Search tactics that drove growth for months are suddenly shaky. Lily Ray, VP of SEO Strategy at Amsiv, points out that Google’s recent guidance and core update signal a coming crackdown on spammy content. She’s seen clients burned by past updates and reads every change in Google’s documentation as a heads-up: when they tweak wording in the Search Quality Rater Guidelines, it usually foreshadows algorithm shifts. Right now Google is hunting link schemes, AI-poisoning widgets and other tricks that inflate citations without real value. Take LLMs.txt, for example. Google says it doesn’t boost your ranking today, yet it recommends the file for future “agentic search” tools. Ray’s advice: if it takes you minutes to add one, do it—but don’t expect an SEO windfall. The same goes for E-E-A-T (experience, expertise, authoritativeness, trust): it isn’t a checklist with scores you can hunt down. It’s a fuzzy, multi-signal framework. Ray’s team runs E-E-A-T audits for clients, focusing on transparent author bios, expert voices and site history. Those elements build user trust—and Google’s algorithms increasingly reward signals that reflect genuine authority rather than keyword stuffing. On the front lines of risky tactics, Ray flags prompt-injection widgets embedded in articles. Companies ask AI to summarize their posts, slip in hidden brand prompts, then watch models repeat the injected pitch. Google brands this “LLM poisoning” as outright spam. Paid media mentions carry similar risk: folks buying “best of” list spots could face a Penguin-style crackdown if Google deems those links manipulative. And self-promotional listicles—where firms rank themselves as “top X”—might work now but clash with Google’s core goal of serving unbiased value. In Ray’s view, the only durable edge is original perspective. AI can’t replicate your proprietary data, client case studies or personal take on industry trends. Chasing quick wins with scaled comparison pages or paid mentions sets you up for big drops when Google tightens its rules. Real, expert-driven content that solves user problems will outlast the next core update.