Surfacing content in the era of AI: the more things change, the more they don't
Chucking stuff at search and hoping it sticks has always been a blindfolded lottery. With AI Overviews we have even less idea of how it chooses what to show.
Great news everyone. The Google guessing game is now AI-enhanced, as publishers are forced to strategise around how to get featured as a source in AI Overviews. This latest level-up to the game features even more commercially perilous fun, as we face a new version of the Ranking Game End Boss, who is both even less predictable and a good deal dumber than the previous one, and lives on a diet of carefully butchered click-through rates.
Reading The First-Ever UX Study Of Google’s AI Overviews is fascinating stuff. There's a great deal of detail in it about actual user behaviour, the thought processes behind different search styles, the difference in behaviour between mobile and desktop and different age groups, and so on. Highly recommended.
One question has struck a chord with me, as despite all the expectations of GenAI search mayhem looking like a Friday night Glasgow bar fight, some things stay exactly the same: "How does Google choose which sources surface in the [most prominent] AIO, and in what order?"
This position in AIO is the new version of page one of Google search. The new Above the Fold. The new old.
Whatever trials and tribulations publishers face in all this one-sided upheaval, some things will remain the same, and that is the SEO guessing game. Or whatever we're calling SEO in the LLM age. Put simply, one of the key questions is exactly how does Google choose sources to surface in its AIO feature?
Back to the future
To those of us familiar with the internet over the past few decades, one of the great mysteries, perhaps the greatest, has been how and why Google search chose to surface one thing over another.
From the publisher side of what has become a content chasm, it often felt like we were throwing things over to Google's side without even a "clunk!" to discern it had landed, never mind a howl as it actually hit an audience.
Any insight into what was happening on Google's side was regarded as valuable beyond belief, and there wasn't much of it. We've written before about the enigmatic nature of Google's own documentation around what is required to make a site competitive for search, and its malign ambiguity is still a lesson in saying a lot while actually meaning little.
Finding the gap between what Google said, and what actually happened, was easily big enough to create a whole industry in its own right. Many SEO empires are built around Google's elusiveness, which let's not forget comes as a result of both wanting to retain its commercial advantage and also uncertainty in how some of their algorithm updates would actually play out IRL.
Intrepid content experimenters and determined SEO types are both heroes and villains in this. Keyword spamming and listicles still haunt the reputation of some SEO and publishers alike. The horror. Yet given a situation in which the prime means of transmission for your content is in the hands of a business who regard your work as irrelevant compared to their own general mission - selling adverts and not being evil - then of course people trying to make their own money will find ways to game the system.
It is with this in mind that expert SEO insurgent Lily Ray this week revealed yet another investigative gem and explained just how easy it is to game AIO, which seems to be confirmation that however much things change, the more they stay the same.
Her findings are pretty extraordinary. Recall some of the dark arts of SEO that could maybe give your page a ranking boost? No need with AIO. Simply put a page on your own website saying that your business is the best, and AIO will repeat that claim for you as fact. That's not a flaw. That's trash.
We all know the volatile value of "best" as a search term, but now a monkey-see-monkey-do LLM will spit it out without curation.
Once many more of us get our teeth into attempting to direct AIO results our way, I would anticipate shenanigans of a manipulative nature even the worst part of the SEO world hasn't yet burped up.
The winds of AI are blowing hard across our industry, but once they die down, we'll see some wind blowing the other way, and it will get into AIO's crevices.
The audience management platform you’ve been waiting for
Bring authentication, entitlements, and preference management together into one actionable CDP.
Unify audience profiles across platforms and channels
Model users and groups
Build up and enrich profiles to power your monetisation strategies
Unlock the potential of your audience data with Glide Nexa.
Lords push AI copyright transparency
In a significant move, the UK House of Lords has backed an amendment to the Data (Use and Access) Bill which would require AI companies to reveal the sources they use to train their AI models. This marks a major pushback against the UK's current hands-off approach to AI and copyright and the outcome may shape the future balance between AI innovation and IP rights. This event, as well as the recent firing of the head of the US copyright office, showcase the ongoing battle between copyright law, innovation, and political agendas, with transparency and protection for creators on one side and on the other a more lenient stance on copyright enforcement. We might have to wait a bit longer for clarity and agreement between the two sides.
Read
SoundCloud sparks outrage over AI music use
SoundCloud is under fire after it quietly updated its TOS to permit the use of user-uploaded music to train AI models. Even though the change happened in 2024, it prompted concern from independent artists but it also sheds light on why so many media and publishing businesses are as cautions as they are when it comes to AI. This is yet another example of how bad the audience blowback is if AI is handled badly, and we could all learn a lesson here.
Read
From print to powerhouse, Die Zeit shows how it's done
The German brand Die Zeit shows what's possible when a traditional news brand commits to innovation, with a focus on digital growth, brand extensions, and a strong editorial investment strategy. They encouraged experimentation but also embraced failure, showcasing that growth doesn't just come from cutting costs but building products and engaging audiences in different ways.
Read
Google's antitrust trial: the end is nigh
As Google's antitrust trial is wrapping up, with a decision expected in August, Ars Technica's Ryan Whitwam is bringing a summary of the remedies, changes, and appeals as well as potential consequences for the search landscape.
Read
AI disruption: how search is changing
We all feel like AI tools such as ChatGPT and AI Overviews are hurting traffic and user habits - but it's hard to know exactly how. Well, research from all sides is growing quickly. The recent news from Apple that they had seen a drop in Google searches for the first time ever in Safari actually caused a dip in Google's share price, so the market jury is certainly still out on Google's venture into the technology.
Read
Substack and the shift in media power
Trust and audience relationships are at the core of today's publishing strategies, and key to taking back power from the big search and social firms. Take a look at how Substack's Co-Founder Hamish McKenzie talks about the exact same themes and the novel return to the concept of a walled garden - which, this time, the creatives of the world will own.
Read
Google's AI Overviews are easy to game
Where there's a will, there's a way. GenAI-enabled search can be manipulated to drive traffic and it's almost terrifyingly easy. To quote from esteemed SEO mythbuster Lily Ray's latest bulletin: "If you create an article ranking companies, and call yourself 'the best.' AI Overviews will apparently cite you as 'the best'." Dumb and dumber. There is more and more evidence each day that we are heading towards an AI-driven search meltdown.
Read
Is Google forgetting your pages?
Nobody likes when their pages are being forgotten by Google or deindexed. A recent study by Indexing Insight reveals some interesting findings about Google's active crawl queue, and how to keep your content fresh, relevant and visible.
Read
FTC "click-to-cancel" confusion
The US Federal Trade Commission's two-month delay of the "click to cancel" rule which was due to go into effect yesterday (May 14th) has publisher subscription management teams in whiplash. The rule made torturous gym-membership-style unsub processes illegal, and had harassed subs teams jumping through compliance hoops to make sure they all complied. Despite the delay, we recommend adopting the safest standpoint as the fines could still be hefty. See you in two months...
Read
Google’s hated “no AI = no SERPs” rule exposed
The Google T&C which made rejection of its AI scraper bots also exclude your site from search engine crawl is arguably one of the most disliked by content businesses and publishers. We've always said it was a fine or lawsuit waiting to happen, and it looks like that may come to pass. Buried in the US vs Google antitrust trial evidence was insight into how the rule came about, and why Google knew fine well it placed site owners in a terrible dilemma. Press Gazette digs deeper.
Read