“It’s not that clients are being stubborn — it’s that they’re scared. People are looking for advice, and right now no one really has the answer.” — JP Garbaccio
JP Garbaccio leads SEO and AEO strategy at Searchable, an AI search visibility and tracking platform, where he works with brands on crawl tracking, sentiment analysis, and AI search strategy. A returning guest on the podcast (JP first appeared back when the show was SEO Success Stories), he built his career agency-side as a technical SEO specialist with deep e-commerce experience, most recently as Technical Director at UK agency From The Future, before moving to the product side. He’s known across the industry for his sharp — and often funny — LinkedIn commentary on search and AI.
Episode Summary
In this episode of Beyond the Search Bar, host Russ Macumber welcomes back returning guest Eli Schwartz for an unscripted, no-notes conversation on where AI search is really hIn this episode of Beyond the Search Bar, host Russ Macumber catches up with returning guest JP Garbaccio, who has since moved from agency life into the product side at Searchable, an AI search visibility platform. JP argues that AI search isn’t an extension of SEO so much as an entirely new dimension — moving the industry from “2D to 3D” — and that the old playbook of forecasting the future by analogy to the past no longer holds. The conversation covers why client trust is breaking down as attribution gets murkier, why product marketers, brand teams, and PR are increasingly the ones leading AI search strategy instead of technical SEOs, and why Google’s crackdown on low-quality AI content is reshaping what “good” content even means. JP and Russ dig into new metrics like crawl-to-citation ratio, the coming wave of agentic traffic, and why brands with the patience for longer attribution windows will pull ahead of those chasing quarterly results. JP closes out with a look at how differently each major LLM behaves — from source bias to sentiment — and why he reaches for Claude for work above all else.
Key Takeaways
- AI Search Is a New Dimension, Not an Upgrade: JP frames the shift as moving from “2D to 3D” — static, single-query search to dynamic, personalized AI experiences that can’t be planned for using old SEO playbooks.
- Trust Is Breaking Down as Attribution Gets Murkier: With fewer direct signals to point to, clients are losing confidence and churning — not because SEOs are wrong, but because everyone, including the experts, is still figuring out the new rules.
- New KPIs Are Emerging: Metrics like crawl-to-citation ratio are starting to replace traditional clicks-and-users reporting as AI platforms choose what to ingest and cite.
- The Room Has Changed: AI search conversations are increasingly led by product marketers, brand teams, and PR — not technical SEOs — as visibility becomes a brand-wide, cross-functional effort.
- Brand Fame Is the New Foundation: Rather than chasing individual AI search tactics, JP points to building broad brand trust and recognition — echoing Andy Holland’s “brand fame” framing — as the more durable strategy.
- Attribution Will Rebuild Around Longer Windows: As agentic traffic grows and direct attribution shrinks, JP expects new data pipelines and longer look-back periods to eventually reconnect AI visibility to revenue.
- Patience Will Separate Winners from Laggards: Brands willing to invest without instant ROI proof will build a lasting advantage over those constrained by quarterly reporting cycles.
- Every LLM Behaves Differently: From source bias (Claude rarely pulls from Reddit; ChatGPT often does) to differing “opinions” on the same public figures, JP’s research shows AI platforms are far from interchangeable.
Timestamped Summary
- 01:23–02:39 – Introduction: Russ welcomes back returning guest JP Garbaccio, now on the product side at Searchable.
- 02:39–04:52 – JP’s hottest take: AI search is moving the industry from “2D to 3D,” and old forecasting models built on past experience no longer apply.
- 04:52–06:39 – Rethinking KPIs: why crawl-to-citation ratio is emerging as a new metric, and how Google’s stance on AI-generated content has shifted.
- 06:39–10:43 – The “last mile” of ROI: why proving attribution to revenue remains the industry’s biggest challenge, and why trust — not tactics — is really what clients are churning over.
- 10:43–13:12 – A billion-dollar company questions whether to keep investing in legacy SEO software at all; JP and Russ discuss brand fame as a way to reframe the conversation.
- 13:12–17:11 – Who’s actually in the room for AI search strategy now: product marketers, brand teams, and PR — not technical SEOs. An introduction to Searchable and JP’s shifting perspective.
- 17:11–19:08 – Is SEO becoming a smaller part of a much bigger AI search discipline? JP and Russ compare notes from other guests on the show.
- 19:08–21:53 – How Searchable tracks brand sentiment, hallucinations, and market penetration — and what that means for launching new products.
- 21:53–27:26 – Agentic traffic, the death of Universal Analytics, and the Brooks Ghost 18 example: why visibility and awareness matter even without direct attribution.
- 27:26–30:35 – The coming gap between “haves” and “have-nots”: why patient, forward-thinking brands will separate from the pack over the next six months to two years. 30:35–34:23 – JP’s LLM stack: Claude for work and productivity, AI Overviews and AI Mode for search, ChatGPT for mapping search journeys — plus early findings from JP’s research into how differently each model sources and behaves.
- 34:23–35:50 – Where to find JP, his shift toward more data-driven content, and closing thoughts.
