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I’m writing this post in response to all of the confusing information that is being passed around and advertised. People who are truly trying to help can give bad advice unintentionally, but those who know they are giving out bad advice don’t seem to care that their advice can cause real harm to real people who own real businesses. In this article I’m going to quote content directly from Google and give my own take or opinion on AI powered search and AI Search Optimization.
I’m also providing several free downloads, guides, checklists, and more here in the article. No subscription needed. Absolutely free.
I was fairly early to the AI party in a few ways and wrong about it at first. I’ve been advising the use of schema markup and well structured content, etc. since as early as 2011. When they rolled out ChatGPT, I really bought into AI Search Optimization and believed it was really going to change the game, not that SEO would be dead, not to that extreme, but I saw it as a separate thing.
I even created the subreddit r/AI_SearchOptimization and currently manage it. You’re welcome to join the discussion there. What I discovered was that every GEO / AEO checklist that I’ve personally seen looks exactly like the SEO checklist I’ve used for years.
- Schema Markup isn’t new
- Well-structured web pages with clearly defined headings for each section is not new
- Participating in and building communities for more brand visibility is not new
- Publishing on multiple platforms in different formats is not new. We’ve been providing Integrated Content Marketing for years.
- Good technical SEO and core vitals is not a new concept
- FAQs are not new
- Content that covers a topic thoroughly isn’t new
- Adding bullet point lists like the one I’m adding right now isn’t new either
- Adding executive summaries or key takeaways isn’t new
- Consistent messaging and brand awareness isn’t new. More about Entity SEO here if you’re interested.
- I’ll stop with this last one. The rest of the items people put on these AEO / GEO checklists are no different from Reputation Management, Digital PR, Digital Publishing, Branding, and other strategies that have been around for years, some of them from the 1990s when I first started.
The bottom line is that I called it wrong in the beginning and after a deep dive and a lot of testing, I realized something important that AI has done. It has exposed low-effort SEO tactics that prioritized articles written for machines and buying backlinks or mass producing thin content targeting every variation of every keyword out there.
Suggesting these tactics as new or just for GEO / AEO means that they were unaware that all of these things were what good SEO always was and what many of us have been doing for years, long before AI powered search.
Let's Examine Google's Advice On Optimizing For AI Search
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From Google: Is SEO still relevant for generative AI search?
In short, yes! The best practices for SEO continue to be relevant because our generative AI features on Google Search are rooted in our core Search ranking and quality systems. These features rely on AI techniques to highlight content from our Search index, such as:
- Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG): A technique (also known as grounding) used to improve the quality, accuracy, and freshness of AI responses by relying on our core Search ranking systems to retrieve relevant, up-to-date web pages from our Search index. Our systems then review the specific information from those retrieved pages to generate a more reliable and helpful response, showing prominent, clickable links to relevant web pages that support the information in the response.
- Query fan-out: A set of concurrent, related queries generated by the model to request more information and fetch additional relevant search results to address the user’s query. For example, if the original user’s query is “how to fix a lawn that’s full of weeds”, fanout queries might include “best herbicides for lawns”, “remove weeds without chemicals”, and “how to prevent weeds in lawn”.
What about “AEO” and “GEO”? “AEO” stands for “answer engine optimization” and “GEO” for “generative engine optimization”. These are both terms you may see used to describe work specifically focused on improving visibility in AI search experiences. From Google Search’s perspective, optimizing for generative AI search is optimizing for the search experience, and thus still SEO. If you’re considering third-party “AEO” or “GEO” advice or services, review our guidance on evaluating third-party SEO advice.
Why you should be skeptical of claims about tracking brand mentions.
My Take: Before taking someone’s advice about optimizing for AI powered search, ask them to name 3 things they do for GEO or AEO that are brand new tactics and not part of SEO, Digital PR and publishing, reputation management, Entity SEO, or branding.
I Created A Free Checklist You Can Use In A Meeting To Help You Ask The Right Questions
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Applying Foundational SEO Best Practices to Generative AI Search
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This part is still sourced from Google’s documentation Google Search Central, “Optimizing for generative AI search
Create valuable,
non-commodity content for your audience Creating content that people find unique, compelling, and useful will likely influence your website’s presence in generative AI search in the long run more than any of the other suggestions in this guide. While “unique, valuable, good content” can mean different things to different people, content like this generally shares some common attributes, such as:
- Providing a unique point of view: Our AI systems take a look at a variety of sources, so it can be helpful to have a unique viewpoint that stands out. For example, a first-hand review provides a unique perspective based on personal experience, whereas a summary of existing content simply restates information already available elsewhere. Create the content yourself based on what you know about the topic, and consider what in-depth experience you can bring to your content. Don’t just recycle what others on the internet have already said, or could easily be produced by a generative AI model.
