Last week we brought you best generative AI practices Google recently shared. This week, we’re talking about WORST practices - or everything Google does NOT want you to worry about when it comes to generative AI search.
In this episode of the S.O.B. (small owned business) Marketing podcast, Vivian and I are debunking generative AI search marketing advice circulating the internet. The mentioned practices are being debunked directly by Google - so they definitely are not worth your time.
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Chapters:
00:00 Welcome to the SOB Marketing
01:13 Understanding Google’s Generative AI Search
03:35 Myth Busting Marketing Shortcuts
08:42 Debunking AI Text File Myths
11:41 Content Structure and Readability
15:55 Creating Content for People, Not AI
18:21 The Importance of Authentic Backlinks
29:19 Focusing on Quality Over Structure
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Google Shares Generative AI Search Best Practices: https://youtu.be/C0hRuUuXEBk
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Vivian: We've had enough of your nonsense, online gurus. We are putting out there the truth, right? Like you quit talking about what Google likes when you're not Google.
*Intro*
Chelsea: Hey everyone and welcome to the S.O.B. Marketing podcast. Where we celebrate to S.O.B. you are, and if you haven't figured it out yet - we mean Small Owned Business, we don't mean S.O.B...
Vivian: Listen, we know that as a small business owner you are working hard on the daily to keep your business fully operational while trying to promote it. And while some days it may feel like the business is owning you, if we're being honest with each other I bet you would admit that you wouldn't give up the insanity for anything.
Chelsea: Our commitment here at the S.O.B. Marketing podcast is to give you the real talk, what works when it comes to advertising, marketing, and promoting your business. And then what doesn't really work.
Vivian: And Chelsea and I promise to always keep the conversation real.
*Beginning of Episode*
Vivian: Chelsea. Apparently this topic was a very good one for everybody out there. Lots of people interested, small business owners interested in finding out what Google was saying about how to show up on the generative-
Chelsea: Generative AI search on Google.
Vivian: Yeah. If you guys happen to watch the video on YouTube, thank you. Be sure that you're subscribed so that you guys can get notifications, especially for future topics like this one because last week we told you guys what you should be doing.
Chelsea: Yes, we took Google's advice or we shared Google's advice with everyone on what you should be doing to show up on their generative AI search. Today, Vivian, we are talking about what Google does not want you to do. Or the advice that they said is online and you don't need to bother with.
Vivian: Yeah, and this is great because it means we're going to be saving you guys time. For one, because you know that this is going to be written about and discussed more and more endlessly on Reddit forums, in Facebook groups, by every single quote unquote marketing guru out there who's going to be telling you, Google says you need to be doing this. We just want to save you the time from digesting, reading information that really you don't even really need to care about because Google has flat out told us no need.
Chelsea: Not necessary.
Vivian: That's right. All right Chels, do you have a hot take for today?
Chelsea: I'm going to be so honest Vivian, I do not have a hot take today.
Vivian: No spicy?
Chelsea: No, simply because this is a part two. So I feel like...well actually you know what? I can make a hot take real quick. My hot take,
Vivian: She said, I take that back.
Chelsea: I take it back because some of this advice that Google is pushing back on. Yeah. Guys.
Vivian: What do you mean, yeah?
Chelsea: It doesn't...if we take a second to think about it and we remember everything that we talked about last week, which is all Google wants you to do is create quality content for your target audience, then yeah, some of these shortcuts or tricks or whatever, it doesn't make sense. You're trying to trick an algorithm that has been taught to not do that.
Vivian: It's smarter than you. That's what she's saying. That's the hot take. She's like, AI is smarter than y'all.
Chelsea: The hot take is there are no tricks. There's no shortcuts. There's no tricking the algorithm. You gotta just create good quality content.
Vivian: Yeah, I mean, as awful as that sounds. No, keep it simple, right? I guess that's the endearing part of this whole conversation is you guys don't have to know any of the stuff that people are out there pushing and just saying, I figured it out. I mean, okay, you figured out what, the common sense thing, which is basically just create the content that your target audience would want to see or needs to know. But all right. So let's go ahead and get into it. Chels, we're talking about basically it was the article that we discussed last week and in there they told us all the things and then the second part of the article is basically quote unquote myth busting.
Chelsea: Myth busting, yes.
Vivian: This is very random. Did you ever watch Mythbusters growing up?
Chelsea: Of course I did.
Vivian: You did? Okay. Dork.
Chelsea: I'm out here catching strays for no reason.
Vivian: Nerd.
Chelsea: Okay. Did you watch it?
Vivian: Yeah.
Chelsea: Well!
