Notes from the edge of search, by SEO and GEO Consultant Loki Yan.

I'm Loki Yan, an SEO and GEO consultant and advocate based in Melbourne. I was born in Shanghai, China, and I speak Mandarin and English. I publish original work, studies, and research on SEO, AI search, multilingual SEO, and the structural shifts reshaping how brands stay visible online.

Loki Yan at APAC Search Awards Sydney
Loki Yan speaking at Google Search Central Live Deep Dive
Loki Yan and Jine Wu winning the APAC Search Awards
Loki Yan speaking at Google Search Central Live Deep Dive 2025
Loki Yan at Google Search Central Live Deep Dive 2025

A Note on Last Year's Google Search Central Deep Dive

Last year I spoke at Google Search Central Deep Dive APAC on a JavaScript SEO disaster. A year on, the thing I'm most certain of is this: in the AI era, technical visibility matters more than ever, not less.

DA and Backlinks Were Never SEO's Newton's Laws

On day one of SEO, you're taught DA and backlinks. But after competing head-on with Tier 1 sites, the logic stops holding up mathematically. What really pulls rankings apart is Topical Authority, Brand Mention, Originality — and critical thinking.

The Language Asymmetry in AI Recommendation

Non-English brands underperform in AI recommendation not because their work is weaker, but because training data makes the rules asymmetrical. AI didn't dissolve the filter bubble — it amplified the old asymmetries through a new mechanism.