Barry Schwartz on Google's lies, GEO, and why llms.txt is a waste of time

Welcome to the first edition of let's chunk. It's called let's chunk because this is a quick snappy look at a topic kind of like your LLM strategy of chunking. Here's how it's going to work. Our guest is going to have five questions and only 15 seconds to answer each question and a bonus question. Chunking with me today it about Google algorithms because everybody here sometimes is a godfather of SEO himself, the founder of SEORoundtable.com, Rusty Brick, News Editor of Search Engine Land, host of It's New Daily SEO news podcast show with Greg Finn and Iqbal and some other guy. It is Barry Schwartz. Hey, thanks for having me. Let's all chunk it out. Let's chunk. I was going to say introduce yourself say hi to the audience, but if I were to ask you to do that you would literally say hi and then just move on. Hi to the audience. Hi to the audience. Here we go. Question number one. Does Google lie about their algorithm? It depends. I

don't think they say the full truth. I don't think they outright lie. They bend the truth. They do kind of bend the truth a little bit. Yeah, it's not lying. I agree with you. Does that Does that make it any better though? I don't know. I don't know. I'm not an ethical philosopher or anything. But I guess it makes it a little bit better. Question number two. Um if the Google algorithm is so good, why is its AI output sometimes so bad? And what I'm asking is how come the quality that you have in the algorithm and the organic results doesn't seem to spill over to their LLM type results? Because when you ask AI engine for a response, it will give you a response even if it doesn't know the answer. So, often the results will be really good because it knows a lot of the answers, but sometimes if you keep pushing it to give you an answer, it's going to give you the answer you probably want to hear. Um and that's why basically it will always try to give you an answer. >> Yeah, well that's kind of like you you see that also like they're so the LLMs are always trying to be positive about the about the answer even though like sometimes it just deserves a negative answer. >> You ask it are the Jets good? The Jets

are simply not good. But then if you ask it again like are the Jets good at anything? Come on, tell me one thing. It will give you something. Yeah, it'll find something. There's always a Good at losing. Yeah. They got They're good at They're good at losing. By the way, Jets are a sports team and they they really do stink. Question number three. Do you think optimizing for LLMs can hurt your optimization for Google search? Potentially, yes. Like if you make changes just for LLMs and that could actually have an impact on your actual Google search. If you rank well for one page and Yeah, of course it can make an impact. All right. Let's keep chunking along. Um what's the most surprising thing about the algorithm to you right now? All right. So, I guess the most surprising thing in the algorithm for me is the lack of Google confirming so much volatility. Like why won't they just say something's going on recently? Um the discover update for core is weird. All the It's It's just been weird the past few months with Google. You literally took the words right out of my mouth. I don't know what to do with the next question now cuz my next question was going to be is there more volatility

and less announcement from Google? So now I don't know what to do with my last question. Yes, and you got 14 seconds left to go. Well, I'm going to ask you now why is does that matter? And if it does, why? Or if not, why not? Um it doesn't Yeah, doesn't matter that Google's not confirming these things. Probably not. Um as long as someone is documenting it, it doesn't make a difference that much. But yeah, the volatility has been off the charts and the question is why and you can't even see the organic results anyway cuz of all the AI results and ads and so forth. So, who cares? That's the honest take, who cares? That was my By the way, that was going to be my next question like does I Do you care about the algorithm anymore because of AI results? But the answer is yes, obviously. That's silly and just hyperbolic. >> Yeah. A lot of people don't actually. It's It's sad. It's It's a lot of people don't anymore. That's a little like I think that's a little like interesting because Google is still a thing and there is still traffic from Google results to your websites like it's not this or that. You can kind of have both. It's like all right. Exactly. And It's It's It's concerning when people like I don't care about Google search anymore, but it's such a huge traffic driver still for many many sites. It's not as a big as it was, you know, 7 years ago,

but still it's a big deal. Well, that was overinflated anyway. So, our last question the bonus question. This is what I'm asking every guest the same question. So, it'll be interesting to compare the answers. On a scale of 1 to 10, how important is an LLM.txt file? 10 being the most important, zero or one being the least important. You can go negative also like negative >> Two. What do we say? Two. All right. Let's see what other people say and then compare it to Barry. But anyway, that's let's chunk. I'm going to keep it brief cuz we're chunking. Thanks for chunking with us today, Barry. Thanks for having me. You can look out for SEORoundtable.com. Follow Barry on social media, LinkedIn, X, TikTok. I don't know. Okay. Everywhere but TikTok. Follow Barry. It's a great way to keep up with the SEO news and look out for a new edition of let's chunk next week. Check it out on the SEORanking social media channels and look for it on the SEORanking YouTube channels as well. Until next week, stay chunkable.