Vivian: Equally nerd, I know.
Chelsea: Great, okay. I'm glad we hashed that out. Well let's go ahead and have our own little myth busters moment, I guess. Let's bust these, these shortcuts, these hacks.
Vivian: Can I point out one sentence that, Google does a really great job of these. Chelsea was making fun of me a couple weeks ago when we were initially doing this because she said, you actually read the intro paragraphs? I was like, yes, I need the tee up before we get in the meat and potatoes of whatever article I'm reading. But I do read the intro paragraphs. So just telling you guys as a side note, if you ever get a recap from Chelsea and you want to trip her up on something, just ask her about the intro paragraph. Ask her a question about the intro paragraph she skipped.
Chelsea: Here's the thing, I ain't got all day. So I skim everything first, I look for key points, and then I go back and I read the paragraphs that the key points are in.
Vivian: Well, and this is why we make such a great duo, okay? Big sister who reads all the things.
Chelsea: Yes, she reads everything on the page, I'm like why are you reading this?
Vivian: Yes, takes forever and a day, but I do it. Little sister, let me just skim.
Chelsea: Let me just find what I'm looking for real quick and then I'll read the whole thing.
Vivian: All right, so who do who do you guys relate to most? Tell us in the comments. Are you more of a Vivian or a Chelsea in this case?
Chelsea: Look, I do really well on standardized tests.
Vivian: Yeah, and how many of those are you taking into your thirties? Great use when you were fifteen. All right, so let's go ahead. The reason I brought up the intro paragraph is there was one sentence that really stood out to me and I really loved it.
Chelsea: It didn't stand out to me.
Vivian: Yeah, because she skipped the whole thing. Well, actually I take that back. It's two sentences. It says, "while terms like answer engine optimization AEO or generative engine optimization GEO are common online, many suggested quote unquote hacks aren't effective or supported by how Google search actually works". Okay, second sentence. "To help you focus on what matters for your website's visibility, we've collected some of the most prominent topics circulating the internet around generative AI and Google search. Here are a few things you can ignore for Google search."
Chelsea: Vivian, can I just say, I might start reading the intro paragraphs for Google specifically because they are very excuse my language, but they're very cunty, I feel like. I'm like they're very-
Vivian: Dramatic. Well, you know what it is? It sounds like we've had enough of your nonsense online gurus. We are putting out there the truth, right? Quit talking about what Google likes when you're not Google. To your point, it's big cunty energy, which is fabulous. I'm into that. So yes, continue to read. Actually start reading the intro paragraphs, please.
Chelsea: Alright, for Google, I'll do that for you.
Vivian: Thanks Google. What is the first one that they told us we can ignore?
Chelsea: LLMS text files and other special markup. Vivian, did you even hear about this hack?
Vivian: No, but you know, it's not a long shot. When I read it, I was like, I could see somebody recommending this and I could understand almost believing the logic behind it.
Chelsea: Yeah. I feel like a lot of these have logic. It's just that we're not understanding how Google's algorithm works. So specifically with this one with the text files, Google is pushing back saying that you don't have to create new machine readable files. You don't have to create AI text files. You don't have to do some special markup or mark down to appear in Google's AI generative search or generative AI capabilities or anything like that. Google search itself doesn't use these text files for one. Two, Google can read all the text files. You don't have to create special ones for their AI. It can already read all the files you need. Now, in the article, Google does say if you want to create these files. If you have a reason for them, that's fine. Google's algorithm can read them. But the concept or the idea of creating special files so that you can appear in their generative AI search, that's just not how this works.
Vivian: Yeah, I think the key here too is they're basically telling you throughout, there's one thread throughout all of these myths that they're busting and they keep going back to it and it's: AI is fine. It's smart, like it'll do the thing. It doesn't need this extra data point for it to understand or for it to suddenly say, this is really great to put in an AI search. I know I'm being a little repetitive here, but just want to reframe if you guys are a little lost in the sauce, for one, go back and listen to the episode prior to this where we tee it up. But what we're specifically talking about is how to get your website, your product, your service, your business name in that AI overview at the top. That's why they're saying, maybe someone has told you that you need to generate a specific file so that it can find the information and display it in that AI overview. False.
Chelsea: Yeah. False. Not how this works.
Vivian: Great, like Chelsea said, if you're doing it for another reason, it's not going to hurt you any, but why waste your time?
Chelsea: Yeah. Why waste your time? Because it's not helping, it's not giving you an extra boost.
Vivian: All right. So the next one then is chunking content. All right. We've heard this where people are saying, go ahead and not format, but display the content, the information a little differently so that way it's a little easier for AI overview to understand.
