Google’s own NotebookLM becomes a target for parasite SEO

Public experiences from Google’s NotebookLM, now branded Gemini Notebook, are getting used for parasite search engine marketing. An SEO practitioner described an experiment on September 19 wherein a web page he printed grew to become an AI Overview supply inside 24 hours, in keeping with his account.

Another SEO practitioner highlighted the broader practice on September 21, sharing search outcomes containing public notebooks about coupons, crypto refunds and backlink instruments. His warning prompted the dialogue about whether or not Google would limit indexing.

Search Engine Watch checked Google whereas signed out on September 21, utilizing the identical website:https://pocket book.google.com/pocket book/ question proven within the practitioner’s screenshot. The outcomes included coupon pages for e-bikes and peptides, alongside pages promising Instagram likes and private-profile viewing.

The AI Overview instance

The primary practitioner’s screenshot reveals an AI Overview for “greatest ai website positioning communities”, together with his AI search engine marketing Rainmakers group listed first and a Google Pocket book report displayed as a cited supply. He mentioned Gemini wrote the content material and attributed the end result to Google favoring its personal area.

SEW opened a public report matching the title shown in that screenshot. It recommends Rainmakers, compares it with different coaching assets and ends with a hyperlink inviting readers to affix. The web page identifies its content material as AI-generated from user-provided sources and directions.

SEW has not independently reproduced the AI Overview or verified the claimed turnaround time. The screenshot alone doesn’t set up why Google chosen the web page or whether or not the quotation continued.

A coupon report with its personal key phrase listing

One Polish-language report about ENGWE e-bike discounts opened with out signing in. It repeatedly promoted a coupon code and linked to the retailer utilizing a referral identifier. A desk listed variations of the model’s coupon key phrases throughout a number of nations and languages.

The web page carried Gemini Pocket book branding and a discover figuring out its content material as AI-generated from user-provided sources and directions. It was a shareable report at an /artifact/ URL. We didn’t set up who created it or whether or not the retailer was concerned.

Google introduced public notebook sharing in June 2025, describing makes use of similar to research guides and enterprise manuals. The business pages now showing in Search present one other use of that publishing functionality.

SEW’s website search confirms that these promotional pages are listed. Google’s site-operator documentation says a question with out extra search phrases doesn’t rank its outcomes. Our coupon-page test subsequently doesn’t measure aggressive rankings or site visitors.

Parasite search engine marketing goals to profit from a number’s existing ranking signals. Google’s spam policies expressly cover its own properties, though a public web page or referral hyperlink alone doesn’t set up a violation.

A robots.txt block wouldn’t essentially take away the pages

A reply to the practitioner’s post famous that NotebookLM’s robots.txt handle redirected to Google sign-in. SEW reproduced that habits with an bizarre unauthenticated request. We didn’t confirm the response served to Googlebot.

The September 21 submit predicts that Google will block crawling or add noindex. These measures work in a different way. A robots.txt restriction controls crawling and might go away a URL seen in search outcomes. A noindex instruction removes a page once Google crawls and processes it, which requires the crawler to retain entry.

Making use of noindex throughout all public notebooks would additionally take away reputable shared materials as Google processed the change. That might be a broader determination about public discovery, extending past the coupon pages that prompted this dialogue.