“Content is king” remains one of the most widely accepted ideas in SEO. Not everyone has agreed. Different schools of thought have always existed, with some practitioners prioritizing backlinks and others focusing on technical SEO.
Content is often treated as the primary driver of search visibility. I’m not arguing that.
My point is simpler: if you’ve relied on content to drive results — and earn a living — you should start doubling down on distribution.
With AI search changing the game, creating great content (and, yes, building some backlinks) is no longer enough to get it seen. The more important question may no longer be “What should I write next?” but “Where should I push this next?”
Content distribution has become far more important in recent years, especially as audiences spread across more online spaces. In many teams, this job was usually outsourced to someone other than SEOs:
- Social media managers.
- Community managers.
- PR specialists.
- Various assistants and interns.
Sure, distribution held some value to SEO, but it was generally considered more beneficial to other functions.
Thanks to AI search, it’s finally landed squarely on our plate. Since AI models have fragmented search to an unprecedented level, distribution is now key to meaningful SEO outcomes.
There are three key drivers behind this change:
- Different tools have different sourcing logic.
- AI tools source differently from traditional search.
- Their logic is changeable.
If this all sounds a bit abstract, let’s briefly dig into the evidence and explain what’s really going on.
Different tools have different sourcing logic
Search is fragmenting as people use a wider range of tools. Ideally, one strategy would work everywhere, but research shows that’s not the case.
AI search tools cite different sources, a 2025 Search Atlas study found. Some show significantly more overlap with the SERPs than others. This indicates that different tools follow different sourcing logic. And as long as that’s true, optimizing for one won’t necessarily boost visibility on another.
The whole thing is even trickier because users seem more open to switching tools than before. Gemini may soon surpass formerly unrivaled ChatGPT in traffic share, according to Similarweb. That could change again quickly.
Thinking there’s a single clear winner, like Google used to be, would be wrong. Focusing on the most popular tool at the moment isn’t a guaranteed strategy.
To maximize visibility, we need to consider how multiple AI tools source their information, which implies our distribution strategy needs to be broad.
Dig deeper: Tracking AI search citations: Who’s winning across 11 industries
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