1. Transforming from Old to New: Searching for Information Solutions
In 2026, search engines that are similar to Google and Bing will operate as “decision engines” in a world driven solely by artificial intelligence to answer questions. Zero click searches will continue to increase as users will receive answers before they leave the results page due to the AI overview section taking up most of the results page.
Answer-First Content Strategy
As you create the material you have produced, you must develop a clear, succinct (60-100 words) answer in the first paragraph so that your content will have a better chance of being used in the AI generated overview summaries that are becoming prevalent at the top of the results pages.
Citation Frequency (CF) to Measure Success
In addition to tracking click through rates, marketing professionals should also track how often they are being referenced (e.g., as a footnote in an AI-produced response or Google response) and this is the new “Position Zero”.
2. The Changing E-E-A-T: The Evolution of E-E-A-T as a Measure of Quality Technical Quality
The E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness) criteria continue to change in response to Google’s algorithm and are now being used more widely for evaluating results by search engines. In an increasingly hollow web with a growing number of AI generated articles being published, search engines will continue to rely on human-generated articles as the highest quality source of material.
Value Creation, or Contribution, Based on Information Gain
AI algorithms look at whether or not an article contributes new material that provides information gain. For example, does an article share a new and different view on a subject, does it contain original data or does it share personal experiences. All of these types of content provide new information to the AI.