Google may have hit those self-promotional and self-serving listicle articles in one of the more recent unconfirmed Google search ranking updates. Lily Ray dug into a pattern she spotted with these types of pieces of content, mostly in the SaaS space, being hit hard with the January Google updates.
Lily Ray wrote Is Google Finally Cracking Down on Self-Promotional Listicles? "The most popular 'GEO' tactic might indeed be risky for SEO purposes after all," she added. She then dug through examples of these types of tactics performing super well, only to see those gains mostly wiped out in the past month.
The example she provided at the top was for [best content marketing agencies], but you've seen these - best X and top Y types of listicle articles. They almost always mention their own company or tool at the top position and then below, it lists competitors.
Here is one of those screenshots she posted:
But try it yourself, let's say for [best seo agency] in AI Mode and you get this page ranking in those responses. They list their own agency followed by others. It is these self-promotional listicles that were the "hack" to do well here for a while now and supposedly, a lot of these are not ranking anymore in Google.
"As with many SEO trends before it, what works today may quietly become a liability tomorrow," Lily wrote. Danny Sullivan from Google said similar things recently but this is the trend, this is what we do.
Glenn Gabe added on X:
Yes, IT'S HAPPENING! With the latest volatility, Lily saw a bunch of sites dropping, but it was their blog content dropping heavily. And when digging into that, there were self-serving listicles all over the place. I have seen the same thing and have been digging in heavily with the latest volatility we have seen. Lily does a great job breaking everything down. And to me, I'm glad this is finally happening. Like I have explained before, it was super embarrassing for the sites publishing those self-serving listicles, we knew Google would crack down on that at some point, etc.BTW, I feel like this could be a reviews system update and could be based on all the self-serving listicle crap flooding Google's index (and ranking in AIOs, AI Mode, etc.) And of course, any AI Search platform leveraging Google's results would be impacted downstream. This is big news. I would read Lily's post and then start digging into the movement.
Yes, IT'S HAPPENING! With the latest volatility, Lily saw a bunch of sites dropping, but it was their blog content dropping heavily. And when digging into that, there were self-serving listicles all over the place. I have seen the same thing and have been digging in heavily with… https://t.co/HxKwl3VBFP
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) February 3, 2026
Here he says he thinks it goes beyond listicles but also is an update to the Google reviews system, formerly product reviews system.
Good Morning Google Land! This is the February 4th edition of "Reviews Update Notes". Hey, it doesn't roll like "Core Update Notes" but it fits... :) Also, at least I *think* it was a reviews update. Google stopped announcing reviews updates a while ago since the system is now… pic.twitter.com/uTk7VmAdrF
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) February 4, 2026
I also love the Mt. AI, although different situation from listicles, same conceptual issue:
I think I'll coin this "Mt. AI". Yet another example of a site publishing a ton of AI-generated content that surged... and ultimately came crashing down. I'm sure the site owners were saying, "AI content is amazing! Look at our trending!" ... until the crash happened. And that… pic.twitter.com/DfWslqThrd
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) January 21, 2026
Forum discussion at X.
