GEO finding: Keyword stuffing is the only tested tactic that hurts AI visibility (-8% to -10%)

Claim: Of the 9 tactics tested in the Princeton GEO paper, keyword stuffing was the only one that performed worse than baseline — driving visibility down 8-10%. Traditional SEO tactics not only fail to lift AI visibility, they actively hurt it.

Source: Aggarwal et al., arXiv:2311.09735 v3. See Princeton GEO paper (Aggarwal et al., KDD '24) — the foundational generative engine optimization study.

Confidence: Verified (primary).

Why this matters: Practitioners who carry forward 2018-era SEO instincts (keyword density, exact-match anchors, semantic stuffing) measurably reduce their citation eligibility. The discipline is now non-overlapping with old-school SEO on this lever.