Chelsea: Yeah, I think this kind of goes back to lists. The conversation we had about lists and bullet points and stuff like that. You don't need to break up your content on AI's behalf. If it is easier for your consumer to read the content because it's broken up in lists or in bullet points, if that works for your target audience, perfect. That will help. Because Google, again, I feel like we're being a little repetitive. You're right, but this is important to say, Google is trying to find the best match. It's trying to find the best content to give to an end user so that they can clearly understand and be clearly informed on whatever they're looking for. So create a list if it works for your end user, you don't need to do that for AI.
Vivian: Yeah. The thing in there it says is, "Google systems are able to understand the nuance of multiple topics on a page and show the relevant piece to the user". Again, it's like, yo, we've got it. Our AI actually does its job and it's pretty good at figuring out what type of information's on the page and which type of information is relevant.
I think we had talked about this in the last episode. It's almost like, they had told you that there's no need to try to game the system and create five blogs from something that easily could have just been in one blog, right? If it makes sense to have all those topics together in one article, why would you piece it out into five separate ones? Okay, you're not giving the AI more data points and that's just not how it works. That's exactly what it's reminding us It's smart.
Chelsea: It's got it. I also like Vivian, in this section they also mention that there is no ideal page length. There's no, you need to meet this amount of words or this many paragraphs. It needs to be this long or this short. No.
Vivian: The content quality is the most important. Let me bring this up too, Chelsea, since we're kind of a little off track here. But you and I have had lots of conversations about AI. One of my biggest pet peeves is people using AI for emails.
Chelsea: Y'all please don't send me an AI email.
Vivian: An email that could have been three sentences and ends up three paragraphs cause y'all know what AI does when you use like ChatGPT. It writes really well, but it writes very unnecessarily. It puts a lot of words in there that no human would possibly say in a natural speaking conversation. I bring that up to say if you're going to use AI to help you write blogs or content, please be sure that you're going in and you're cleaning up that communication because the other thing that the AI overview is not going to- that type of information is not going to be appealing to it. It's going to want direct and concise information. Information it can understand. It doesn't need flowery, flowery language.
Chelsea: Flowery.
Vivian: Flowery.
Chelsea: No, flowery.
Vivian: Flowery.
Chelsea: My god. Never mind. That's true. I'm glad you brought that up. Thank you. also if you're trying to meet a word count, I just told you, you don't have to do that. So there you go.
Vivian: False. All right, what's the next one they warned us about?
Chelsea: The next one is rewriting content just for AI systems. I'm so glad and also so annoyed that they put this on here.
Vivian: Why?
Chelsea: I'm so glad because apparently it's something that we need to tell people. I'm annoyed that this is something we need to tell people. It's one of those, you know when there's like a crazy rule.
Vivian: Uh-huh.
Chelsea: And you're like, why would they ever make this a rule? But you know it's because someone's done it. I feel like it's that, it feels like that to me. We've said it so many times in this episode and in last week's episode, but create content for people. Because the AI algorithm is specifically looking for that. You don't need to appease whatever you think the AI algorithm wants. All it wants is good quality content for the end user.
Vivian: I love it. It's kind of when you said about warning labels, I was thinking didn't they have to put on the Tide Pods don't eat, don't eat these because kids were eating them. So yeah, to your point. No, and you're correct. Remember the whole purpose of having this AI overview at the top is that Google instead, if you think of the practicality of it instead of when they used to give us the Google searches, us having to go through Google Page Search One, Google Page Search Two to find and piece together the information. They've created this AI to specifically say, no, what we could do is look at all of the sources of information, pick out the best ones and the ones that are going to match. They can actually hodgepodge them together. They can use a couple different sources. Ideally, though, what they want from your content is to only really have to use one source because your content's just that good. So instead of pulling from three different sources, I can just pull from this one blog post, from this one TikTok video, from this one whatever, concisely, put an overview at the top and there you go and then I'm just going to link it back to the TikTok video that you made because it was so good.
Chelsea: Exactly. There's no specific way that you need to write for the AI systems. A direct quote from this article, "AI systems can understand synonyms and general meanings of what someone is seeking in order to connect them with content that might not use the same precise words".
Vivian: Damn, sounds like it's smart.
Chelsea: It is artificial intelligence. They specify you don't have to focus as much on being worried that you're using the correct long tail keywords or anything like that. You know, keyword stuffing, no one should be doing at this- we are in 2026, y'all. If I find out any of you guys are keyword stuffing.
Vivian: Oh, you're going to be in trouble.
Chelsea: Yes, absolutely, I'll be upset. That is so 2000s.
