Oh noooo…. Say it ain’t so.
First, posted how last week ChatGPT stopped showing their “query fan-out method,” where SEO’s would reverse engineer ChatGPT’s sources.
Now, AI is drawing harder lines between what content it trusts and what content it sees as filler.
I feel like it’s finally reckoning day for me for all the naysayers that poo-poo’d on my 2023 posts that:
- AI isn’t going to kill SEO. It’s going to solidify SEO’s demand.
- AI content isn’t going to crush well-written, human touched content. It’s going to solidify personal brand and authentic storytelling.
Reddit used to be a darling of AIO’s, then that stopped because everyone abused it. (Reddit was already being abused before AI was a thing.) So they lazy SEOs started spamming press releases. Now syndicated press releases hardly show up in AI answers at scale.
Editorial content and owned newsrooms are the ones getting cited. What that means is if you are still outsourcing your brand story to wire services, AI is starting to skip you.
Zoom out and there is a pattern.
It’s like the AI-bros have to repeat everything the SEO-bros did 15-20 years ago, and are surprised they’re not special when it breaks.
Google is giving more “brand” insights in Search Console. Crawl behavior is becoming more responsive relative to how healthy your site and its content is. AI is starting to prioritize original content and REAL expertise.
- Fix your website’s structure. Make it mobile friendly, and loads fast.
- Own your content, and make it good. Stop pushing the easy button and creating mass produced AI slop.
