Google was once a search engine that drove traffic to websites in exchange for showing snippets. That deal is dead. AI Overviews scrape your content, show it on Google's platform, and sell ads next to it. In 2026, following Google's SEO advice means helping them steal from you more efficiently.
Hi, my name is Tom Smykowski, I'm a staff full-stack engineer. I build and scale SaaS platforms to millions of users, working end-to-end from system architecture to frontend to mobile. On this blog I explore how creators and developers can protect their work in the age of AI scraping.
When I was thinking about this article, I wondered if it even makes sense to write it in 2026. Because things changed. Not a little bit. A lot. The reality as I see it is that big tech companies, startups, and everyone else are building and investing in AI like their lives depend on it.
That AI we all cherish so much isn't built from good wishes and prayers. It's built on scraping massive amounts of content. Content that was created by creators like me, you (if you're a creator), and millions of other people who spent hours, days, and years producing original work.
I wrote that Google just scrapes my paywalled articles and presents my original research in their search results. The "AI Overview" is built from content from people like me and others who contribute to the open web. Now, the open web became a feed for big tech. And no one mentions copyrights.
This brought me to thinking that we have to recognize what Google is in 2026. So far, we knew it was a search engine. Publishers allowed Google to exist for a very specific kind of deal. Google was allowed to show short snippets of websites in search results. The reason why people didn't oppose Google earning money on their work is because Google drove traffic to the original website.
But that deal is over. With AI Overviews, Google decides what it will show, takes essential parts of articles, and you can't turn it off. The full article analyzes 11 specific SEO rules Google has promoted over the years and reveals who actually benefits from each one in 2026.