<div><img width="1920" height="1080" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/07/If-the-outcome-is-great-do-we-really-care-how-it-was-made-featured-image.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="If the outcome is great, do we really care how it was made? - featured-image" decoding="async" fetchpriority="high" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/07/If-the-outcome-is-great-do-we-really-care-how-it-was-made-featured-image.png 1920w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/07/If-the-outcome-is-great-do-we-really-care-how-it-was-made-featured-image-768x432.png 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/07/If-the-outcome-is-great-do-we-really-care-how-it-was-made-featured-image-1536x864.png 1536w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/07/If-the-outcome-is-great-do-we-really-care-how-it-was-made-featured-image-1200x675.png 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px" /></div>If two deliverables produce the same outcome, should it matter whether one took 20 hours or 20 minutes? AI is forcing that conversation.


<div><img width="1920" height="1080" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/07/If-the-outcome-is-great-do-we-really-care-how-it-was-made-featured-image.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="If the outcome is great, do we really care how it was made? - featured-image" decoding="async" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/07/If-the-outcome-is-great-do-we-really-care-how-it-was-made-featured-image.png 1920w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/07/If-the-outcome-is-great-do-we-really-care-how-it-was-made-featured-image-768x432.png 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/07/If-the-outcome-is-great-do-we-really-care-how-it-was-made-featured-image-1536x864.png 1536w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/07/If-the-outcome-is-great-do-we-really-care-how-it-was-made-featured-image-1200x675.png 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px" /></div>
<p>A client receives two deliverables…</p>



<p>Both solve the problem they were hired to solve. Both are accurate and useful, and they lead to the same business outcomes. The client is happy with the work and sees no meaningful difference in the results.</p>



<p>Then they learn that one deliverable took 20 hours to create while the other took 20 minutes. Now the questions start rolling in:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Was AI involved?</li>



<li>Should the faster deliverable cost less?</li>



<li>Is the person who completed it somehow less skilled because they found a way to work more efficiently?</li>
</ul>



<p>What’s interesting is that most of us have completely different reactions to AI depending on which side of the transaction we’re sitting on. We love using AI to save ourselves time, but many become uncomfortable when they’re the customer and discover AI was used to create something they purchased.</p>



<p><a href="https://www.seoforlunch.com/embed" rel="noopener noreferrer">View embedded content</a>



<p>I recently ran a <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/posts/nickleroyseo_if-you-requested-a-service-and-the-deliverable-activity-7473009996449042432-n1_3?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=member_desktop&amp;rcm=ACoAAAHvPSMBD_iMa45Vx1j5KAXqVvw1teHE5aQ">LinkedIn poll</a> asking a simple question: If the outcome is great, do we really care how it was made?</p>



<p>The responses reinforced something I’ve been thinking about for a while. The biggest objections people have to AI often have little to do with quality.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-the-time-vs-value-fallacy">The time vs. value fallacy</h2>



<p>I think part of the discomfort comes from the fact that we’ve spent decades connecting value to effort.</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Long hours feel valuable.</li>



<li>Fast work feels suspicious.</li>



<li>Struggle feels like expertise.</li>
</ul>



<p>The harder something appears to be, the easier it is to justify its price.</p>



<p>The story is about a ship engine that stopped working. After multiple attempts to repair it, the owners brought in an engineer with decades of experience. He inspected the engine, tapped it once with a small hammer, and the machine roared back to life.</p>



<p><em>His invoice was $10,000.</em>



<p>The owners were furious and demanded an itemized bill.</p>



<p>The response:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Hammer tap: $2</li>



<li>Knowing where to tap: $9,998</li>
</ul>



<p>The debate whether this is a true story or just a fun tale that people like me use to validate value-based pricing. Whether the story is true almost doesn’t matter. The lesson does.</p>


<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="aligncenter size-full"><img decoding="async" width="967" height="608" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/07/Service-and-delvierables-where-AI-was-used.png" alt="" class="wp-image-481464" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/07/Service-and-delvierables-where-AI-was-used.png 967w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/07/Service-and-delvierables-where-AI-was-used-768x483.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 967px) 100vw, 967px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption"><em>Source: <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/posts/nickleroyseo_if-you-requested-a-service-and-the-deliverable-ugcPost-7473009995798736896-t089/">LinkedIn poll</a></em></figcaption></figure>
</div>


<p>People aren’t paying for the tap. They’re paying for the expertise behind it.</p>



<p>That’s what makes AI such an interesting topic. It forces us to confront a question many of us have avoided for years:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Are we paying for expertise or for visible effort?</li>
</ul>



<p>Those aren’t always the same thing.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-the-objections-that-actually-matter">The objections that actually matter</h2>



<p>To be clear, not all objections to AI are bad ones. I certainly haven’t had an issue sharing my opinion.</p>



<p>In fact, I think some of the strongest arguments against AI have very little to do with how quickly something was created.</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li><a href="https://www.seoforlunch.com/p/ai-safety" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Risk matters</a>.</li>



<li><a href="https://www.seoforlunch.com/p/blind-trust" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Hallucinations matter</a>.</li>



<li><a href="https://www.seoforlunch.com/p/ai-in-the-wild" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Bad recommendations matter</a>.</li>



<li><a href="https://www.seoforlunch.com/p/ai-jail" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Compliance, privacy, and security concerns matter</a>.</li>



<li><a href="https://www.seoforlunch.com/p/what-if-you-were-held-accountable" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Accountability matters</a>.</li>
</ul>



<p>These are all legitimate concerns, and what’s interesting is that none of these concerns has much to do with how long it took to create the deliverable.</p>



<p><strong>They’re questions of trust.</strong>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Can the output be trusted? </li>



<li>Can the recommendation be defended? </li>



<li>Can someone confidently stand behind the work if it’s questioned six months from now?</li>
</ul>



<p>Because when something goes wrong, nobody gets to blame the AI. The employee is accountable. The consultant is accountable. The company is accountable.</p>



<p>That’s why I’ve always found the quality debate to be the least interesting part of the conversation. The more important question isn’t whether AI was involved. It’s whether the outcome is trustworthy enough for someone to put their name behind it.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-the-outcome-test">The outcome test</h2>



<p>The more I think about AI, the less interested I become in whether it was used.</p>



<p>Instead, I find myself asking a different set of questions.</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Was the outcome accurate?</li>



<li>Was it useful?</li>



<li>Was it better than the alternative?</li>



<li><strong>Would you be willing to stand behind it with your name, reputation, and credentials on the line?</strong></li>
</ul>



<p>If the answer to all of these is yes, should we really care how it was produced?</p>



<p>I suspect this is where many people become uncomfortable because it shifts the conversation <a href="https://www.seoforlunch.com/p/seo-hacking" target="_blank" rel="noopener">away from tools and back toward results.</a>



<p>Ironically, this is also where humans become <strong>more important, not less</strong>.</p>



<p>The future isn’t machines versus humans (I know, &#8220;The Terminator&#8221; and &#8220;I, Robot&#8221; movies will never be the same). It’s humans using AI versus humans who don’t. The premium won’t come from refusing to use AI. It will come from <a href="https://www.seoforlunch.com/p/what-if-you-were-held-accountable" target="_blank" rel="noopener">judgment, taste, decision-making, communication, and accountability</a>.</p>



<p>AI can accelerate execution, but humans still decide what should be built, what should be published, and what risks are acceptable. More importantly, humans are still the ones responsible for the outcome.</p>



<p id="h-the-people-who-lose-to-ai-won-t-be-the-ones-using-it-they-ll-be-the-ones-still-evaluating-effort-while-everyone-else-is-measuring-outcomes">The people who lose to AI won&#8217;t be the ones using it. They&#8217;ll be the ones still evaluating effort while everyone else is measuring outcomes</p>



<p><em><em>This post first appeared on the author’s website and is republished here with permission.</em><br></em>


<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="aligncenter"><a href="https://seoforlunch.com/?utm_source=searchengineland.com&amp;utm_medium=social"><img decoding="async" width="1774" height="887" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/leroy2.jpg.webp" alt="Leroy2" class="wp-image-476987" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/leroy2.jpg 1774w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/leroy2-768x384.jpg 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/05/leroy2-1536x768.jpg 1536w" sizes="(max-width: 1774px) 100vw, 1774px" /></a></figure>
</div>


<p><em><br></em>


A client receives two deliverables…
Both solve the problem they were hired to solve. Both are accurate and useful, and they lead to the same business outcomes. The client is happy with the work and sees no meaningful difference in the results.
Then they learn that one deliverable took 20 hours to create while the other took 20 minutes. Now the questions start rolling in:
Was AI involved?
Should the faster deliverable cost less?
Is the person who completed it somehow less skilled because they found a way to work more efficiently?
What’s interesting is that most of us have completely different reactions to AI depending on which side of the transaction we’re sitting on. We love using AI to save ourselves time, but many become uncomfortable when they’re the customer and discover AI was used to create something they purchased.
View embedded content



I recently ran a LinkedIn poll asking a simple question: If the outcome is great, do we really care how it was made?
The responses reinforced something I’ve been thinking about for a while. The biggest objections people have to AI often have little to do with quality.
The time vs. value fallacy
I think part of the discomfort comes from the fact that we’ve spent decades connecting value to effort.
Long hours feel valuable.
Fast work feels suspicious.
Struggle feels like expertise.
The harder something appears to be, the easier it is to justify its price.
The story is about a ship engine that stopped working. After multiple attempts to repair it, the owners brought in an engineer with decades of experience. He inspected the engine, tapped it once with a small hammer, and the machine roared back to life.
His invoice was $10,000.



The owners were furious and demanded an itemized bill.
The response:
Hammer tap: $2
Knowing where to tap: $9,998
The debate whether this is a true story or just a fun tale that people like me use to validate value-based pricing. Whether the story is true almost doesn’t matter. The lesson does.
Source: LinkedIn poll



People aren’t paying for the tap. They’re paying for the expertise behind it.
That’s what makes AI such an interesting topic. It forces us to confront a question many of us have avoided for years:
Are we paying for expertise or for visible effort?
Those aren’t always the same thing.
The objections that actually matter
To be clear, not all objections to AI are bad ones. I certainly haven’t had an issue sharing my opinion.
In fact, I think some of the strongest arguments against AI have very little to do with how quickly something was created.
Risk matters.
Hallucinations matter.
Bad recommendations matter.
Compliance, privacy, and security concerns matter.
Accountability matters.
These are all legitimate concerns, and what’s interesting is that none of these concerns has much to do with how long it took to create the deliverable.
They’re questions of trust.




Can the output be trusted? 
Can the recommendation be defended? 
Can someone confidently stand behind the work if it’s questioned six months from now?
Because when something goes wrong, nobody gets to blame the AI. The employee is accountable. The consultant is accountable. The company is accountable.
That’s why I’ve always found the quality debate to be the least interesting part of the conversation. The more important question isn’t whether AI was involved. It’s whether the outcome is trustworthy enough for someone to put their name behind it.
The outcome test
The more I think about AI, the less interested I become in whether it was used.
Instead, I find myself asking a different set of questions.
Was the outcome accurate?
Was it useful?
Was it better than the alternative?
Would you be willing to stand behind it with your name, reputation, and credentials on the line?
If the answer to all of these is yes, should we really care how it was produced?
I suspect this is where many people become uncomfortable because it shifts the conversation away from tools and back toward results.



