---
title: "The Cited #5: Which of Your Posts Can an AI Answer Finish?"
url: https://hostmy.blog/which-posts-can-an-ai-answer-finish/
date: 2026-10-20
modified: 2026-10-20
lang: en
author: "Aditya Sharma"
description: "One study on which searches get an AI answer, what Google says you can skip, six headlines worth your minute, and a free 15-second AI check."
categories:
  - "The Cited"
word_count: 1644
---

# The Cited #5: Which of Your Posts Can an AI Answer Finish?

Pick the three posts that bring you the most readers. For each one, type the question it answers into Google the way a reader would, then look at what sits above your link. It takes about a minute.

Write down two things for each: whether an AI answer appeared, and whether it finished the job, so a reader would not need to click. Keep those three notes open, because we are about to put a real study next to them.

**Most of us know our best posts. Far fewer of us know which of them a short answer could finish.**

Welcome to issue five of The Cited. In the last issue, [More Impressions Is Not More Readers](https://hostmy.blog/more-impressions-is-not-more-readers/), we looked at why Google showing your posts more no longer means more readers. Thank you for reading it.

The Cited is a short note from Host My Blog for people who run a blog, food or otherwise. Each issue has one number, the news worth your minute, and one small thing about whether AI can read your blog. This page is the longer version, with the charts and every source. You can also [get it in your inbox](https://hostmy.blog/the-cited/).

This time: which questions an AI answer can finish for the reader, and which still need you. Google has also published its own advice on AI search, and it is shorter than you might fear. Then six headlines worth your minute, and a quick way to see whether AI can read your blog.

## One number to hold onto

**39% of informational searches showed an AI Overview, against 15.8% of transactional ones.**

That comes from a 2026 keyword study by researchers Trevin Shirey and Macy Storm, who looked at 2.37 million US search terms. I could not find the original study, so I am relying on [The Blog Herald’s write-up](https://blogherald.com/seo/a-ai-answer-boxes-are-reportedly-wiping-out-a-majority-of-organic-search-traffic-for-some-blog-categories-in-2026-while-others-have-barely-lost-a-visitor-and-the-split-comes-down-to-one-thing/) of 21 September 2026. Informational means questions, like what something is or how long it takes. Transactional means the reader wants to buy, book or sign in. It is one study of US searches, so it is a picture and not a promise for yours.

![Bar chart of the share of US search terms that showed an AI Overview. Informational searches 39 percent. Transactional searches 15.8 percent.](https://hostmy.blog/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/cited-5-what-ai-overviews-answer-most.svg)Source: Trevin Shirey and Macy Storm, 2026 keyword study of 2.37 million US search terms, as reported by The Blog Herald on 21 September 2026.

The Blog Herald adds that some categories saw AI Overviews on roughly a third or more of their searches, among them pets and animal content, travel guides, mental health topics and personal finance. It argues that what decides the split is whether the question is one Google can fully answer on the results page. Topic and writing quality do not decide it. A search that ends in a booking or a purchase is harder to finish for the reader.

So here is the question worth holding: which of your posts answer with one clean fact, and which carry your own experience?

## It is not only you

If your food or travel posts have lost clicks, you are in good company, and the studies show the damage is uneven. In issue one, [Search Your Own Blog Name, and Meet RankReady](https://hostmy.blog/search-your-own-blog-name/), we looked at two of them. Sistrix found German recipe sites lost just over 1% of their clicks to AI Overviews, while parenting and baby sites lost over 24%. A UK study of publishers found food and drink how-to pages down 54% quarter on quarter.

That UK study, from the Association of Online Publishers and covered by [Press Gazette](https://pressgazette.co.uk/comment-analysis/google-search-traffic-to-leading-uk-publishers-set-to-halve-by-q3-2027/) on 20 July 2026, also found travel traffic up 22%, which sits oddly next to the travel guides above. One measures how often an AI answer appears and the other measures visits, so I would not read one as predicting the other.

The Blog Herald’s own reading is that a page answering a question with one clean fact is what a summary can replace, while a page built on a specific person’s experience is harder to squeeze into three bullet points. That is its opinion, not a finding from a study.

## Why is this interesting?

Because ‘AI is killing blogs’ is too big to act on.

Which of your posts a summary can finish is a question you can answer. Google’s own [guide to AI search](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/ai-optimization-guide), updated 10 July 2026, says the usual SEO fundamentals still apply, and asks for content with a first-hand point of view that is not available everywhere else. It also lists things you do not need to do: create special files or markup for AI, break your content into tiny pieces, write in a special way for AI, chase mentions across the web, or add special schema markup. That guide is about appearing in Google Search.

If you have been rewriting old posts to sound better to an AI, you can stop. Google says you do not need to write in a specific way just for generative AI search.

So here is the one thing to look at: your three notes from the start. A post an AI answer finishes completely is one to give something only you have, like your own test, your own photos or the change you made to the recipe. A post the answer cannot finish is one readers still have to visit.

## Worth knowing this week

Six headlines, each linked to the original, with a line or two so you can decide in a minute whether to read on.

