Scrolling used to be a safety net. Negative coverage could drift down the page, replaced by newer, neutral content. That no longer happens.
With the arrival of Google’s AI Overviews, users often see a full summary before they ever reach your website. It pulls together information from what Google considers the most credible sources, then presents a clean, decisive narrative. No context. No nuance.
This summary is what Igniyte calls a Zero-Click Verdict — an AI-written account that can resurface an old story and give it new visibility. Once it appears in that box, it’s treated as fact.
This isn’t a tweak to Google’s interface; it’s a fundamental change in how online reputation forms. Traditional suppression remains important — but once the AI establishes its interpretation, the only way to correct it is by changing what it learns from.
According to Semrush, AI Overviews appear in over 13% of all searches, with that number rising fast. Data shows that the first organic result loses around two-thirds of its clicks when a summary appears. Searchers no longer browse. They believe what they see first.
For companies, executives and legal teams, that summary box has become the most influential space online. Igniyte works inside that space — integrating suppression, structured authority, and Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) to shape how AI presents your story.
Authority – From Asset to Risk
Authority used to protect a brand. High-quality content, credible links, reliable coverage — all markers of trust. Today, those same signals can amplify damage.
E-E-A-T: How the AI Chooses What to Believe
Google’s AI relies on E-E-A-T — Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness — to decide which material it uses.
For content that falls into the category of “Your Money or Your Life” (YMYL) — topics affecting someone’s finances, safety, health, or reputation — the weighting is even stricter. Corporate governance, financial performance, and legal disputes all count as YMYL.
That means for executives or high-profile brands, almost every mention of them online sits in that high-risk category. AI models assign extra trust to these sources, favouring data from high-authority publishers. So if a major outlet publishes a negative piece, however old, it can become the version of truth the AI displays to your audience.
Local Relevance: A New Exposure Point
Generative search doesn’t just value authority — it values proximity. A regional paper’s coverage can outweigh a national story in local results. For example, a negative article in a Leeds business outlet may lead to someone in the North to search the company’s name.
That’s why geo-relevance has become a major reputation risk. Igniyte’s UK GEO strategy works to counter that — building a network of positive, structured local data that replaces old, harmful context with accurate, brand-controlled material.
The Consensus Problem: How AI Turns Opinions into Facts
In older search systems, visibility depended on rank. Push a link down, and fewer people saw it. But AI doesn’t use rank; it looks for patterns.
It searches for semantic triples — simple statements like “[Company] faced [Issue] in [Year]”. Once those appear in enough credible sources, they’re stored as relationships inside the AI model. Even if several of those links are suppressed, the connection remains.
Why Suppression Alone Can’t Fix It
Research from Princeton shows that generative models draw from an average of five to seven sources to form a summary. Remove a few, and the pattern holds.
Meanwhile, Pew Research found users are far less likely to click beyond AI summaries, meaning your corrective content goes unseen. UK media outlets have also reported traffic drops since Google expanded its AI summaries.
The result: the summary becomes the story.
The Only Real Option.. Overwrite the Signal
Google doesn’t offer an opt-out. There’s no robots.txt setting or noindex tag that excludes a site from AI Overviews. The “Feedback” form beneath summaries is manual and ineffective.
The only long-term fix is to replace the data the algorithm trusts — producing structured, verified information that outperforms the old material in both clarity and authority.
Modern ORM: Structuring for AI Citation
Igniyte’s ORM work now extends into Answer Engine Optimisation (AEO) and Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO). The goal: design digital content that AI systems cite first.
Out-Structuring Negativity
AI prefers clarity. It extracts from pages that are well-organised, statistically grounded, and easy to parse.
Princeton’s study found that articles including expert commentary and verifiable data are up to 40% more likely to be cited by generative systems. To make your material the preferred source:
- Start with short, declarative summaries at the top of each page.
- Use headings posed as questions — “What happened in 2024?” or “How did the business respond?”
- Include expert commentary and sourced data.
- Add Schema Markup (FAQ, HowTo, Organisation) to guide machine comprehension.
These small adjustments determine whether the AI chooses your version of the story — or someone else’s.
Building a Geo-Targeted Defence
Local search data can either damage or protect a brand. Igniyte’s geo-entity saturation model builds a defensive layer: verified business listings, community partnerships, regional press, and structured local releases.
When a user in that region searches your name, the AI identifies newer, higher-confidence local content — and cites that instead of outdated coverage.
That’s how suppression evolves: not just pushing stories down, but replacing them with stronger, structured, machine-readable truth.
ORM’s New Benchmark – Citation Control
Online reputation used to hinge on search position. Now it depends on whether AI systems trust your content enough to quote it.
Suppression stabilises the landscape; structure determines who owns the narrative.
Igniyte UK integrates both — applying traditional ORM precision with advanced GEO and AEO frameworks to protect clients’ reputations in an era where AI, not human readers, decide first impressions.
Before an AI summary defines your legacy, take control of it. Book an AI Reputation Audit with Igniyte.
Managing Director at Igniyte – The Reputation Experts
Roz is an industry spokesperson on all areas of online reputation management and our resident digital media expert. She regularly writes about reputation management research, online reputation risk and industry best practice.