Ironically, this is also where humans become more important, not less.
The future isn’t machines versus humans (I know, “The Terminator” and “I, Robot” movies will never be the same). It’s humans using AI versus humans who don’t. The premium won’t come from refusing to use AI. It will come from judgment, taste, decision-making, communication, and accountability.
AI can accelerate execution, but humans still decide what should be built, what should be published, and what risks are acceptable. More importantly, humans are still the ones responsible for the outcome.
The people who lose to AI won’t be the ones using it. They’ll be the ones still evaluating effort while everyone else is measuring outcomes
This post first appeared on the author’s website and is republished here with permission.

If two deliverables produce the same outcome, should it matter whether one took 20 hours or 20 minutes? AI is forcing that conversation.

Why AI deliverables should be judged by outcomes, not effort

<div><img width="1920" height="1080" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/06/Why-proprietary-data-is-your-most-defensible-AI-citation-asset-featured-image.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="Why proprietary data is your most defensible AI citation asset - featured-image" decoding="async" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/06/Why-proprietary-data-is-your-most-defensible-AI-citation-asset-featured-image.png 1920w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/06/Why-proprietary-data-is-your-most-defensible-AI-citation-asset-featured-image-768x432.png 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/06/Why-proprietary-data-is-your-most-defensible-AI-citation-asset-featured-image-1536x864.png 1536w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/06/Why-proprietary-data-is-your-most-defensible-AI-citation-asset-featured-image-1200x675.png 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px" /></div>Original data helps pages stand out in search, but structure determines whether AI cites it. Learn how to optimize for extraction.

<div><img width="1920" height="1080" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/06/Why-proprietary-data-is-your-most-defensible-AI-citation-asset-featured-image.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="Why proprietary data is your most defensible AI citation asset - featured-image" decoding="async" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/06/Why-proprietary-data-is-your-most-defensible-AI-citation-asset-featured-image.png 1920w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/06/Why-proprietary-data-is-your-most-defensible-AI-citation-asset-featured-image-768x432.png 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/06/Why-proprietary-data-is-your-most-defensible-AI-citation-asset-featured-image-1536x864.png 1536w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/06/Why-proprietary-data-is-your-most-defensible-AI-citation-asset-featured-image-1200x675.png 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px" /></div>
<p>Publish original numbers. It&#8217;s the single most reliable lever for making a page more original, and the most defensible numbers are a byproduct of the business itself… not data you assembled to feed a content calendar.</p>



<p>The old play was paying a PR or research firm for a survey loosely tied to your product, like a car insurance FinTech buying road-trip research to land in Yahoo. That&#8217;s outdated. Almost every product now generates data worth publishing, and pulling it has never been easier.</p>



<p>You don&#8217;t need a research team. The bar to clear the field is lower than you think.</p>



<p><a href="https://www.growth-memo.com/embed?transparent=1" rel="noopener noreferrer">View embedded content</a>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-first-party-data-the-strongest-correlation-of-originality">First-party data: The strongest correlation of originality</h2>



<p>On-Page.ai&#8217;s recent <a href="https://api.on-page.ai/research/information-gain-study#ref-4" target="_blank" rel="noopener">information gain study</a> scored 150 top-3 Google pages across 50 keywords and 10 verticals on how much each adds beyond the rest of its ranking cohort, grading the contribution from 0 to 100 by meaning rather than wording.</p>



<p>The median page scored 52, and <em>original data </em>correlated with that score more than any other page-level trait, including length.</p>



<p>Pages with at most 1 unique figure averaged an information gain score of 40.2, while pages with 15 or more averaged 62.1, and the score climbed steadily at every step in between</p>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img decoding="async" width="1444" height="930" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/06/image-252.png" alt="" class="wp-image-481382" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/06/image-252.png 1444w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/06/image-252-768x495.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1444px) 100vw, 1444px" /></figure>



<p>Good news, the bar to beat is low. The study found that it might not take much original evidence to outclass top-visible pages in classic Google search: top organic results typically have only 4 unique data points on average. Publish a page that includes more than 4 real original claims, figures, or answers, and that’s one more lever to pull for increasingly competitive organic visibility.</p>



<p>This analysis also found that in almost every search, there are plenty of adjacent unanswered questions that are being left on the table. On-Page ran their analysis with synthetic reader questions, a sample of plausible questions generated for the study, that were a closely related set to the search topic of each query, and results showed an open door for new pages to answer them and stand out. (Remind you of anything? <a href="https://www.growth-memo.com/p/query-fan-out" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Query fan-out</a>, perhaps?)</p>



<p>We had a similar finding in an analysis of ChatGPT citations:</p>



<p>“A single evergreen page covering 10+ query intents is worth more in AI citation reach than 10 single-intent pages. The ROI of comprehensive content is front-loaded: one well-built page compounds citation reach over time. The long tail exists, but the top 5% of pages capture a disproportionate share of ongoing citation activity.” – <a href="https://www.growth-memo.com/i/191853359/top-takeaways" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The science of how AI picks its sources<br></a>



<p>In fact, your brand’s high-intent prompts should be monitored across a journey for this purpose. Turn them into journeys that follow the buyer across the five stages from <a href="https://www.growth-memo.com/p/reasoning-lift-what-happens-to-ai" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Reasoning Lift:</a> Problem, Exploration, Comparison, Validation, Selection. (Read more about <a href="https://www.growth-memo.com/p/how-to-make-prompt-tracking-much" target="_blank" rel="noopener">more accurate AI prompt tracking</a> here.) Answer those questions on the page with the knowledge and expertise that only your brand can to stay competitive against this finding in the analysis. </p>



<p>The main takeaway from the findings: Most pages are middling on originality, genuinely original pages are a minority, and scoring high enough to stand out is achievable… without being an extraordinary feat or lift.</p>



<p>The gap in the findings? This study focuses on classic search visibility and rankings (the SEO concept of information gain was born out of a Google patent language, after all). It doesn’t take AI citations or mentions into consideration, and there’s no mention of including AI Mode or AI Overviews in the analysis.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-caveat-being-the-primary-source-may-not-win-the-citation">Caveat: Being the primary source may not win the citation</h2>



<p>This is the part most proprietary data-publishing advice skips. Everyone says publish original research. Few test whether AI rewards the brand that originated the number or the page that presents it most readably.</p>



<p>More data analysis is coming next week, but what we do know from analyses we’ve completed at Growth Memo this last year:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li><strong>The entity types that predict ChatGPT citations the most are DATE and NUMBER (from </strong><a href="https://www.growth-memo.com/p/the-science-of-what-ai-actually-rewards" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><strong>The science of what AI actually rewards</strong></a><strong>).</strong> High-cited pages are dense with specific entities: a particular methodology, a precise statistic, a named comparison. Even if your proprietary findings are picked up by another source that is cited instead, those external third-party authority signals are likely to build.<br></li>



<li><strong>Entity-richness and balanced sentiment matter (from </strong><a href="https://www.growth-memo.com/p/the-science-of-how-ai-pays-attention" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><strong>The science of how AI pays attention</strong></a><strong>). </strong>Generic advice is risky and vague, but specific entities are grounded and verifiable. Proprietary data produces, verifies, or validates <em>and</em> creates entity-rich content. (Think: why a feature works to save % of dollars, how many hours saved by clients vs. competitors they worked with before, etc.). Add balanced sentiment into the analysis and explanation of your data, and you’ve got yourself a 2-for-1 tactic.</li>
</ul>



<p>If the hypothesis that first-party data is crucial in the era of AI search holds, publishing content based on proprietary data is necessary…, but it is not sufficient. LLM extraction structure (along with the sites that AI search engines trust for the topic) decides who gets the citation, even when your brand owns the data.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Unfortunately, an aggregator who repackages your benchmark into a cleaner answer-ready page can collect the citation your research earned. (Truth sucks.)</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li><strong>Who wins:</strong> Brands sitting on proprietary product, usage, or pricing data who also structure it for extraction and don’t ignore other organic brand authority building plays. (Learn more in <a href="https://www.growth-memo.com/i/189553725/4-your-strategy-document-has-3-parts" target="_blank" rel="noopener">How to build an AI SEO strategy that outlasts tactics</a>.) </li>



<li><strong>Who loses:</strong> Brands producing opinion content any tool can replicate, ignore other crucial ways of building off-site authority, along with primary sources who bury their own numbers in narrative instead of surfacing them.</li>
</ul>



<p>Whether some verticals reward data content more than others, we do not know yet. The <a href="https://www.growth-memo.com/p/the-science-of-what-ai-actually-rewards" target="_blank" rel="noopener">science series</a> found citation signals vary sharply by vertical, so a uniform payoff would be the surprise, but we will not assert a pattern without data.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-how-to-structure-data-for-extraction">How to structure data for extraction</h2>



<p>Owning the data gets you into the fight for visibility. But how you structure your content could be what wins it.</p>



<p><a href="https://www.growth-memo.com/p/the-science-of-how-ai-pays-attention" target="_blank" rel="noopener">We analyzed 18,012 verified ChatGPT citations</a> and found a ski-ramp distribution: 44.2% of all citations come from the first 30% of a page. The middle 30-70% earns 31.1%, and content buried deep in a long post is roughly 2.5x less likely to be cited.</p>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img decoding="async" width="1920" height="1200" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/06/image-254.png" alt="" class="wp-image-481384" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/06/image-254.png 1920w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/06/image-254-768x480.png 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/06/image-254-1536x960.png 1536w" sizes="(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px" /></figure>



<p>The <a href="https://www.growth-memo.com/i/191853359/4-the-ski-ramp-is-steeper-in-some-verticals" target="_blank" rel="noopener">follow-up analysis across 7 verticals</a> sharpened the target: The 10-20% band of a page is where AI reads hardest in every vertical, while the first 10% is typically navigation and intro filler that AI skips. The bottom 10% of any page earns 2.4-4.4% of citations regardless of vertical. </p>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img decoding="async" width="1600" height="900" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/06/image-253.png" alt="" class="wp-image-481383" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/06/image-253.png 1600w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/06/image-253-768x432.png 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/06/image-253-1536x864.png 1536w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/06/image-253-1200x675.png 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px" /></figure>



<p>Applied to a data study, the structure of your content writes itself:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li><strong>Lead with the headline statistic.</strong> Your strongest number goes in the first 30% of the page, ideally right after the title block where the 10-20% band begins. Number → comparison → implication, in the first screen.</li>



<li><strong>Define the metric immediately.</strong> One sentence on what the number measures and the population it covers. An undefined statistic is harder to lift with confidence</li>



<li><strong>Box the methodology.</strong> Sample size, time window, collection method, in a short labeled block. Attribution confidence is part of what makes a number citable.</li>



<li><strong>Front-load every secondary finding.</strong> Findings ranked by strength, strongest first. The 20-paragraph narrative buildup is a human-retention pattern that costs you machine citations.</li>



<li><strong>Skip the suspense close.</strong> AI reads like a busy editor, not a patient student. [source] The payoff-at-the-end structure that worked for ultimate guides actively works against extraction.</li>
</ul>



<p><em>This post first appeared on the author’s website and is republished here with permission.</em>


Publish original numbers. It’s the single most reliable lever for making a page more original, and the most defensible numbers are a byproduct of the business itself… not data you assembled to feed a content calendar.
The old play was paying a PR or research firm for a survey loosely tied to your product, like a car insurance FinTech buying road-trip research to land in Yahoo. That’s outdated. Almost every product now generates data worth publishing, and pulling it has never been easier.
You don’t need a research team. The bar to clear the field is lower than you think.
View embedded content



First-party data: The strongest correlation of originality
On-Page.ai’s recent information gain study scored 150 top-3 Google pages across 50 keywords and 10 verticals on how much each adds beyond the rest of its ranking cohort, grading the contribution from 0 to 100 by meaning rather than wording.
The median page scored 52, and original data correlated with that score more than any other page-level trait, including length.
Pages with at most 1 unique figure averaged an information gain score of 40.2, while pages with 15 or more averaged 62.1, and the score climbed steadily at every step in between




