If you rank your own product #1 in “best of” listicles, it’s not just a search-quality issue — it may violate FTC rules that took effect in October 2024.

Driving the news. As Lily Ray noted on LinkedIn, the FTC’s Consumer Review Rule (16 CFR Part 465) prohibits several deceptive practices tied to reviews and testimonials, including:

• Presenting company-controlled content as independent reviews.
• Publishing reviews of products or services never actually used.
• Attributing reviews to people who didn’t write them.

Penalties can reach up to $53,088 per violation, and each page may count separately. Ray also shared a reference table she generated with the help of Claude:

Why now. “Best X” and “Top 10 Y” listicles have surged as a GEO tactic over the past couple of years. These pages often perform well in search and increasingly influence AI-generated answers.

The backstory. Before the rule was formalized, Ray said at least one company faced legal action for publishing hundreds of “best of” pages that:

• Ranked its own services #1.
• Included fabricated competitor reviews.
• Used fake reviews on third-party platforms.

The Better Business Bureau later censured the company for unsubstantiated claims.

What’s happening. Many modern listicles follow a similar pattern:

• A brand publishes a “best tools” list.
• Includes competitors it hasn’t tested.
• Uses subjective or invented scoring systems.
• Ranks itself #1.

These listicles may imply independence or firsthand evaluation when neither exists.

The nuance. You can publish comparison content that includes your own product. However, based on FTC guidance, risk increases when:

• You imply objectivity, but promote your own product.
• You present reviews not based on real experience.
• You fail to clearly disclose material relationships.

What Google is saying. Google is aware of the low-quality listicle trend. In a statement to The Verge, a Google spokesperson said the company applies protections against manipulation in Search and Gemini, and reiterated its guidance: create content for people and ensure it’s understandable to search systems.

Why we care. What has worked as a visibility tactic may carry risk on two fronts — regulators and a potential Google Search algorithm change. That means this popular GEO tactic could decline quickly as its effectiveness drops.

Caveat. I’m not a lawyer. Consult your own legal counsel if you’re concerned about using this tactic.

Human-written content dominates Google’s top rankings, appearing in the No. 1 position 80% of the time versus just 9% for purely AI-generated pages, based on a Semrush analysis of 42,000 blog posts.

The details. Semrush analyzed 20,000 keywords and their top 10 results, classifying content with an AI detector.

• Human-written pages outperformed AI and mixed content across all top 10 positions.
• The gap was widest at Position 1, where human content was 8x more likely to rank.
• AI content appeared more often lower on Page 1, nearly doubling from Positions 1 to 4.

Yes, but. AI detection tools are widely known to be inconsistent and can misclassify human and AI-written content, creating some possible “fuzziness” in these classifications.

Why we care. AI-generated content works, until it doesn’t. Yes, AI can help you rank, but this data suggests human insight still drives the best performance. For competitive queries, originality, expertise, and editorial judgment remain your unfair advantages.

Perception vs. data. 72% of SEOs said AI content performs as well as or better than human content, yet ranking data showed a clear human advantage at the top.

How teams use AI. No surprise, AI is widely adopted and often used in a hybrid approach:

• 87% of teams keep humans heavily involved in content creation.
• 64% use a human-led, AI-assisted workflow.
• AI is most common in research, drafting, and optimization.
• Use drops sharply for multimedia, localization, and higher-judgment tasks.

What’s driving adoption. AI accelerates output, but doesn’t reliably improve it.

• 70% cite faster production as AI’s top benefit.
• Only 19% say it improves content quality.

About the data: The analysis examined 42,000 blog pages from 200,000 URLs tied to 20,000 keywords, using GPTZero to classify content. It also includes a survey of 224 SEO professionals working in content and search.

The study. Does AI content rank well in search? [Survey + Data study]

Google is fixing a long-running Search Console bug that inflated impression counts. As the fix rolls out, reported impressions will decrease.

What happened. A logging error caused Google Search Console to over-report impressions starting May 13, 2025. Google today updated its Data anomalies in Search Console page:

• “A logging error is preventing Search Console from accurately reporting impressions from May 13, 2025 onward. This issue will be resolved over the next few weeks; as a result, you may notice a decrease in impressions in the Search Console Performance report. Clicks and other metrics were not affected by the error, and this issue affected data logging only.”

A Google spokesperson told Search Engine Land:

• “We identified a reporting error in Search Console that temporarily led to an over-reporting of impressions from May 13, 2025 onward. Bug fixes are being implemented to ensure accurate reporting.”

What’s changing. Google is deploying fixes that will change how impressions are recorded and reported. As the rollout continues, you’ll likely see a drop in impressions in the Performance report. Clicks and other metrics aren’t affected.

The timeline. The issue began May 13, 2025 and persisted until now. Google said the correction will take several weeks to fully roll out across reporting.

Why we care. If your Google Search Console impressions change in the coming weeks, it will likely be due to this bug fix.