- Creating non-commodity content that’s helpful, reliable, and people-first: Be sure that you’re writing non-commodity content that your readers will find helpful and reliable. Commodity content (for example, something like “7 Tips for First-Time Homebuyers”) is often based on common knowledge, which could originate from anyone, and typically adds little unique insight for readers. In contrast, non-commodity content (such as “Why We Waived the Inspection & Saved Money: A Look Inside the Sewer Line”) provides unique expert or experienced takes that go beyond common knowledge and the ordinary.
My Take: CHOOSE A STORY, CASE STUDY, OR A HUMAN ANGLE
Organize And Write Your Content in a Way That Helps Your Readers Not For Machines
Also quoted from Google: Write content for your human audience and make sure the content is well written and easy to follow. People generally appreciate it when web pages are organized by paragraphs and sections, along with headings that provide a clear structure to navigate content.
My Take: Again, this is nothing new to professional content writers and copywriters. SEOs have known for years that structure matters. Conversion Rate Optimization Specialists have always stressed this. This has nothing to do with AI and everything to do with people.
Free PDF Download: 3-Page-Structures-That-Work
Add High-Quality Images and Video
From Google: Many people appreciate finding images and videos as they search for things online. As with Google Search overall, our generative AI search features can bring in relevant images and video, which means more opportunities for your website to appear beyond web page links. When it makes sense, look for ways to support your textual content with high-quality, relevant images and videos on your pages. If you’re already following our image SEO best practices and video SEO documentation, you’re already optimizing for generative AI search.
My Take: Don’t limit yourself to just images and video. Here are some suggestions. But you can start with a Block Quote from another article you wrote or somewhere authoritative and link to the source. Internal linking is great, but it doesn’t just have to be a link. A small quote from one of your pages or another post is helpful if it’s truly related to what you are writing right now.
Download 20 Format Suggestions Beyond Just Video & Images
Mass Content Targeting Keyword Variations is so 2010
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As a matter of fact, the 1990s called and they want their SEO strategy back. Whenever someone tries to create a large number of pages to target every variation of their target key phrase, they are not building topical authority. That isn’t how topical authority works. And in 2026, it’s a completely outdated strategy that might or might not give you a temporary boost, but it won’t last.
And if you used AI to write it, there are a lot of examples of the roller coaster effect. Impressions go up then drop off a cliff soon after. And worse, AI generated or not, mass content abuse can get your whole domain name penalized, not just those pages.
Senior Google Search Analyst John Mueller: stated that if a website gets into a severe “bad state” due to low-quality or mass-produced AI content, trying to fix it page-by-page might be a waste of time. Instead, site owners should treat recovery as “starting over with no content,” noting that launching on a completely fresh domain may actually be faster than trying to recover the penalized one.
From Google’s official documentation: While it might be tempting to create separate content for every possible variation of how people might search (for example, by focusing on other queries that people have asked, or fan-out queries), doing so primarily to manipulate rankings or generative AI responses in Google Search violates Google’s scaled content abuse spam policy. This is also an ineffective long-term strategy, as a high quantity of pages doesn’t make a website higher quality or more relevant to users. Google’s AI systems have advanced even further and improved upon our ability to understand the relevance of pages, even when there is no exact match between the query and the page’s primary content.
If you’re using generative AI tools to assist in content creation, be sure that your work meets the standards of the Search Essentials and our spam policies. For more details on our approach, see our guidance on AI-generated content.
You can simplify your approach by focusing on one core principle: focus on what your visitors would enjoy, find helpful, and feel satisfied with after visiting your website. If you’re ever unsure about a decision for your site, ask yourself: “Is this content that my visitors would find satisfying?” If the answer is yes, then you’re on the right track, as our systems are designed to connect people with exactly that kind of useful information. For more, check out our guide to creating helpful, reliable, people-first content.
My Take: AI is a great assistant. It can speed up the writing process. It can help YOU write a better article, but IT can’t write a better article for you.
This Free PDF Explains How I Use AI In My Content Workflow
Article-Self-Interrogation-SOP
Mythbusting Generative AI Search | What You DON'T Need To Do
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More from Google: As generative AI search evolves, so have the theories and practices—and sometimes, the misconceptions—surrounding it. While terms like Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) or Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) are common online, many suggested “hacks” aren’t effective or supported by how Google Search actually works.
To help you focus on what matters for your website’s visibility, we’ve collected some of the most prominent topics circulating the internet around generative AI and Google Search. Here are a few things you can ignore for Google Search:
- LLMS.txt files and other “special” markup: You don’t need to create new machine readable files, AI text files, markup, or Markdown to appear in Google Search (including its generative AI capabilities), as Google Search itself doesn’t use them. Note that Google may discover, crawl, and index many kinds of files in addition to HTML on a website: this doesn’t mean that the file is treated in a special way. It’s completely fine if you decide to create and maintain LLMS.txt files (or other similar files) for other services or systems that use these files. Doing so will neither harm nor help your site’s visibility or rankings in Google Search, as Google Search ignores them.
