After Amazon pulled its ads from Google Shopping on July 23, clicks became cheaper, and volumes rose, but the value of that traffic dropped. That’s according to a new study from Optmyzr, which analyzed 6,137 advertiser accounts.
By the numbers (all categories combined):
Clicks: +7.8%
CPC: -8.3%
Conversion Value: -5.5%
ROAS: -4.4%
Why we care. Less competition doesn’t automatically help advertisers, and more traffic doesn’t always mean better business. Amazon-trained shoppers still expected rock-bottom prices, fast shipping, and seamless buying. When competitors couldn’t deliver, conversion value fell.
Category winners and losers. Electronics was the clear winner. Retailers like Best Buy and Apple matched Amazon’s offer, driving +81% conversions and +7% ROAS. In other categories:
Home & Garden, Sporting Goods, Tools, Apparel: Fell into the volume trap – more clicks, but lower value and weaker ROAS.
Health & Beauty: Traffic converted, but at a lower per-sale value.
Apparel & Accessories: The largest category by volume, but saw a -9.5% drop in conversion value.
Between the lines. Amazon wasn’t just another bidder – it was shaping shopper expectations across categories. When Amazon left, those expectations didn’t reset, the study suggests.
Bottom line. For PPC advertisers, cheaper clicks aren’t a win if they don’t turn into profitable customers. Without Amazon-level pricing and convenience, many brands risk falling into the volume trap.
https://i0.wp.com/dubadosolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Screenshot-2025-08-19-at-13.36.28-Vcw75n.webp?fit=882%2C631&ssl=1631882http://dubadosolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/dubado-logo-1.png2025-08-19 14:21:112025-08-19 14:21:11Clicks rose, ROAS fell when Amazon left Google Shopping
Is the number of clicks on your top-ranking content starting to slip? It’s time to find out where your traffic has gone and how to get it back.
AI Overviews are reshaping SERPs as we know them. Google now answers user queries directly in the SERP, and traditional blue links are getting pushed further down the page. You might still be ranking, but your visibility is shrinking.
This doesn’t mean SEO is dead. It just means the playbook has changed. To stay competitive, you need to understand how AI Overview optimization works and start building content designed to earn those coveted AI citations.
Key Takeaways
AI Overviews are rerouting traffic, not killing it. Your rankings may hold, but clicks drop because Google satisfies user intent directly in the SERP.
Answer-first content wins. Structuring pages with concise answers, logical headings, and clear formatting increases your chances of being cited in AI Overviews.
Authority signals matter more than backlinks. Brand mentions, topical trust, and consistent visibility across multiple platforms influence AI citations.
Owning your audience is your safety net. Diversifying channels and building first-party data ensures long-term visibility, even as search behavior evolves.
Why You’re Ranking But Still Losing Traffic
If your content still ranks in the top 10 SERP positions but traffic is slipping, there’s a good chance AI overviews are the culprit. Google’s AI-generated summaries dominate the top of the page, pushing organic listings below the fold. Users get the answer they want without ever clicking. In fact, almost 60% of Google searches end without users even making a single click.
You can see from this screenshot that when your search results load, there’s no organic results in site. In fact, in this instance, AI overviews even push sponsored results below the fold. This is the new reality of zero-click searches. Impressions might look steady, but clicks drop because users can satisfy their intent without leaving Google.
The solution is to stop thinking only in terms of traffic volume. Start focusing on visible influence: appearing in AI Overviews and being recognized as an authority, even when users don’t click.
AI Overviews And How They Are Turning The Funnel Upside-Down
Traditional search funnels start with discovery, move to consideration, and end in conversion. AI Overviews flip that script.
Users can start—and sometimes finish—their journey right on Google. With features like AI-generated summaries and featured snippets, the need to click through is lower than ever. Voice search and even short-form video integrations accelerate this shift, creating an environment where Google does the explaining for you.
For marketers, this means clicks are no longer the whole story. Your content has to deliver more than just clicks. It needs to capture attention inside the SERP and give users a reason to engage when they do click through. Strong on-page structure, engaging CTAs, and retention strategies like scroll-depth optimization now matter just as much as ranking. This is the essence of Search Everywhere optimization, which focuses on meeting users wherever they’re consuming content, not just on your site.
