For years we’ve all been told “content is king”. And honestly, for a long while, that was just about the truth. You’d write something useful, slap on some keywords, maybe build a few backlinks, and Google would reward you with some traffic. The formula worked, and most SEOs’ jobs were pretty straightforward.

But not so much anymore

Change crept in slowly and then, in the blink of an eye, it was a whole new ballgame. AI-powered search tools came along and ripped the rug out from under the old model. Now, writing good content is no longer half the battle – the other half, the bit most SEOs are still really struggling with, is getting it out there.

Why getting your content in front of more people is the new must-do

Here’s what changed. These newer AI search tools don’t crawl the web in the same way that Google does. A study conducted by Search Atlas in 2025 found that when you ask the same question, say on Google, Perplexity, and ChatGPT, each tool is going to give you completely different results. Perplexity shares around 43% of Google’s results. ChatGPT? Around 21%.

This means that if you optimize for Google, you may find your content is invisible to ChatGPT, or vice versa

To make matters worse, users are switching between tools more quickly than ever. Some Similarweb data suggests Gemini could soon have more traffic than ChatGPT – but that could be different next quarter. With no one single platform to aim for, and no guarantee that the rules won’t change overnight, you’re left with a “where should I push this next?” rather than “what should I write next?”

Citation Drift is the New Normal

Even if you manage to get your content featured by an AI tool today there’s no promise that you’ll still be there tomorrow. Research from Profound found that almost half of the domains cited by AI tools are changed in a month, and over six months that number can be up to 90%. Yes, that’s right – out of every 100 domains cited, up to 90 of them can change in six months.

To put it bluntly: getting a citation isn’t like having a permanent spot in the google top 10 – it’s more like having a rotating billboard that changes every month.

For anyone who’s built their whole SEO strategy on getting featured in AI results, this data is a wake-up call.

Why Being Everywhere Beats Being Number One

The logical response to all this chaos is to get your content out to more people. The more people with a reference to your work out there, the better your chances of being seen. Of course, there’s another reason this matters too: AI tools actually prefer references from third-party sites over well-known brands. So even if you wrote the best piece on the topic, an AI tool might still cite a LinkedIn post or a Quora answer referencing your research instead.

This flips the traditional SEO model on its head. In the old days, you’d focus all your energy on getting users to your website. In the new world, your website is just one node in a much bigger web – and the more nodes you have, the more entry points you have for AI systems to find and cite your work.

So, What Does This Look Like in Practice?

If you’re used to the old “write, optimize, build links” cycle, the shift to distribution-first SEO requires some big changes.

First, you need to start working with other people. Distribution is about PR, social media, community management and partnerships. Most SEOs don’t have all the skills needed to do this on their own – so this has become a team effort.

Second, you need to build distribution into your workflow from the start – not tack it on as an afterthought at the end. I’ve seen teams treat distribution as an add on, something the intern handles after the blog post goes live. That doesn’t work anymore. Every piece of content should have a plan for how it gets out there, and who shares it.

Third, instead of focusing on where you rank for a specific keyword, ask yourself: “Would someone searching for this topic on Google, or on ChatGPT, or on LinkedIn, or on Reddit find us anywhere?” If the answer is just Google, you’ve got a problem to fix.

Some Practical Things to Get You Started

You don’t have to overhaul your content strategy all at once , start with whats easiest to tackle first. Begin by reaching out to your existing business partners about doing content collaborations or content syndication. Give some thought to taking your top performing blog posts and giving them a second life on LinkedIn and Quora. Keep an eye on where the AI tools are currently pulling content from – sure the sources might change over time, but patterns will eventually emerge. And those older high-performing pieces of content – give them another spin by putting them out on new channels.

One thing to try is to take your top 10 blog posts and see where they show up when you search for those topics on ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini. If you don’t come up – that’s your distribution problem right there staring you in the face.

The companies that will come out on top in the AI powered search game, wont be the ones with the most content written. Its the ones who got their content in front of as many people as possible that will make it. And distribution is becoming the new ranking factor , the sooner we start treating it that way the better.