Internal linking is crucial for search engine optimization. It helps Google discover all pages on a site and assign value to each. The more links to a page, the more important it is.

A site’s structure impacts internal links. Examples include navigation, footer links, “related articles,” and “related products.”

However, the most impactful links are “contextual” because Google looks at the surrounding context to assign relevancy signals. A link in the body of this article is contextual.

Contextual links are hard to scale, especially for sites with thousands of pages, but AI technology can help. AI can spot phrase variations and synonyms to identify relevant pages for contextual links.

Here are three AI-powered internal linking tools.

LinkWhisper

LinkWhisper is a WordPress plugin and Shopify app that analyzes contextual links (internal and external), identifies pages with zero or too few inbound links, and suggests where to add links. The tool focuses on contextual links only, ignoring those in navigation, widgets, and sidebars.

The report is also helpful for identifying broken and orphaned pages — those with no inbound internal links (accessible via external links or sitemaps).

LinkWhisper suggests relevant internal links while a user writes in the WordPress editor. It’s a handy reminder. The tool can additionally recommend internal links to a list of pages.

Pricing for LinkWhisper starts at $97 for a one-time WordPress license or $7 per month for the Shopify app with a 7-day trial.

LinkActions

LinkActions connects to Search Console to analyze a site’s structure and provide internal linking suggestions. It can also add internal links automatically. Just paste the LinkActions code snippet in your site’s header and enable internal link insertions.

Pricing for LinkActions starts at $64 per month for up to three sites and 1,500 pages. The free trial includes a limited report with no automation.

LinkStorm

LinkStorm crawls a site and reveals:

• Immediate internal linking opportunities based on the content,
• Additional copy for each article to increase linking opportunities based on the semantic similarity of the two posts.

It also cites the optimal number of internal links for each page and shows where to place a link on the page and the preferred anchor. It does not automatically add the link, however.

LinkStorm costs $30 per month for 1,000 pages across unlimited sites. A free trial is available.

Visa has introduced three new AI-powered risk and fraud prevention solutions to enhance security in digital payments.

The new products, integrated into the end-to-end Visa Protect suite, aim to diminish fraud across immediate account-to-account and card not present (CNP) payments, as well as transactions both on and off Visa’s network.

Visa Protect is part of a broad suite of Visa value-added services, which has expanded to include nearly 200 products across five popular categories: acceptance, advisory, issuing, open banking, and protect.

Antony Cahill, global head of value-added services at Visa, said: “Digital payments go far beyond completing a sale – we are entering an era of modern commerce where winners move fast, AI is essential, experiences are flexible and security is native.

“Businesses are looking for partners that can enable their ambitions to compete and win and we’re proud to be the trusted partner helping a growing number of clients do exactly that in today’s highly competitive environment.”

Visa says security and fraud prevention are fundamental aspects of its operations.

Security and fraud prevention are fundamental to Visa. In 2023, Visa successfully thwarted $40billion in fraudulent activities, marking a significant increase from the preceding year.

Its new solutions include:

• Visa Deep Authorisation (VDA): This solution is tailored to help issuers mitigate the challenges they face due to the rising complexity of digital fraud. Utilising deep learning AI risk models and vast amounts of contextual data, VDA offers a new transaction risk scoring mechanism specifically optimised for card not present (CNP) payments.
• Expansion of Visa Advanced Authorisation (VAA) and Visa Risk Manager (VRM) for non-Visa card payments: Visa’s AI-driven fraud risk management solutions are now agnostic to network schemes. This expansion enables issuers to streamline their fraud detection operations, resulting in strengthened fraud protections and reduced operational costs.
• Real-time, account-to-account payment protection: a fraud prevention solution designed specifically for immediate payments, including peer-to-peer (P2P) digital wallets, account-to-account transactions, and central banks’ instant payment systems. Powered by advanced deep learning AI detection models, this service provides real-time risk scoring, empowering financial institutions to proactively block fraudulent transactions before they occur.

Each product will be available to clients starting in the first half of 2024, with varied launch dates by product and market.

“Real-time, digital payments are nearly ubiquitous, creating a need for security solutions that are transformative and adaptive to the real-world,” James Mirfin, SVP, global head of risk and identity solutions, Visa, also added: “As digital fraud grows in volume and sophistication, Visa is keeping pace by bolstering our powerful suite of risk and fraud solutions through our unmatched technology innovation and AI expertise, and expanding their utility beyond the Visa network.”

Transcribing audio and video files was once tedious and time-consuming. No more. With AI, the process is near-instant.

Many transcription services offer automated versions. Here are three AI-powered tools with my impressions of each.

Audio Writer

Audio Writer is an OpenAI-powered app for iOS and macOS. I tested it on my iPhone. Users speak into the app or enable access to audio files.