How To Optimize For AI Overviews
If you want your content featured in AI Overviews, you need to create pages that are easy for Google to summarize and trust. Here’s how to give Google what it wants:
Lead with an answer-first layout: Open your page with a concise, 2–3 sentence answer to the core query. This immediately gives AI a clear takeaway, increasing the odds of being cited in an overview. Expand into supporting details afterward with a logical flow.
Use structured formatting: Break your content into clean H2s and short paragraphs so Google can scan and interpret it quickly. Bulleted and numbered lists help AI extract step-by-step processes or summaries.
Add schema and FAQs: Implement FAQ and How-To schema to highlight your key answers for AI. Include a short FAQ section at the end of your article to increase your odds of citation for question-based queries.
Target long-tail, conversational keywords: AI Overviews thrive on natural, question-based searches. Integrate these phrases into headings and early sentences to align with how users talk to search engines and voice assistants.
Publish fresh, authoritative content: Share unique insights, proprietary data, or first-hand expertise to meet E-E-A-T signals—experience, expertise, authority, and trustworthiness. AI favors credible, original content over generic summaries.
Support with media: Embed YouTube videos, charts, or screenshots to improve engagement and reinforce authority. Use descriptive alt text so search engines can understand and reference your visuals.
Combining structure, authority, and clarity makes it easy for AI to pull your content and keep your brand visible in the new SERP landscape.
YouTube and Video: Your Shortcut to Visibility
Video content—especially on YouTube—is one of the fastest ways to gain visibility in AI Overviews. Google and Gemini favor YouTube because it’s part of their ecosystem, and AI models naturally pull from sources they already trust.
Short, keyword-focused videos can surface in AI-generated results even if your text content isn’t cited. A 60–90 second explainer video that directly answers the search query gives AI a clean snippet to work with while also boosting your chances of appearing in video carousels.
The charts below show just how effective video is. They show the categories of YouTube videos that have shown up in AI overviews and how fast the trend of videos showing up in AI overviews has grown over time.
Create concise, educational videos tied to core keywords.
Embed them on relevant blog posts or landing pages to reinforce topical authority.
Add captions or transcripts so AI models can understand and summarize your video content.
Video can reclaim lost search visibility while building multi-surface authority across AI-driven and traditional search.
Off-Page Signals Matter More Than Backlinks
In the age of AI Overviews, Google and AI models are looking beyond traditional backlinks. They increasingly value off-page signals like brand mentions and expert quotes in reputable sources.
AI models evaluate whether your brand is recognized and trusted across the web. A mention in an industry publication, a quote in a news article, or a stat cited in a whitepaper can be as impactful as a link for AI visibility.
To strengthen your off-page signals:
Pursue public relations (PR) opportunities in industry-relevant media and blogs.
Share original data or research that journalists and peers want to reference.
Encourage brand discussions on platforms like LinkedIn, Reddit, and Quora, which AI crawlers frequently mine. Internally, we’ve seen tremendous growth for our client, TurboTax, by helping them launch a branded Reddit campaign—including discussions and engagement.
The goal is to create a trustworthy footprint online. When AI sees your brand cited in multiple credible sources, you’re far more likely to be included in its summaries, even without a traditional backlink.
Build Topical Trust Across the Web
AI Overviews reward brands that show consistent authority on a topic, not just one-off content. Google and AI models look for a pattern: Are you producing relevant, high-quality content across multiple platforms that reinforces your expertise?
To build topical trust:
Publish blog posts, guides, and FAQs that cover your key themes in depth.
Share insights across social media and YouTube, giving AI more signals that your brand is active and authoritative.
Leverage user-generated content (UGC), like community discussions, testimonials, and real-world examples, to demonstrate authenticity.
Ensure your content aligns with E-E-A-T across every channel.
Maintaining a consistent and credible presence wherever your audience searches makes it easy for AI to recognize your brand as a reliable source. That recognition is what creates a trustworthy brand footprint that AI can work with.
You Need to Diversify Your Channels Now
Relying solely on Google for traffic is riskier than ever. The shrinking SERP visibility caused by AI overviews and zero-click searches means that even top-ranking content might not deliver the same ROI it once did.
To protect your brand, you need to diversify your traffic sources:
Combine SEO and paid search to maintain visibility and retarget your most valuable branded keywords.
Invest in social media, email, and YouTube to capture attention outside of Google.
Build a strategy that prioritizes owning your audience instead of depending on any single platform.
Diversifying channels doesn’t just protect your current visibility. It’s a great way to grow your online brand. A strong multi-channel approach captures leads you might otherwise miss, making you less vulnerable to Google’s constant evolution. Ultimately, the brands that thrive in the AI era are the ones that meet their audience everywhere, not just in search results.
