Google Search's VP says what works in the AI era: defensible content, not generic
I sat through all 75 minutes of Liz Reid's interview, VP of Google Search and 23 years at the company, on the AI Inside podcast, and some lines belong framed on every agency wall. The bluntest was about paywalls: "sometimes they put up a paywall and then say their traffic has dropped; and I tell them: yes, that is exactly what happens when you charge". No anesthetic.
What interested me most was what she said about small publishers. Personalization in AI Mode pushes results toward the long tail: when Google knows you care about eco-friendly brands or that you just had a baby, it can surface the specialist reviewer, the local shop or the niche creator. Without personalization, the same names always win. For a small, focused business, that is a door that used to be closed.
She also confirmed that Google has extended Preferred Sources to AI Overviews and AI Mode. Your readers can mark you as a preferred source and, when they do, your links show up with a visible badge in AI answers. The figure that raised my eyebrow: twice the clicks, and there are already more than 345,000 sources selected. Your audience's loyalty, for the first time, translates directly into visibility inside AI.
The underlying message is underlined in my notes: content an AI summary can compress into three sentences is vulnerable; content with proprietary data, expert opinion and a unique perspective is defensible. So the takeaway I keep for any project is not to produce more generic content faster. It is the opposite: fewer pages, but ones that deserve to have someone mark you as their preferred source.
#seo#geo#eeat
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I just read a study that made me stop and think. It measured how much original information each page in Google's top 3 actually brings, and the median is 52 out of 100. In other words, half of what a top-ranking page says is already covered by the others competing for that same keyword. It stings the first time you read it, because it is exactly what we see every day auditing SERPs.
One figure strikes me as even more telling: 24% of top-3 pages add almost nothing new. And, contrary to what many people assume, being in position 1 does not make you more original than position 2 or 3. Originality is not what puts you first, but it is what holds your site up when the next core update lands.
What does make a difference is proprietary data. Pages with more than 15 unique data points score 62/100; those with 0 or 1 stay at 40. And here is the gap I find most interesting as an opportunity: in 90% of SERPs there is at least one question no top-3 page answers. There is almost always room to stand out.
The takeaway I keep, and repeat to every client: long content is not original content. Original content is the one that brings proprietary data, original research and answers no one else gives. If you have first-hand information, use it without fear. That is your competitive edge, and not only in SEO: it is exactly what AI cites when it builds its answers.
#seo#geo#eeat
On 17 June I sat down to review Search Console and found two features Google had just turned on, ones we had been eagerly waiting for. The first: a toggle to block your content from appearing in AI Overviews and AI Mode. The second: an AI performance report that measures your impressions in generative answers.
My first reaction was interest. The second, frustration. Because when I opened the report, I realized what was missing: it only shows impressions. No clicks, no CTR, no queries, no position. I know I show up in an AI answer, but I have no way of knowing whether anyone clicked through and reached my site from there.
And that is the real problem I spotted right away: the blocking toggle is already available and operational. But without click data, how do I decide whether blocking is worth it? It is as if Google had handed me the wheel, but with no speedometer.
My recommendation, after turning it over these past few days: if your business depends on organic traffic, do not touch that toggle yet. Measure first. Decide later.
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On 2 June Google declared the May 2026 core update done and, honestly, I had not seen a jolt like this in years. I felt it before reading any report: rankings shifting day to day on projects that had been flat for months. Then the numbers landed and confirmed the feeling, with volatility of 78/100 on Semrush, 65/100 on SISTRIX and 72/100 on Accuranker. One of the strongest updates in years.
What surprised me most was the cadence. This update arrived just 43 days after the March update, the fastest pace I can remember. Google no longer waits months between waves, so the idea of "I will wait for the next core to recover" falls short: by the time you react, you are already inside the next one.
I sat down with the SISTRIX data and the split is sharp. Of 8,887 domains analyzed, 5,039 gained and 3,845 lost, but among those that moved hard the ratio was 4 losers for every winner. Amazon shed 222 visibility points. And one pattern shouted above the rest: "AI slop", AI-generated content published without editing, collapsed across the board.
When I look at who fell, the profile repeats project after project: aggregators, comparators and job portals; ecommerce with manufacturer descriptions copied verbatim; affiliate reviews without a single real test of the product; multi-topic sites that touch everything in passing; and city landing pages cloned by swapping only the name. Recycling stopped working.
And who rose is just as clear: brands with their own content, first-party sources, sites with deep topical authority and verifiable authorship (real E-E-A-T, not a decorative author box). The 2026 pattern consolidates with every update, Google rewards those who create and penalizes those who aggregate. A practical note: the clean analysis window opens on 9 June, before that the data is too noisy to decide anything.
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