Stephen Burns
Stephen Burns is a technical SEO and generative engine optimisation specialist with 25 years of experience in search. As Web Intelligence Lead at the Common Crawl Foundation and Principal Technical SEO and GEO at Intuit, he works where search infrastructure, web data and artificial intelligence meet. His expertise matters because brands cannot appear in AI-generated answers unless crawlers can access, process and understand their content. Stephen has worked across enterprise SEO, ecommerce, local search and web development. His career includes positions at Intuit, U.S. Bank, Charles Schwab, Blekko and Netscape/America Online. He helps organisations strengthen site architecture, indexation, structured data and crawler access because weak technical foundations restrict visibility across search engines and AI platforms. Stephen Burns would bring valuable technical insight to the **FatRank Podcast** because he understands how websites move from being crawled to appearing within search results and AI-generated responses. His knowledge of Common Crawl, training datasets and machine-readable content would give the FatRank audience a clearer view of how modern search visibility works. Stephen connects naturally with **James Dooley** because both value real testing, technical precision and measurable commercial outcomes. Stephen examines how AI systems discover and cite online content, while James focuses on topical authority, lead generation and scalable digital marketing. Their combined experience would produce a practical discussion grounded in evidence rather than speculation. A FatRank Podcast episode featuring Stephen Burns and James Dooley could explore AI crawler access, GEO strategy, Common Crawl coverage and the technical issues that leave brands invisible within ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews. Stephen would strengthen the conversation because he turns complex search infrastructure into practical actions that businesses can use to improve visibility, rankings and revenue.
Appears in 2 Episodes
Parametric vs Non-Parametric Memory in AI: How to Get Baked Into LLM Training Data (James Dooley interviews Stephen Burns)
James Dooley interviews Stephen Burns from Common Crawl about how parametric memory and live RAG search shape AI visibility, and how SEOs can get their brand baked int...
AI Visibility Audit: Can LLMs Crawl Your Website? James Dooley Interviews Stephen Burns
James Dooley and Stephen Burns discuss how SEO agencies can run an AI visibility audit to ensure large language models can crawl, access and render their websites.