When AI Overviews dominate search, the brands that win are the ones creating proprietary insights that can’t be found anywhere else. AI models favor content that provides original data because it signals authority and adds value beyond generic summaries. Internal research is your secret weapon.
Instead of relying solely on public stats, collect your own:
Run audience surveys to uncover trends or opinions in your niche.
Conduct polls or quizzes to generate quick, shareable insights that can be repurposed into blogs and social posts.
Analyze internal data like customer behavior, conversion trends, or product usage to produce unique reports.
Turn these findings into case studies and data-driven articles. Proprietary insights make your brand more likely to appear in AI Overviews and attract backlinks and press coverage, compounding your authority across the web.
FAQs
How do I optimize for AI Overviews?
Start with an answer-first structure: give a concise response in the first 2–3 sentences, then expand with supporting details. Use a clear structure with H2s and bulleted lists so Google can easily scan and summarize your content. Implement FAQ or how-to schema, and include a dedicated FAQ section to match AI’s preferred Q&A format. Fresh, authoritative content supported by brand mentions and backlinks will boost your chances of being cited.
How are AI Overviews changing the SERPs?
AI Overviews now dominate the top of Google results, pushing organic listings further down the page. This creates more zero-click searches, where users get answers without visiting your site. Even if your rankings haven’t changed, your visibility and clicks may decline. Making AI-friendly formatting and multi-channel strategies more important than ever.
Conclusion
There’s no need to panic. AI Overviews aren’t erasing traffic, they’re simply rerouting it. Your pages may still rank, but when Google’s summaries dominate the top of the SERP, visibility doesn’t always translate into clicks. The old playbook of relying on impressions and top rankings isn’t enough anymore.
To win in this era of search, your SEO strategy has to include AI overview optimization. Content needs to be structured for AI-first discovery, with clear answers and logical formatting that gains LLMs’ trust. Now, success is about building influence. When your brand appears in AI Overviews and consistently reinforces topical expertise, you maintain visibility even when users don’t land on your site.
The final step is ownership. Diversifying channels and leveraging Search Everywhere optimization gives your brand resilience, while first-party data ensures you can nurture and convert your audience on your own terms. If done right, AI can be your biggest opportunity, not just a threat.
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TikTok is capping hashtags at five per post, a shift some users have recently noticed through in-app notifications.
Details. TikTok hasn’t formally announced the update. A Reddit user said a TikTok notification explained the change is aimed at:
Reducing hashtag clutter,
Discouraging spammy usage,
Improving discovery relevance.
TikTok is the latest social platform to sideline hashtags:
X dropped hashtags from ads.
Meta’s Threads limits posts to one topic tag, while Instagram is testing a five-hashtag cap.
LinkedIn has de-emphasized them.
Why we care. Hashtags have long been used to boost reach, but platforms are dialing them back as algorithms rely more on engagement signals – and as spammy, irrelevant tags clutter feeds. This could improve relevance and reduce spammy competition, but it also raises the stakes for picking the right hashtags to ensure campaigns still surface in discovery.
The big picture. For creators, the change means quality over quantity. Picking the most relevant hashtags matters more than piling on extras. TikTok’s Trends dashboard can help surface the tags most likely to drive discovery.
https://i0.wp.com/dubadosolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/tiktok_hashtags-GzFiUk.webp?fit=320%2C692&ssl=1692320http://dubadosolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/dubado-logo-1.png2025-08-18 18:52:522025-08-18 18:52:52TikTok limits posts to five hashtags
More of your customers are using AI to research products before they buy. Are you prepared?
To put this into perspective:
Last year, you might’ve searched “best bed sheets” on Google and scrolled through a few links or a Shopping ad.
This year, you’re asking ChatGPT:
“I sleep hot and have sensitive skin. Can you recommend some breathable bed sheets that won’t irritate me?”
Totally different input. Totally different rules for showing up.
AI Search still cares about the fundamentals — content, crawlability, internal links, and high-quality backlinks. But now, your visibility is influenced by more than just your website.
AI models reflect the full picture:
What people say about your brand
Where you’re mentioned
How your product is reviewed
It’s not just keyword targeting — it’s relevance engineering.
Shoutout to Mike King @ iPullRank for coining this term.
That’s where AI Search Optimization comes in.
