Jacob Whitmore

Jacob Whitmore · Independent search research

Search is changing. I’m measuring what happens next.

I’m Jacob Whitmore. I research how AI is changing search, which businesses get recommended, and what the evidence tells us about the future of discovery.

Original research. Real datasets. Predictions I come back to check.

Explore the research Read the latest analysis

What I do

Four kinds of work, one rule: show the evidence.

Everything here is dated. If a claim can’t be checked, it doesn’t go up.

01CSV

Original research

Independent studies into AI search, Google, digital discovery and the changing search landscape. Each one ships with its raw data.

The studies → 02Dated

Industry analysis

Commentary on what’s shaping SEO, AI search and the future of discovery, including the claims the industry repeats without checking.

The analysis → 03Scored

Predictions

Dated predictions about the search industry, each with a test written down in advance, then marked against what actually happened.

The ledger → 04Use it

Practical resources

Technical SEO guides, experiments, regex, Search Console techniques and copy-paste fixes, each backed by a test on this site.

Guides and tools →

Featured research

What the evidence says so far.

Each study gives the date the data was collected, the sample, the method and its limits. The charts below are drawn straight from the published spreadsheets. What the data can’t support is listed in What I won’t claim.

Monthly series Since 2 Oct 2026 · latest 2 Nov 2026 · next 2 Dec 2026

Which AI crawlers do the UK’s biggest news sites block?

9 of 10 block at least one AI crawler. They block the bots that train AI models far more often than the bots that fetch pages for AI answers.

AI crawlers blocked in robots.txt by the UK’s ten biggest newsbrands, 2 Nov 2026
SiteGPTBotClaudeBotanthropic-aiGoogle-ExtendedCCBotApplebot-ExtendedBytespiderMeta-ExternalAgentAmazonbotOAI-SearchBotChatGPT-UserClaude-SearchBotClaude-UserPerplexityBotPerplexity-UserBlocked
Daily MailBlockedBlockedBlockedBlockedBlockedBlockedBlockedBlockedBlockedBlockedBlockedBlockedBlockedBlockedBlocked15/15
The TelegraphBlockedBlockedBlockedNot blockedBlockedBlockedBlockedBlockedBlockedBlockedBlockedBlockedBlockedBlockedBlocked14/15
BBCBlockedBlockedBlockedBlockedBlockedBlockedBlockedBlockedBlockedBlockedBlockedNot blockedNot blockedBlockedBlocked13/15
The SunNot blockedBlockedBlockedBlockedBlockedBlockedBlockedBlockedBlockedNot blockedNot blockedBlockedBlockedBlockedBlocked12/15
Sky NewsBlockedBlockedBlockedBlockedBlockedBlockedBlockedBlockedBlockedNot blockedNot blockedNot blockedNot blockedBlockedNot blocked10/15
The GuardianNot blockedBlockedBlockedNot blockedBlockedBlockedBlockedBlockedBlockedNot blockedNot blockedBlockedBlockedBlockedNot blocked10/15
Yahoo! (UK news)BlockedBlockedBlockedBlockedBlockedNot blockedBlockedNot blockedNot blockedBlockedBlockedBlockedNot blockedBlockedNot blocked10/15
MirrorBlockedBlockedBlockedNot blockedBlockedBlockedNot blockedBlockedNot blockedBlockedNot blockedNot blockedNot blockedBlockedNot blocked8/15
Daily ExpressBlockedBlockedBlockedNot blockedBlockedBlockedNot blockedNot blockedNot blockedBlockedNot blockedNot blockedNot blockedBlockedNot blocked7/15
The IndependentNot blockedNot blockedNot blockedNot blockedNot blockedNot blockedNot blockedNot blockedNot blockedNot blockedNot blockedNot blockedNot blockedNot blockedNot blocked0/15
Blocked Not blocked · Left of the line: training crawlers. Right: crawlers that fetch pages for AI answers. Snapshot 2 Nov 2026. Data ↓
Sample
10 biggest UK newsbrands × 15 AI crawlers. 150 checks a month.
Method
Each site’s robots.txt is read and saved on the 2nd of every month. What counts as blocked is defined in the method note.

Read the study → Data (CSV) ↓

Study Data collected 29 Oct 2026

Do the AI search statistics everyone repeats hold up?

None of the 32 passes all five checks, and none is about the UK.

  • 5 of 5 checks0
  • 4 of 5 checks8
  • 3 of 5 checks3
  • 2 of 5 checks13
  • 1 of 5 checks2
  • 0 of 5 checks2
  • No source found4
32 statistics, by how many of the five checks their source passes. Data ↓
Sample
32 statistics that appear on at least 3 of 20 roundup pages.
Method
Each statistic traced to the document it came from, then checked for five things: when, how many, where, how, and whether the data is published.

