Why topic authority matters: the ability to be recognized as a reliable, consistent source on a subject, over time
We’re back with a new episode of SEO Confidential, the series where we interview the world’s leading SEO experts to understand how search is really changing and which decisions matter most for your brand today.
In recent months, the debate around LLMs, AI Overviews, GEO and online publishing has grown increasingly chaotic, caught between slogans, miracle solutions and metrics that no longer explain anything.
That’s why, in today’s episode, we decided to tackle some of the most uncomfortable topics for the publishing world: why keyword positions no longer reflect real visibility, what it means to be authoritative in search and in AI today, and why many publishing models are showing all their limits right now.
We’ll be talking about issues that directly impact your business, with no sugar-coating: zero-click traffic, content that AI can easily replace, and how to analyze your brand’s visibility.
We discuss all of this with Steven Wilson-Beales, an editorial leader with a solid journalistic background and long experience across media and technology. Steve has worked with major international brands, combining editorial vision with data analysis, and is currently Co-Chair of the Journalism Advisory Board for the Association of Publishers. He is also co-host of the excellent podcast Beers and SEO with Barry and Steve alongside Barry Adams, which I recommend you follow.
Trust me, this interview is essential reading if you work with content, SEO and news. I believe Steven’s answers can genuinely help you understand where to look today — and, above all, what to stop looking at. Read it and let me know.
“We need to work quickly to rebuild that direct relationship with an audience that may not recognize the value of journalism”
In the latest episode of the podcast “Beers and SEO with Barry and Steve” you say that search is still a central source of traffic: why, then, are several major publishers cutting back on “classic” SEO and giving in to the siren call of so-called GEO?
First of all, I’d like to challenge the assumption that publishers are reducing their investment in classic SEO. There is no concrete evidence to support this claim, even though certain surveys and charts have gained a lot of traction on LinkedIn without actually helping to clarify the matter. I think the biggest misunderstanding concerns the use of the term “zero click”, which gives the impression that there is no traffic left for publishers in search engines — which is absolutely not true.
On top of this, there is a genuine media bubble around artificial intelligence. More and more companies promising to “monitor AI prompts”, and a crowd of opinion leaders who often appeared out of nowhere (nobody had heard of them six months ago) and keep repeating that “SEO is dead, long live GEO”. The result is a constant background noise that fuels confusion rather than offering solid analysis or useful guidance.
The reality, as is often the case, is more complex and less clear-cut than the way it is being told. Optimizing for LLMs is a relevant new field that needs to be approached with specific priorities and dedicated tools. That said, the available evidence points to one firm conclusion: SEO remains a central component even within AI-related optimization processes.
In the current debate, listicles, hacks and tactics designed to “game” algorithms and AI Overviews keep proliferating, often promoted as effective shortcuts. Why, in your view, are these practices still being sold as sustainable strategies, despite the obvious risks in terms of penalties, editorial credibility and audience trust?
Well, the short answer is simple: money, baby. The general confusion and panic surrounding AI have opened the door to companies pushing very dubious, short-term tactics. This usually happens because the CEO/CTO has invested in an expensive AI monitoring tool and wants to see a return on that investment, which drives certain behaviors.
But as I always say, SEO rests on the same fundamental editorial principles that matter to publishers: authenticity, credibility, trust. If you really want to grow your audience, start with your audience: build a community and deliver original journalism that informs and entertains them every day.
Google Discover remains a huge source of traffic but also an extremely volatile one: for a publisher, is it still a strategic lever worth investing in, or a mechanism that is distorting editorial choices and creating dependency?
As a consultant it’s very easy to say that publishers should do this or that, but I know from experience that editorial teams are under intense pressure to hit their targets every single day. Google Discover offers a real opportunity in this respect, but, as I’ve said before, digital teams need to proceed with EXTREME caution.
I’ve worked with teams that achieved outstanding results on Discover, only to then see our visibility in Top Stories decline. Everyone loves to see a traffic spike, but it can lead teams to take their eye off other things.
You often talk about zero-click as a false emergency rather than a sudden crisis: isn’t it the case that many publishers are using Google and AI as a scapegoat, to avoid admitting that their model had been built for years on easily replaceable content with no real distinctive value?
I think that’s certainly the case. It’s “churnalism“, a term that has been in use for about 20 years now (journalism based on the fast, serial production of content, often copied or rewritten from press releases and external sources, with no real depth. Ed.).
The point is that for years many publishers got used to a share of traffic coming from search, treating it as stable and guaranteed, without asking any real questions about its sustainability. That flow was taken for granted. Today, however, that base has clearly shrunk, especially with the introduction of AI Overviews, and this is forcing publishers to change course.
The problem is not so much about adapting acquisition channels as it is about a deeper overhaul of the operating model. What does it mean to be distinctive, to be original? In newsrooms I call it “the tyranny of the news cycle”, where the pressure to always deliver the latest news ends up stifling innovation. But that’s another story.
You argue that AI visibility is not a “reset button” and that the real value today lies in inclusion and influence, not in clicks: but how do you convince publishers and boards that this invisible presence truly matters, when clear metrics are lacking and the risk is to keep judging success only by traffic and CPMs?
Well, it depends on the kind of business you run, but in general I’ve always found that opening a meeting by showing that your competitors have gained more visibility than you usually gets the conversation going! I don’t think you need to convince a CTO of the importance of AI visibility, but you do need to make it clear that it won’t deliver the level of clicks they were used to in the past. Every company has to go on this journey, because AI optimization is not just a content challenge but an organizational one, where breaking down silos is essential. And that takes time.
