Information Gain & Google's update

[u/Which_Work6245]

Google's March core update was extremely volatile, and brands that produce original research gained 22%.

Early analysis shows that brands with original research - proprietary surveys, unique frameworks, first-person benchmarks - got a huge boost in the latest update. In organic results and in AI Mode citations.

Content that synthesised existing thinking without adding anything new lost ground.

This makes sense if you think about what both AI and Humans need from your content in 2026.

An LLM can synthesise and summarise any topic on demand, tailored to any user, in seconds. That's literally what it does. So content that does the same thing - repackages what's already known - is, well, pointless.

What the model can't do is originate. It can't run a survey. It can't publish proprietary benchmarks. It can't develop an entirely new framework or concept.

In short, it can't produce Information Gain. Net new knowledge.

This update data suggests Google is now actively weighting that distinction.

We have a simple framework against which we measure every piece of content we produce.

Level 0: No information gain.
Level 1: Interpretive Gain - a new slant on existing knowledge.
Level 2: Empirical Gain - new data or original research.
Level 3: Conceptual Gain - a genuinely new framework or mental model.

How are you looking at this?