Voices of Search // A Search Engine Optimization (SEO) & Content Marketing Podcast Building a company on testing vs consulting
Feb 5, 2026
Will Critchlow, CEO of SearchPilot and pioneer of SEO A/B testing, built testing platforms for enterprise sites and GEO tests for AI discovery. He discusses why testing replaced consulting, how testing tames black-box search and AI channels, and focusing on enterprise solutions and measuring dark traffic across Google and LLMs.
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Run Experiments Instead Of Guessing
- Stop guessing and run experiments to prove what works in search and discovery.
- Focus on testing because it gives defensible answers when ranking factors are opaque.
Product Born From Consulting Frustration
- Will Critchlow built SearchPilot after seeing repeated execution and measurement problems in enterprise SEO consulting work.
- He launched the product to solve delivery, proving value, and understanding impact issues he saw in clients' projects.
Testing Replaces Old Best Practices
- New AI-driven discovery channels force SEO into a black-box world where past best practices no longer suffice.
- As algorithms become unknowable, testing becomes the only reliable way to operate.