Read the study → Data (CSV) ↓

Study Data collected 10 Oct 2026

Do AI answers say when a “current” figure is from?

7 of 40 answers didn’t say when the figure was from. All 7 came from Google’s two engines.

  • Google AI Mode4 of 10
  • Gemini3 of 10
  • ChatGPT0 of 10
  • Claude0 of 10
Answers that gave no date for a “current” figure, by engine. 7 of 40 in total. Data ↓
Sample
40 answers: 10 UK figure questions on 4 AI engines.
Method
Every question asked for a figure “now” or “today”, and every figure has an official source that publishes it with a date.

Read the study → Data (CSV) ↓

More studies

All research and datasets

The prediction ledger

I don’t just predict where search is going. I keep score.

Each prediction is written down with a date and a test for right or wrong before the result is in. On the check date it gets marked. Wrong calls stay up in red, and none is reworded after the fact.

Right
0
Wrong
1
Still open
31
Couldn’t score
0

32 on the record as of 6 Nov 2026. Open calls count neither way. Board as CSV ↓

P37 WrongLatest scored · written down 11 Oct 2026 · checked 6 Nov 2026

24 hours after the announcement, at least one of the four engines will give a stale answer in at least one of its two runs.

Scored 6 Nov 2026: miss. None of the eight 24-hour answers (run 12:02 to 12:07 UK) was stale; six were caught up and two unreferenced. Data ↓

Due next

  1. P19After the follow-up 'When is that figure from? Give the month or period and the official source.', at least 95% of AI answers will state a period for the figure.Written 14 Oct 2026 · checked 30 Nov 2026
  2. P20In the same run, at least one period an engine gives after the date follow-up will not match the official period.Written 14 Oct 2026 · checked 30 Nov 2026
  3. P17On the first Russell Group robots.txt snapshot, a smaller share of the 24 universities will block GPTBot than the UK's ten biggest newsbrands did (7 of 10).Written 14 Oct 2026 · checked 2 Dec 2026

See every prediction How a prediction is written

Latest analysis

Worth reading first.

Picked for what they settle, not how new they are. Everything else is in the archive, newest first.

  1. Analysis · Jacob Whitmore

    How many times should you run an AI prompt before you trust the number?

    To pin an AI brand-mention rate to within ±10 points you need about 97 runs of one prompt. To show a change worked, about 388 per version. The maths and a free calculator.

  2. Analysis · Jacob Whitmore

    Do backlinks get you cited in AI answers? What 16 studies actually measured

    Checked 30 October 2026. 16 studies on links, authority and rankings vs AI citations. All correlational, none with raw data, one naming a country. Brand mentions beat links.

  3. Predictions · Jacob Whitmore

    Gartner said search volume would drop 25% by 2026. Can it be scored?

    Gartner's 2024 call that search volume would fall 25% by 2026, checked in October 2026. It can't be scored as written. On the closest public data, it looks like a miss.

  4. Analysis · Jacob Whitmore

    Search Console’s AI report shows impressions, not clicks. What it can and can’t tell you

    Checked 30 October 2026. Search Console's AI report counts impressions only: no clicks, no queries. What it can answer, what it can't, and how to report AI visibility anyway.

  5. Analysis · Jacob Whitmore

    Google is lying to your rank tracker on purpose

    Google is deliberately serving fake results pages to suspected scrapers. It isn't blocking them. It answers them, with complete, normal-looking pages whose organic results have been…

  6. Research · Jacob Whitmore

    Do AI companies block each other’s crawlers? 17 AI company sites checked

    On 6 November 2026, three of 17 AI company sites blocked rival AI crawlers in robots.txt. All three were chat apps. None of the 11 corporate sites blocked any. Cell-level data.

Jacob Whitmore

About Jacob

I’m Jacob Whitmore. I’ve spent around 12 years working in SEO across agency, freelance and in-house roles.

I’m particularly interested in what happens when search changes: who gets discovered, which businesses get recommended and what the evidence tells us about the next direction of the industry.

I publish original research, share the underlying data and make predictions that I come back to check.

This website is where I document what I find, what I think it means and what I get wrong along the way.

More about meHow I run studies

Research updates

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There’s no newsletter. New results go up on a fixed schedule, and you can follow them two ways.

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  • The schedule

    A new UK news crawler snapshot on the 2nd of each month. Predictions marked on their check dates, listed on the ledger.

Follow the evidence. Not the hype.

Independent research and analysis on the changing world of search.

Explore the latest research contact@jacobwhitmore.com