
Specific, opinionated, technical. Mostly written while we were building the thing.
Recent series
The 3×2 GEO Matrix: Optimise × Measure × {Memory, Search, Fetch}
Generative Engine Optimisation has three knowledge modes and two operational verbs. Six posts, one per cell. Each one tells you what to do and how to know it worked. Foundation reading: AI Knowledge Modes: Memory, Search, Fetch.
Series tone: opinionated, specific, written from inside a working stack. British spelling. Each post pairs with its counterpart (Optimise ↔ Measure) and links the other two modes. PrerenderProxy productises the Fetch playbook.
Tools for Modes: how the major LLMs implement Memory, Search, and Fetch
Per-vendor tour of the tools that make the Modes real — Claude, GPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Grok. With the history of how we got here.
The 7 layers of AI visibility
Seven measurable stages from Trained-on to Acted-on, mapped to the three Knowledge Modes. The Combot funnel, aligned with how the industry talks about generative visibility.
AI Knowledge Modes: Memory, Search, Fetch
Every AI answer about your brand is composed from three modes. They fail differently. They reward different work.
AI Share of Recommendation: a new north-star metric
Why "are we mentioned in ChatGPT?" is the wrong question, and what to track instead.
Fact-checking the machines: building an automated accuracy center
Hallucination isn't a bug to dunk on — it's a KPI to track, alert on, and remediate.
Source mapping: tracing an LLM's answer back to its roots
The citation is not the source. The source is whoever wrote the page the model paraphrased from.
Lean Render: AI-bot rendering without the JavaScript trap
Dynamic rendering died for Googlebot. AI bots brought the problem back — and the solution is not Puppeteer reborn.
Server logs for the AI era
The log file is the AI visibility seismograph. Brave-bot visits, Claude Search Mode, and the correlations no other platform surfaces.
From fetchability to trust: the technical SEO of language models
AI bots crawl differently. Most don't execute JavaScript. Most never reach your category pages.