Today, keyword positions say less and less about a publisher’s real visibility: why do many publishing companies keep using them as their main metric, instead of facing the fact that authority, presence in results and business impact matter more than “report-friendly” rankings? What is the metric a publisher should really watch to understand whether they are winning or losing in search and in AI?
Keyword positions are no longer enough today, because they describe only an ever-shrinking slice of real visibility. Yet they keep being used because they are simple, reassuring and easy to “sell” in reports, even though they tell us less and less about what really matters. As I wrote in Press Gazette, the key metric is not a single number but a set of signals measuring presence, authority and value.
In search, overall visibility, impressions, coverage of relevant queries, presence in SERP features and, above all, real user engagement remain fundamental. In the AI ecosystem, what counts is inclusion: how often your content is cited, summarized or used as a source, even without generating clicks.
The true indicator of success is topic authority: the ability to be recognized as a reliable, consistent source on a subject, over time. If branded searches, share of voice and the stable association of your brand with certain topics are growing, then you are winning. If only the positions in a report are growing, you probably aren’t.
If visibility becomes probabilistic and hyper-personalized, and nobody can really know anymore what the end user actually sees, how do you steer an editorial or marketing strategy without falling for the illusion of “reassuring” reports? In other words: who decides today whether a brand is truly relevant, when rankings and positions no longer mean anything?
You could argue that keyword tracking has been a vanity metric for many years now, especially when the actual search results are dominated by so many competing modules pushing your content down the page. And yes, we now have the same situation with instant monitoring results, which Rand Fishkin recently warned about.
I think that, as an organization, you should still use some form of monitoring, but with the awareness that these reports can only be indicative, never absolute. The value of running an SEO audit with an experienced consultant is still essential here: they will be able to highlight the technical and editorial inefficiencies that can be fixed, which will help your visibility in LLMs.
With nearly 80% of major publishers blocking bots for training and real-time access, isn’t a strategic fracture emerging: protect your content today, or risk disappearing from AI answers tomorrow? In other words, is blocking a necessary defense or an own goal for future visibility?
Yes, we are approaching a class divide among publishers — those who can afford to block AI bots or strike content licensing deals, and those who cannot. The truth is that we need to come together as an industry to strike deals with these LLM operators: there is strength in numbers.
But, rather depressingly, this is taking longer than it should. Even Google’s recent announcement that it will let publishers control what can appear in AI Overviews is problematic. Even if publishers worked together to reduce the visibility of their AIOs, the sad reality is that someone else would fill that space.
Blocking, by the way, is not an all-or-nothing scenario. You might want to take a staged approach based on the longevity of your content, for example applying the block only after your content has been live for 7 days. Different publishers will take different approaches.
Why can’t publishers form a united front and impose new rules for content access, instead of moving in scattered order between fear, legal pressure and structural dependency on the platforms?
All I can say is that there are organizations representing publishers here in the UK that are working behind the scenes to establish new ways of collaborating with these tech companies. Ideally, we need all organizations to join forces. The more fragmented we are, the less influence we have.
I’m glad that the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) here in the UK has given Google strategic market status (SMS) in search services, which should affect the way Google operates in the UK. Let’s see how it plays out.
The idea of new protocols to monetize and control access to content seems like the only way out…
I think this will eventually happen, perhaps through micropayments, but we are not there yet. Ultimately, the problem we face today comes from the fact that the news publishing industry misunderstood the value of the exchange from the very beginning, when it started partnering with platforms like Google and Facebook.
We handed the management of advertising monetization over to an external intermediation system, assuming that news would remain a core value for these platforms. It did not. So now we need to work quickly to rebuild that direct relationship with an audience that may not recognize the value of journalism.
It’s a difficult time for all publishers, which is why I strongly encourage them to listen to their SEO specialists, who can help them navigate the difficult road ahead.
Below you’ll find the video where I explain why this interview with Steven can be truly useful for you and for your business’s visibility in the age of AI:
Why being present is not the same as being relevant
Steve’s words offered us a precious interpretive key, because they went beyond the surface of things. The interview lined up the real problems, speaking concretely and without clichés, and brought the discussion back to topics that are often swept aside: editorial responsibilities, fragile business models and metrics that no longer describe reality.
We saw how, without real authority built over time, without recognizable topical consistency and without a direct relationship with the audience, no visibility strategy can truly hold. Not in search, where attention is filtered by increasingly selective modules, features and algorithms, nor in LLM-based answer systems, which tend to favor reliable, consistent and already recognized sources.
In this context, chasing short-term metrics or opportunistic tactics achieves very little: what counts is being a necessary source, not merely a present one.
Mass-produced journalism — the “churnalism” Steven talks about — designed to chase volumes and algorithms, is now easily replicable and therefore structurally fragile. If a piece of content can be rewritten, summarized or replaced by a machine, the problem is not the technology but its intrinsic value.
The only viable path, then, is differentiation: original content, recognizable expertise, clear points of view and authority built over time. Without quality and editorial identity, no visibility can last.
This episode of SEO Confidential ends here. We’ll be back next week with a new interview and another direct conversation with an authoritative voice of international SEO.
See you soon, and thanks for following us.
#avantitutta