Good news, the bar to beat is low. The study found that it might not take much original evidence to outclass top-visible pages in classic Google search: top organic results typically have only 4 unique data points on average. Publish a page that includes more than 4 real original claims, figures, or answers, and that’s one more lever to pull for increasingly competitive organic visibility.
This analysis also found that in almost every search, there are plenty of adjacent unanswered questions that are being left on the table. On-Page ran their analysis with synthetic reader questions, a sample of plausible questions generated for the study, that were a closely related set to the search topic of each query, and results showed an open door for new pages to answer them and stand out. (Remind you of anything? Query fan-out, perhaps?)
We had a similar finding in an analysis of ChatGPT citations:
“A single evergreen page covering 10+ query intents is worth more in AI citation reach than 10 single-intent pages. The ROI of comprehensive content is front-loaded: one well-built page compounds citation reach over time. The long tail exists, but the top 5% of pages capture a disproportionate share of ongoing citation activity.” – The science of how AI picks its sources




In fact, your brand’s high-intent prompts should be monitored across a journey for this purpose. Turn them into journeys that follow the buyer across the five stages from Reasoning Lift: Problem, Exploration, Comparison, Validation, Selection. (Read more about more accurate AI prompt tracking here.) Answer those questions on the page with the knowledge and expertise that only your brand can to stay competitive against this finding in the analysis. 
The main takeaway from the findings: Most pages are middling on originality, genuinely original pages are a minority, and scoring high enough to stand out is achievable… without being an extraordinary feat or lift.
The gap in the findings? This study focuses on classic search visibility and rankings (the SEO concept of information gain was born out of a Google patent language, after all). It doesn’t take AI citations or mentions into consideration, and there’s no mention of including AI Mode or AI Overviews in the analysis.
Caveat: Being the primary source may not win the citation
This is the part most proprietary data-publishing advice skips. Everyone says publish original research. Few test whether AI rewards the brand that originated the number or the page that presents it most readably.
More data analysis is coming next week, but what we do know from analyses we’ve completed at Growth Memo this last year:
The entity types that predict ChatGPT citations the most are DATE and NUMBER (from The science of what AI actually rewards). High-cited pages are dense with specific entities: a particular methodology, a precise statistic, a named comparison. Even if your proprietary findings are picked up by another source that is cited instead, those external third-party authority signals are likely to build.




Entity-richness and balanced sentiment matter (from The science of how AI pays attention). Generic advice is risky and vague, but specific entities are grounded and verifiable. Proprietary data produces, verifies, or validates and creates entity-rich content. (Think: why a feature works to save % of dollars, how many hours saved by clients vs. competitors they worked with before, etc.). Add balanced sentiment into the analysis and explanation of your data, and you’ve got yourself a 2-for-1 tactic.
If the hypothesis that first-party data is crucial in the era of AI search holds, publishing content based on proprietary data is necessary…, but it is not sufficient. LLM extraction structure (along with the sites that AI search engines trust for the topic) decides who gets the citation, even when your brand owns the data. 
Unfortunately, an aggregator who repackages your benchmark into a cleaner answer-ready page can collect the citation your research earned. (Truth sucks.)
Who wins: Brands sitting on proprietary product, usage, or pricing data who also structure it for extraction and don’t ignore other organic brand authority building plays. (Learn more in How to build an AI SEO strategy that outlasts tactics.) 
Who loses: Brands producing opinion content any tool can replicate, ignore other crucial ways of building off-site authority, along with primary sources who bury their own numbers in narrative instead of surfacing them.
Whether some verticals reward data content more than others, we do not know yet. The science series found citation signals vary sharply by vertical, so a uniform payoff would be the surprise, but we will not assert a pattern without data.
How to structure data for extraction
Owning the data gets you into the fight for visibility. But how you structure your content could be what wins it.
We analyzed 18,012 verified ChatGPT citations and found a ski-ramp distribution: 44.2% of all citations come from the first 30% of a page. The middle 30-70% earns 31.1%, and content buried deep in a long post is roughly 2.5x less likely to be cited.




The follow-up analysis across 7 verticals sharpened the target: The 10-20% band of a page is where AI reads hardest in every vertical, while the first 10% is typically navigation and intro filler that AI skips. The bottom 10% of any page earns 2.4-4.4% of citations regardless of vertical. 




Applied to a data study, the structure of your content writes itself:
Lead with the headline statistic. Your strongest number goes in the first 30% of the page, ideally right after the title block where the 10-20% band begins. Number → comparison → implication, in the first screen.
Define the metric immediately. One sentence on what the number measures and the population it covers. An undefined statistic is harder to lift with confidence
Box the methodology. Sample size, time window, collection method, in a short labeled block. Attribution confidence is part of what makes a number citable.
Front-load every secondary finding. Findings ranked by strength, strongest first. The 20-paragraph narrative buildup is a human-retention pattern that costs you machine citations.
Skip the suspense close. AI reads like a busy editor, not a patient student. [source] The payoff-at-the-end structure that worked for ultimate guides actively works against extraction.
This post first appeared on the author’s website and is republished here with permission.

Original data helps pages stand out in search, but structure determines whether AI cites it. Learn how to optimize for extraction.

Why proprietary data is your most defensible AI citation asset

<div><img width="1920" height="1080" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/07/A-Google-Ads-targeting-tactic-that-cut-invalid-clicks-by-50.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="A Google Ads targeting tactic that cut invalid clicks by 50%" decoding="async" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/07/A-Google-Ads-targeting-tactic-that-cut-invalid-clicks-by-50.png 1920w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/07/A-Google-Ads-targeting-tactic-that-cut-invalid-clicks-by-50-768x432.png 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/07/A-Google-Ads-targeting-tactic-that-cut-invalid-clicks-by-50-1536x864.png 1536w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/07/A-Google-Ads-targeting-tactic-that-cut-invalid-clicks-by-50-1200x675.png 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px" /></div>After Google said it had already filtered suspicious activity, this unexpected approach restored campaign profitability.

<div><img width="1920" height="1080" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/07/A-Google-Ads-targeting-tactic-that-cut-invalid-clicks-by-50.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="A Google Ads targeting tactic that cut invalid clicks by 50%" decoding="async" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/07/A-Google-Ads-targeting-tactic-that-cut-invalid-clicks-by-50.png 1920w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/07/A-Google-Ads-targeting-tactic-that-cut-invalid-clicks-by-50-768x432.png 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/07/A-Google-Ads-targeting-tactic-that-cut-invalid-clicks-by-50-1536x864.png 1536w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/07/A-Google-Ads-targeting-tactic-that-cut-invalid-clicks-by-50-1200x675.png 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px" /></div>
<p>Advertisers are estimated to lose <a href="https://fraudblocker.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Ad-Fraud-Whitepaper_Juniper-Research.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">$172 billion</a> a year due to ad fraud by 2028.&nbsp;</p>



<p>The problem is especially common in industries with high competition and CPCs. One of our clients operated in just such an industry, where high invalid click activity was tanking campaign performance.</p>



<p>By adjusting Google Ads targeting, we reduced invalid-click activity by 50% and restored profitable performance.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-case-study-how-we-cut-invalid-clicks-by-50">Case study: How we cut invalid clicks by 50%</h2>



<p>Our client sold book editing and ghostwriting services. The search terms that triggered our ads were relevant and high intent. Yet the traffic wasn&#8217;t converting at anywhere near a profitable rate.</p>



<p>We quickly identified signs of click fraud, including:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Google reporting a 60% to 80% invalid click rate.</li>



<li>Microsoft Clarity recordings showing bot-like behavior from Google Ads traffic.</li>



<li>80%+ click-through rates across numerous search terms, with some exceeding 100%.</li>



<li>Far fewer sessions in GA4 and other analytics tools than the number of clicks Google Ads reported.</li>
</ul>



<p>We tried third-party click fraud tools but saw no measurable performance improvement.</p>



<p>Next, we filed an investigation with Google. Google agreed there was suspicious activity but said it had caught it all and hadn&#8217;t charged for it.</p>


<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="aligncenter size-full"><img decoding="async" width="1226" height="1282" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/07/image-11.png" alt="" class="wp-image-481492" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/07/image-11.png 1226w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/07/image-11-768x803.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1226px) 100vw, 1226px" /></figure>
</div>


<p>We were confident Google wasn&#8217;t filtering out all the invalid activity, so we took matters into our own hands.</p>



<p>We added 540 Google-defined audiences set to &#8220;Targeting&#8221; to our Google Search campaigns.</p>



<p>The invalid click rate immediately dropped by 50%, and the conversion rate increased to profitable levels.</p>



<p>We&#8217;ll explain why we tested this approach and why we believe it worked.</p>



<p>First, let&#8217;s review what invalid clicks are and the standard ways advertisers combat them.</p>


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<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-click-fraud-and-invalid-clicks-actually-are">What click fraud and ‘invalid clicks’ actually are</h2>



<p>Google defines <a href="https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/42995?hl=en" target="_blank" rel="noopener">invalid clicks</a> as: </p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>&#8220;Clicks on ads that aren&#8217;t the result of genuine user interest, including intentionally fraudulent traffic and accidental or duplicate clicks.&#8221;</li>
</ul>



<p>This includes <a href="https://searchengineland.com/click-fraud-google-ads-470656">actual fraud</a> from competitors clicking your ads, as well as accidental double-taps.</p>



<p>Google doesn&#8217;t charge advertisers for clicks it deems invalid. Google also credits advertisers for clicks it initially charged for if it later determines those clicks were invalid.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-why-the-usual-defenses-sometimes-fall-short">Why the usual defenses sometimes fall short</h2>



<p>Google&#8217;s detection system catches a lot of invalid click activity, but as our example shows, it&#8217;s not perfect.</p>



<p>Because of this, an entire industry of third-party tools tries to block fraud-prone IP addresses before they cost you.</p>



<p>Unfortunately, fraudsters know how these tools work and often cycle through IP addresses using VPNs to stay one step ahead of the monitoring software.</p>



<p>A tool may identify suspicious activity from an IP address and block that address from seeing Google ads in the future. But if the fraudster uses a new IP address each time, blocking previous addresses does nothing.</p>



<p>These tools are also limited because Google allows a maximum of 500 IP address exclusions per campaign.</p>



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<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-the-tactic-add-audiences-set-to-targeting">The tactic: Add audiences set to &#8216;Targeting&#8217;</h2>



<p>We thought about what might distinguish fraudulent traffic from legitimate traffic. What came to mind was Google&#8217;s <a href="https://searchengineland.com/audience-targeting-google-ads-search-campaigns-463000">predefined audiences</a>. Google creates hundreds of audiences based on user demographics, search behavior, and browsing behavior.</p>



<p>For example, if you&#8217;re researching private jet companies and Rolex watches, Google might classify you as a luxury shopper and place you in that audience.</p>



<p>We hypothesized that fraudsters cycling through IP addresses aren&#8217;t always taking the time to build normal-looking online profiles that fit into Google&#8217;s predefined audiences.</p>



<p>So we added most of the available audiences to our Search campaigns.</p>



<p>We didn&#8217;t limit ourselves to audiences specifically related to the people we were targeting. Instead, we used the audiences as a filter for users who fit Google&#8217;s audience signals.</p>



<p><strong>Important:</strong> We chose the setting &#8220;Targeting,&#8221; not &#8220;Observation.&#8221;</p>



<p>When you choose <em>Targeting</em>, Google limits your ads to people who trigger your keywords and belong to the selected audiences.</p>



<p>If you choose <em>Observation</em>, Google reports how users in those audiences engage with your ads compared with people outside those audiences, but it can still show your ads to anyone who triggers your keywords.</p>



