For most of the history of SEO, the deal was simple: write a page, rank it, get the click. Today about two-thirds of Google searches end without one. This week, Michael argues informational content still has a job to do, just not the one it used to, and lays out how to write it for two readers: the human and the AI system reading right alongside them.

In this episode:

• Informational content now has two readers: humans, who still drive the majority of site traffic, and AI systems, which pull pages into their training corpus and into live retrieval whenever someone asks a question
• Why mass-producing AI content backfires: real cases from National Today, Business Insider, and Deloitte, and what all three have in common
• Adding real, verified statistics to a page improves its odds of being cited in an AI answer by up to 40%, per the Princeton GEO study
• Victorious’s quality bar for informational content: N-E-E-A-T-T, which adds notability and transparency to Google’s E-E-A-T
• Use AI to plan, structure, and draft, but it can’t supply your first-party data, your expertise, or accountability for what publishes under your name
• The order of operations before writing anything new: entity and prompt strategy, a content audit against it, a reoptimization list, then a content brief

Find all the sources referenced in this episode on the Victorious website: https://victorious.com/podcast/full-funnel-tofu/

[00:01:54] This week in search: Reddit's ChatGPT citations collapse
[00:03:37] Google's third spam update of 2026
[00:05:15] ChatGPT expands paid advertising
[00:07:18] Catching up from part one: entities, anchor pages, and infrastructure
[00:09:33] Why informational content still matters when clicks are disappearing
[00:14:05] What happens when companies publish AI content at scale
[00:19:08] How AI systems read your content: chunked retrieval and the NEEATT framework
[00:26:23] What AI can't do: the human layer
[00:28:12] A framework for auditing and building content that earns citations
[00:40:34] Building today's authority for tomorrow's pipeline

Search Engine Land, “Reddit’s ChatGPT Search citations fell 86% in four days: Report,” August 19, 2026, https://searchengineland.com/reddit-chatgpt-search-citations-fall-report-485473

Search Engine Land, “Google August 2026 spam update done rolling out,” August 21, 2026, https://searchengineland.com/google-august-2026-spam-update-done-rolling-out-485471

Search Engine Land, “ChatGPT Ads are expanding to 31 European countries,” August 19, 2026, https://searchengineland.com/chatgpt-ads-are-expanding-to-31-european-countries-485468

Search Engine Land, “ChatGPT Ads adds automated bidding, platform targeting,” August 24, 2026, https://searchengineland.com/chatgpt-ads-adds-automated-bidding-platform-targeting-485707

SparkToro, “In 2026, Less than One Third of Google Searches Still Send a Click,” June 9, 2026, https://sparktoro.com/blog/in-2026-less-than-one-third-of-google-searches-still-send-a-click/

Axios, “Exclusive: AI writing hasn’t overwhelmed the web yet,” October 14, 2025, https://www.axios.com/2025/10/14/ai-generated-writing-humans

Ahrefs, “74% of New Webpages Include AI Content (Study of 900k Pages),” May 19, 2025, https://ahrefs.com/blog/what-percentage-of-new-content-is-ai-generated

GSQI (Glenn Gabe), “When ‘Mt. AI’ Crumbles, ChatGPT Can Follow [Case Study],” April 20, 2026, https://www.gsqi.com/marketing-blog/when-mt-ai-crumbles-chatgpt-follows/

The Search Signal, Episode 10, “Building an AI Search Strategy, Part 1: The Infrastructure,” Wikidata section at 41:45, https://youtu.be/WW8qIH1XpQc?t=2505