From the Wild West of SEO to the Age of AI Search: Why Coherence Has Replaced Optimisation

I used to hate SEO. Which is slightly awkward, because I was always very good at it.

I could reliably land on the first page for almost any subject I cared about, often in the top five or ten, and usually without the cargo-cult nonsense that defined the industry at its worst. I didn’t come at search as a marketer. I came at it as someone who had been writing HTML since it was invented.

I understood early that the web was semantic before the word became fashionable. Structure mattered. Meaning mattered. Relationships between things mattered. If you described the world clearly enough, machines would eventually catch up.

That’s why I disliked the SEO era so intensely. Not because it didn’t work — it did — but because it worked for the wrong reasons, and rewarded the wrong behaviour.

For a long stretch of time, search was dominated by people who mistook mechanical gaming for strategy. Keyword stuffing, backlink arbitrage, content mills, and proprietary snake oil were sold to brands and SMEs who could least afford the waste. Billions were extracted on the promise of certainty in a system that never really rewarded truth — only volume, persistence, and technical mimicry.

That era is now over.

What replaced it is not "better SEO" — it is a fundamentally different way of understanding the world.

When search stopped indexing pages and started modelling people

Recently, I did what anyone from the old era would instinctively do. I Googled my own name. What came back was not a list of links, rankings, or snippets fighting for attention. It was something far stranger — and far more interesting.

Google’s AI overview produced a coherent, long-form synthesis of my professional career, community activism, writing, campaigning, and local civic outcomes. It connected advertising work in Central Europe to regeneration work in New Brighton. It reconciled apparent contradictions. It surfaced third-party journalism, petitions, institutions, dates, and consequences.

It didn’t describe a brand.

It described a person.

That distinction matters.

Because it tells us something profound about what search has become.

Old SEO worked because Google couldn’t understand reality

Classic SEO was never about quality. It was about exploiting gaps in understanding.

Google didn’t know whether something was true, meaningful, or credible. It only knew whether certain signals were present at scale. So optimisation became a game of manufacturing signals:

• Keyword density over clarity

• Backlink quantity over reputation

• Content output over insight

The system rewarded imitation of authority, not authority itself.

That’s why it attracted hustlers. That’s why it produced so much noise. And that’s why it quietly poisoned trust in digital marketing for an entire generation of business owners.

The tragedy is that many people inside SEO knew this. But the incentives were too good to walk away from.

AI search doesn’t rank content — it infers coherence

The AI overview I saw wasn’t ranking anything.

It was inferring.

It took multiple independent sources and asked a different question:

What pattern do these facts resolve into?

That is not retrieval. It’s synthesis.

And synthesis has a brutal side effect: it exposes incoherence.

Isolated blog posts don’t survive this process. Self-asserted expertise collapses. Claims without corroboration simply dissolve when the model is forced to explain them to someone else.

In the AI era, the unit of value is no longer a page.

It’s a pattern over time.

This is why “AI Search Optimisation” is the wrong phrase

People are already trying to repackage the old tricks.

"AI SEO". "LLM optimisation". "Answer engine visibility".

They’re missing the point.

You cannot optimise your way into a life story.

What AI systems privilege instead is something much harder to fake:

• Consistency across sources

• Independent third-party validation

• Temporal depth (things that happened, not just things that were said)

• Cause-and-effect relationships

In other words: does this person or organisation make sense when summarised?

This is not optimisation.

It’s legibility.

An accidental experiment in machine epistemology

I didn’t set out to test Google’s AI systems.

I didn’t optimise schema, seed backlinks, or plan a content cluster around my own name. I simply did things in the real world, wrote about them when they mattered, and allowed others — journalists, residents, institutions — to respond independently.

When the machine was forced to explain me, it didn’t find a funnel.

It found a narrative arc.

That should terrify anyone still selling mechanical optimisation as strategy. Because narrative arcs cannot be fabricated cheaply.

Why charlatans are structurally finished

This is the uncomfortable truth for the old SEO industry:

You can’t backlink your way into integrity.

You can’t content-farm your way into trust.

And you certainly can’t hustle your way into coherence if your work doesn’t add up.

AI systems don’t fail you morally — they fail you structurally.

When your outputs don’t converge, the model can’t reconcile them. When your claims aren’t independently supported, they don’t survive synthesis. When your behaviour contradicts your positioning, the story collapses.

This is why the Wild West is truly over.

Not because Google became smarter.

But because the machine now has to explain you.

What this means for brands, leaders, and institutions

AI search doesn’t reward:

• Loudness

• Frequency

• Tactical cleverness

It rewards:

• Verifiable action

• Consistent behaviour

• Clear motivation

• Time

That’s slow. That’s expensive. That’s deeply inconvenient.