<p>We only recommend this for accounts with high invalid click rates.</p>



<p>There are potential downsides to this approach, such as unintentionally blocking legitimate users who don&#8217;t fit within Google&#8217;s pre-defined audiences.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-how-to-test-this-in-your-own-account">How to test this in your own account</h2>



<p>In a Search campaign, select <em>Audiences &gt; Edit audience segments &gt; Targeting &gt; Browse. </em>Select the audiences you want to add and click <em>Save.</em>


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<figure class="aligncenter size-full"><img decoding="async" width="2048" height="1068" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/07/image-12.png" alt="" class="wp-image-481493" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/07/image-12.png 2048w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/07/image-12-768x401.png 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/07/image-12-1536x801.png 1536w" sizes="(max-width: 2048px) 100vw, 2048px" /></figure>
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<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-common-questions-about-fighting-click-fraud">Common questions about fighting click fraud</h2>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-will-google-refund-clicks-it-identifies-as-invalid">Will Google refund clicks it identifies as invalid?</h3>



<p>If Google identifies a click as invalid when it occurs, you won&#8217;t be charged for that click. If Google identifies a click as invalid after the fact, you&#8217;ll receive a credit toward future advertising.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-how-do-i-see-how-many-invalid-clicks-i-m-getting">How do I see how many invalid clicks I&#8217;m getting?</h3>



<p>The “<a href="https://searchengineland.com/google-spotlights-invalid-click-credits-with-new-ads-help-documentation-479273">Invalid activity credit</a>” report in Report Editor in the Google Ads UI provides the most detailed reporting.</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li><strong>Invalid clicks:</strong> Clicks you weren&#8217;t charged for.</li>



<li><strong>Credited clicks:</strong> Clicks you were originally charged for but later credited back.</li>
</ul>


<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="aligncenter size-full"><img decoding="async" width="2006" height="826" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/07/image-10.png" alt="" class="wp-image-481491" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/07/image-10.png 2006w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/07/image-10-768x316.png 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/07/image-10-1536x632.png 1536w" sizes="(max-width: 2006px) 100vw, 2006px" /></figure>
</div>


<p>You can also add the Invalid clicks and Invalid click rate columns at the campaign level, but not at the ad group or keyword level.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-s-a-normal-invalid-click-rate">What&#8217;s a normal invalid click rate?</h3>



<p>A February <a href="https://fraudblocker.com/data/invalid-click-rate-benchmarks-for-google-ads" target="_blank" rel="noopener">study</a> identified an 11.4% invalid click rate across 43,700 accounts.</p>



<p>Industry matters. While the average invalid click rate for StubGroup&#8217;s clients is very similar to the study&#8217;s findings, we&#8217;ve seen clients in competitive industries with invalid click rates above 40%.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-should-i-file-an-investigation-with-google">Should I file an investigation with Google?</h3>



<p>If you have reason to believe Google is charging you for invalid clicks, it may be worth filing an investigation <a href="https://support.google.com/google-ads/contact/click_quality" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a>.</p>


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<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-why-this-approach-worked-best">Why this approach worked best</h2>



<p>Using Google&#8217;s predefined audiences as a filter cut this account&#8217;s reported invalid click rate in half and blocked activity that Google had claimed it was already catching. That turned failing campaigns into profitable ones.</p>

Advertisers are estimated to lose $172 billion a year due to ad fraud by 2028. 
The problem is especially common in industries with high competition and CPCs. One of our clients operated in just such an industry, where high invalid click activity was tanking campaign performance.
By adjusting Google Ads targeting, we reduced invalid-click activity by 50% and restored profitable performance.
Case study: How we cut invalid clicks by 50%
Our client sold book editing and ghostwriting services. The search terms that triggered our ads were relevant and high intent. Yet the traffic wasn’t converting at anywhere near a profitable rate.
We quickly identified signs of click fraud, including:
Google reporting a 60% to 80% invalid click rate.
Microsoft Clarity recordings showing bot-like behavior from Google Ads traffic.
80%+ click-through rates across numerous search terms, with some exceeding 100%.
Far fewer sessions in GA4 and other analytics tools than the number of clicks Google Ads reported.
We tried third-party click fraud tools but saw no measurable performance improvement.
Next, we filed an investigation with Google. Google agreed there was suspicious activity but said it had caught it all and hadn’t charged for it.




We were confident Google wasn’t filtering out all the invalid activity, so we took matters into our own hands.
We added 540 Google-defined audiences set to “Targeting” to our Google Search campaigns.
The invalid click rate immediately dropped by 50%, and the conversion rate increased to profitable levels.
We’ll explain why we tested this approach and why we believe it worked.
First, let’s review what invalid clicks are and the standard ways advertisers combat them.
your competitors win.
      
Analyze your competitors
    
What click fraud and ‘invalid clicks’ actually are
Google defines invalid clicks as: 
“Clicks on ads that aren’t the result of genuine user interest, including intentionally fraudulent traffic and accidental or duplicate clicks.”
This includes actual fraud from competitors clicking your ads, as well as accidental double-taps.
Google doesn’t charge advertisers for clicks it deems invalid. Google also credits advertisers for clicks it initially charged for if it later determines those clicks were invalid.
Why the usual defenses sometimes fall short
Google’s detection system catches a lot of invalid click activity, but as our example shows, it’s not perfect.
Because of this, an entire industry of third-party tools tries to block fraud-prone IP addresses before they cost you.
Unfortunately, fraudsters know how these tools work and often cycle through IP addresses using VPNs to stay one step ahead of the monitoring software.
A tool may identify suspicious activity from an IP address and block that address from seeing Google ads in the future. But if the fraudster uses a new IP address each time, blocking previous addresses does nothing.
These tools are also limited because Google allows a maximum of 500 IP address exclusions per campaign.
Get the newsletter search marketers rely on.
 
				
				
			
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The tactic: Add audiences set to ‘Targeting’
We thought about what might distinguish fraudulent traffic from legitimate traffic. What came to mind was Google’s predefined audiences. Google creates hundreds of audiences based on user demographics, search behavior, and browsing behavior.
For example, if you’re researching private jet companies and Rolex watches, Google might classify you as a luxury shopper and place you in that audience.
We hypothesized that fraudsters cycling through IP addresses aren’t always taking the time to build normal-looking online profiles that fit into Google’s predefined audiences.
So we added most of the available audiences to our Search campaigns.
We didn’t limit ourselves to audiences specifically related to the people we were targeting. Instead, we used the audiences as a filter for users who fit Google’s audience signals.
Important: We chose the setting “Targeting,” not “Observation.”
When you choose Targeting, Google limits your ads to people who trigger your keywords and belong to the selected audiences.
If you choose Observation, Google reports how users in those audiences engage with your ads compared with people outside those audiences, but it can still show your ads to anyone who triggers your keywords.
We only recommend this for accounts with high invalid click rates.
There are potential downsides to this approach, such as unintentionally blocking legitimate users who don’t fit within Google’s pre-defined audiences.
How to test this in your own account
In a Search campaign, select Audiences > Edit audience segments > Targeting > Browse. Select the audiences you want to add and click Save.







Common questions about fighting click fraud
Will Google refund clicks it identifies as invalid?
If Google identifies a click as invalid when it occurs, you won’t be charged for that click. If Google identifies a click as invalid after the fact, you’ll receive a credit toward future advertising.
How do I see how many invalid clicks I’m getting?
The “Invalid activity credit” report in Report Editor in the Google Ads UI provides the most detailed reporting.
Invalid clicks: Clicks you weren’t charged for.
Credited clicks: Clicks you were originally charged for but later credited back.




You can also add the Invalid clicks and Invalid click rate columns at the campaign level, but not at the ad group or keyword level.
What’s a normal invalid click rate?
A February study identified an 11.4% invalid click rate across 43,700 accounts.
Industry matters. While the average invalid click rate for StubGroup’s clients is very similar to the study’s findings, we’ve seen clients in competitive industries with invalid click rates above 40%.
Should I file an investigation with Google?
If you have reason to believe Google is charging you for invalid clicks, it may be worth filing an investigation here.
before your competitors.
      
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Why this approach worked best
Using Google’s predefined audiences as a filter cut this account’s reported invalid click rate in half and blocked activity that Google had claimed it was already catching. That turned failing campaigns into profitable ones.

After Google said it had already filtered suspicious activity, this unexpected approach restored campaign profitability.

A Google Ads targeting tactic that cut invalid clicks by 50%

<div><img width="1920" height="1080" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/07/What-1-million-keywords-reveal-about-AIs-impact-on-search.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="What 1 million keywords reveal about AI&#039;s impact on search" decoding="async" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/07/What-1-million-keywords-reveal-about-AIs-impact-on-search.png 1920w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/07/What-1-million-keywords-reveal-about-AIs-impact-on-search-768x432.png 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/07/What-1-million-keywords-reveal-about-AIs-impact-on-search-1536x864.png 1536w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/07/What-1-million-keywords-reveal-about-AIs-impact-on-search-1200x675.png 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px" /></div>A large-scale study of search behavior shows which industries are losing demand, where it is shifting, and how AI is changing discovery.

Search demand is shifting, not shrinking. Our analysis found that 29% of high-volume search demand is in decline, while nearly the same amount is growing elsewhere. Overall demand remains essentially flat because search behavior is being redistributed rather than reduced.
Focus your SEO strategy on where demand is growing. Review which keywords are losing volume, identify the queries gaining momentum, and build the brand authority that earns visibility in both search engines and AI-generated answers.
This study examines where search demand is moving, which industries are seeing the biggest changes, and what those patterns mean for SEO.
How we studied AI’s impact on search
In 2024, Gartner predicted that traditional search engine volume would fall 25% by 2026 as consumers shifted to AI chatbots and virtual agents. Fractl and Search Engine Land set out to test that prediction. (Disclosure: I’m the co-founder of Fractl.)



We analyzed Semrush data for 1,010,848 high-volume keywords, each with 10,000 or more monthly searches, across 379 brands in eight verticals. We also surveyed 1,004 U.S. consumers to understand how AI is changing search behavior.
The analysis measured which keywords gained and lost search volume over the past year, how those changes varied by industry, and how consumer search habits are evolving alongside AI adoption.
AI recommends.
      
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The 29% search decline is real, but it varies a lot by vertical
Across more than a million high-volume keywords, 29% of search volume is in measurable decline. That’s 4 percentage points above Gartner’s forecast. In a dataset representing 35.4 billion monthly searches, a 4-point difference translates to a substantial volume of searches.




By industry, FinTech saw the largest decline at -37.7% and Lifestyle the smallest at -15.2%. Only three of the eight verticals (Insurance, SaaS, and Lifestyle) came in below Gartner’s 25% threshold. FinTech, HealthTech, and Wellness all landed well above it.




The pattern tracks with how information-heavy a category is. Where a chatbot can provide a complete answer, such as a drug interaction summary, an explanation of deductibles, or a quick fund overview, search volume declines. Categories that require people to compare prices, complete a purchase, or navigate to a specific site retain more search demand.
Verticals where people need to transact (SaaS, Lifestyle, Insurance, and Travel) are growing or remain close to flat. Verticals where people primarily seek information (HealthTech, FinTech, and Wellness) are seeing the largest search declines.
Benchmark these findings against your own vertical before reacting to AI-driven search declines. HealthTech and FinTech teams should plan for exposure well above the overall 29% decline. SaaS and Lifestyle teams have more reason to question broad claims that search demand is collapsing.
Search demand is redistributing
The top-line decline number gets the headlines. The offset matters because it shows that demand didn’t vanish. It moved to a different set of words, and those are the ones worth ranking for.




