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  • 🔥 SEOs Diners Club #205: Grounding in AI Search, Google's Data Secrets, and GEO Strategies

🔥 SEOs Diners Club #205: Grounding in AI Search, Google's Data Secrets, and GEO Strategies

This week in SEO's Diners Club, we dive deep into the "Grounding" concept that will shape 2026 SEO strategies, leaked court documents revealing how Google uses user data, and Microsoft's new AEO/GEO guide. Packed with actionable insights and the latest AI developments.

Author

Mert Erkal
January 26, 2026

Hello everyone,

The digital marketing world is evolving at a dizzying pace with the innovations brought by artificial intelligence. This week, we're diving into the heart of this transformation and discussing how we can shape tomorrow's search strategies today. Our headline topic is the invisible hero of AI search: "Grounding." Why is this concept so critical for the future of SEO? Let's explore together.

🚀 Headline: 2026 SEO Strategy: The "Grounding" Concept in AI Search and Optimization Guide

In the modern search ecosystem, the decision of Large Language Models (LLMs) whether to consult external sources before generating a response is the most critical factor determining the speed and direction of SEO strategies. "Grounding" is the mechanism by which AI doesn't settle for static training data but checks the web for current information. I learned about this concept from Mark Williams-Cook's detailed video on "Grounding in AI Search", whom I know from Search'N'Stuff conferences and whose experience I deeply respect. Mark's "static vs. dynamic" knowledge model provides an excellent framework for understanding this new era.

A query like "What is the function of red blood cells?" is information the model has encountered billions of times during training and on which statistical consensus has formed. In these types of "solved knowledge" that create a "sharp bell curve" in the data, the model doesn't need to perform grounding. However, for constantly changing topics like "today's news," making a statistical prediction is impossible; this forces AI to trigger the grounding mechanism. For SEO professionals, this is a vital resource management decision: while waiting for the model to be retrained or updated to include solved knowledge can take months, optimizations made for dynamic queries requiring grounding can be reflected in AI responses within days.

Technical Foundations of the Grounding Mechanism

LLMs perform a probability calculation in the background for each query. At the heart of this process is the search_prob metric, which determines how much a query needs external source verification with a value between 0 and 1. Since web searches have a cost for LLM providers (approximately 3 cents per query), this threshold is typically around 0.65 in free models, while it's lower in paid models due to accuracy priority. Strategically, focusing our energy on "Grounding-First" topics with search_prob values above 0.65, where AI will definitely crawl the web, maximizes return on investment (ROI).

Implementation Checklist

Apply the following technical steps to implement your AI strategy:

  • [ ] Grounding Audit: Analyze your high-value keyword list with Developer Console or community tools; prioritize queries with search_prob > 0.65 for "Grounding-First" sprints.

  • [ ] Dynamic Content Sprints: Focus on current topics that require grounding and can influence AI responses within days, rather than waiting for model updates.

  • [ ] Synthetic Prompt Library: Transfer Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) data to LLM APIs to create hyper-specific query variations that simulate your target audience's real forum and Reddit conversations.

  • [ ] Ecosystem Dominance (Presence Density): Ensure your brand, products, and positive sentiment appear among the first 20 sources (PR, review sites, forums) that AI crawls.

  • [ ] API-Focused Targeting: Use Gemini Grounding API to identify the specific web searches AI performs in the background and gain visibility in these specific queries.

As we move toward 2026, SEO is transforming from an effort to rank a website into an art of managing a brand's entire digital footprint. Strategists who can calculate grounding probabilities, encode user intent with synthetic prompts, and manage sentiment balance across the web will be the winners of the new AI-driven search world.

📊 Algorithm & Search Engine Updates

This week, the search world was shaken by both leaked information from courtrooms and Google's new moves.

Google's Black Box Opens Up: How Important Is User Data for Rankings?

New documents leaked from the U.S. Department of Justice's case against Google confirmed a truth that has long been whispered in the SEO world. According to Google Search Head Liz Reid's court testimony, user data is at the very center of ranking systems.

Google Glue is a massive activity table that stores information such as users' search queries, locations, clicked results, mouse-over areas, and how long they stayed on the SERP. RankEmbed BERT is a deep learning system trained on this data to reorder traditional ranking results.