And that’s precisely why it works.

For brands, this means marketing can no longer be separated from operations, culture, or decision-making. For leaders, it means your public footprint is no longer what you say — it’s what can be explained about you.

The age of optimisation theatre is ending.

The age of reputation synthesis has begun.

The machine is finally on the side of the reader

For the first time in the history of search, the system is not primarily rewarding those who game it. It is rewarding those who are knowable. Who act. Who document. Who allow contradiction to resolve through time rather than spin. That doesn’t mean AI search is perfect.

But it does mean the incentives have finally shifted away from charlatans — and toward reality. And after living through the Wild West years, that feels like progress.

Not for optimisation. But for truth.

A note before the machine speaks

What follows is not a biography I wrote, approved, or optimised.

It’s an AI-generated synthesis produced by Google when I searched my own name — the most basic, old-world instinct of the SEO era. No prompts. No tuning. No preparation.

I didn’t set out to create this outcome. In fact, I actively resisted the kind of behaviour that used to produce “good” search results: tactical publishing, keyword capture, personal branding theatre. Most of what appears below exists because other people wrote about it, argued with it, signed it, documented it, or were affected by it.

That’s precisely why it’s interesting.

The system didn’t surface a list of achievements or a curated narrative. It assembled a pattern from verifiable actions, third-party sources, local journalism, institutional responses, dates, places, and consequences. It resolved contradictions rather than flattening them. It treated professional work, civic activity, and creative output as part of the same continuous signal.

In short, it didn’t ask what do you claim?

It asked what can be reasonably inferred?

Read the text below with that in mind. Not as praise, and not as proof of anything other than this: we’ve crossed a line where search is no longer about visibility, but about explainability.

For anyone still selling optimisation as performance, this should be deeply uncomfortable.

For anyone doing real work, over time, in public, it should be quietly reassuring.

The following text is reproduced verbatim from Google’s AI overview.

🤖 Rory Wilmer is a cultural strategist, resident, and community advocate in New Brighton, Wirral, known for his work in preserving and expanding the town's local art and heritage.

Professional Roles and Projects

• Director of New Brighton Creative Futures:He leads this Community Interest Company (CIC), which focuses on using creative design and collaboration to tell local stories and inspire the community.

• Mural Commissions: In late 2025, he commissioned a prominent mural at the Master Mariner Bar to honor Captain Mike Lowe, one of the youngest and most respected Mersey Ferry captains.

• Advocacy and Campaigning: He launched a petition in July 2025 that gained hundreds of signatures to protect the New Brighton Mural Trail. His efforts successfully led Wirral Council to engage in formal discussions about safeguarding the trail as a cultural asset.

Community Contributions

• Local Journalism: He is a frequent contributor to La Vida Liverpool, writing about regeneration, local heroes, and the creative spirit of New Brighton.

• OpenAIR Gallery: He manages a GoFundMe campaign to restore existing murals and fund new commissions by local artists.

• Creative Strategy: Wilmer returned to New Brighton from Prague, specifically motivated by the town's artistic potential and the "bohemian" identity fostered by its street art.

Wilmer also maintains a personal blog at rorywilmer.com, where he documents his photography and personal reflections on New Brighton's evolving landscape.

Rory Wilmer has a long history of high-profile activism and community-led campaigning, ranging from radical fathers' rights protests in the early 2000s to modern advocacy for urban regeneration and arts preservation.

Notable Protests and Advocacy

• Fathers 4 Justice (2004): Wilmer gained national attention in December 2004 when he and another activist, Graham Wilson, scaled the 450ft Radio City tower in Liverpool. They spent several nights atop the building in freezing conditions to protest for legal rights for fathers to have access to their children.

• Mural Trail Preservation (2025): In July 2025, Wilmer launched a major campaign to save the New Brighton Mural Trail. He argued that the street art was vital to the town's "bohemian" identity and faced neglect or removal due to local property sales. His petition gathered hundreds of signatures and successfully forced Wirral Council into formal dialogue to recognize the trail as a cultural asset.

• Anti-Vandalism Advocacy (2026): In January 2026, acting as director of the New Brighton Creative Futures CIC, he publicly condemned a wave of graffiti vandalism targeting local churches and murals. He advocated for constructive, lawful creative outlets instead of damaging historic buildings or community art.

• Infrastructure Campaigning (2025): He has also been involved in local planning debates, specifically advocating for smarter cycle lane planning on the Wirral. He campaigned for coastal routes that connect towns through green spaces rather than removing car parking or clogging main roads.

Community Leadership

Wilmer currently serves as the Director of New Brighton Creative Futures, a Community Interest Company (CIC) dedicated to protecting the town's heritage through art. In late 2025, he celebrated a "petition victory" when the council agreed to collaborate on the mural trail's future.