Yes, 40.7% of the high-volume keywords we tracked are in measurable decline, meaning more than a 15% volume loss over the past year. Among the affected keywords, the average decline is -41%, and 112,378 of them have lost more than 40% of their volume. For brands ranking on those terms, the hit isn’t gentle.
But 20.1% of keywords are growing by that same threshold. Add up the volume on each side of the ledger, and the two totals almost exactly cancel out.




The 285,489 declining keywords add up to roughly 10.29 billion in monthly volume. The 140,835 growing keywords add up to roughly 10.31 billion. Net change across the entire dataset: +16.8 million searches a month.
Fewer keywords are growing than declining, but the growing ones carry more volume each, which is how the totals end up even. Demand didn’t shrink so much as relocate.
The vertical-level growth-to-decline ratios show where the new demand is landing:
Lifestyle leads at 2.6x (40% growing vs. 15% declining).
SaaS is right behind at 2.5x (48% growing vs. 19% declining).
HealthTech sits at the other end with an inverted ratio of 0.4x, which is why it’s the most disrupted vertical in the set.
Pull your tracked keywords, filter by year-over-year volume change, and see which side of the ledger your portfolio sits on. That’s the audit to run first.
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Non-branded queries are the most vulnerable
AI chatbots replace non-branded queries easily. When a search term doesn’t include a brand name, there’s no particular site the user has to reach and no specific source the answer has to come from, so the whole exchange can stay inside the chat window.




Across the dataset, 90% of all tracked search volume is non-branded. HealthTech (99.6%) and Wellness (98.5%) are the most exposed. Insurance (73.8%) and SaaS (82.0%) are less exposed, and both are growing overall. SaaS volume is up 48% in the past year, and Lifestyle is up 40%.
If you want to know which content is most at risk, the keyword-pattern data is the clearest signal in the study.




The reason SaaS and Lifestyle can be both AI-targeted and growing comes down to what happens after AI answers.
When AI recommends a project management tool or a couch, plenty of people still search for the specific brand or retailer before they buy. The AI answer creates a downstream search. In HealthTech and FinTech, it doesn’t. A drug-interaction question or a “what is a deductible” query gets answered in full inside the chat window, and there’s no next step that sends you to Google.
If your category produces complete AI answers with no natural next click, you need an AI visibility strategy, not just an SEO one. Showing up in the answer is the whole game now.
70% of consumers use AI more, but just 17% use search less
The keyword data tells you what’s happening in the index. The survey tells you what’s happening in the heads of the people doing the searching.




Search behavior has spread across more platforms. Plenty of people are folding AI into their habits without giving up Google.
Social platforms are working as search engines in a way they weren’t a few years ago. YouTube (68%) and Reddit (57%) lead by a wide margin, with Instagram (42%), Facebook (40%), and TikTok (33%) rounding out the top five.
YouTube and Reddit are worth prioritizing if you haven’t already. Both rank ahead of TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook as search destinations, and both index in Google, so visibility there compounds across platforms.
What has actually moved from Google to AI
More than a third of respondents (35%) say they haven’t replaced traditional search with AI for anything yet. Among those who have, how-to guides and tutorials took the biggest hit.




For purchase research, 47% of consumers start with a traditional search engine, tied with online retailers at 47%. Only 13% start with an AI chatbot, and shoppers check an average of three online sources before they buy.
Here’s the number worth bringing to your next strategy meeting: Nearly one in five consumers (18%) have bought something based on an AI recommendation without checking it against a separate search.
That’s a new kind of buyer journey, one where the brand never gets a search-driven touchpoint. To be in the running, you have to be one of the names the chatbot returns.




Gen Z and millennials are 2.5x more likely than baby boomers to buy based on an unverified AI recommendation (20% vs. 7%). Across all consumers, 59% say they’re likely to visit a brand’s website after an AI chatbot mentions or recommends it.
That’s the new conversion funnel. Brand mentions in an AI answer are the new rankings. Visits to a brand’s website are the new click-throughs.
On trust:
33% of consumers trust AI and traditional search equally.
46% trust search more.
20% trust AI more.
More than half (56%) are at least somewhat skeptical of AI product recommendations. People are happy to let AI filter and shortlist, but most still verify before they buy.
The 5-year outlook: Google’s not going anywhere, but the minority that’s leaving matters
Asked whether Google will still be their primary search tool in five years, 52% of consumers say yes (17% definitely, 35% probably). Another 27% aren’t sure, and 20% say probably or definitely not.




The top reasons people prefer AI over traditional search are better summaries across sources (21%), faster and more direct answers (20%), and the ability to ask conversational follow-up questions (19%). More personalized results and not having to click through websites trailed far behind, at 6% and 4%.
Asked what would bring them back to traditional search, the top answer was AI giving unreliable answers (35%), so much of this split depends on whether AI maintains people’s trust as it scales. More accurate search results came next (29%), followed by a preference for multiple source links (22%) and privacy concerns (20%).
The 20% who expect to leave Google aren’t a majority, but they’re not a rounding error either. You don’t have to rebuild your whole strategy around them today, but you do need to show up where they’re already going.
customers won’t either.
      
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What this means for your content and SEO strategy
Gartner’s 25% prediction was the right kind of directional warning. The real shift is steeper, but calling it a “decline” misses the bigger story. Total search volume is basically flat. What’s changed is which searches carry the volume.
AI visibility is a distribution channel, not a threat to dodge. With 59% of consumers saying they’ll visit a brand’s website after an AI mention, GEO is now a meaningful part of brand discovery. Earned media, credible third-party coverage, and entity signals help brands land in chatbot answers, which is why digital PR and GEO increasingly overlap.
Search is moving, not disappearing. 
The brands that lose are still optimizing for queries AI now answers better. The brands that win are building the kind of authority that makes them the answer, whether it comes from Google or a chatbot.
Methodology
This study combined two data sources to test Gartner’s 2024 prediction that traditional search engine volume would fall 25% by 2026.
Fractl and Search Engine Land analyzed Semrush search volume data for 1,010,848 high-volume keywords with 10,000 or more monthly searches each, covering 379 brands across eight verticals: FinTech, HealthTech, Wellness, Travel, Education, Insurance, SaaS, and Lifestyle. The dataset represented 35.4 billion in aggregate monthly search volume. Keyword-level year-over-year volume change was measured as of April 2026 and classified as declining (more than 15% loss), stable (within 15%), or growing (more than 15% gain). Query pattern groupings (“What is X,” “Best X for Y,” “X vs. Y,” and “How to X”) were applied at the keyword level.
Fractl and Search Engine Land also surveyed 1,004 U.S. consumers about their search habits, AI tool adoption, and purchase research behavior. The sample was 52% women, 46% men, and 1% nonbinary, with 49% millennials, 26% Gen X, 16% Gen Z, and 9% boomers. The median respondent age was 41, with a range of 18 to 82.

A large-scale study of search behavior shows which industries are losing demand, where it is shifting, and how AI is changing discovery.

What 1 million keywords reveal about AI’s impact on search

<div><img width="1920" height="1080" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/07/How-competitors-target-your-branded-traffic-with-Google-Ads.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="How competitors target your branded traffic with Google Ads" decoding="async" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/07/How-competitors-target-your-branded-traffic-with-Google-Ads.png 1920w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/07/How-competitors-target-your-branded-traffic-with-Google-Ads-768x432.png 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/07/How-competitors-target-your-branded-traffic-with-Google-Ads-1536x864.png 1536w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/07/How-competitors-target-your-branded-traffic-with-Google-Ads-1200x675.png 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px" /></div>Learn how dynamic keyword insertion, comparison pages, and brand modifier keywords influence branded searches, and how to defend against them.

<div><img width="1920" height="1080" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/07/How-competitors-target-your-branded-traffic-with-Google-Ads.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="How competitors target your branded traffic with Google Ads" decoding="async" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/07/How-competitors-target-your-branded-traffic-with-Google-Ads.png 1920w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/07/How-competitors-target-your-branded-traffic-with-Google-Ads-768x432.png 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/07/How-competitors-target-your-branded-traffic-with-Google-Ads-1536x864.png 1536w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/07/How-competitors-target-your-branded-traffic-with-Google-Ads-1200x675.png 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px" /></div>
<p>Your competitors aren&#8217;t only bidding on your brand. They&#8217;re positioning themselves against you through coordinated tactics across landing pages, ad copy, and Google&#8217;s own automation. Much of it looks completely legitimate.</p>



<p>Competitive pressure extends beyond keyword bids. Comparison landing pages that never get flagged, dynamic keyword insertion that pulls brand names into headlines, and policy gaps that let competitors appear alongside your brand can quietly erode performance without violating Google&#8217;s rules.</p>



<p>By the time you notice, the impact may already be showing up in your branded conversion rate. Here&#8217;s what&#8217;s happening, how to spot these tactics early, and what you can do about them.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-1-dynamic-keyword-insertion">1. Dynamic keyword insertion</h2>



<p>Dynamic keyword insertion (DKI) is designed to make ads more relevant by automatically inserting a user&#8217;s search query into the headline. In competitive brand auctions, it can create a loophole.</p>



<p>If a competitor bids on your branded terms and uses DKI, Google can dynamically insert your brand name into the ad in real time, without the competitor ever manually writing it into the copy.</p>



<p>The competitor isn&#8217;t explicitly using your trademark. Instead, Google automatically inserts the user&#8217;s search query into the headline. To users, the ad may look like it directly references your brand. Within Google&#8217;s system, however, it&#8217;s treated as standard query matching.</p>



<p>As a result, the ad can appear to reference your brand, capture high-intent traffic, and redirect users to a competing offer without clearly violating policy.</p>



<p>I&#8217;ve seen this from both sides: competitors using it intentionally, and brands triggering it in their own accounts without realizing it. In one case, a competitor&#8217;s name began appearing in a brand&#8217;s ad headlines because of DKI. No one had written it into the ad. Google inserted it based on the user&#8217;s query.</p>



<p>The bigger challenge is that you can&#8217;t reliably detect this within Google Ads. You have to audit the search results page to see it. Otherwise, you&#8217;ll often notice the impact only after branded CPCs rise or conversion rates begin to decline.</p>



<p><strong><em>Dig deeper: <a href="https://searchengineland.com/ppc-using-branded-competitor-keywords-435561">When to use branded and competitor keywords in PPC</a></em></strong>


<a href="https://www.semrush.com/analytics/traffic/paid-search?utm_campaign=ic_sel_0101ppc&#038;utm_source=searchengineland.com&#038;utm_medium=overlay&#038;onboarding=off" target="_blank">
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        See exactly how <span>your competitors win</span>.
      </div>
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        Uncover the keywords, ads, landing pages, and strategies driving your competitors&#8217; paid search success—and find your next opportunity to outperform them.
      </p>
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      <span id="semrush-one-cta">Analyze your competitors</span>
    </div>
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    </a>




<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-2-comparison-landing-pages">2. Comparison landing pages</h2>



<p>Landing pages occupy a gray area. Google doesn&#8217;t evaluate landing page content the same way it reviews ad copy. If a competitor creates a page such as &#8220;[Your Company] alternatives&#8221; or &#8220;[Competitor vs. Your Company]&#8221; and bids on your branded terms, the ad can run as long as the ad itself remains neutral.</p>



<p>The ad copy doesn&#8217;t have to mention your brand. It can be completely generic: &#8220;Find the right solution,&#8221; &#8220;Compare top tools,&#8221; or &#8220;See your options.&#8221; The competitive positioning happens after the click.</p>



