SEO Listicles Are Taking Over AI - But Will Google Kill Them?

E890: One of the most debated SEO tactics today: companies publishing "Best X in Y" listicles and ranking themselves #1.

For years, this has been a common SEO strategy, but in 2025-2026 it has become far more powerful. These listicles are now being ingested by AI systems like ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, and Grok, and are influencing the rankings these models generate.

A single self-promotional page can now push a brand to the top across multiple AI platforms. This raises a major question for the industry: will Google allow this, or will these pages get devalued or penalized?

Gagan Ghotra returns to discuss how Google will treat these listicles in the future, how AI models decide which brands to surface, and the role of reputation signals, UGC, reviews, achievements, and entity data. We also explore why AI Overviews may eventually replace listicle-style pages entirely, and how brands need to adapt their content strategies going into 2026.

This is a deep conversation about the evolving relationship between SEO, AI search experiences, and brand authority. We cover technical SEO factors, ethical concerns, programmatic list creation, Google's knowledge graph, and how brands can influence AI through strategic content creation across the web.

Topics discussed:

- Why self-ranking "Best X for Y" listicles suddenly influence AI results - Whether this tactic is deceptive or simply smart SEO - How Google might detect and penalize manipulative listicle strategies - Why some sites get hit while others remain unaffected - How AI Overviews generate their own lists using entity and knowledge-graph data - Why achievements, awards, team announcements, and reviews now matter more - How user-generated content on platforms like Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, and X can affect AI rankings - The rise of reputation-focused SEO copywriting - The impact of hidden content, accordions, and rendering issues on AI understanding - Trustpilot, marketplaces, and how programmatic SEO could change the landscape - How Google's future search experience may rely less on listicles and more on AI-generated recommendations - Why brands need to create public, verifiable content about their wins - The future of bottom-of-funnel content across both websites and social platforms

⭐️ Gagan Ghotra on 𝕏 - https://x.com/gaganghotra_ ⭐️ Gagan Ghotra on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/gagan-ghotra/ ⭐️ Gagan Ghotra's website - https://gaganghotra.com/

💎 Compact Keywords - My SEO Course - Get paying customers through SEO - Clear step-by-step video breakdowns - SEO templates to be copied and adapted for your products and services: https://compactkeywords.com/

00:00 Introduction to Blog Listicles 00:34 The Ethics of Self-Promotion in SEO 01:14 Historical Context of SEO Tactics 01:53 The Impact of Blog Listicles on Search Rankings 04:11 Debate on the Future of Self-Promotional Pages 11:03 The Role of User-Generated Content in SEO 12:24 AI Overviews and Their Influence on Rankings 16:30 Strategies for Influencing AI Rankings 23:09 Google's Future in AI-Generated Rankings 23:34 Google's New Recommendation System 24:46 AI Mode and Business Profiles 26:25 SEO Copywriting Trends for 2026 30:05 Importance of Reputation Management in SEO 31:14 Creating Effective Best-of Lists 33:22 Trustpilot's Missed Opportunities 35:04 Programmatic SEO and AI 36:25 Challenges and Solutions in Programmatic Content 37:55 The Future of Content and SEO 40:53 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/

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