- “Chunking” content: There’s no requirement to break your content into tiny pieces for AI to better understand it. Google systems are able to understand the nuance of multiple topics on a page and show the relevant piece to users. However, sometimes shorter (or longer!) pages can work well depending on your audience and subject matter. There’s no ideal page length, and in the end, make pages for your audience, not just for generative AI search. My Take: I’ve seen people advising others to put questions and answers in specific places like right at the top and even suggesting the number of words to use. They have no basis for that advice. If that format makes sense for your users, go for it, but it will not increase visibility in AI search.
Free PDF Download: 3-Page-Structures-That-Work
- Rewriting content just for AI systems: You don’t need to write in a specific way just for generative AI search. AI systems can understand synonyms and general meanings of what someone is seeking, in order to connect them with content that might not use the same precise words. This means you don’t have to worry that you don’t have enough “long-tail” keywords or haven’t captured every variation of how someone might seek content like yours. My Take: Again, this is a very old SEO tactic that people can’t seem to let go of.
- Overfocusing on structured data: Structured data isn’t required for generative AI search, and there’s no special schema.org markup you need to add. However, it’s a good idea to continue using it as part of your overall SEO strategy, as it helps with being eligible for rich results on Google Search. My Take: For Entity SEO, it is important. Defining the relationships between entities is done within content, but things like person schema are better reinforced in schema where you can use elements like “sameas” and “knowsabout”.
- Seeking inauthentic “mentions”: Just like the rest of Google Search, our generative AI features can show what’s being said about products and services across the web, including in blogs, videos, and forum discussions. However, seeking inauthentic “mentions” across the web isn’t as helpful as it might seem. Our core ranking systems focus on high-quality content while other systems block spam; our generative AI features depend on both.
Source: Google Search Central, “Optimizing for generative AI search
See how we get those authentic conversations started through Integrated Content Marketing.
- My Take on the excessive brand mentions: I see this all the time on Twitter and Reddit. Inserting brand names where they don’t naturally fit and even when the topic isn’t related. Write for people, people. My favorite response when I see this.
- “Is there a version of this story where your company isn’t the main character?”
- “Your company seems to appear in every conversation with the reliability of a sponsorship segment.”
- “It’s reassuring to know your brand can find its way into discussions that weren’t about it.”
Finally Google Tells Us What They Think We Should Focus On
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- Apply SEO best practices to generative AI search: Continue prioritizing foundational SEO best practices, such as building a clear technical structure and creating unique, valuable content; these are the foundation for visibility in generative AI search experiences (and Google Search overall).
- Create non-commodity content that’s helpful, reliable, and people-first: Focus on developing unique, expert-led content that provides value beyond common knowledge.
- Prioritize effective SEO strategies over “AEO/GEO hacks”: For Google Search, you can ignore tactics like “chunking” content, creating unnecessary AI text files (like llms.txt), or pursuing inauthentic mentions.
- Monitor visibility in Search Console: Use the Generative AI performance report to see how your content is performing in generative AI features on Google Search.
- Explore agentic experiences: Stay informed about emerging technologies that allow AI agents to interact with your site, such as browser agents and new protocols.
Learn more about AI search and brand visibility strategies here.
My Final Take On This Involves Entity Building
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An entity is anything Google identifies as a thing. And Things over Strings is the best way to describe how search works today. Entities (Things) over Key phrases (Strings). Google no longer relies on simple keyword matching or backlinks alone to understand relevance and authority. However, trust, authority and clarity are more important than ever and Entity SEO or Entity Optimization helps with all three of those things.
Download this Free PDF On How To Start Strengthening Your Entity Footprint
Important Note: Entity SEO is not a separate thing from SEO, Digital Publishing, PR, or anything else you include in your digital marketing strategy. It’s a mindset that reinforces your entity relationships and core messaging within everything you do.
AI-powered search looks for clarity, how each of your entities is connected. This means how you present and connect your entities. Clarity leads to trust. And trust leads to better rankings and more brand mentions.
- DEFINE YOUR ENTITIES: AND DEFINE THE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN THEM
- GET IN THE WAY: BE FOUND & UNDERSTOOD EVERYWHERE YOUR CUSTOMERS ARE AND WHERE AI GETS ANSWERS FROM.
- PUBLISH WITH PURPOSE: CONSISTENT MESSAGING IN YOUR CONTENT WHEREVER YOU PUBLISH
Our Free Entity Strength & Visibility Report identifies how your business name is perceived and talked about across the web.
