Why SEO Stopped Being About Keywords
We used to optimize for crawlers. Now we're optimizing for systems that actually read. ChatGPT doesn't care about your meta description. Gemini isn't impressed by keyword density. Google AI Overviews won't surface your content just because you stuffed the right phrases into your H2 tags. The game changed when search engines started understanding context instead of just matching strings. This isn't a minor algorithm update you can hack around. It's a structural shift in how information gets retrieved, evaluated, and presented to users. Large language models don't crawl and index - they synthesize and cite. That citation mechanism is the new battleground. What Actually Gets Cited We've been watching this pattern emerge across ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, and Google AI Overviews. The content that surfaces shares specific characteristics. It demonstrates authority through depth, not through claiming authority. It provides complete context instead of optimized f...