Google increasingly wants to become the middleman. AI Overviews are absorbing informational searches. Generic affiliate and marketplace content is being squeezed. And Aleyda Solís says SEOs are still obsessing over the wrong thing.

Her answer to the biggest ranking-factor question in 2026 is deceptively simple: user satisfaction.

In this conversation, Aleyda explains what she saw in Google's 2026 updates, why some affiliate sites continue to grow while other “middlemen” lose visibility, and why deep research and real experience still create an advantage even as AI answers more searches directly.

We get into SEO ranking factors, E-E-A-T, SEO vs GEO, AI Search attribution, AI citations, Reddit, informational content and search beyond Google. Aleyda explains why AI-driven customers can disappear into “Direct” traffic, why many AI citations come from third-party websites and social platforms, and why chasing Reddit citations with fake reviews is exactly the kind of short-term SEO thinking she believes will fail.

Then we get into AI-generated content itself: why scaled AI content can grow before it tanks, where LLMs genuinely improve SEO workflows, and why replacing an experienced SEO operation with three prompts misunderstands what the difficult part of SEO actually is.

For Aleyda, SEO eventually stops being a knowledge problem and becomes an execution problem — aligning developers, content teams, digital PR, business priorities and real user needs.

And her final argument is bigger than Google:

SEO is search optimization wherever discovery happens - Google, AI platforms, YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Reddit and whatever comes next.

Listen if you work in SEO, affiliate marketing, ecommerce, SaaS, content, AI Search or organic growth and want to understand what is actually worth optimizing for next.