Speaking · Writing · Interviews

Where I've been featured.

I've presented to Google's Search team in Barcelona, spoken at BrightonSEO, and written for the two biggest SEO trade publications. Here's where to find that work.

See the Google session Invite me to speak
John McAlpin beside his poster at Google Search Central Live Deep Dive Europe 2026
Search Central Live Deep Dive Europe · Barcelona, 2026

My speaking, writing, and podcast record by the numbers

Presented to
300
SEO leaders & Googlers
at Official Google Conference
Written
31+
Industry bylines
Spoken at
6
Conference & event stages
Featured on
11
Industry podcasts
Invite only Google Search Central Live · Deep Dive Europe 2026 · Barcelona

Invited by Google to present to SEOs and Google engineers.

John McAlpin receiving a speaker gift from Google's John Mueller in front of his poster
With Google's John Mueller after the poster session.
The session

A Measurement Framework for Measuring AI Agents and the Other Bots GA4 Ignores

Google's Search Central team invited a small group of community speakers to present at Deep Dive Europe to fellow SEOs and the Google engineers who build Search. My poster covered one enterprise client that wasn't showing up in ChatGPT.

+144%
Referral traffic from AI chat platforms after deployment
86%
Of the site crawled by ChatGPT within 4 to 5 weeks, up from 3.2%
  • Found what audits miss: Client-side rendered internal links meant ChatGPT had discovered only 3.2% of a 200K to 300K page site. Poor Core Web Vitals caused ChatGPT to abandon requests, leaving a trail of 499 errors.
  • Shipped a fast fix while the long fix waited: The permanent fix meant manual work across thousands of pages. So I built a dynamic rendering pipeline on Cloudflare that serves bots fully rendered, cached pages. One solution fixed both discovery and timeouts.
  • Proved it with two kinds of data: Technical data showed bot error rates falling and crawl coverage climbing. Performance data showed referral traffic from AI chat platforms growing.
  • Turned results into budget: That proof earned the budget to upgrade the full CMS and fix it the right way.
SEOs and Googlers gathered around John McAlpin's poster
Poster session
John McAlpin explaining a technical SEO concept
Walking through the crawl data
John McAlpin on stage with the community speaker lineup
On stage with the community speakers
A full room watching John McAlpin's BrightonSEO talk John McAlpin presenting at BrightonSEO
BrightonSEO · October 2026 · UK

On stage at the world's largest SEO conference.

Log Files Don't Lie: A 30-Day Crawl Analysis That Changed How We Prioritize Technical SEO

An approachable, longer take on my Google session, built for SEOs who have never opened a log file.

  • Log files 101: What a single log hit tells you, and why you should automate exports before your host deletes them.
  • Real bots vs. fake bots: Verifying crawlers against published IP lists, then sorting AI traffic by intent: training, assistants, and AI search.
  • The case study: After the caching fix, AI citations grew 122% and AI referrals grew 116% month over month.
View the talk
Speaking

Other stages

Publications

Bylines in the industry's trade press.

I'm a contributor at the two publications most SEO and search marketing leaders read every week.

Podcasts

On the mic as a guest

  • Search Engine JournalSearch & Destroy: SEO, Search Marketing & Heavy Metal Music
  • Convince and ConvertYes, SEO Strategy Still Matters for Marketers
  • Bill Hartzer PodcastJohn McAlpin on SEO Audits
  • Ignite My SiteFocus on These High Impact SEO Strategies
  • Enterprise Podcast NetworkHow Multi-Location Companies Can Win at Digital Marketing
  • Outcomes RocketBenefits of Digital Marketing in Healthcare
  • eHealth Radio NetworkHow Healthcare Companies Can Win at Digital Marketing
  • Just The TipsSEO for Beginners with John McAlpin, Ep. 136
  • Super Joe PardoSEO for Your Business
  • Social Speak NetworkInterview with John McAlpin of Cardinal Digital Marketing
  • Austin OtakuEpisode 13: The Halloween Special with a Guest Panel

Planning an event?

I speak on technical SEO, log file analysis, and measuring AI search visibility. Conferences, podcasts, and internal leadership sessions all work.

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