Vivian: Yeah, and let me tell you, what's worse than outing yourself is having somebody write in and submit your name to Chelsea. Then she's going to be big mad. So you might as well just out yourself in the comments right now. If you're doing keyword stuffing, tell us.
Chelsea: Stop it. Look, join our SOB community. We'll help you come up with a better SEO strategy. But keyword stuffing is not helping anyone at this point.
*S.O.B. Community Ad*
Vivian: This episode of the S.O.B. Marketing podcast is brought to you by the S.O.B. Community. If you are a small business owner that is neglecting your marketing and you feel like you've wasted time and money on marketing help that didn't deliver. Or if you're just craving support from people who actually get what it's like to run and promote a small business, then our membership community is for you. Visit skool.com/sob to sign up today to get instant access and weekly support. That's S-K-O-O-L dot com slash sob.
*End of S.O.B. Community Ad*
Chelsea: Vivian, I'm very excited to talk about this next one.
Vivian: Okay, tell me why dork.
Chelsea: You know, the other day, this is a little sidetrack, y'all. SOB community, Tuesdays and Thursdays. We have our every other Tuesday, every other Thursday, once a week, we have our Zoom call. Vivian and I like to bring notes for it so we can talk about everything new going on in the marketing world. I was writing my notes the other day and Tim had walked by and I was like, you know I really love marketing. I was like, this stuff is so interesting. I'm so excited to talk about all of this.
Vivian: Well, it definitely keeps you on your toes. I think that's a good general reminder. If you're tuning in for the first time to our podcast, part of the reason that Chelsea and I provide resources to small business owners for marketing is the truth is in 2026 there is no way that you can just quote unquote read a marketing article one time and think that things are going to stay the same. They're not. There are the foundational things of marketing that are never going to change. We try to have an equal mix of those conversations mixed in here with stuff like this. I mean, this was last year, Google had not released this information. You guys know because you're consumers too, at the end of the day, the way that you're out there searching for stuff is changing. Which means you have to adapt. If your business is going to benefit from it, you have to have these conversations like we're having today.
I love that you love marketing that much because you're kind of forced to love marketing that much.
Chelsea: This would be really difficult if I did not love marketing.
Vivian: Yeah, I'd be like, get outta here. I'll have Zozy, my dog, right here. Zoey and I will talk marketing.
Chelsea: You've heard it here first. Vivian's going to replace me with a dog. Okay. No, it's fine. No, no, no, it's fine. Whatever. You want to replace me with a dog. That's okay.
Vivian: She's offended.
Chelsea: I'm a little offended, I'm not going to lie. Vivian, let's talk about seeking inauthentic method -not methods, mentions. I'm sorry.
Vivian: Okay, so what exactly would that be?
Chelsea: We've talked about in the past, backlinks. If you did not hear that conversation, backlinks are when someone else, a different website, a different blog post, article, it could be a podcast, anything, when they mention you and link back to your content in their content. That's a backlink.
Vivian: We love a good backlink because it's exposing you to potentially a new audience. People that had never heard about you and it's driving ideally traffic to your website, video, blog post, whatever they backlink to.
Chelsea: Yes, so backlinks are amazing. You should be looking for them. However, backlinks are only useful when they are meaningful. So this seeking inauthentic mentions, this is pushing back on backlinks that aren't actually useful.
If you have a blog post and someone comments in the blog post but all they're doing is linking back to their own website. They're not actually adding anything useful to the discussion.
Vivian: Sometimes in a recipe they're like, make homemade frosting. But it's a recipe for the cake. So they'll backlink back to the recipe of the homemade frosting so that they don't have to put it on that same thing.
Chelsea: Yes, that's a good backlink.
Vivian: So you're saying if it doesn't make sense like that...
Chelsea: If it doesn't make sense, if you're backlinking to something that has nothing to do with your conversation or with your content, or if someone else is trying to create backlinks by commenting their stuff on your content, that's not a good backlink, that's spam. You know? That's spam. There are-
Vivian: Or if you're doing it awkwardly, like you're trying to make it connect but it doesn't connect.
Chelsea: Yeah. I'm thinking of, Vivian. Remember we've had the conversation on influencer pods and how they all kind of just interact with each other to boost their numbers. So that's also not going to work. And that's something that you could do. People, I don't know of anyone who's done this, but I know it's a thing. You can reach out to people and say, you mention my content, I'll mention your content but it still doesn't quite work because the content doesn't mesh.