To start, install the app and provide your own OpenAI API key. The app takes just seconds to process and refine a file. From there, users can:

• Rewrite a transcription using an available style: “Simple and Clear,” “Kid-friendly,” “Descriptive,” and “Conversational.”
• Convert the text into a tweet, direct message, formal or casual email, or bulleted list.
• Connect with custom ChatGPT prompts to create specialized transcripts.

Allowing users to speak the audio rather than first recording it saves a lot of time.

Audio Writer’s iOS app costs $15 one time for unlimited access. A free test is available. A paid subscription to OpenAI’s API is required for ongoing use.

Notta

Notta is a transcription service to create notes from live or archived video and audio meetings. Notta’s transcriptions include auto-correction, timestamps, summaries, and action items. The language translation feature is handy for international teams.

Users and team members can edit and add notes to any transcript.

Notta supports Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, and more. It also integrates with Outlook and Google Calendar.

Notta’s free monthly tier provides 120 minutes of transcriptions. Paid plans start at $13.99 per month.

Trint

Trint transcribes and translates audio and video in multiple languages with captions and timestamps (chapters). Users can combine transcripts into a single article or tutorial, add comments, highlight important moments, and more.

Trent allows file editing and collaboration and can repurpose a transcript into social media posts.

Pricing for Trint starts at $80 per month with a free 7-day full-feature trial.

Paddle, the payments infrastructure provider, has opened applications for its second AI Launchpad, a six-week programme aiming to empower ambitious software founders to build, launch and scale their AI-powered business ideas.

Participants in the 2024 programme will receive tailored guidance and practical insights from industry experts, as well as the chance to win $20,000 from Paddle for the best offering.

An increasing number of businesses are looking to AI to boost revenue, with Paddle’s SaaS Benchmarks Report revealing that 46 per cent of software companies added AI to their product in the last year.

However, the programme looks far beyond building AI-powered tools and solutions. Instead, it focuses on building successful, sustainable AI businesses. Paddle will support 50 innovative, ready-to-scale, AI-focused companies, to accelerate growth and monetise AI products.

AI Launchpad was founded in 2023, with a panel of judges selecting Virtual Staging AI, a platform enabling real estate professionals to digitally furnish images of empty rooms, as the programme’s inaugural winner.

Michael Bonacina, founder and CEO of 2023 AI Launchpad winner Virtual Staging AI, discussed the experience: “What really stood out to us about Paddle’s AI Launchpad programme was the access to a dedicated community of generative AI founders. This is because you’re all grappling with the same challenges – how to build a model, how to compete with the likes of OpenAI, how to acquire customers for a new solution – and so it was interesting to hear how others were thinking about those problems.

“We launched back in March 2023, and when we applied to Paddle AI Launchpad in August we had $20,000 in monthly revenue. By the end of the programme, in November, we had $200,000 in monthly revenue, because we implemented a lot of the things we’d worked on, such as implementing annual plans, getting a lot more customers, improving the product, enhancing the checkout experience, and now we have a product that really speaks to our customers.”

Building the ‘Launchpaddlers’ community

Following the success of the 2023 programme, Paddle has doubled the number of places on the programme. Participants will now gain exclusive access to the ‘Launchpaddlers’ community – a hub for Launchpad alumni to network and share resources. This community will support AI founders with data, advice, and tailored content, and will also have access to experts in their sector.

The hub will be spearheaded by Karthik Puvvada, founder relations manager at Paddle, who has built founder-facing education and community programmes for several startups, who explained: “I can’t wait to work with the team on taking Paddle’s AI Launchpad to the next level and help SaaS founders remove the invisible barriers that get in the way of growing.”

Christian Owens, founder and executive chairman of Paddle, also added: “At Paddle, our goal has always been to help software sellers grow their businesses as quickly and efficiently as possible. We started the AI Launchpad to help a new generation of software founders who are building in one of the world’s fastest-moving categories.

“After seeing the impact the Launchpad had on participants in 2023, we’re excited to grow this community and help more AI founders achieve faster growth and build healthy and sustainable businesses for the long term.”

Craggle, a fintech company aimed at helping Australians secure a better rate for their home loan, has launched an AI-powered tool aimed at removing all the hassle of refinancing.

In addition to facilitating the application process, Craggle’s new AI tool leverages open banking technology to ease the process of refinancing a loan by automatically populating forms. It also removes the back and forth communications applicants generally facilitate in any refinancing process.

Craggle, an online intermediary platform, has facilitated more than $354million worth in loans and has saved Australians an estimated $1.8million in interest in the past six months since launch.

“With this tool in the market, we’ll be able to help Australians save thousands a year within minutes,” says Craggle CEO and co-founder, Luke Oxley. “Many Australians unwittingly end up paying more for their loan than they need to simply because they don’t have the time or the patience to navigate the refinancing process.”