**[Google is putting more links higher up in AI Mode and AI Overviews](https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-inline-links-higher-ai-search-responses/593089/)**
Google says it has made substantial increases to the links in its AI answers, and more of them now sit higher up. It is also testing creator and publisher names on AI Mode videos that link to Search profiles, and rolling Preferred Sources carousels out to more places and languages. In Search Console, every link in an AI Overview still gets the same position, so a link moving up does not change the number you see. *Search Engine Journal, 15 Oct*

**[ChatGPT’s traffic dip appears to be a tracking problem](https://www.searchenginejournal.com/chatgpt-traffic-drop-appears-to-be-a-tracking-problem/593157/)**
GPT-6 rolled out on 7 and 8 October, and ChatGPT visits then fell in several analytics datasets. Analysts link it to ChatGPT links no longer carrying the tag that labels them, so the visits may show as Direct. Graphite’s Ethan Smith estimates a fall of about 45% in tagged visits on the sites it tracks. Adobe’s Cedric Huesler says OpenAI told him it was a bug and a fix began on 15 October, but the report quotes no statement from OpenAI. Several firms quoted sell SEO or AI tools, and the numbers are early. If your ChatGPT visits dipped between 8 and 15 October, look at Direct before you worry. *Search Engine Journal, 15 Oct*

**[Gemini 4 Argon is now an option in Google’s AI Mode](https://www.seroundtable.com/google-ai-mode-gemini-4-argon-42289.html)**
Google says it is rolling out globally in Search for Google AI Pro and Ultra subscribers, and in the Gemini app. It describes Argon as better at multi-step tasks, at understanding intent and at following instructions in a back-and-forth conversation. The report does not say whether free users get it. *Search Engine Roundtable, 13 Oct*

**[Google ranking chatter spiked on 16 October, with no confirmed update](https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-ranking-volatility-chatter-42317.html)**
Search Engine Roundtable saw a spike in volatility and in chatter about ranking changes and referral traffic. The report does not say Google confirmed an update, and the author says rank trackers are struggling, so the readings may be off. Nozzle’s research, covered by [Search Engine Journal](https://www.searchenginejournal.com/seo-pulse-rank-tracker-data-chatgpt-tags-ai-search-links/593171/) on 17 October, found 8.0% of the Google results pages it checked between 13 September and 9 October were missing most of each keyword’s usual sites. Check Search Console before you trust a tracker. *Search Engine Roundtable, 16 Oct*

**[Search Console’s custom date picker broke twice this week](https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-console-performance-report-date-picker-broken-42286.html)**
The end date got stuck at 1969 on 13 October, and the picker was fixed that morning. It broke again on 14 October and was fixed again that morning. The preset ranges like 7 and 28 days kept working, which is the workaround. The report mentions no comment from Google. *Search Engine Roundtable, 13 Oct*

**[Google Discover may become a proactive assistant](https://www.seroundtable.com/google-discover-hyper-personalized-concierge-experience-42276.html)**
A Google job posting for a principal UX role on Discover describes turning it into a proactive, hyper-personalized concierge experience, and giving people’s own viewpoints more space in the feed. It is only a job listing, and the report includes no statement from Google, so read it as a direction. *Search Engine Roundtable, 13 Oct*

## Now the other half. Is your site AI ready?

Everything above is about what AI answers show and what readers click. ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude and Google’s crawlers read blogs too, and whether they can read yours is a separate question from whether your posts rank.

### Find out in about 15 seconds

We built a free audit tool for it, the [AI Readiness Checker](https://hostmy.blog/plugins/rankready/ai-readiness-checker/). It takes about 15 seconds, needs no account, and reads your site the way ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude and Google’s crawlers do.

![The AI Readiness Checker page on hostmy.blog. The headline asks whether an AI agent can actually read your site, with a box to enter a site address and a Run the check button. A dark scorecard beside it lists the layers Reach, Read, Understand and Quote, and shows 41 signals.](https://hostmy.blog/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/cited-2-ai-readiness-checker.png)The free AI Readiness Checker at hostmy.blog. Screenshot taken 28 September 2026.

### And if it finds gaps

You can fix them with [RankReady](https://wordpress.org/plugins/rankready-ai-llm-seo/), our free WordPress plugin. Install it if you like. It works alongside Yoast, Rank Math and AIOSEO and will not fight them. The [documentation](https://hostmy.blog/docs/rankready/) walks through each setting.

![The RankReady 1.3.0 admin screen in WordPress, showing the plugin header with version 1.3.0 and the five main tabs: Dashboard, AI Visibility, AI Content, Insights and Settings.](https://hostmy.blog/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/rankready-130-tabs-hd.png)RankReady 1.3.0 running on a clean WordPress install. Screenshot taken 26 August 2026.

The honest limit: RankReady cannot promise rankings or citations. It helps AI read your site.

**[Run the free check](https://hostmy.blog/plugins/rankready/ai-readiness-checker/)**

## The bit at the bottom

So in short: an AI answer can finish a simple fact but not your experience, Google says the usual basics still apply, and it pays to know whether AI can read your blog.

Which of your posts could a short AI answer finish, and which could only you have written? Hit reply on the email, or write to [support@hostmy.blog](mailto:support@hostmy.blog), and I will read it. And if a friend runs a blog, [The Cited is here](https://hostmy.blog/the-cited/).

Warmly,
Aditya Sharma
Host My Blog