Vivian: Yeah, and it kind of, I love that you brought up the example of the influencer pods. Typically they would set it up, they join some type of group, all these influencers, and they're like, hey, in order to be supportive of each other when somebody else posts, go ahead and comment on that post because the social media platforms love engagement. So it looks like they have a profile that's super engaged. Which then supposedly the platforms push out even more. The problem with that, is you can spot this all the time, is when you look at the influencers' comments on a certain post, like let's say they're sharing an outfit and then linking to all this stuff with like a discount code. It's like, yeah, girl, looking fine. It's like one word or it's just a phrase, or it's like, this is so cute.
The question you have to ask is if the goal is to sell, you have all your friends on there practically commenting but nobody is hitting that buy button. It doesn't it doesn't serve its purpose. So similar to this, great if you get mentions, but what good do these mentions do if they're not-
Chelsea: This comes back to our conversation on quality. That's really what they're saying. If it's inauthentic, if you're just trying to get a backlink, that's not going to help you. If you're getting authentic, you're getting quality backlinks, you're linking with...what would be a good example?
We've used this example before, Vivian. You're a flower shop, you team up with a pottery business in the area. So you guys probably have backlinks on your website 'cause you're like, this vase is from and then you link it. That is authentic. That makes sense. That is quality. Those are good backlinks.
Vivian: Yeah, and going a step further, the idea behind this stuff too is, let's say if you are that flower shop and you're, seasonally the flowers switch out. With that pottery place, you're actually using very specific pots that they have created for this time of year. Maybe it's a collection that they do and maybe they shared it on their website, the collection. So you're like, I used one of the vases from their newest collection. Then you link it to the post that shows or wherever it shows their newest collection. That way it's timely. It makes sense that you would embed a backlink. It also makes sense for the fact that someone that's interested, if they're buying that vase of flowers, they probably are also buying it because they love the vase, not just the flowers in it, right? All of that just makes way more sense.
Chelsea: More sense than trying to create inauthentic backlinks. Okay, Vivian. We have one bullet point left. We are pushing back on over focusing on structured data.
It is good to focus on how you're structuring your content if you are focusing on your target audience. We're pushing back on focusing on the algorithm when it comes to structuring your data. Specifically in this bullet point, Google says there is no specific schema markup that will help you get in front of AI or pull up in that paragraph, in that AI overview. Schema markup, Vivian, is the back-end coding for your website. I'm going to be so for real with you guys. It's something that you probably don't even need to worry about. Most of these website platforms handle all of this for you. There is no specific schema that's going to get you in front of the AI overview or going to get you picked by the AI. There's no specific way to structure your data. Again with the lists or with the splitting everything up. That's not how this works. The AI is smart. It's going to find the content that is unique, remember? Unique quality content that makes sense and answers the question for the consumer.
Vivian: Yeah. With all of that in mind, I guess we could just wrap it up to say. There are no shortcuts, you guys. Just be sure that you're creating the content that is going to attract your target customer. Right? Your ideal client. That's really all you could do. So hopefully you feel relieved today. There is no you going out searching YouTube, searching Instagram for some type of hack that's just going to make all of your stuff preferred to this AI overview, this AI machine.
Chelsea: Exactly. Also, it should make you feel good about the fact that there's no one out there that knows certain tricks that you don't know, and that's the reason that they're showing up. No, that's not it.
Vivian: Yeah. Google has flat out told you that. Maybe try this if you're in real estate, if you're- take whatever industry you're in and think of maybe some of the very basic questions that someone who doesn't know about your business yet, but is your target audience might ask. If I'm doing real estate in Charleston, South Carolina, maybe I google top places to eat in Charleston, South Carolina. Or tax information for Charleston, South Carolina, whatever it is, right? Just put yourself in the mindset of someone that's either visiting so that they could check it out and potentially relocate here, or someone who's already made the decision, I'm going to relocate. Look to see with those types of questions what the AI overview is giving them. Where they're pulling that information. Once you kind of go and check out those links and figure out what websites, what forums, what Reddits they're pulling from, you're going to better understand maybe the type of content that you can create and if you could do it better. Cause I'm going to tell you something right now. We're still very early on in a lot of this. I don't think business owners are as focused on this quite yet as they're going to be here in the next couple of years. So you have an opportunity to come in, start focusing on creating the content this way, and then that way your business can show up in the overview early on and you can benefit from it. Yeah.
Chelsea: No, exactly. I'm glad we had this conversation. If you didn't listen to part one, go listen to it now.
Vivian: You did it a little backwards.
Chelsea: You did it a little backwards. You know what? I love that for you. It's fine. Sometimes you gotta hear what not to do first. So make sure you are subscribed, following, check out the SOB community and Vivian, go be the best SOB you can be.