<p>Once users arrive, the landing page does the work through comparison charts, feature breakdowns, pricing callouts, and carefully framed language such as &#8220;Why teams choose us over [Your Company].&#8221; The content isn&#8217;t misleading or technically noncompliant, but its purpose is clear.</p>



<p>Google&#8217;s review process focuses on the ad rather than the full post-click experience. As long as the ad copy doesn&#8217;t make explicit competitive claims, the system generally treats it as compliant, even when the landing page is built entirely around positioning against your brand.</p>



<p>The tactic works because landing page relevance reinforces policy compliance. A landing page built around your brand and the keywords in the ad group aligns more closely with the user&#8217;s intent than the ad alone. Even when the ad copy remains generic, a highly relevant post-click experience can help the ad compete more effectively in the auction by matching the searcher&#8217;s query.</p>



<p>Your response should extend beyond a single advertiser. If competitors are using comparison-driven experiences to intercept branded demand:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Focus on strengthening your presence across the broader search ecosystem.&nbsp;</li>



<li>Invest in publishers, review platforms, directories, analysts, and affiliates that influence comparison and alternative searches.&nbsp;</li>



<li>Build a search results page where multiple credible sources reinforce your positioning when prospects search for alternatives, comparisons, reviews, or competitor evaluations.</li>
</ul>



<p>The brands that succeed don&#8217;t rely solely on their own landing pages. They influence the narrative across the entire search results page.</p>



<p><strong><em>Dig deeper: <a href="https://searchengineland.com/branded-search-competitive-ppc-defense-470510">Own your branded search: Building a competitive PPC defense</a></em></strong>



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<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-3-brand-modifier-keywords">3. Brand modifier keywords</h2>



<p>Brand keyword bidding isn&#8217;t new, but competitors are using it differently. Instead of bidding only on your exact brand name, they&#8217;re targeting brand-and-modifier combinations that give them more legal flexibility.</p>



<p>Examples:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li><strong>Your brand:</strong> &#8220;Acme Project Manager&#8221;</li>



<li><strong>They bid on:</strong> Acme Project Manager alternative, Acme vs. competitors, Acme pricing review</li>



<li><strong>Ad copy:</strong> Avoids mentioning Acme by name and instead relies on the search context while positioning itself as the alternative</li>
</ul>



<p>Google allows this because the ad doesn&#8217;t explicitly mention your brand. The searcher does. Modifier keywords provide enough context for the ad to compete without directly referencing your trademark.</p>



<p>When competitors bid on &#8220;[Your Brand] alternative&#8221; or &#8220;[Your Brand] vs.,&#8221; they&#8217;re targeting lower-funnel research queries. These searchers may convert at a lower rate than people searching only for your brand, but their presence still changes the auction dynamics. It can increase branded CPCs, force you to spend more to maintain visibility, and raise the cost of your core brand terms, even if competitors convert relatively few of those modifier searches.</p>



<p>Treat brand modifier queries as a separate audience. Segment them by intent, including pricing, reviews, alternatives, competitors, and comparisons, and monitor Auction Insights for each group. Exact brand searches and comparison-driven searches require different strategies.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Build dedicated landing pages and messaging that address the intent behind each modifier query, so you can control high-intent research moments without overpaying for every branded variation.</p>



<p><strong><em>Dig deeper: <a href="https://searchengineland.com/benchmark-ppc-competitors-guide-438641">How to benchmark PPC competitors: The definitive guide</a></em></strong>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-how-to-monitor-and-respond">How to monitor and respond</h2>



<p>Manual SERP checks are effective, but they don&#8217;t scale. If you have significant branded spend or competitors actively targeting your terms, automated brand monitoring tools can identify activity across devices, geographies, and browsers that manual checks often miss. This becomes especially important when competitors use geotargeting, dayparting, or other tactics designed to limit visibility.</p>



<p>Escalation should follow a clear framework. If a competitor is using your trademarked term directly in ad copy, start with Google&#8217;s trademark complaint process. If the behavior continues after enforcement action, document the pattern and involve legal counsel. </p>



<p>Most other scenarios, including modifier bidding, comparison pages, and competitive positioning, are better addressed through PPC strategy than legal action.</p>



<p>Before deciding how aggressively to respond, measure the economics of the situation. Estimate the monthly cost of competitor activity by calculating the increase in branded CPCs and the additional spend required to maintain visibility. </p>



<p>Then compare that figure with the cost of your response, whether that&#8217;s higher bids, new landing pages, expanded monitoring, or investments in third-party visibility. Your objective is to keep the cost of defending your brand lower than the value you&#8217;re protecting.</p>


<a href="https://www.semrush.com/analytics/traffic/paid-search?utm_campaign=ic_sel_0102ppc&#038;utm_source=searchengineland.com&#038;utm_medium=overlay&#038;onboarding=off" target="_blank">
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      <div id="semrush-one-headline" class="headline-responsive">
        Every click they win is <span>a customer you lose</span>.
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      <p id="semrush-one-subhead">
        See where competitors are investing, which keywords drive their results, and how to capture more of the market.
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      <span id="semrush-one-cta">See who’s stealing your traffic</span>
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<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-build-a-proportionate-response">Build a proportionate response</h2>



<p>Competitors are using modifier keywords, comparison landing pages, dynamic keyword insertion, and other policy-compliant tactics to influence buyers during critical research stages, often while staying within Google&#8217;s policies.</p>



<p>The strongest defenses combine continuous monitoring, thoughtful audience segmentation, proportionate responses, and disciplined budget decisions. </p>



<p>Success in competitive PPC comes from understanding the auction, shaping the narrative across search results, and investing where your defensive efforts deliver the greatest return.</p>

Your competitors aren’t only bidding on your brand. They’re positioning themselves against you through coordinated tactics across landing pages, ad copy, and Google’s own automation. Much of it looks completely legitimate.
Competitive pressure extends beyond keyword bids. Comparison landing pages that never get flagged, dynamic keyword insertion that pulls brand names into headlines, and policy gaps that let competitors appear alongside your brand can quietly erode performance without violating Google’s rules.
By the time you notice, the impact may already be showing up in your branded conversion rate. Here’s what’s happening, how to spot these tactics early, and what you can do about them.
1. Dynamic keyword insertion
Dynamic keyword insertion (DKI) is designed to make ads more relevant by automatically inserting a user’s search query into the headline. In competitive brand auctions, it can create a loophole.
If a competitor bids on your branded terms and uses DKI, Google can dynamically insert your brand name into the ad in real time, without the competitor ever manually writing it into the copy.
The competitor isn’t explicitly using your trademark. Instead, Google automatically inserts the user’s search query into the headline. To users, the ad may look like it directly references your brand. Within Google’s system, however, it’s treated as standard query matching.
As a result, the ad can appear to reference your brand, capture high-intent traffic, and redirect users to a competing offer without clearly violating policy.
I’ve seen this from both sides: competitors using it intentionally, and brands triggering it in their own accounts without realizing it. In one case, a competitor’s name began appearing in a brand’s ad headlines because of DKI. No one had written it into the ad. Google inserted it based on the user’s query.
The bigger challenge is that you can’t reliably detect this within Google Ads. You have to audit the search results page to see it. Otherwise, you’ll often notice the impact only after branded CPCs rise or conversion rates begin to decline.
Dig deeper: When to use branded and competitor keywords in PPC



  
your competitors win.
      
Analyze your competitors
    
2. Comparison landing pages
Landing pages occupy a gray area. Google doesn’t evaluate landing page content the same way it reviews ad copy. If a competitor creates a page such as “[Your Company] alternatives” or “[Competitor vs. Your Company]” and bids on your branded terms, the ad can run as long as the ad itself remains neutral.
The ad copy doesn’t have to mention your brand. It can be completely generic: “Find the right solution,” “Compare top tools,” or “See your options.” The competitive positioning happens after the click.
Once users arrive, the landing page does the work through comparison charts, feature breakdowns, pricing callouts, and carefully framed language such as “Why teams choose us over [Your Company].” The content isn’t misleading or technically noncompliant, but its purpose is clear.
Google’s review process focuses on the ad rather than the full post-click experience. As long as the ad copy doesn’t make explicit competitive claims, the system generally treats it as compliant, even when the landing page is built entirely around positioning against your brand.
The tactic works because landing page relevance reinforces policy compliance. A landing page built around your brand and the keywords in the ad group aligns more closely with the user’s intent than the ad alone. Even when the ad copy remains generic, a highly relevant post-click experience can help the ad compete more effectively in the auction by matching the searcher’s query.
Your response should extend beyond a single advertiser. If competitors are using comparison-driven experiences to intercept branded demand:
Focus on strengthening your presence across the broader search ecosystem. 
Invest in publishers, review platforms, directories, analysts, and affiliates that influence comparison and alternative searches. 
Build a search results page where multiple credible sources reinforce your positioning when prospects search for alternatives, comparisons, reviews, or competitor evaluations.
The brands that succeed don’t rely solely on their own landing pages. They influence the narrative across the entire search results page.
Dig deeper: Own your branded search: Building a competitive PPC defense




	
	
Get the newsletter search marketers rely on.
 
				
				
			
See terms.
		
3. Brand modifier keywords
Brand keyword bidding isn’t new, but competitors are using it differently. Instead of bidding only on your exact brand name, they’re targeting brand-and-modifier combinations that give them more legal flexibility.
Examples:
Your brand: “Acme Project Manager”
They bid on: Acme Project Manager alternative, Acme vs. competitors, Acme pricing review
Ad copy: Avoids mentioning Acme by name and instead relies on the search context while positioning itself as the alternative
Google allows this because the ad doesn’t explicitly mention your brand. The searcher does. Modifier keywords provide enough context for the ad to compete without directly referencing your trademark.
When competitors bid on “[Your Brand] alternative” or “[Your Brand] vs.,” they’re targeting lower-funnel research queries. These searchers may convert at a lower rate than people searching only for your brand, but their presence still changes the auction dynamics. It can increase branded CPCs, force you to spend more to maintain visibility, and raise the cost of your core brand terms, even if competitors convert relatively few of those modifier searches.
Treat brand modifier queries as a separate audience. Segment them by intent, including pricing, reviews, alternatives, competitors, and comparisons, and monitor Auction Insights for each group. Exact brand searches and comparison-driven searches require different strategies. 
Build dedicated landing pages and messaging that address the intent behind each modifier query, so you can control high-intent research moments without overpaying for every branded variation.
Dig deeper: How to benchmark PPC competitors: The definitive guide



How to monitor and respond
Manual SERP checks are effective, but they don’t scale. If you have significant branded spend or competitors actively targeting your terms, automated brand monitoring tools can identify activity across devices, geographies, and browsers that manual checks often miss. This becomes especially important when competitors use geotargeting, dayparting, or other tactics designed to limit visibility.
Escalation should follow a clear framework. If a competitor is using your trademarked term directly in ad copy, start with Google’s trademark complaint process. If the behavior continues after enforcement action, document the pattern and involve legal counsel. 
Most other scenarios, including modifier bidding, comparison pages, and competitive positioning, are better addressed through PPC strategy than legal action.
Before deciding how aggressively to respond, measure the economics of the situation. Estimate the monthly cost of competitor activity by calculating the increase in branded CPCs and the additional spend required to maintain visibility. 
Then compare that figure with the cost of your response, whether that’s higher bids, new landing pages, expanded monitoring, or investments in third-party visibility. Your objective is to keep the cost of defending your brand lower than the value you’re protecting.
a customer you lose.
      
See who’s stealing your traffic
    
Build a proportionate response
Competitors are using modifier keywords, comparison landing pages, dynamic keyword insertion, and other policy-compliant tactics to influence buyers during critical research stages, often while staying within Google’s policies.
The strongest defenses combine continuous monitoring, thoughtful audience segmentation, proportionate responses, and disciplined budget decisions. 
Success in competitive PPC comes from understanding the auction, shaping the narrative across search results, and investing where your defensive efforts deliver the greatest return.

