It’s been a few months since the great SEO heist went viral online.
You’ve probably heard all about it.
But what needs to be learned is the untold story.
Because that changes everything.
SEO theft in broad daylight
I’m not going to go over old ground here, but in case you missed it, here are the details.
An SEO copied a sitemap. He then used his AI content tool to recreate thousands of pages of copy. It gained more than a million monthly visitors. He told everyone. They got a manual action.
As is the norm in the SEO world, people cheered and many scoffed.
But the untold story is right under our noses.
The one of good and evil.
That of marketing effectiveness.
Freedom of information.
“It’s my ball, and I’ll take it home if you don’t do as I say…”
We’ve all been there as children.
You’re outside playing ball, and when things don’t go the way the owner of the ball wants, the kid gets angry and threatens to quit playing for all of us.
In SEO, Google owns the ball.
It made a huge statement when Google “penalized” the site for SEO theft (or their algorithms caught it).
Unscaled AI content hurts the web and should not be allowed.
And yet, in the darkest corners of Google, its scientists are about to…
It unleashes an AI-powered search engine that steals content and spits out content that humans don’t check at scale.
But it’s okay because it’s his ball.
It’s “do as I say” no “Do as I do.”
They can steal content and publish content without control on a large scale, but this divine power is only for them. And if you don’t like it, create your own search engine.
But that argument might not stand up to scrutiny.
Dig deeper: Google’s changing approach to AI content: An in-depth look
OpenAI, demands and information
OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, is facing legal action because people claim its models were trained on other people’s content.
Google is openly building a search engine in the same way.
This is where we can now tell the untold story of the great SEO heist.
And it all starts with Thomas Jefferson.
The information wants to be free
In 2004, the late Aaron Schwartz wrote a blog post about how nature intended information to be free.
In the article, he mentions a letter written by Thomas Jefferson in which he states:
“No one seriously disputes that ownership is a good idea, but it is strange to suggest that ideas should be owned. Clearly, nature wants ideas to be free! Although you can keep an idea to yourself, as soon as share it, everyone can have it, and once they do, it’s hard for them to get rid of it, even if they want to.
Like air, ideas are incapable of being enclosed and treasured.
And no matter how many people share it, the idea is not diminished. When I listen to your idea, I gain knowledge without diminishing anything from yours. Likewise, if you use your candle to light mine, I have light without darkening you.
Like fire, ideas can span the world without diminishing its density.
Therefore, inventions cannot be owned. Of course, we can give inventors an exclusive right to profit, perhaps to encourage them to invent useful new things, but that’s our choice. If we decide not to do it, no one can object.”
This is not the direct translation of Jeffersons letter; was Schwartz’s translation from Old English into the present language.
Some 20 years later, it seems that Google, OpenAI and others have also agreed that ideas or information are free and not hoarded.
Language models and search engines can access and use your content to make something new that doesn’t detract from what you’ve created.
But is this true?
This will be a court that will decide, but we continue as if it were.
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Information is now a commodity
Education leader Tony Wagner says information is now a commodity.
In the past, we were all rewarded for our knowledge. Our certifications and school systems are based on proving what you know.
The web facilitated access to knowledge.
But he rewarded you for sharing that knowledge with others.
You have traffic and search engines provided knowledge.
AI makes information instantly available and usable.
But it’s not what you know. It’s what you can do with that knowledge.
And this goes back to the great SEO heist.
Just because we can do something doesn’t mean we have to.
Marketing effectiveness must come first
The great SEO heist was nothing new.
Websites have been using cheap writers with no subject knowledge for years, all taking content from other sites to create a broader and better version of previous articles.
All it did was take the writers out of that equation.
But was it worth doing?
I do not think so.
The content did not align with the brand’s business model.
The site whose sitemap was stolen was an Excel training company. This content mattered to them and was relevant to the business.
But really, we’re delaying the inevitable. AI search engines are coming for your information and traffic.
All paths lead to the same logical conclusion.
Content is no longer a separator.
Dig Deeper: How to prevent AI from taking your content
Knowing is obsolete
First published in 2014, in the book “A More Beautiful Question” by Warren Berger, the author claims that questions are now more powerful than answers.
Questions lead to innovation.
It was inevitable that human information would be stored in a database that we could all access. There is simply too much information to remember and our brains are pretty poor anyway.
And that’s where we’re headed now.
A world where we get information from databases. And a computer tells us the best information gathered from the best resources.
But there is a huge upside for everyone who is being ignored.
Faster information gain, faster action
While many will be upset about the loss of traffic, the reality is that AI will reduce decision fatigue.
Just as we’ve trusted Google for years, artificial intelligence and AI-powered search engines will reduce decision fatigue and we’ll come to trust what it says.
Top search results could turn into information with a few ads and organic referrals.
“Hey Google, I need to book a hotel in London. Make it five stars, but find one that’s under £500 a night and close to Covent Garden.
“I found three options here.”
“Okay, I like the first one. Book a room for Thursday.”
“Your room has been booked and I’ve sent an email with the details to your inbox.”
Is this scenario a dream? I do not think so.
No need to read blogs listing 15 hotels and the various pros and cons.
And this will be the new battle.
The battle to be what AI refers to.
The battle for EEAT.
The battle to be a brand.
The brand is the future of research
The great SEO heist only pointed to one problem.
That we no longer own the information.
The future is in faster decisions with the help of AI.
The future is to be made and built.
The future is us asking better questions that lead to innovation.
That’s why I’ve been saying for some time that brand mentions are the future of backlinks and advertising is the new SEO.
Telling LLMs and AI-powered search engines that you exist is done the same way you tell the public that you exist through brand marketing.
Creative advertising and advertising are the tools for the future of SEO.
If you want to be ranked, discovered, recommended or referred. You need to be known.
And that’s the main point here.
That the whole big SEO heist was to serve us all with a reminder.
Content via search won’t be a viable strategy for many moving forward.
That doesn’t mean content is dead.
There will always be a need for new content that gets noticed, read and loved.
We are a species of content carnivores.
It’s just that the way we use content in SEO will change.
What does this future look like?
I think it’s an innovation.
We don’t know because we’re not there yet.
But for me, bring it.
We are long overdue for a change in SEO.
Dig Deeper: Modern SEO: Packaging Your Brand and Marketing for Google
The views expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.
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