In this guide, you’ll learn how to:
Make your product pages visible and understandable to LLMs
Structure your data with schema and product feeds
Submit your catalog to AI search platforms
Shift from keyword targeting to prompts and personas
Build an AI-friendly brand presence across the web
Track your visibility in a probabilistic, answer-first world
The future of ecommerce search isn’t about rankings. It’s about being part of the answer. This guide will show you how.
Step 1: Make Your PDPs Crawlable and Renderable
Before you do anything, start here: can bots actually see your product content?
When people started taking AI tools and chatbots seriously in 2022/23, some site owners turned to blocking their crawlers from accessing their site.
But if you block the crawler, it won’t be able to serve your pages in its responses.
Don’t Block AI Crawlers in Your Robots.txt File
Unless you actively took the step to block them, you shouldn’t need to do anything here. But it’s still worth verifying there are no lines in your robots.txt file like:
User-agent: GPTBot
Disallow: /
Don’t Serve Important Content Using JavaScript
The other aspect of crawlability to consider is how you’re serving your content.
If it’s not in the raw HTML, LLMs like these can’t see it. And if they can’t see it, you won’t show up in AI-generated product recommendations.
To make sure you’re not causing crawling issues here, you first need to understand how your ecommerce platform handles JavaScript. Every platform is different:
Shopify: Generally fine, but watch out for third-party apps injecting schema or content via JS.
WooCommerce: Depends heavily on your theme. Many use plugins that load parts of the page with JS.
Custom stacks: If you’re using React, Vue, or similar frameworks, check whether product pages render server-side or after load.
Next, check your PDPs manually. You can do this by right-clicking and selecting “Inspect” in your browser.
Then press Command+Shift+P on Mac, or Control+Shift+P on Windows/Linux.
In the Command Menu, start typing “javascript” and then select “Disable JavaScript”:
Reload the page, and you’ll see how it looks without JavaScript enabled — in other words, how LLMs like ChatGPT see the page:
In the Nike example above, the LLM would still see key info like the product title, description, and price.
But in the example below…
…it would see nothing.
You can see on the right that there’s still page code loading. But nothing is actually displayed to the user with JavaScript disabled. Meaning AI tools wouldn’t be able to pull any info from this page.
If you are using apps or components that rely on JavaScript to display key content, talk to your dev team about server-side rendering (SSR) or prerendering. The goal is to ensure all critical product info is delivered in the first HTML response.
Once your product pages are crawlable, the next step is making them understandable.
Structured data — specifically Schema.org markup in JSON-LD format — helps systems like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google understand what your product is, how much it costs, whether it’s in stock, and more.
In the world of SEO, we’ve long used schema markup to improve how our pages appear in traditional search results.
Here’s an example of a traditional Google results enhanced with schema markup, appearing as a rich snippets:
But for LLM visibility, schema helps the AI tools understand key details about your products. Which makes it easier for them to pull in your products when they’re making recommendations for users.
How do we know this?
Because Microsoft has told us. The tech giant, a major investor in OpenAI (behind ChatGPT), said:
“[Structured data] makes it easier for search engines not only to index your content, but to surface it accurately and richly in search results, shopping experiences, and AI-driven assistants.”
(Interestingly, Microsoft/Bing recommends combining this with IndexNow — a service that automatically pings search engines when you update your content.)
Plus, using structured data just makes sense — it helps make it easier for complex machines to understand our content. Whether that’s a search engine or an LLM, providing more context is generally always going to be a good idea.
Here’s how to use structured data to improve your ecommerce store’s LLM visibility:
Focus on Product Pages First
While there’s value in marking up other templates (like category pages, blog posts, or FAQs), your product pages are where it counts most.
This is the data that LLMs and search engines will use to:
Associate your product with relevant categories and attributes
Match your offering to long-tail purchase prompts
Feed structured knowledge into their product and shopping systems
Here are the fields to include:
@type: Product
GTIN, SKU, MPN
Brand
Description
Offer block (price, currency, availability, URL)
Review/rating info if available
Use your schema to reflect reality, not just fill fields. But also add as much context as you can.
If your product is eco-friendly, US-made, sweatproof — encode it. The better your markup, the more context LLMs have to surface your product in nuanced prompts.
Make sure the schema is present in the raw HTML — not loaded with JavaScript.
