Listicles are not dead. They’re thriving… when done correctly.
Despite the uproar in the SEO community last week, listicles are still driving insane results in traditional search + AI.
I see this directly across our 70+ active client portfolio. Listicles are not only driving visibility, but directly attributable revenue.
“So, why did sites posting a bunch of listicles get dinged, then?” The only sites I’ve seen get dinged for listicle content were sites that posted dozens if not more (20,30+) listicles on varying topics.
They got dinged because:
- The topics clearly extend way beyond their website’s topical authority. The content was fresh, well structured, and had links, so it ranked initially. Until it was course-corrected for more relevant industry publications with deeper experience.
- The content at that scale was clearly programmatic / AI written in many cases. There was no real effort, thought, or value behind the content itself. It was simply scraped descriptions of solutions from other sources. In my opinion, this is the main reason they got dinged.
- The site listed themselves as the top solutions in… 20+ different listicles. Mentioning yourself once or twice as the best? Fine. Biased, sure, but not spam. Adding yourself as number one in 20+ listicles? “Spam” is not an unfair categorization.
- Sea of Sameness: Listicles caught fire rapidly because…they worked. They still do. But everyone flooded their respective keyword searches with the same exact listicle content. Google simply reshuffled the deck and picked winners/losers based on the previous three points.
Listicles are not dead, you just have to use them wisely.
Your goal should not be to publish endless listicles on your own website. Stick to 1-2 key targets and genuinely review every brand on the list. Talk about how each is unique, not just boilerplate, scraped AI written slop.
Then, focus the majority of your efforts on getting listed on other listicles.
This is where you’ll acquire significant AI visibility and most importantly, mentions in LLMs, at the bottom of the funnel.
Really interesting data from Gijs de Groot from Promptwatch.
-Jeremy
