For years, optimizing content material meant focusing nearly totally on Google and different conventional engines.
However with the speedy rise of generative AI chatbots – instruments that don’t simply hyperlink however summarize – content material methods must adapt.
It’s now not sufficient to rank in search; you now must be referenced, cited, and surfaced by AI programs as effectively.
This shift raises a important query: how will we write content material that satisfies each worlds – Google’s algorithmic complexity and AI’s citation-driven simplicity?
The place customers are going: Search vs. generative AI
Statcounter’s Search Engine Market Share information means that Google continues to be firmly on high, however these numbers solely measure conventional search engines like google.
They don’t replicate the rising variety of customers turning to AI chatbots for solutions, which is why separate measures – like AI Chatbot Market Share – are beginning to emerge.
For now, the 2 information units can’t be immediately in contrast.
AI chatbots generated 34 instances fewer visits than search engines like google, per One Little Internet’s April 2025 research. Even so, chatbot visitors grew 80.9% between April 2024 and March 2025.
They might nonetheless be the underdog, however the progress trajectory is tough to disregard.
By June 2025, Chillibyte discovered that ChatGPT alone had attracted 55.2 billion visits in that very same 12-month interval – an 80% year-over-year enhance.
Chillibyte famous that chatbots appear to be supplementing search engines like google fairly than changing them.
Nonetheless, divided utilization between search engines like google and AI will inevitably chip away at Google’s general share.
That’s why content material methods now must account for each search engines like google and generative AI.
Dig deeper: Learn how to optimize your 2025 content material technique for AI-powered SERPs and LLMs
How search rankings differ from AI citations
Creating content material for each search and AI begins with understanding how every cites or ranks data.
Search engines like google and yahoo: Easy inputs, advanced algorithms
Search engines like google and yahoo usually obtain less complicated enter and ship easy output.
For instance, the key phrases you kind into Google are often shorter and fewer advanced than an AI immediate.
Google’s output can also be less complicated. (That is altering with AI Mode, although. We’ll focus right here on conventional output fairly than fashionable AI-driven outcomes.)
Typical search engine enter and output:
A easy question often produces a easy record of URLs.
However does that imply search engines like google are much less advanced than their generative AI counterparts?
By no means.
Whereas enter and output could look easy, search engines like google are algorithmically advanced in figuring out what that output ought to be.
As soon as a question is processed, layered algorithms outline the outcomes. Customers can’t see this layer, however it’s at all times at work. A search engine could take into account:
Content material relevance, together with metadata, headings, and key phrase use.
Content material high quality, trustworthiness, and authority (e.g., Google’s E-E-A-T).
Recognition alerts corresponding to inbound hyperlinks.
Hyperlink high quality, with filters in opposition to spammy practices.
Pricing for product outcomes.
Native alerts.
Schema and structured information.
Evaluations and testimonials.
Through the years, Google has advanced to disqualify pages that depend on manipulative strategies.
Algorithm updates like Penguin (focusing on spammy hyperlink practices), Caffeine, Panda, Mayday, and Farmer had been ultimately folded into Google’s core algorithms.
The purpose is obvious: Google stays algorithmically advanced.
Generative engines: Advanced prompts, less complicated filters
In distinction, AI chatbots deal with richer enter and produce extra advanced output.
Their defensive algorithmic layer, nonetheless, is way much less developed than that of main search engines like google.
Merely put, generative engines have had much less time to construct the protecting algorithms that encompass vectorized, LLM-based response programs.
Right here’s an instance of typical generative engine enter and output:
Each the enter and the output are clearly extra advanced.
That stated, generative engines are often algorithmically less complicated.
Sure, they will crawl the online for brand spanking new data when their LLM lacks the required information.
However they’re far much less subtle in figuring out which data to floor as authoritative or reliable.
A research I revealed right here on Search Engine Land exhibits that AI RAG brokers depend on far fewer sources than search engines like google.
Generative engines additionally place larger worth on co-citations – mentions of a time period alongside a model, even with no hyperlink – than on conventional backlinks.
This presents new alternatives for content material creation and placement.
Many ways that Google’s algorithmic complexity has pushed apart could possibly be tailored and repurposed to earn AI citations and visitors.
In that sense, AI provides a recent advertising and marketing alternative.
AI could not but command the lion’s share of visitors – however the visitors it does generate is, in some ways, extra accessible.
That’s why it’s important to incorporate AI in your advertising and marketing combine and take into account methods to produce content material that satisfies each search engines like google and generative engines.
Dig deeper: Why your finest content material is invisible to AI search engines like google (and methods to repair it in half-hour)
Producing content material that serves search and generative engines
Thankfully, a lot of what search engines like google favor additionally works effectively for generative AI. For native content material:
Create well-structured pages with clear headings, supporting statistics, and wealthy media.
Guarantee content material is accessible, even with JavaScript disabled. (Much less of an issue for Google now, however AI crawlers are much less subtle.)
Construct sturdy E-E-A-T alerts in your content material, authors, and model.
Handle code components corresponding to alt textual content and metadata in order that they correctly assist your content material.
Use accessible, indexable URLs with distinctive, descriptive slugs.
Cowl matters in depth, together with associated key phrases and customary questions. Repeating exact-match key phrases is now not efficient for search engine optimization and even much less so for AI. As a substitute, use semantic richness and have interaction with broader search entities.
Embrace Q&A or answer-style formatting, since AI prompts are sometimes phrased as questions.
Don’t cover major content material (e.g., in linked PDFs).
Present summaries and key takeaways.
As a result of AI interrogates vectorized data, extra strategies apply:
Co-citations are sometimes extra precious than hyperlinks. Being cited alongside key phrases on a high-authority website might be simpler for AI than incomes a conventional hyperlink.
Exterior placement could assist. Even with no hyperlink, branded citations can enhance the probability of AI recognition.
Consistency issues. AI blends vectorized data, so as soon as citations enter the LLM, they might now not be handled as separate paperwork. Constant particulars (addresses, telephone numbers, and so forth.) stay important – don’t let native search engine optimization slip.
Disambiguation works in a different way for AI. In search engine optimization, attempting to make clear that you simply don’t present a service can satirically enhance rankings for that service. AI, nonetheless, is healthier at separating negatives from positives.
Structured summaries are particularly precious. Whereas additionally they assist search engines like google, generative AI depends extra closely on them when deciphering primary content material.
Preserve important data concise. Quick, exact statements of information or information vectorize extra successfully.
Shorter search phrases nonetheless matter. RAG brokers typically distill compact phrases from advanced prompts, making FAQ-style content material essential for each search engine optimization and AI.
Dig deeper: The search visibility framework: Dominating each nook of the SERP in 2026
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