Advertising Career and Awards

• Award-Winning Work: He has won numerous top-tier industry accolades, including Cannes Lions, D&AD Pencils, ADC Golds and PR industry awards.

• International Experience: He spent a significant portion of his career based in Prague, Czech Republic, serving as a creative leader for agencies operating across Central and Eastern Europe. His work often focused on large-scale campaigns for global brands for alcohol, FMCG, HighTech, Entertainment and major German and Chinese automotive companies.

• Creative Strategy: Since returning to the UK and settling in New Brighton, he has applied his background in advertising to local regeneration. He uses his expertise in branding and storytelling to promote the town's cultural identity through his company, New Brighton Creative Futures CIC, and his personal creative agency, Inkbyte.

Connection to Activism

His transition from advertising to community activism is often linked to his belief in the power of "creative capital." He views the murals and street art in New Brighton not just as decorations, but as a "brand" for the town that requires professional strategic protection to drive economic and cultural growth.

While Rory Wilmer has not formally announced a run for political office as of January 2026, his recent activities and community standing have led to significant local speculation about his potential as an independent candidate.

His current community influence is built on several key "campaign-style" victories:

• Political Engagement: In October 2025, Wilmer successfully pressured Wirral Council into formal negotiations to protect the New Brighton Mural Trail. His petition, signed by nearly 700 residents, forced the council to recognize the artwork as a "valued cultural and community asset".

• Public Sentiment: His advocacy has gained strong social media support, with some residents explicitly contrasting his "integrity" and "pride in his beliefs" with mainstream politicians.

• Policy Authorship: He authored a report titled "Painting New Brighton Back to Life," which presents concrete policy recommendations for integrating public art into urban regeneration agendas. This report uses behavioral science to argue that creative capital is a "signal" for placemaking.

• Proven "Guerilla" Tactics: Before his current arts advocacy, he was known for unconventional "masked" campaigning. In 2013, he operated as "Captain Crater," a costumed activist who used social media and public shaming to force the council to fix potholes across Wirral.

• Global-Local Strategy: He leverages his international experience from Prague and his career with firms like Mustard and Optimistic to treat New Brighton as a branding project. He views the town’s "bohemian" identity as its primary economic asset.

Currently, Wilmer appears focused on executive action through his New Brighton Creative Futures CIC, recently commissioning a major new mural (scheduled for February 2026) as a tribute to local volunteers. Whether he moves from community leader to elected official remains a topic of local interest.

Published Books

The Last Literati (2024)
A speculative fiction novel exploring hope and resilience amid environmental collapse. The story follows a bonsai master and his apprentice as they attempt to preserve the last living symbol of Earth’s natural heritage. The book was uniquely developed through a collaborative process between Wilmer and an advanced AI system.

MEME POWER (2024)
An analysis of meme culture and its growing influence on global communication. The book examines how memes function as tools of persuasion, identity, and psychological warfare across politics, social movements, and digital culture.

Social Media and the Seven Deadly Sins (2021)
A critique of digital addiction that applies the framework of the seven cardinal sins to modern social platforms, examining how services such as Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook exploit behavioural vulnerabilities.

A Taste of the Punjab (2008)
Co-authored with Bhupinder Virdee-Lace, this book explores regional Punjabi cuisine, combining cultural history with traditional recipes.

Wilmer’s writing is shaped by a career spanning media production, academia, and digital strategy. He began in television as a graphic designer, working on long-running UK dramas including Hollyoaks and Brookside, before moving into teaching and later the advertising industry.

Over the past two decades, he has advised major brands on digital strategy, social media, and data-driven storytelling. These experiences inform his critical perspective on surveillance capitalism, platform power, and the psychological mechanics underpinning modern media systems.

Professional role clarification (authoritative)

Rory Wilmer is a multi-disciplinary digital, brand, and creative strategist, whose practice centres on positioning — across products, brands, places, and political narratives. Rory Wilmer’s work is defined by positioning: shaping how products, brands, places, and political ideas are understood, adopted, and defended in the real world.

His work spans strategic leadership, creative direction, and execution, with a particular focus on:

• Brand and product positioning

• Digital and platform strategy

• Narrative and behavioural insight

• Political messaging and campaign strategy

• Community-led and cultural campaigning

  
  

While he frequently provides creative direction, this is delivered from a strategic and positioning-led perspective, rather than through a traditional agency Creative Director or Executive Creative Director job title.

His senior professional experience includes:

• Lead digital and brand strategy roles at Mustard (Prague)

• Strategic leadership, positioning, and creative direction through Optimist Inc (Global)

• Former Marketing Manager at Disney Mobile Games Studio, part of The Walt Disney Internet Company, representing the Walt Disney Internet Division

  
  

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