Ross Hudgens sits down with Marat Gaziev, VP of SEO & GEO at IGN, for a wide-ranging conversation about what happens to publishing when the 20-year bargain between search engines and content creators (free content in exchange for traffic) quietly falls apart. Marat breaks down Ziff Davis's lawsuit against OpenAI in plain terms: the copyright and trademark-dilution claims, how their properties ended up in the WebText training set, and why the judge dismissed the robots.txt argument with a memorable "lock on the back door while the front door is open" analogy. From there they get into the emerging economics of licensing (RSL, Microsoft's Publisher Content Marketplace, and whether AI companies can even afford to pay publishers), the shift from driving clicks to driving citations and mentions, and why sponsored content and authentic, authoritative voices may matter more than ever.Show Notes00:00 – Inside Ziff Davis and IGN03:10 – Why Ziff Davis sued OpenAI10:16 – RSL and content marketplaces20:18 – Monetizing in a post-click world26:41 – Are LLMs too naive33:45 – 20 years of SEO history38:34 – Using vector embeddings to match intent45:03 – Rewriting search and SEO51:12 – Personalization in the AI eraShow LinksMarat at LinkedInMarat on XPreorder "Generative Engine Optimization: The Definitive Guide to AI SEO" by Ross HudgensSubscribe for weekly episodesListen on AppleListen on SpotifyFollow Ross on XFollow Siege Media on XEmail Ross Subscribe today for weekly tips: https://bit.ly/3dBM61f Listen on iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/content-and-conversation-seo-tips-from-siege-media/id1289467174 Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1kiaFGXO5UcT2qXVRuXjsM Listen on Google: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5zaW1wbGVjYXN0LmNvbS9jT3NjUkdLeA Follow Siege on Twitter: http://twitter.com/siegemedia Follow Ross on Twitter: http://twitter.com/rosshudgens Directed by Cara Brown: https://twitter.com/cararbrown Email Ross: [email protected] #seo | #contentmarketing

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