Bonus: Extend to Reviews, FAQs, HowTo
Once your product markup is solid, consider adding:
Review and AggregateRating blocks
FAQPage markup for your PDPs or Help Center
HowTo schema for tutorial content or sharing post-purchase use cases
These all help build context around your product and can influence how LLMs present or recommend it.
Once you’ve marked up your product pages, the next step is scaling an effective structure across your entire catalog. That’s where a high-quality product feed comes in.
Step 3: Build a High-Quality Product Feed
Structured feeds have been essential for Google Shopping, Meta Advantage+, and TikTok Shop for a while.
And now, they’re becoming equally important for AI-powered discovery. Especially as platforms like Perplexity and OpenAI build out product recommendation systems.
Think of your feed as the dataset LLMs will eventually pull from when answering questions like this:
Perplexity has launched a Merchant Program accepting feed uploads, called the Perplexity Merchant Program. This lets ecommerce sellers have even more control over how their products can appear in AI responses.
Plus, OpenAI is quietly testing ways to let store owners upload feeds to improve their AI responses for product recommendations.
These feeds will likely drive future AI shopping experiences across chat, search, and even voice interfaces.
So how do you set your product feeds up in an LLM-friendly way?
What to Include
To optimize your product feeds for AI, start with the essentials:
Product title
Description
Price
Availability
Product URL
GTIN or MPN + Brand
Image URL
Note: Tools like ChatGPT may still generate their own versions of some of these (like titles). But it’ll still typically use information from places like your product feeds to inform its responses.
After you’ve added the basics, layer in high-value fields like:
Category or taxonomy
Color, material, and size variants
Shipping cost and speed
Review count and star rating
Custom labels for campaigns or segmentation
Use the same language your customers use.
This means writing product information the way your customers actually talk and search, not how your internal teams or suppliers describe things. For example:
Instead of:
“Athletic footwear with moisture-wicking synthetic upper”
Write:
“Running shoes that keep your feet dry”
How do you find out how they talk?
Look at your customer reviews, support tickets, and search queries that already drive traffic to your store.
For example, they might search for “cozy sweater” not “knitted pullover.” This can inform your title and description choices.
How to Submit Product Feeds to LLMs
Here’s how to submit your product feeds for three of the biggest AI interfaces.
Perplexity:
In 2024, Perplexity launched their Merchant Program. This fuels the platform’s shopping experience for Pro users. Your products may appear in carousel-style answers and shopping-focused prompts, and shoppers can buy without leaving Perplexity.
You can find out more about the program and sign up here.
OpenAI (ChatGPT):
OpenAI is piloting product discovery via ChatGPT’s “Search + Product Discovery” initiative. They’re exploring using uploaded feeds to power future buying experiences inside ChatGP.
Google’s Merchant Center feeds power Shopping Ads, organic Shopping listings, and likely influence how Google’s AI systems interpret and surface your products in AI Mode and AI Overviews.
Step 4: Monitor LLM Crawlers
Once you’ve put all the steps in place to make your ecommerce store crawlable by LLMs, the next step is to make sure they’re actually accessing your content and product pages.
Here’s how to do that:
Set Up Bot Monitoring
Use server logs or your CDN (like Cloudflare, Fastly, or Akamai) to track requests from:
GPTBot: This user agent is used by OpenAI to crawl web content that may be used in training their generative AI foundation models.
OAI-SearchBot: Used by OpenAI to link to and surface websites in search results in ChatGPT’s search features.
PerplexityBot: Identifies Perplexity’s AI search crawler when it accesses websites.
Google uses various Googlebot user agents to crawl the web, depending on the type of content being crawled (e.g., desktop, mobile, images). You can find a detailed list of common Googlebot user agent strings and their purposes in resources from Google for Developers.
For each of these bots, track:
Which pages they’re crawling (PDPs, collection pages, sitemap, feed)
How often they come back
How crawl patterns evolve over time
This helps confirm they’re discovering your content and gives you a baseline to measure progress.
Step 5: Shift from Keyword Lists to Prompts and Personas
Keyword research is still important. But you also need to think about how your customers are likely to prompt AI tools when looking for products like yours.
LLMs answer questions, interpret context, and make recommendations based on how people naturally speak.
That means you need to rethink how you optimize for product discovery. Not by keywords alone, but by personas, use cases, and prompt formats.
Start With What You Know
Your best-performing SEO and paid search keywords are still the foundation. They tell you:
Which products and categories convert
How people describe their intent in short-form searches
Use these to anchor your prompt strategy — but expand outward.
