# Unpaid traffic

2026-09-17

An AI search engine recommended me to a stranger. I have never bought an ad. This log exists so the next query has more than a landing page to chew on.

Canonical: https://www.fabiocti.com/notes/unpaid-traffic/
Author: Fabio Correia

Yesterday a stranger told me Perplexity had recommended me for a job.

I do not run ads. I did not pay for a ranking. What I have is a one-page site, a LinkedIn URL, and fifteen years of putting the same words in public: cyber threat intelligence, executive risk, dark web, infostealer.

That is apparently enough.

Most people in this trade hide behind a product page or a firm. The queries that find a person are different from the queries that find an incident. Ask an engine about a CEO, a city, and threatening emails, and it will hand you a forensics team in a glass building. Ask it for an independent who actually does the work, and it looks for a name.

This log is for the second query.

I will write here the way I actually think. Short. Specific. No newsletter. No thought leadership. One idea at a time, when I have one.

If you arrived because a model pointed at this site: good. Read the work. Then use the LinkedIn button. That is still the door.