A new study on “grounding chunks” is grabbing attention in the SEO community. Here’s our analysis for law firms.
Google’s AI doesn’t read your entire page word for word. It selects small excerpts of your content, called grounding chunks, that best match a user’s query.
New research from Dejan.ai suggests that Google’s AI budgets a limited number of words per user query, which it spreads across all sources it ranks for that query. Individual pages typically contribute a few hundred words apiece.
The study underlines the importance of writing with purpose. Clarity, structure, and intent are more important than word count alone.
What Are Grounding Chunks?
Grounding chunks refer to the parts of a page that Google feeds its AI system when processing a user query. Google selects the excerpts it deems most relevant.
Dejan.ai analyzed more than 7,000 queries and 2,275 URLs, finding a median grounding budget of approximately 2,000 words across all ranked sources. From any single page, Google typically extracts between 200 and 600 words, with a median of 377 words.
Pages with higher source rank receive a larger share of Google’s grounding budget. According to Dejan.ai’s findings, the median words extracted by ranking position were:
- Rank #1: 531 words
- Rank #2: 433 words
- Rank #3: 378 words
- Rank #4: 330 words
- Rank #5: 266 words
In practical terms, this means that even a well-written 3,000-word article may only contribute a small portion of its content to a given query’s grounding budget.
That leads to a natural follow-up question: if longer pages don’t meaningfully increase how much of your content Google’s AI uses – the study shows diminishing returns beyond 2,000 words – should you be writing longer content at all?
Do Longer Pages Still Help With SEO?
The research from Dejan.ai suggests that a long page in and of itself isn’t going to improve your odds of getting cited in Google’s AI outputs.
Some SEOs have pushed long-form content as a way to establish authority on a subject. The idea was that if you write longer, more detailed content to cover the topic thoroughly, you’ll establish your authority on the topic and see better organic rankings.
And some now argue that longer pages provide more opportunities for Google to extract meaningful grounding chunks. Essentially, why not write longer content if it means there’s more for Google to choose from?
However, as a page grows, the percentage of content from that page that gets used in Google AI’s grounding budget drops.
Examples from the Dejan.ai study:
- Pages under 1,000 words average 61% coverage (average of 370 words).
- Pages between 1,000 and 2,000 words average 35% coverage (average of 492 words).
- Pages between 2,000 and 3,000 words average 22% coverage (average of 532 words).
- Pages over 3,000 words average 13% coverage (average of 544 words).
Some point out that even if longer pages contribute a smaller percentage of their content, they may still get more total words into the grounding budget than shorter pages (about 544 words vs. 370 words, according to the Dejan.ai study).
That raises another question: where’s the harm in writing longer content if you get 174 more words in your grounding chunks?
Dan Petrovic, who authored the Dejan.ai study, cautions that writing a longer page cedes some control over what the AI might deem important for its grounding chunks.
“Suppose you have a 4000 word article,” Petrovic wrote in response to a user comment on LinkedIn. “Google’s pre-processing pipeline dynamically chunks it and extractive summarization takes place. It scores each chunk and assembles a ~500 token grounding snippet which is then presented alongside all other competing results. Will it lose the key detail or misinterpret your narrative in unexpected ways?”
Here’s our take: If you genuinely have something to say, 3,000 or more words might be warranted, provided that each of those words does some work by providing value, sharing insight, or offering clear answers.
But a long, unfocused page could dilute your topical relevance, risking your relevance for the user’s query.
Your goal is to create content that is clear and tightly aligned with user intent. Luckily for us, this has always been our North Star when writing for law firms.
How We Write Content for Law Firms
For years, our team has largely followed the content frameworks now being promoted as correlated with AI visibility. By and large, those frameworks simply promote good writing.
- Break content into distinct, high-value segments.
- Be direct and clear when writing legal topics, not clever.
- Use strong semantic signals in headers and subheaders.
- Create content silos or ecosystems that reinforce authority.
Rather than defaulting to longer pages or shorter ones, our approach has always been intent-driven. We focus on structuring content so the information is clear, easy to identify, and tightly aligned with what the user is actually looking for.
SEO is an ongoing process of testing and refining, and we, along with others in the industry, will continue to evaluate content length. But regardless, we’re confident that clarity, relevance, and intent will remain foundational to developing content for law firms.
Perhaps it’ll prove that shorter content of 500-800 words is best equipped to achieve that.
Why This All Matters for SEO and Content Strategy
Thinking about content in terms of grounding chunks can change how you approach content creation. It’s not a shock-and-awe game of writing something longer than the law firm across town. It’s about clear, direct writing that actually answers the user’s question, satisfies user intent, and/or solves their problem.
Whether that’s best accomplished with shorter pages or clearly defined sections on a longer page is up for debate. But there are a few takeaways most SEOs can agree on.
Relevance Over Length
If Google only uses 300 to 500 words, every sentence needs to provide value. That means creating content with:
- Tight, clear paragraphs
- A high density of useful information
- No filler, fluff, or unnecessary repetition
SEO for law firms, in particular, benefits from strong relevance signals because user intent is often very specific.
Precision Over Length
Long, unfocused pages can hurt performance and visibility. We’ve known this for a long time because it’s always boiled down to user intent.
If you’re writing for an audience willing to spend time on a deep dive, then background, long-form stories, and anecdotes might make sense. There’s room for long-form journalism, after all.
But that’s rarely the case for law firm websites. Law firms are writing for people with quick, immediate needs. They usually want one of two things: answer a legal question or find a lawyer. You grab their attention by answering the question clearly and helping the user achieve a goal (e.g., hire a lawyer).
Structure Content So Meaning Is Easy to Extract
Google’s AI picks the most relevant chunks and uses them to generate answers. Your strategy shouldn’t be to write the most useful, most relevant, and best-organized page possible.
- Organized with clear headings
- Segmented into logical units
- Written to answer specific question types
- Easy to identify and extract
When your content is clear, intentional, and structured around user intent, you improve the likelihood that Google will use it in AI results.
Alex Valencia is an influential entrepreneur, marketer, speaker, podcaster, and CEO of We Do Web Content, one of Inc. 5000’s fastest-growing businesses in America. His agency implements game-changing content marketing strategies and produces top-ranking web content for law firms, medical professionals, and small businesses nationwide.