What does this mean for us? It shows that user satisfaction is no longer an abstract goal but a measurable and most critical optimization factor. Are users finding what they're looking for on your site? Are they engaging? Are they completing their journey without returning to the SERP? The answers to these questions directly affect your rankings.

New Move from Google: How Will "Personal Intelligence" Change AI Search?

Google is taking personalization a step further with its new "Personal Intelligence" feature offered to AI Pro and Ultra subscribers. This feature uses Gmail and Google Photos data with user permission to generate personalized search responses. For example, when planning a trip, it can provide activity recommendations tailored to you by considering hotel reservations in your Gmail.

For publishers, this means some informational queries can now be resolved directly within AI responses without clicks to websites. This once again forces us to understand user intent more deeply and create content that doesn't just inform but creates value.

Did the llms.txt Bubble Burst?

Search Engine Land's detailed 90-day study of 10 sites revealed that the llms.txt file had no measurable impact on AI traffic. Like a sitemap, this file is infrastructure, not strategy. Sites that saw increases in AI traffic owed it not to llms.txt but to fundamental work like PR campaigns, functional assets (templates, calculators), structured data, and technical SEO improvements. It makes much more sense to focus our energy on these fundamental strategies that actually work, rather than speculative tactics.

🤖 From the AI World

This week also saw exciting developments on the AI front.

Microsoft's New Roadmap: What Are AEO and GEO?

Microsoft Advertising released a comprehensive guide titled "From discovery to influence: A guide to AEO and GEO", presenting its perspective on the evolution of SEO. This guide defines two new concepts beyond traditional SEO:

  • AEO (Answer Engine Optimization): Optimizing content so AI assistants (Copilot, ChatGPT) can understand and present it effectively.

  • GEO (Generative Engine Optimization): Making content discoverable, trustworthy, and authoritative in generative AI environments.

According to Microsoft, while SEO is click-focused, AEO focuses on clarity and GEO on credibility. This shows we need to invest not just in keywords, but also in enriched data, an authoritative voice, and machine readability.

News from My Channel:

This week I published two new videos on my YouTube channel examining Anthropic's powerful LLM Claude. In these videos, I explained how you can use this integration and incorporate it into your practical workflows. I recommend checking them out:

Meanwhile, developments like YouTube allowing creators to create Shorts videos with their own AI likenesses are opening new doors in personal branding and content creation.

💡 Actionable SEO Tips

Here are some action-oriented tips distilled from this week's busy agenda that you can implement immediately:

1. Measure and Optimize User Engagement: Deeply analyze your users' behavior on your site through Google Analytics 4 (GA4). Which pages do they spend more time on? Which pages do they immediately leave? Define interactions like form filling and video watching as goals and optimize your content according to these goals.

2. Create Functional Assets: Don't just write articles. Develop calculators, templates, interactive checklists, or mini tools related to your industry. These "functional assets" act as magnets for users and are perceived as valuable resources by AI models.

3. Prioritize "Grounding-First" Topics: Identify current, dynamic, and frequently changing topics in your industry. These topics have the highest probability of triggering AI models' web crawling (grounding). Quality content you produce in these areas can appear in AI responses much faster than traditional SEO.

4. Target Ecosystem Dominance: Show presence not just on your own site, but also in industry forums, review sites, digital PR channels, and podcasts. AI scans this entire digital footprint when evaluating a brand's authority. Being present in a broad ecosystem with positive "sentiment" positions you as a trusted source.

Closing

That's all for this week! As you can see, AI is not just a tool but also a force fundamentally changing our strategies. Adapting to this new era, being proactive, and keeping foundations solid is more important than ever.

If you want to prepare your company's SEO and GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) strategies for this new era and get ahead in AI-powered search engines, we at Stradiji would be happy to guide you and your team. Remember, with the right strategy, this transformation is not a threat but a great opportunity.

Don't forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel for the latest analyses and practical tips on AI and SEO.

See you next week,

Mert Erkal

References

About Mert Erkal

Mert Erkal is an expert with 15+ years of experience in digital marketing and SEO. As the founder of Stradiji, he provides consulting services to corporate companies on SEO strategies, conversion rate optimization, and AI integration.

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