“Conversely, banks end up losing because they punish their existing loyal clientele with redundant paperwork, when they already have all the information they need on hand. We’re solving for both of these problems, using AI to power a private, secure solution that gives the banks the information they need to navigate the query and also saves time for the customer looking to refinance.”

According to Oxley, Craggle follows the AWS Well-Architected best practices, with a focus on building secure, high-performing, resilient and efficient infrastructure. This framework also ensures the confidentiality of data, protection of systems, and detecting security events as early as possible.

Craggle’s AI technology was developed in partnership with developers Hello Again and Emergent Labs AI.

Google increasingly relies on artificial intelligence for organic search results. Soon those results will include AI summaries, called “snapshots,” of key info from a query. Hence search optimizers are now deploying AI to analyze rankings.

Here are three search-engine-result-page analyzers that utilize AI.

RivalFlow

RivalFlow from Spyfu uses AI to uncover organic search opportunities. The tool checks a domain’s higher-performing keywords, identifies competitors, and suggests content improvements for a page to improve its ranking.

In my testing, RivalFlow was easy to use — just input a domain — with realistic competitor assessments based on linking profiles and existing organic traffic.

Having entered a domain, the tool returned a list of SERPs with ranking opportunities.

With RivalFlow I could see the possibilities and implement AI-generated content improvements.

The tool analyzes one domain for free, with access to the SERP report, although a credit card number is required. Paid subscriptions start at $99 per month — $79 if paid annually.

Thruuu

Thruuu is an AI-powered SERP analyzer and content-strategy creator. Thruuu evaluates any search result page and also compares two sets of results. For a single SERP analysis, the tool pulls organic listings, local packs, “People also ask” content, and videos.

For each SERP listing, Thruuu provides the page rank (from the Open PageRank initiative), word count, image count, and page type.

The comparison feature shows two SERPs side by side, contrasting the headings, related searches, questions from “People also ask” boxes, and frequent terms from ranking pages. The tool then assesses whether a single page can target both queries.

Thruu creates content outlines and briefs by applying generative AI to the SERP data.

Thruuu’s free plan includes 10 Google SERPs, two content briefs, and up to 500 keywords. Paid plans start at $13 per month for 75 SERPs.

SERP Sonar

SERP Sonar is a free Chrome extension that analyzes real-time Google search results and lists data of each ranking page:

• Number of words in titles and URLs,
• Exact-match keywords in titles and URLs,
• Titles and URLs with no exact-match keywords,
• Exact-match keywords in snippets,
• Average word count per page based on ranking URLs.

Analyze 10, 20, or 50 ranking URLs. Export the data — URLs, titles, descriptions — in an Excel file for further analysis.

A separate report provides averages for each ranking page:

• Average word count,
• Average image count,
• Ad networks on page,
• Affiliate networks on page,
• % of pages using Schema.org structured data
• % pages with user-generated content.

Enable a free AI analysis via a (paid) ChatGPT API token. That review uses SERP data to determine Google’s assessment of query intent for a keyword.

For example, I entered “NY waterfalls.” The tool assigned two potential intents.

Informational Intent: Based on the keyword “ny waterfalls” and the titles and descriptions provided, my first highest confidence determination of the search intent is informational intent. The titles and descriptions mention phrases like “New York Waterfalls – Full List by County,” “31 Breathtaking Waterfalls in New York State,” “35 Gorgeous Waterfalls in New York State,” and “17 Best Waterfalls in New York.” These titles and descriptions suggest that the searcher is looking for information about the various waterfalls in New York State. The inclusion of phrases like “full list,” “bucket list-worthy,” and “best” also indicate the searcher’s desire to gather information and explore different waterfall options. This aligns with the informational intent category.

Local Search Intent: My second highest confidence determination of the search intent is local search intent. Although the titles and descriptions mostly focus on providing information about waterfalls in New York State, the mention of phrases like “Upstate NY + Near NYC” and “Finger Lakes Waterfalls” hint at a more localized search intent. The searcher may be specifically interested in finding waterfalls near their location, either in Upstate New York or near New York City. Additionally, the inclusion of phrases like “A NY local’s list” and “before you die – newyorkupstate.com” further emphasizes the local aspect of the search. Therefore, it is possible that the searcher is looking for specific waterfalls to visit in their local area, indicating a local search intent.

The AI analysis also provides title and meta-description suggestions, stating, “By feeding the keyword plus ranking page title tags, the AI is able to provide more nuanced title ideas that are tuned to the competitors that are actually ranking in the SERP.”

Here are the suggestions for “NY waterfalls”:

• “Discover the Hidden Beauty of New York’s Waterfalls,”
• “Unveiling New York’s Best Kept Secret: The Spectacular Waterfalls,”
• “The Ultimate Guide to Exploring New York’s Mesmerizing Waterfalls,”
• “Embark on an Adventure: The Most Captivating Waterfalls in New York.”

