Keywords don't matter anymore: what actually drives AI visibility

Success in search now requires a critical shift in approach.

The focus is moving away from individual keyword rankings toward measuring visibility across entire topic categories.

This isn’t just a minor tactical adjustment—it’s a fundamental rethinking of how we measure success in search. As industry experts like Kevin Indig have pointed out:

The keyword doesn’t have a future in search. What does is intent, and LLMs are much better at understanding it.

Tracking individual keywords in the age of AI search is like trying to predict weather patterns by looking at a single raindrop.

Why topic categories trump individual keywords

AI-powered search doesn’t think in keywords—it understands topics, intent, and the relationships between concepts.

When Google’s AI Overview delivers an answer, it’s not matching a string of text. It’s synthesizing information from multiple sources about a topic.

The same applies to other AI search interfaces. They don’t just match words; they grasp concepts.

Individual keyword volatility has reached unprecedented levels. What ranks today may vanish tomorrow, making single-keyword tracking increasingly meaningless.

A well-crafted page can appear for hundreds or thousands of related queries addressing the same core question.

How to measure topic category visibility

Successful search strategies now involve:

1. Identifying core topic categories relevant to their business (not just keyword lists)

2. Tracking visibility across hundreds or thousands of related queries within each category

3. Using “rank indexes” that measure overall category performance rather than individual terms

4. Monitoring relative performance against competitors within topic categories

For example, instead of tracking the single keyword “content marketing strategy,” a B2B SaaS company might monitor an entire category of related queries:

• “how to develop content marketing strategy”
• “content marketing planning process”
• “content strategy for SaaS companies”
• “B2B content marketing framework”
• “content marketing ROI measurement”
• “content distribution strategies”
• “content marketing team structure”

All these queries represent different aspects of the same topic category. When tested against AI search results, your content might appear in answers for some queries but not others, revealing gaps in your topic coverage.

The question isn’t “Do we rank for this keyword?” but “Are we a visible authority on this topic?”

This approach aligns perfectly with how AI search actually works—by understanding the broader context and relationships between ideas.

This holistic approach to topic authority is how we’re fundamentally building Hall, our AI search monitoring tool, which evaluates your content’s visibility across entire topic categories rather than isolated keywords.

Evaluating topic performance in AI search

Testing your content against AI search requires a different methodology than traditional rank checking. When evaluating topic visibility in AI responses, consider:

• Citation frequency: How often your brand/content is explicitly mentioned
• Sentiment context: Whether mentions are positioned as authoritative
• Content inclusion: How much of your actual content is synthesized into answers
• Competitive positioning: Whether you’re mentioned alongside or instead of competitors

Moving beyond keywords: The path forward

The organizations seeing the most success in AI-driven search are those willing to reimagine their measurement frameworks. By focusing on topic authority rather than keyword positions, they’re creating content that genuinely serves user needs across the entire customer journey.

This shift requires both technical adjustments and a mindset change. It means moving from optimizing for algorithms to truly becoming the best answer for your audience’s questions.

As AI continues to reshape how people find information, the gap between keyword-focused tactics and topic authority strategies will only widen. The question isn’t whether to make this transition—it’s how quickly you can implement it.

Have you started measuring topic category visibility instead of individual keywords? What challenges are you facing in making this transition?