Google recently published their guidance on Optimizing your website for generative AI features on Google Search, which I discovered via a write-up about on SEJ.

We all know and accept that the word of Google on matters of SEO is bond, that it has no ulterior motive ever, and has not 1. repeatedly 2. lied 3. to 4. us about it.

Okay, now that MY biases are clear, let's dig in.

From SEJ, this is actually a really great summary of what Google said and what you should really think about when reading it:

Anyone selling you llms.txt, content chunking, or AI-specific schema as the path to AI Overview citations has been wrong for 18 months. Google said so.

But there is a wrinkle worth pulling out. “Wrong for Google Search” is not the same as “wrong for AI agents.”

Nailed it (emphasis mine).

Google Says SEO is Still Relevant in The Age of AI Search

Considering that search is +56% of Google's revenue, this is a no duh thing.

The best practices for SEO continue to be relevant because our generative AI features on Google Search are rooted in our core Search ranking and quality systems. These features rely on AI techniques to highlight content from our Search index...

Anyone telling you that SEO is dead--at least right now--is trying to sell you something based on your fear about that.

Search is still a thing, it just has a slightly different flavor than the one you grew up with, like how Reese's sucks now, but they still exist I guess...

Google Says Optimizing for AEO and GEO is SEO

Google said this in the doc, which feels weird to me.

What about "AEO" and "GEO"? "AEO" stands for "answer engine optimization" and "GEO" for "generative engine optimization". These are both terms you may see used to describe work specifically focused on improving visibility in AI search experiences. From Google Search's perspective, optimizing for generative AI search is optimizing for the search experience, and thus still SEO.

Google's SEO Tips For Ranking Good And Stuff Straight From Search Central, As Summarized By Sean

1. Create actually valuable content for your audience (like this amazing post you're reading)
2. providing a unique, non-generated-by-Claude POV
3. by writing content that's helpful
4. and organized in a way that makes sense to humans.
5. Use high-quality images and video (but we all know you'll just have Veo and ChatGPT do it so whatever).
6. Focus on what your human users want (pizza).
7. If you're using AI tools, you gotta do more than just copy/paste I'm super cereal.

You: But Google, you're telling us to create original, valuable content made for human readers... don't your search results these days just grab everyone's content that you indexed and repackage it (sometimes wildly incorrectly but mostly not) written by an AI?

G0ogle:

Continued:

1. Make sure your page is indexed, idiot.
2. Make sure your page is crawlable (idiot).
3. Don't use JavaScript unless you know what you're doing. Idiot.
4. Make sure your page loads fast, is mobile friendly, and doesn't piss people off with a bad experience LIKE ALL THE SITES ON GOOGLE DISCOVER LOL
5. Don't post duplicate content idiot.

Following that, there's an interesting section on "mythbusting AI search with no ulterior motive."

Mythbusting AI Search With No Ulterior Motive

Straight from the lying, double-speaking mouth of Google are their busting of myths relating to AI with varying degrees of bullshit, as I notate below directly correlating to how bitchy I have constructed said note. Scientifically.

1. LLMs.txt doesn't do much for your site in AI search, so chillax, pls
2. You don't gotta chunk your content stop chunking your content please.
3. Don't rewrite content specifically for AI we need you to write content for human readers so WE can rewrite it for AI if you keep doing it then the content we scrape to repackage as our AI Overview degrades in quality so stop. PUHLEASE.
4. Don’t try and manufacture mentions from a bunch of trusted places to help build your authority because that works super well and we would like you to PLEASE DON’T DO THAT. It's like optimizing for click through rate it doesn't work so don't do it, thx.

I tried to make that last one super bitchy but I don't think it conveys just how long and how loudly they lied about this specific thing, so I'm including a note to really drive it home.

Follow Google's Advice At Your Own Peril And Also Ignore It At Your Own Peril

Again, these are all meant to specifically apply Google specifically, to appearing in the AI Overview on Google.com.

None of this advice is meant to be explicit GEO advice for crushing it in Chat/Claude/Perplexity/whomever.

You can probably see my tinfoil hat from wherever you're reading this in the world, but I don't trust Google's advice, and they've earned that.

But doing the things they say not to do, badly or stupidly, will—at best—get your site ignored by the AI Overlord I mean overview.

At worst, your site is forgotten, and the world moves on without you.

I'll leave you with one of my favorite passages from one of my favorite books.

All is silent in the halls of the dead. All is forgotten in the stone halls of the dead. Behold the stairways which stand in darkness; behold the rooms of ruin. These are the halls of the dead where the spiders spin and the great circuits fall quiet, one by one.

Don't let this be your site because you did too much... or too little.