For years, search engine optimization (SEO) was dominated by the maxim of achieving top 10 Google results with content. However, a new study by German researchers shows that AI-powered search functions are increasingly ignoring this rule.
Investigation of AI-powered search services
A team from Ruhr University Bochum and the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems analyzed four generative systems: Google’s AI Overviews (AIO), Gemini, and two variants of GPT-4o. The researchers compared the cited sources of these AI search results with the classic organic top 10 results on Google.
Over half of the sources are outside the top 10.
The results show that 53 percent of the domains in Google’s AI Overviews do not appear among the top 10 organic rankings for the same search query. Surprisingly, 27 percent of the sources were not even listed in the top 100. This observation demonstrates that AI-based models utilize information from deeper web areas, and that traditional link ranking is losing importance.
New ways of evaluating authority
Although AI systems use different criteria than traditional popularity signals, this doesn’t necessarily mean a loss of quality. Rather, the study shows that machine learning models favor content that is better suited for their synthesis – regardless of its prominent placement in search results. This could fundamentally change the concept of „authority“ in SEO.
Disadvantages of AI search: compression and up-to-dateness
These advantages are countered by challenges. The researchers found that AI searches often compress information significantly and omit relevant aspects when questions are ambiguous. AI tools showed particular weaknesses when dealing with trends or current events, frequently failing to provide satisfactory answers.
Conclusion: SEO needs to realign itself.
The study calls for a re-evaluation of search engine rankings, taking into account aspects such as source diversity and the ability to synthesize content. This presents SEO experts with the opportunity to become relevant for AI-generated answers with high-quality content even outside the traditional top results – and it demonstrates that the rules of the game in the search engine environment are changing.