Key takeaways
- A pillar page for modern SEO: how indexing works now, why visibility shifted to AI surfaces, and how to build topic authority without spam
Table of Contents
SEO used to be a page game: pick a keyword, write a page, optimize headings, wait.
That model is breaking for two reasons.
First, Google is more selective about what it even indexes. Second, visibility is fragmenting across AI Overviews, assistants, Reddit, YouTube, TikTok, and platform-native search. A page can "rank" and still be invisible.
This pillar is a map. It explains the modern SEO model and links to the supporting essays on this site.
The real funnel: discovery -> indexing -> retrieval -> surfaces
Most SEO advice starts at rankings. The real pipeline starts earlier:
- Discovery: Google finds a URL.
- Crawling: Google fetches it.
- Indexing: Google decides it is worth storing.
- Retrieval: Google decides it is relevant to a query.
- Surfaces: the user sees it (classic results, AI Overview, PAA, snippets, etc.).
If you are not indexed, you do not have an SEO problem. You have an existence problem.
Supporting essay:
Visibility is not a ranking anymore
Rankings are a measurement artifact. Modern visibility is probability:
- Probability your page is indexed.
- Probability it is interpreted correctly (entities, relationships, intent).
- Probability it is surfaced in the UI the user actually consumes.
Supporting essay:
The new unit is interpretation (entities + relationships)
Keyword matching is cheap. Interpretation is hard. Systems build meaning by mapping entities and relationships:
- What is this about?
- What does it connect to?
- Who wrote it?
- Is it consistent with the rest of the site?
This is why topic hubs matter. They reduce ambiguity and show coverage.
Supporting essays:
- SEO 2026: The Age of Agentic Discovery
- Google AI Overviews: How to Measure Visibility When Clicks Drop
Topic authority: why clusters beat isolated posts
A single post can win a query. A cluster wins a topic.
A cluster is:
- One pillar page (the map).
- 6-12 supporting pages (each solves one intent).
- Internal links that make relationships explicit.
This is the most stable strategy under algorithm updates because it aligns with how systems learn: via consistent coverage.
What to do next (a practical loop)
- Pick one topic where you can be genuinely specific.
- Publish the pillar page.
- Publish supporting pages weekly. Each page targets one intent.
- Link everything both ways.
- Measure indexing, impressions, and citations (not only clicks).
If you want to navigate by theme: Topics
Related
Next in SEO & Search
Up next:
Why Your Pages Don't Appear in Search: The Real Problem With IndexingMost pages that don't rank aren't unoptimized—they're not being indexed at all. Here's what actually determines whether Google finds and processes your content.