Think in Prompts, Not Just Queries
As people become more savvy with how AI tools work, more and more shoppers are going beyond just typing in “best bed sheets.” They’re asking:
Medium-length prompts:
“Best cooling sheets for hot sleepers”
“Softest bed sheets under $100”
“What kind of sheets stay on the bed all night?”
Longer, context-rich prompts:
“I’m a side sleeper who gets hot at night. What bed sheets will stay cool and not cling to my skin?”
“Looking for breathable, hypoallergenic sheets that work well in humid climates”
“I have sensitive skin and eczema. What’s a good sheet material that won’t irritate me?”
Your goal is to build context around your products that lines up with this kind of language and framing.
Note: You can’t predict exactly what your customers will ask, and there are infinite ways they can do it. But thinking about prompts — not just keywords — will put you in a good place to be able to optimize your ecommerce pages for LLMs.
Map Your Catalog to Prompt-Based Use Cases
Think in layers:
By need: cooling, breathable, wrinkle-resistant, organic
By persona: hot sleeper, allergy sufferer, luxury buyer, college student
By situation: new apartment, guest bedroom, summer refresh, wedding registry
By problem: sheets come loose, feel scratchy, trap heat, shrink in the wash
This is how you start to think of your items like answers and solutions, not just products.
Use These Prompts to Guide Content and Merchandising
Let this prompt structure inform your:
Product page copy and comparison points
Blog posts and videos
Social media posts
FAQs and Help Center content
Category names and filters
Product feed descriptions and attributes
LLMs can pull from all of it — so make sure you’re using the kind of language your real customers use everywhere.
Step 6: Seed Your Brand Across the Web
Even if your site is crawlable, your schema is perfect, and your feed is super optimized — LLMs still learn about your brand based on what people are saying about you elsewhere.
They’re trained on massive web-scale datasets, so third-party content — like reviews, Reddit mentions, YouTube transcripts, forums, blog posts — can carry as much (or more) weight than your owned channels.
If you want to show up in AI answers, your brand needs to already exist in the wider conversation.
Where You Want to Show Up
AI tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude all lean on third-party review sites and forums in their answers to brand and product-related queries.
These are the places you’ll want to show up in order to be included in those answers:
Review sites: Trustpilot, Amazon, Google Reviews, BBB, niche review sites
Reddit, Quora, & niche forums: Participate in threads and subtly seed your product category (without being spammy)
YouTube: Appear in titles, transcripts, and product comparisons — even if you’re not the creator (consider partnering with creators to do this)
Affiliate content: Get included in roundups, listicles, and side-by-side comparisons
Showing up in these places is half the battle. The other component is how you show up.
Ideally, you’ll want to be mentioned alongside competitors (“like Brooklinen but…”). And in the right, relevant context (“these are some of the best cooling sheets for eczema”).
A lot of this is going to be completely out of your control (especially on platforms like Reddit). But good marketing practices can make it more likely that people will naturally talk about your brand in the way you want them to.
This Is Just Good Marketing
Gaining LLM visibility is a byproduct of an effective multichannel marketing strategy.
If you’re running a strong content program, building brand awareness, and actively participating in your category — you’re already seeding relevance.
What’s new is the urgency: LLMs are already using these signals to decide which brands deserve to be recommended.
Related: See our LLM Seeding Playbook for tactics, templates, and outreach strategies.
Step 7: Track Your AI Search Visibility
In traditional SEO, visibility was deterministic: rank #1 for a keyword, get X% of clicks.
That model is breaking.
AI-powered discovery works differently. Your brand might appear in one version of a response, but not the next.
Whether your ecommerce store is included depends on how the user phrases their prompt, how much brand recognition you have, and how often you’re referenced across the web.
So, your measurement strategy needs to adapt.
What to Track
Start by building a prompt library — real questions your customers might ask:
Organize prompts by topic (e.g., cooling sheets, organic materials, luxury bedding)
Group them by persona (e.g., hot sleepers, allergy sufferers, budget-conscious buyers)
Then choose a tool to test visibility: like Semrush AI SEO Toolkit, Peec.AI, or Profound
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You don’t need an SEO plugin to help your website rank in Google.
In fact, you can do more harm than good if you don’t know what you’re doing with them.
But:
They can make optimizing your website a whole lot easier if you do use them correctly.
We’re talking:
Faster page speeds
Better optimized content
Fewer technical SEO issues
All without touching any code.
So how do you choose which plugin to use? Can you use more than one?
