Alan Xu

Everyone selling you AI SEO tactics just got undercut by Google themselves. Google published their official guide on optimizing for AI Overviews today. I've been telling clients this for months, and now it's in writing: the core of AI search optimization is just SEO. Their AI features run on the same crawling, indexing, and ranking systems that have always existed. A few things worth knowing if you've been feeling pressure to chase AI-specific tactics: - LLMs.txt files? Not required. Google said so directly. - Special AI markup or schema? Doesn't exist. Standard structured data still helps with rich results, same as it always has. - Chunking content into small pieces so AI can parse it better? Not a thing. Write clearly for humans. - Creating dozens of pages to cover every query variation? Google specifically flagged this as a scaled content abuse risk. The one area that got real emphasis: unique, people-first content with actual expertise and original value. Generic articles that repackage existing information won't perform. That's been true for a while, but now it's official. For Shopify and DTC brands, the ecommerce section is worth your attention. Accurate product data and updated Merchant Center feeds are where Google's AI features pull from for commerce queries. Most of the "AI SEO" advice circulating right now is noise. Google just told you what actually matters.