Jan Van Hove: digital strategy, reputation & AI expert

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I’m Jan Van Hove (LinkedIn). Since the mid-nineties, I’ve been studying how people search, choose and decide online — long before SEO had a name and long before digital strategy was a recognised field. What started as experimenting with websites and search engines has evolved into over twenty years of hands-on experience centred on one question: what gets seen, what stays hidden, and why.

Van agency naar corporate

For over thirteen years, I ran my own digital agency. More than 400 projects across a wide range of sectors made one thing clear: digital marketing doesn’t work in silos. SEO, reputation, content, data, advertising — they constantly influence each other. To do it well, you need to see the whole picture.

Today I work as a senior digital strategist at a major bancassurer, where SEO, paid media, content and AI intersect every single day. That combination of agency experience and corporate reality keeps my perspective grounded and focused: less noise, more decisions that actually move things forward.

What I'm working on now

AI is changing how people search, compare and decide — faster than most organisations realise. I’m researching how brands stay visible in a world where answers are generated rather than found. LLM Visibility, GEO, structured data, generative engine optimization — these are the areas I’m working on, from within a large organisation that measures this every day.

A grounded perspective: corporate reality meets agency experience

Working inside a large organisation means SEO, paid media, content, data and AI are intertwined in practice — not just in theory. That blend of agency instinct and corporate accountability makes for a focused point of view: less noise, more choices that actually make a difference.

The mission of Groundbase Digital

Groundbase is not an agency and not a pitch deck. It’s a knowledge space: a place where I organise and share insights, experience and observations — calmly, honestly and without the hype.

I believe digital strategy can be explained more simply. That AI is not a magic solution, but an accelerator when you understand what you want from it. And that reputation, findability, content and advertising are never separate exercises — they’re one story.

A selection of my latest articles:

what-ai-saw-your-page-what-i-found-audit

AI & Search Engines

What an AI sees when it reads your page — and what I found when I audited my own site

A page that scores perfectly in classic SEO can be completely invisible in an AI answer. I audited my own site to find out why — and found three fundamental gaps no validator reports. My structured data said exactly who I was. My visible text said nothing.

AI & Search Engines

Your citations are collapsing. Your visibility isn’t.

In May and June 2026, the number of displayed sources in AI answers fell sharply at some models, while brand presence in those same answers remained far more stable. Falling citation scores therefore often point to changing display behaviour, without the substantive brand position deteriorating in proportion. This piece explains ...

everyone-looks-at-citation-nobody-at-bias

AI & Search Engines

Everyone looks at citation. Nobody looks at bias.

AI visibility is measured in citations. But before the model consults your source, it already has an opinion about you. This piece explains why AI answers emerge from two mechanisms — citation and what the model learned during training — and why the balance between the two shifts depending on ...