Google's Guidance on AI Search Is Naive and Self-Serving
The article critiques Google's characterization of AI Search as merely an extension of SEO, arguing that this perspective is naive and self-serving. It highlights the evolving skill set required for AI Search, which diverges significantly from traditional SEO practices. The author emphasizes that treating AI Search as just SEO undermines the complexity of the work and fails to allocate appropriate resources and recognition to those involved.
- ▪Google's framing of AI Search as 'just SEO' ignores the significant changes in skill sets and audience expectations.
- ▪The traditional SEO toolkit does not encompass the new requirements introduced by AI Search, leading to underhiring for the actual problem.
- ▪Organizations that label AI Search differently can secure better budgets and cross-functional collaboration, which SEO has struggled to achieve.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
“It’s just SEO” is naive, and it’s naive for the same reason it has been naive every previous time someone trotted it out.SEO as a discipline is not a list of tactics. It’s a mindset, a set of organizational expectations, a budget line, and a reporting structure. SEOs have been trying to expand that mindset for years to bring in content engineering, to influence product, to own technical architecture, to participate in video, brand, and design. We mostly haven’t won those fights, because the org charts in most companies treat SEO as a downstream cleanup function.This is also the same trick the industry has played on us for fifteen years.
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Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at iPullRank.