Retail crypto traders are increasing their focus on Ethereum as its price continues to climb, according to new research from GNY.io Limited, a blockchain-based machine learning business.

GNY carried out its study when Ethereum sat at around $1,900 having gained around 54 per cent this year. Its research shows 76 per cent of the non-professional traders trading at least $5,000 a month on cryptocurrencies in the UK, US, Germany, Brazil, Hong Kong, Singapore, the UAE and South Africa believe Ethereum will end the year above $1,900.

Around 55 per cent believe it will end the year above $2,000 with 11 per cent predicting it will climb to more than $2,500 by the end of 2023.

GNY has developed a free AI-powered ‘Range Report‘, a machine learning tool designed to specifically forecast the volatility of 12 top cryptocurrencies by leveraging multiple data points and advanced algorithms.

It also recently further enhanced the tool to use large language models (LLMs) such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Meta’s LLaMa 2, hoping to make it easier for users to identify significant changes in trends and signals in the crypto market.

The strong price performance is driving more interest in Ethereum and an increased focus on the cryptocurrency as part of their monthly trading, the research shows.

Last year around 11 per cent of non-professional traders said Ethereum accounted for 50 per cent or more of their monthly trading. The study found that is set to rise to 17 per cent of traders using Ethereum in 50 per cent or more of their trading. Around 54 per cent of traders say Ethereum will account for 25 per cent or less of their monthly trading this year.

Leveraging AI-driven analysis

GNY’s innovative platform empowers traders with accurate intelligence on potential price fluctuations, helping them make informed investment decisions as well as providing guidance on how to use and read charts, and market-wide information. It simplifies the complex world of crypto into digestible information.

Cosmas Wong, CEO of GNY, said: “Ethereum is the bedrock of many portfolios of crypto traders, and many are looking to increase their allocation to this cryptocurrency as they expect the rally in its price to continue.

“However, there is so much ‘noise’ on Ethereum and other digital assets that it can be difficult to find reliable and useful data on which to base trading strategies.

“Our GNY Range Report provides crypto traders with all of the market information they need on Ethereum and other leading cryptocurrencies, as well as some oversight as to what could happen to their price in the short term. Our model has been predicting the accuracy of ETH’s daily volatility at around 96 per cent for the last seven days.

“The GNY Range Report is not a traditional news or chart aggregation platform. It leverages the power of machine learning to identify patterns in top crypto assets’ historical trading in order to forecast price volatility, delivering them in an approachable way.

“Even looking at the GNY Range Report, which is extremely streamlined, can be too much for people who are interested in crypto but short on bandwidth. Our LLM-driven Readouts will summarise the token’s trends. It currently says that ETH is showing bearish signals but these trends may be weakening, with a potential for a bullish reversal in the near future.

“Will that happen? We’d have to see, but it is always useful to have the objectivity of an AI-driven analysis as one of our toolkits.”

The business-focused social platform and Microsoft-owned LinkedIn announced the rollout of new artificial intelligence (AI) features to assist job recruiters when sourcing candidates. 

On Oct. 3 LinkedIn said it is launching its pilot for the “Recruiter 2024” which is an AI-assisted tool for recruiters.

According to the announcement, recruiters using the tool can now ask questions using “natural language” to find candidates on the platform. In addition, the tool can be used to create ad campaigns for jobs.

At the Talent Connect Summit in New York, LinkedIn CEO Ryan Roslansky said the industry needs new playbooks and AI can help create those.

“The good news is that AI is not just accelerating the need for new playbooks, it’s also going to be a great tool in helping you all build them…”

Along with the AI-assisted recruiting tool, LinkedIn also launched AI-powered coaching in its LinkedIn Learning section. It said the AI aspect will be able to tailor content and offer real-time advice based on the user’s career aspirations. 

Over the last year, LinkedIn reported a 65% increase in interest in its AI course offerings. At the moment, the new AI-powered recruiting and learning tools will be available to a “small handful” of users, and will be more widely available throughout the year.

Related: Samsung to develop AI chips with Canadian startup Tenstorrent

LinkedIn is owned by Microsoft and is reported to have been using technology from OpenAI, which is backed by Microsoft and is the creator of the popular AI chatbot Chat-GPT, to develop its AI features.

In May, it released AI-assisted messages for recruiters in May and has since reported that 74% of users say it saves them time.

LinkedIn is one of many companies beginning to integrate AI-powered applications into its operations. On Sept. 27 Mark Zuckerberg, Meta CEO, unveiled his answer to Chat-GPT with a new AI chat assistant to be known as Meta AI.

The Meta AI assistant will be integrated into Meta-owned platforms including popular social media and messaging applications Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp.

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