Learn how dynamic keyword insertion, comparison pages, and brand modifier keywords influence branded searches, and how to defend against them.

How competitors target your branded traffic with Google Ads

<div><img width="1920" height="1080" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2025/07/SMXN2026-Speaker-D-v2.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="" decoding="async" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2025/07/SMXN2026-Speaker-D-v2.png 1920w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2025/07/SMXN2026-Speaker-D-v2-768x432.png 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2025/07/SMXN2026-Speaker-D-v2-1536x864.png 1536w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2025/07/SMXN2026-Speaker-D-v2-1200x675.png 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px" /></div>If you’re on top of the latest techniques and what’s to come in SEO, PPC, and AI search, submit a pitch to present at SMX Next.

<div><img width="1920" height="1080" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2025/07/SMXN2026-Speaker-D-v2.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="" decoding="async" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2025/07/SMXN2026-Speaker-D-v2.png 1920w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2025/07/SMXN2026-Speaker-D-v2-768x432.png 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2025/07/SMXN2026-Speaker-D-v2-1536x864.png 1536w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2025/07/SMXN2026-Speaker-D-v2-1200x675.png 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px" /></div>
<p><strong>SMX Next returns online Nov. 18</strong>, focusing on navigating today’s complex search landscape and mastering the tactics that will define success in 2027 and beyond.</p>



<p>Search marketing isn&#8217;t just changing; it has evolved into an entirely new beast. </p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>SEO has shifted to mastering AI Overviews, search everywhere optimization, and consideration for autonomous AI agents that browse on behalf of users. Demonstrating trustworthiness, digital authority, and precise alignment with user intent is even more important now.</li>



<li>On the PPC side, generative AI and deep automation are driving unprecedented personalization, but marketers are facing new challenges: How do you maintain strategic control, preserve data privacy, and prevent waste?</li>
</ul>



<p>If you’re an enthusiastic search marketer who has a passion for sharing knowledge please consider submitting a session pitch for SMX Next. We’re looking for subject matter experts to share insights, strategies, and tactics to help SEO and PPC marketers thrive in 2027.</p>



<p>Whether you’ve been speaking for years or you are a practitioner ready to share something new you&#8217;ve developed, we welcome your voice. We are actively seeking new speakers with diverse points of view and real-world experience.</p>



<p><strong>The deadline for SMX Next pitches is Aug. 7.</strong>



<p>Here are a few tips for submitting a compelling session proposal:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li><strong>Present an original idea:</strong> Focus on advanced, forward-thinking topics or unique frameworks not commonly covered at other search events.</li>



<li><strong>Focus on actionability:</strong> Include explicit details about what attendees will be able to do better, faster, or differently as a result of your session.</li>



<li><strong>Bring the data:</strong> Back up your theories with a case study or specific examples, explaining how they can be scaled across different types of organizations.</li>



<li><strong>Keep it focused:</strong> Be realistic about what you can present in 30 minutes. Going deep on a narrow or specialized topic provides much more value than a broad overview.</li>



<li><strong>Provide tangible takeaways:</strong> Ensure attendees walk away with a clear action plan or framework they can implement immediately.</li>
</ul>



<p>Jump over to this <a href="https://marketinglandevents.com/smx/speaking/">page</a> for more details on how to submit a session idea, or directly to this <a href="https://thirddoorevents.com/dashboard">page</a> to create your profile and submit a session pitch.</p>



<p>If you have questions, feel free to contact me directly at kathy.bushman@semrush.com. I’m looking forward to reading your proposals!</p>


SMX Next returns online Nov. 18, focusing on navigating today’s complex search landscape and mastering the tactics that will define success in 2027 and beyond.
Search marketing isn’t just changing; it has evolved into an entirely new beast. 
SEO has shifted to mastering AI Overviews, search everywhere optimization, and consideration for autonomous AI agents that browse on behalf of users. Demonstrating trustworthiness, digital authority, and precise alignment with user intent is even more important now.
On the PPC side, generative AI and deep automation are driving unprecedented personalization, but marketers are facing new challenges: How do you maintain strategic control, preserve data privacy, and prevent waste?
If you’re an enthusiastic search marketer who has a passion for sharing knowledge please consider submitting a session pitch for SMX Next. We’re looking for subject matter experts to share insights, strategies, and tactics to help SEO and PPC marketers thrive in 2027.
Whether you’ve been speaking for years or you are a practitioner ready to share something new you’ve developed, we welcome your voice. We are actively seeking new speakers with diverse points of view and real-world experience.
The deadline for SMX Next pitches is Aug. 7.



Here are a few tips for submitting a compelling session proposal:
Present an original idea: Focus on advanced, forward-thinking topics or unique frameworks not commonly covered at other search events.
Focus on actionability: Include explicit details about what attendees will be able to do better, faster, or differently as a result of your session.
Bring the data: Back up your theories with a case study or specific examples, explaining how they can be scaled across different types of organizations.
Keep it focused: Be realistic about what you can present in 30 minutes. Going deep on a narrow or specialized topic provides much more value than a broad overview.
Provide tangible takeaways: Ensure attendees walk away with a clear action plan or framework they can implement immediately.
Jump over to this page for more details on how to submit a session idea, or directly to this page to create your profile and submit a session pitch.
If you have questions, feel free to contact me directly at kathy.bushman@semrush.com. I’m looking forward to reading your proposals!

If you’re on top of the latest techniques and what’s to come in SEO, PPC, and AI search, submit a pitch to present at SMX Next.

Want to present at SMX Next? Now’s the time to submit a pitch!

<div><img width="1920" height="1080" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/07/chatgpt-thinking-citations.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="ChatGPT thinking citations" decoding="async" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/07/chatgpt-thinking-citations.png 1920w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/07/chatgpt-thinking-citations-768x432.png 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/07/chatgpt-thinking-citations-1536x864.png 1536w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/07/chatgpt-thinking-citations-1200x675.png 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px" /></div>Only 25.6% source overlap between minimal and high reasoning across 100 prompts and 20 buyer journeys, according to Semrush and Kevin Indig.

<div><img width="1920" height="1080" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/07/chatgpt-thinking-citations.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="ChatGPT thinking citations" decoding="async" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/07/chatgpt-thinking-citations.png 1920w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/07/chatgpt-thinking-citations-768x432.png 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/07/chatgpt-thinking-citations-1536x864.png 1536w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/07/chatgpt-thinking-citations-1200x675.png 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px" /></div>
<p>ChatGPT’s high-reasoning mode acted like a different search surface for brand visibility in a Semrush analysis with Kevin Indig. It cited different domains than in minimal reasoning mode and ran nearly five times as many web searches.</p>



<p><strong>By the numbers. </strong>Only 25.6% of cited domains overlapped between minimal and high reasoning for the same prompts. </p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Nearly three in four sources changed when ChatGPT shifted from Instant-style answers to Thinking-style answers.</li>
</ul>



<p><strong>Thinking mode used more sources. </strong>Citation rates rose from 50% in minimal reasoning to 68% in high reasoning. Cited answers also used more sources, rising from 2.6 to 4.5 citations per response. High reasoning ran 1,130 web searches across the test set, versus 245 for minimal reasoning.</p>



<p><strong>Reddit lost ground</strong>. Reddit’s citation share fell from 15% to 7% when high reasoning was on. User-generated content and review sites dropped from 14.3% to 6%.</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Government and academic sources rose from 1.9% to 8.8%. </li>



<li>Official documentation and support pages grew from 12.4% to 17.5%.</li>
</ul>



<p><strong>Comparison prompts drove searches</strong>. At the comparison stage, high reasoning averaged 24 sub-queries per prompt, versus 5.5 for minimal reasoning. Average citations also peaked there, at 9.8 per high-reasoning response versus 5.8 for minimal reasoning.</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>For example, a CRM comparison may trigger separate searches for pricing, integrations, security, support pages, and documentation before ChatGPT forms its answer.</li>
</ul>


<a href="https://www.semrush.com/ai-seo/overview?utm_campaign=ic_sel_0101ai&#038;utm_source=searchengineland.com&#038;utm_medium=overlay&#038;onboarding=off" target="_blank">
  <div>
    
    <div>
      
      <div id="semrush-one-headline" class="headline-responsive">
        Be the brand <span>AI recommends</span>.
      </div>
      <p id="semrush-one-subhead">
        See where your brand appears in AI search, where competitors are winning, and what it takes to become the answer AI recommends.
      </p>
    </div>
    <div>
      <span id="semrush-one-cta">See your AI visibility</span>
    </div>
    </div>
    </a>




<p><strong>Early citations lasted longer</strong>. High reasoning was more likely to carry a brand from early research into later buying questions.</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>In four of the 20 journeys tested, a brand cited at the problem stage still appeared at the selection stage. Minimal reasoning showed no full-journey persistence (whether a brand cited at the Problem stage survived to the Selection stage of the same journey).</li>



<li>High reasoning also reused the same domains more often within a single answer. The same domain appeared multiple times in 51 of 100 high-reasoning responses, versus 26 of 100 minimal-reasoning responses.</li>
</ul>



<p><strong>Finance saw the biggest jump</strong>. The citation lift varied by category:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Finance had the largest increase, with citation rates rising 28 percentage points in high reasoning. </li>



<li>Health and lifestyle rose 24 points.</li>



<li>B2B SaaS gained 16 points.</li>



<li>Consumer tech barely moved, rising only 4 points. </li>



<li>Even though high reasoning ran more sub-queries for consumer tech prompts than for any other category, it often landed on the same brands and sources as minimal reasoning.</li>
</ul>



<p><strong>Why we care. </strong>Your content may appear in fast ChatGPT answers but disappear when users ask more complex questions. Visibility depends on whether your pages, documentation, and third-party references can surface across the smaller searches ChatGPT runs before it answers.</p>



<p><strong>About the data. </strong>Semrush and Indig tested 100 prompts across 20 buyer journeys in B2B SaaS, finance, consumer tech, and health and lifestyle. Each prompt ran once in minimal reasoning and once in high reasoning. The analysis tracked citation rate, cited sources, and fan-out queries.</p>



<p><strong>The report.</strong> <a href="https://www.semrush.com/blog/chatgpt-reasoning-ai-visibility/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Only 25% of cited sources overlap between ChatGPT&#8217;s different reasoning modes [Study]</a>


ChatGPT’s high-reasoning mode acted like a different search surface for brand visibility in a Semrush analysis with Kevin Indig. It cited different domains than in minimal reasoning mode and ran nearly five times as many web searches.
By the numbers. Only 25.6% of cited domains overlapped between minimal and high reasoning for the same prompts. 
Nearly three in four sources changed when ChatGPT shifted from Instant-style answers to Thinking-style answers.
Thinking mode used more sources. Citation rates rose from 50% in minimal reasoning to 68% in high reasoning. Cited answers also used more sources, rising from 2.6 to 4.5 citations per response. High reasoning ran 1,130 web searches across the test set, versus 245 for minimal reasoning.
Reddit lost ground. Reddit’s citation share fell from 15% to 7% when high reasoning was on. User-generated content and review sites dropped from 14.3% to 6%.
Government and academic sources rose from 1.9% to 8.8%. 
Official documentation and support pages grew from 12.4% to 17.5%.
Comparison prompts drove searches. At the comparison stage, high reasoning averaged 24 sub-queries per prompt, versus 5.5 for minimal reasoning. Average citations also peaked there, at 9.8 per high-reasoning response versus 5.8 for minimal reasoning.
For example, a CRM comparison may trigger separate searches for pricing, integrations, security, support pages, and documentation before ChatGPT forms its answer.
AI recommends.
      
