Spoiler alert: The secret to ranking in AI search is… really good SEO.
I know, I know. You were hoping for some revolutionary new tactic. Some secret prompt optimization or magical schema markup that would unlock AI citations like a cheat code.
But here’s the plot twist that Reddit’s recent lawsuit against Perplexity just confirmed: AI search engines are basically fancy wrappers around Google’s search results.
Let me explain why this is actually great news for anyone who’s been doing SEO the right way.
Need some AI SEO help?
I am running AI SEO workshops for beginners with SEO legend Kate Toon.
The Lawsuit That Exposed Everything
In October 2025, Reddit did something brilliant. They created a honeypot.
They published a test post that could only be accessed by Google’s crawler—nowhere else on the internet. Then they waited.[^1]
Within hours, that post appeared in Perplexity’s search results.[^1]
The only way Perplexity could have gotten that content? By scraping it from Google’s search results.[^2]
Reddit filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York against Perplexity and three data-scraping companies (SerpApi, Oxylabs, and AWMProxy), alleging they “devised a scheme” to scrape Reddit content indirectly from Google to bypass robots.txt restrictions.[^1]
But wait—it gets better.
ChatGPT Is Doing It Too
Turns out, OpenAI has been playing the same game.
According to investigative reporting by The Information, OpenAI has been using Google search results scraped by a service called SerpApi to power ChatGPT’s answers about current events, news, and sports.[^3]
SerpApi—a Texas-based startup—listed OpenAI as a customer on its website until May 2024, when the reference mysteriously disappeared.[^3] Other customers? Apple, Meta, and yes, Perplexity.[^4]
So while Sam Altman publicly claims “I don’t use Google anymore,” ChatGPT is quietly pulling from Google’s search index to answer your questions.[^5]
The irony is delicious.
What This Actually Means for You
Here’s why this matters more than the drama:
If AI search engines are pulling from Google’s top results, then ranking in Google IS ranking in AI search.
Multiple studies have confirmed this connection:
- 75% of pages cited in AI Overviews rank in the top 12 organic Google results for the same query.[^6]
- If your page ranks in positions 1-5 in Google, you have a “much better chance” of being featured in AI overviews.[^7]
- Search Engine Land’s analysis of 8,000 AI citations found that authority is the #1 factor: “To get cited by ChatGPT, focus on building authority.”[^7]
Translation: Traditional SEO isn’t dead. It’s the foundation of AI visibility.
Want to know in detail what the best practices are?
Come along to the Workshops Kate Toon and I are running at the moment
Sources
[^1]: Search Engine Land – “Reddit sues Perplexity, SerpApi over scraping Google Search data“
[^2]: Engadget – “Reddit sues Perplexity and three other companies for allegedly using its content without paying“
[^3]: Search Engine Land – “ChatGPT’s answers came from Google Search after all: Report“
[^4]: The Information – “OpenAI is Using Google Search Data to Power ChatGPT“
[^5]: Search Engine Land – “ChatGPT’s answers came from Google Search after all“
[^6]: Gain – “AI search changed everything — except the power of backlinks“
[^7]: RhinoRank – “Link Building Is The #1 Ranking Factor For AI“
I’ve been building WordPress websites for over a decade, spoken at conferences around the world, and taught countless people how to build and maintain their sites.
I know its a jungle out there finding the right people for website development.
But I’m here to help.
Author Profile – Tony Cosentino
