Google Says AI Search Optimization Is Just SEO. The Reality Is Messier | ZeroRank

Google Says AI Search Optimization Is Just SEO. The Reality Is Messier

Google’s new AI search guide gets one thing right: a lot of the GEO/AEO industry has drifted into hype and meaningless tactics. But reducing AI visibility to “just SEO” oversimplifies what is actually happening across platforms like ChatGPT and Perplexity.

Kristavja Caci May 19, 2026 · 4 min read

Google published its first official guide to optimizing for AI search.

And according to Google, optimizing for AI search is still just SEO.

That immediately sparked debate across the SEO and AEO/GEO community.

Not necessarily because the advice itself is wrong. A lot of it is actually solid.

But AI search is no longer just Google.

And what Google says publicly and what actually drives visibility online have not always been perfectly aligned.

What Google’s AI search guide actually says

To be fair, much of Google’s guidance to optimizing for generative AI features makes sense.

The company pushed back against many of the popular “AI SEO hacks” circulating online:

Instead, Google argues that the fundamentals still matter:

Google also explicitly states:

“Optimizing for generative AI search is optimizing for the search experience, and thus still SEO.”

Meanwhile, a lot of the GEO/AEO industry has started sounding like peak SEO snake oil again. New acronyms. New “frameworks.” New technical hacks that probably do very little.

Many SEOs across Reddit discussions and LinkedIn were quick to agree with Google’s direction.

Ethan Smith argued that companies have likely wasted enormous amounts of time and resources chasing tactics Google now openly says are unnecessary.

So yes, foundational SEO matters. Probably more than ever.

But AI visibility is much bigger than Google SEO

Google’s guide is written from the perspective of Google AI Overviews and AI Mode.

But users are now discovering brands across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Claude. ChatGPT alone reportedly processes more than 2.5 billion queries per day.

And these systems do not all behave the same way.

The challenge now is:

That is a very different optimization problem from traditional SEO.

Steve Toth captured this shift perfectly when reacting to Google’s announcement:

“Clients are looking at LLMs as a distinct channel, with different priorities. They're saying things like, ‘I don't like how ChatGPT describes our product, help us change that.’”

That is perception and narrative optimization across AI systems.

And this is where I think Google’s framing becomes too narrow.

Because SEO is still the foundation.

But AI visibility is increasingly shaped by citations, reviews, discussions, and third-party recommendations happening across the broader web.

Google’s guidance and the reality of online visibility are not always the same thing

This is probably the biggest reason many marketers are skeptical of Google’s framing.

Because historically, Google’s public recommendations and the tactics that actually influenced visibility were not always perfectly aligned.

Google told SEOs not to build backlinks. Yet backlinks became one of the foundations of modern SEO.

Nobody gets picked up by major publications “naturally” at scale.

Brands actively shape their online presence through:

And AI visibility is starting to follow the same pattern.

Google specifically warns against “inauthentic mentions” in its AI search guide.

And honestly, the extreme version of this already exists:

Of course Google wants to crack down on that.

But, despite the criticism around “best X” listicles, many of them are still among the most cited source types inside AI answers today.

Just try asking ChatGPT about “the best ChatGPT rank tracker tools” and you will see the top recommendations are influenced by self-promotional “best X” listicles.

That is simply the reality of how these systems currently retrieve and synthesize information.

And naturally, companies are going to try influencing that conversation.

There is obviously a difference between:

But pretending brands will simply earn enough visibility organically feels disconnected from how digital marketing has always worked.

What this means in practice

The truth is that everyone is still learning.

Google is learning.

SEOs are learning.

AI platforms are evolving constantly.

Which means the smartest approach right now is probably not blindly following every new AI SEO hack.

But also not blindly assuming “it’s all just SEO.”

Instead:

Written by

Kristavja Caci

COO / Head of Content
Head of content and operations. On a mission to make ZeroRank the go-to platform for AI search visibility.