See your AI visibility
    
Early citations lasted longer. High reasoning was more likely to carry a brand from early research into later buying questions.
In four of the 20 journeys tested, a brand cited at the problem stage still appeared at the selection stage. Minimal reasoning showed no full-journey persistence (whether a brand cited at the Problem stage survived to the Selection stage of the same journey).
High reasoning also reused the same domains more often within a single answer. The same domain appeared multiple times in 51 of 100 high-reasoning responses, versus 26 of 100 minimal-reasoning responses.
Finance saw the biggest jump. The citation lift varied by category:
Finance had the largest increase, with citation rates rising 28 percentage points in high reasoning. 
Health and lifestyle rose 24 points.
B2B SaaS gained 16 points.
Consumer tech barely moved, rising only 4 points. 
Even though high reasoning ran more sub-queries for consumer tech prompts than for any other category, it often landed on the same brands and sources as minimal reasoning.
Why we care. Your content may appear in fast ChatGPT answers but disappear when users ask more complex questions. Visibility depends on whether your pages, documentation, and third-party references can surface across the smaller searches ChatGPT runs before it answers.
About the data. Semrush and Indig tested 100 prompts across 20 buyer journeys in B2B SaaS, finance, consumer tech, and health and lifestyle. Each prompt ran once in minimal reasoning and once in high reasoning. The analysis tracked citation rate, cited sources, and fan-out queries.
The report. Only 25% of cited sources overlap between ChatGPT’s different reasoning modes [Study]

Only 25.6% source overlap between minimal and high reasoning across 100 prompts and 20 buyer journeys, according to Semrush and Kevin Indig.

ChatGPT Thinking mode changes which brands get cited

<div><img width="800" height="450" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/06/How-to-use-Performance-Max-for-any-type-of-business-800x450.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="How to use Performance Max for any type of business" decoding="async" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/06/How-to-use-Performance-Max-for-any-type-of-business-800x450.png 800w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/06/How-to-use-Performance-Max-for-any-type-of-business-600x338.png 600w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/06/How-to-use-Performance-Max-for-any-type-of-business-200x113.png 200w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/06/How-to-use-Performance-Max-for-any-type-of-business-768x432.png 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/06/How-to-use-Performance-Max-for-any-type-of-business-1536x864.png 1536w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/06/How-to-use-Performance-Max-for-any-type-of-business.png 1920w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" /></div>Google's Channel Diagnostics for PMax, helps advertisers identify missing or disapproved assets that could limit performance.

<div><img width="800" height="450" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/06/How-to-use-Performance-Max-for-any-type-of-business-800x450.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="How to use Performance Max for any type of business" decoding="async" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/06/How-to-use-Performance-Max-for-any-type-of-business-800x450.png 800w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/06/How-to-use-Performance-Max-for-any-type-of-business-600x338.png 600w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/06/How-to-use-Performance-Max-for-any-type-of-business-200x113.png 200w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/06/How-to-use-Performance-Max-for-any-type-of-business-768x432.png 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/06/How-to-use-Performance-Max-for-any-type-of-business-1536x864.png 1536w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2024/06/How-to-use-Performance-Max-for-any-type-of-business.png 1920w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" /></div>
<p>Google is introducing a new Channel Diagnostics feature for Performance Max, giving advertisers a centralised view of asset issues that may be limiting campaign delivery across Google&#8217;s channels.</p>



<p><strong>What&#8217;s happening</strong>. The new Channel Diagnostics section is now available within Insights &amp; Reports &gt; Channel Performance in Performance Max campaigns.</p>



<p>Advertisers can:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>View diagnostics across all Performance Max channels or drill into individual channels.</li>



<li>Identify missing or disapproved assets affecting campaign eligibility.</li>



<li>See exactly which asset types—such as headlines, descriptions, or images—need attention.</li>
</ul>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img decoding="async" width="1280" height="720" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/07/pmax-channel-diagnostics.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-481446" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/07/pmax-channel-diagnostics.jpg 1280w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/07/pmax-channel-diagnostics-768x432.jpg 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/07/pmax-channel-diagnostics-1200x675.jpg 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px" /></figure>



<p><strong>Why we care</strong>. Performance Max is often criticised for offering limited visibility into campaign issues. The new diagnostics tool makes it easier for advertisers to spot missing creative assets that could be preventing campaigns from serving across Search, Display, YouTube, Discover, Gmail, and Maps.</p>



<p><strong>Between the lines</strong>. By surfacing channel-specific asset gaps in one place, Google is giving advertisers more actionable insights without requiring them to manually audit asset groups.</p>



<p><strong>The bottom line</strong>. Channel Diagnostics gives Performance Max advertisers a quicker way to identify and fix missing assets, helping ensure campaigns remain eligible to serve across Google&#8217;s full range of inventory.</p>



<p><strong>Spotted.</strong> This update was spotted by Google Ads Specialist who shared the update on <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7477277181820272641/">LinkedIn</a>. </p>


<a href="https://www.semrush.com/analytics/traffic/paid-search?utm_campaign=ic_sel_0102ppc&#038;utm_source=searchengineland.com&#038;utm_medium=overlay&#038;onboarding=off" target="_blank">
  <div>
    
    <div>
      
      <div id="semrush-one-headline" class="headline-responsive">
        Every click they win is <span>a customer you lose</span>.
      </div>
      <p id="semrush-one-subhead">
        See where competitors are investing, which keywords drive their results, and how to capture more of the market.
      </p>
    </div>
    <div>
      <span id="semrush-one-cta">See who’s stealing your traffic</span>
    </div>
    </div>
    </a>



Google is introducing a new Channel Diagnostics feature for Performance Max, giving advertisers a centralised view of asset issues that may be limiting campaign delivery across Google’s channels.
What’s happening. The new Channel Diagnostics section is now available within Insights & Reports > Channel Performance in Performance Max campaigns.
Advertisers can:
View diagnostics across all Performance Max channels or drill into individual channels.
Identify missing or disapproved assets affecting campaign eligibility.
See exactly which asset types—such as headlines, descriptions, or images—need attention.




Why we care. Performance Max is often criticised for offering limited visibility into campaign issues. The new diagnostics tool makes it easier for advertisers to spot missing creative assets that could be preventing campaigns from serving across Search, Display, YouTube, Discover, Gmail, and Maps.
Between the lines. By surfacing channel-specific asset gaps in one place, Google is giving advertisers more actionable insights without requiring them to manually audit asset groups.
The bottom line. Channel Diagnostics gives Performance Max advertisers a quicker way to identify and fix missing assets, helping ensure campaigns remain eligible to serve across Google’s full range of inventory.
Spotted. This update was spotted by Google Ads Specialist who shared the update on LinkedIn. 
a customer you lose.
      
See who’s stealing your traffic

Google's Channel Diagnostics for PMax, helps advertisers identify missing or disapproved assets that could limit performance.

Google adds Channel Diagnostics to Performance Max

<div><img width="1920" height="1097" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/07/google-rocket-1920.jpg" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="" decoding="async" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/07/google-rocket-1920.jpg 1920w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/07/google-rocket-1920-768x439.jpg 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/07/google-rocket-1920-1536x878.jpg 1536w" sizes="(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px" /></div>Google will continue to support the open-source AMPhtml format, the company told me.

<div><img width="1920" height="1097" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/07/google-rocket-1920.jpg" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="" decoding="async" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/07/google-rocket-1920.jpg 1920w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/07/google-rocket-1920-768x439.jpg 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/07/google-rocket-1920-1536x878.jpg 1536w" sizes="(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px" /></div>
<p>Google has updated how it connects users to AMP pages from Search by sending them directly to publisher-hosted AMP pages. Previously, Google Search would take users to the cached pages displayed in an AMP viewer.</p>



<p>A Google spokesperson told Search Engine Land:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>&#8220;Starting today, we are updating how we connect users to AMP pages from Search, taking them directly to the AMP host pages.&#8221;</li>
</ul>



<p>Google added that rankings are unchanged but this should result in making it easier to create and maintain AMP pages, Google told us:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>&#8220;AMP content will continue to rank just like any other webpage, and this change will reduce maintenance efforts for publishers creating AMP content.&#8221;</li>
</ul>



<p><strong>No change in ranking. </strong>Google Search remains unchanged in terms how it ranks AMP pages within the search results.  Serving and ranking of AMP content in Google Search and Google Discover will remain the same, Google told us.</p>



<p><strong>Why the change. </strong>Google said that this change should make it easier for publishers, by allowing them to maintain simpler analytics management and tracking.  This should also make it easier for sites to create AMP pages and maintain those AMP pages going forward.</p>



<p>Google also told us that the company continue to support the open-source AMPhtml format. Google also posted this information <a href="https://developers.google.com/search/updates#updating-amp-documentation">over here</a>.</p>



<p>AMP has not been given <a href="https://searchengineland.com/amp-wont-be-required-for-googles-top-stories-section-335276">preferential treatment</a> for a while now, and honestly, it is surprising when you stumble on an AMP page these days.  In fact, this site <a href="https://searchengineland.com/why-were-turning-off-amp-pages-at-search-engine-land-376228">turned off AMP in 2021</a>.</p>



<p>Yea, it has been a long time since we covered AMP here but this is a change and it is important to document.</p>


<a href="https://www.semrush.com/ai-seo/overview?utm_campaign=ic_sel_0102ai&#038;utm_source=searchengineland.com&#038;utm_medium=overlay&#038;onboarding=off" target="_blank">
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       Track your visibility across AI search, uncover missed opportunities, and grow your presence where customers are asking questions.
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Google has updated how it connects users to AMP pages from Search by sending them directly to publisher-hosted AMP pages. Previously, Google Search would take users to the cached pages displayed in an AMP viewer.
A Google spokesperson told Search Engine Land:
“Starting today, we are updating how we connect users to AMP pages from Search, taking them directly to the AMP host pages.”
Google added that rankings are unchanged but this should result in making it easier to create and maintain AMP pages, Google told us:
“AMP content will continue to rank just like any other webpage, and this change will reduce maintenance efforts for publishers creating AMP content.”
No change in ranking. Google Search remains unchanged in terms how it ranks AMP pages within the search results.  Serving and ranking of AMP content in Google Search and Google Discover will remain the same, Google told us.
Why the change. Google said that this change should make it easier for publishers, by allowing them to maintain simpler analytics management and tracking.  This should also make it easier for sites to create AMP pages and maintain those AMP pages going forward.
Google also told us that the company continue to support the open-source AMPhtml format. Google also posted this information over here.
AMP has not been given preferential treatment for a while now, and honestly, it is surprising when you stumble on an AMP page these days.  In fact, this site turned off AMP in 2021.
Yea, it has been a long time since we covered AMP here but this is a change and it is important to document.
customers won’t either.
      
See your AI visibility

Google will continue to support the open-source AMPhtml format, the company told me.

Google Search now sends searchers directly to publisher-hosted AMP pages

<div><img width="1920" height="1080" src="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/07/bruce-clay-in-memoriam.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="Bruce Clay in memoriam" decoding="async" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/07/bruce-clay-in-memoriam.png 1920w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/07/bruce-clay-in-memoriam-768x432.png 768w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/07/bruce-clay-in-memoriam-1536x864.png 1536w, https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2026/07/bruce-clay-in-memoriam-1200x675.png 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px" /></div>A longtime search leader’s final industry conversation explores AI, content structure and the evolving craft behind ranking well.

A longtime search leader’s final industry conversation explores AI, content structure and the evolving craft behind ranking well.

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