Dan Taylor

Founder & Editor
Dan Taylor is the founder and editor of International Search Insights (ISI), the publication behind ReadIsi, and a Partner and Head of Innovation (Search & AI) at SALT.agency. He has worked in search for more than a decade, in-house and agency-side, and is regarded as one of the West’s leading voices on search engines beyond Google, including Yandex, Baidu, Naver and Cốc Cốc. On ReadIsi, Dan covers the engines and AI answer platforms that English-language coverage tends to miss: Baidu and ERNIE, Yandex and Alice AI, Naver, Cốc Cốc, Shenma, Sogou, WeChat and Weibo search, plus DeepSeek and Alibaba’s Qwen. He also keeps dated records of documented changes, such as the Yandex, Baidu and Naver algorithm update histories and the DeepSeek, ERNIE and Qwen model update histories. His approach is to take learnings from global search engines and apply logic with a high evidence threshold. A claim needs a source, patterns seen in one market are treated as a hypothesis until they are checked in another, and where the evidence is thin he says so. For brands, that means advice built on what can be shown, with measurement that separates being cited from being chosen. Dan is credited with coining the term “edge SEO” and won the inaugural TechSEO Boost research competition in 2018 for his work on CDN and edge changes for SEO. In 2026 he was credited with coining “Infinite Tail” to describe how keyword research is changing with AI search. He is the author of AI Search Marketing For The Travel Sector, writes for Search Engine Journal, Search Engine Land and Travel Marketing Guy, and has advised technology, SaaS, travel and enterprise ecommerce brands, including Cloudflare, GitLab and Airbnb. He has given multiple talks and panels at the International Search Summit in Barcelona, and has also spoken at Optimization Moscow, brightonSEO, Google Search Central Live Deep Dive Asia in Bangkok, Athens SEO and the Asia SEO Virtual Summit 2026, where his talk looked at how Baidu, Naver, DeepSeek, Tencent, Cốc Cốc and Yandex built their own AI answers.

Does Naver Use Domain Authority (DA) For Rankings?

Naver, South Korea’s largest search engine, does not use Domain Authority (DA) in the same way as Google or other Western search engines do for SEO ranking. Domain Authority, specifically, is a metric developed by Moz to predict how well ...

What is Baidu Ernie? (Baidu AI)

Baidu Ernie, officially known as Ernie (Enhanced Representation through Knowledge Integration), is a large-scale AI language model developed by Baidu, a leading Chinese technology company. Ernie is similar to models like OpenAI’s GPT and Google’s BERT but is specifically designed ...

What is Naver’s AiRSPACE?

Naver’s AiRSPACE (AiRS + Place And Context Embedded) is an AI-driven system designed to offer personalized location recommendations based on factors like the user’s current location, time, age, and gender. It powers the Smart Around service, providing suggestions for nearby ...

Google Halts New Account Registration For Russian Phone Numbers

Google has stopped allowing new account registrations using Russian phone numbers, according to reports from Russian users. T he issue arises when users try to create an account, with the system showing an error message that reads, “this number cannot ...

China’s Generative AI Ecosystem (September 2024)

China’s generative AI market is quickly evolving into a competitive landscape dominated by major players, innovative startups, and established AI companies. According to a report from QuestMobile, this market is forming a tripartite ecosystem, with top internet companies, new AI ...

Exploring Russian Website Builders

In the wake of Wix suspending its activities in Russia due to widened sanctions, many Russian webmasters have been forced to migrate to new platforms. When Anton Gorelkin, Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy commented on ...

Wix To Block Russian Accounts Starting September 2024

Wix, a popular website builder, will block all Russian accounts starting September 12, 2024. This move will affect both paid and free users in Russia, as confirmed by the platform’s support service. In a statement, Wix explained that it is ...

Roskomnadzor To Spend 59 Billion Rubles On Website Blocking System Upgrade

Roskomnadzor plans to invest nearly 59 billion rubles in upgrading the technical means of countering threats (TMTS) installed on telecom operators’ networks. The funding is part of a broader five-year initiative under the federal project “Cybersecurity Infrastructure,” aimed at enhancing ...

Ozon Introduces New Feature to Follow User Reviews

Ozon has launched a new feature called “Public Profile” in its app, allowing users to follow other customers and read their reviews. This feature enables buyers to subscribe to profiles of individuals whose purchases align with their own interests, provided ...

Does Yandex Consider Author Authority When Ranking Content?

Although Yandex may not explicitly label author authority as a ranking factor, many of its existing ranking criteria evaluate aspects of content and site credibility, which indirectly contribute to the perceived authority of the author. Yandex focuses on a broader ...