And the big one — should you use Yoast or Rank Math?
You’ll get the answers to these burning questions below.
But first, here’s the tl;dr on the best SEO plugins for WordPress:
Best for
Pricing
Rank Math
Beginners looking for an all-in-one solution
Free version available; Pro plans start at $7.99/month, billed annually
Yoast SEO
Anyone in need of guided SEO setup and writing support
Free version available; Premium starts at $99/year
WP Rocket
Improving site speed and Core Web Vitals
$59/year for one site
The SEO Framework
Handling essentials with minimalist features
Free; paid versions for more sites from $7/month billed annually
Semrush SEO Writing Assistant
Writing better SEO content
Free; increased usage with a Semrush subscription
Note: We’ve stuck with plugins that can directly improve your SEO. You won’t see analytics plugins like Monster Insights or external keyword generators on this list. These are useful tools in their own right — but they’re not true SEO plugins.
1. Rank Math
Best all-in-one SEO plugin for new WordPress sites
Pricing: Free version available; Pro plans start at $7.99/month billed annually
Rank Math has pretty much everything you need in an SEO plugin. If you’re new to SEO, it’ll handle all the important stuff for you, including:
Content optimization
Image SEO
Internal and external linking
Local SEO
Schema markup
Sitemaps
Redirects
And way more.
It’s actually the go-to recommendation from our own Head of SEO, Leigh McKenzie:
“Rank Math is my no. 1 choice across the board. For any site starting from scratch, I’d always recommend Rank Math first.”
Let’s go through some of the features behind his recommendation:
Manage Metadata and Social Previews
Starting with the basics, Rank Math lets you manage your page’s SEO title, meta description, and how it appears on social media — right within the post editor:
It also lets you preview what the post will look like when you share it on Facebook and X/Twitter:
This gives you more control over how your content looks in SERPs and social feeds.
It’s a pretty rudimentary feature, and hardly one that separates it from the likes of Yoast below when taken in isolation.
But how your social content looks can have a big impact on the engagement your posts get — and how many people click through to read your content. So it’s a useful feature for those looking to share their content beyond their blog.
Get SEO Suggestions as You Write
Rank Math also gives you SEO guidance as you’re creating your content in the WordPress editor. Like having your own SEO assistant you can call on as you write.
It’ll highlight things like missing focus keywords in your meta description, intro, and throughout your content.
But honestly? I never use this feature.
So why am I calling it out here?
Because when you’re just starting out creating SEO content, it’s actually super helpful for keeping you on track.
Sure, once you’re familiar with the basics of content optimization, you’ll do all of this naturally. But as a beginner, this gentle guidance can help you learn faster (and create better optimized content in the process).
Plus, you can click “Fix with AI” to generate a suggestion and save time on the small changes.
It’s not going to be perfect. But for a one-click, two-second job?
I’ll happily use this, because it speeds up optimization.
Plus, you can tweak or regenerate the output anyway, so it’s useful as a starting point.
Broken Links and Redirects
Rank Math flags broken links on your site using its built-in 404 Monitor.
You can then set up a redirect right from the dashboard:
This feature keeps your internal links working. It ensures you’re passing authority between your pages and that you’re offering a good user experience.
It also reduces plugin bloat as you don’t need a separate plugin to handle broken links.
The fact the free version of the plugin comes with built-in redirection capabilities is a massive win in my book.
I’ve personally leaned on this particular part of the plugin heavily multiple times.
Firstly, it’s great for just quickly setting up redirects when you change the URL of a post (it even does this automatically).
But you can also set it up to move entire categories of posts or pages through the filters.
Just choose “contains” and you’ll be able to move all your content from /old-path/page to /new-path/page without your users even noticing — and without any hassle on your end.
I don’t see enough people praising Rank Math for the redirect functionality. But honestly it’s a lifesaver.
Downsides But Not Dealbreakers
Rank Math clearly has a lot of features, which is great. But it can also feel overwhelming at first. That’s just the nature of any “all-in-one” style plugin.
However, once you know where things are and what you need, it’s fairly easy to navigate.
Also, on the content improvement side of things, readability feedback is pretty limited. It checks basic things like paragraph length and image use. But it won’t help you improve sentence structure or tone.
(If you need more focus on that, check out the fifth plugin on this list.)
But overall, these drawbacks are pretty minor. Rank Math is still our number one recommendation if you need an SEO plugin.
2. Yoast SEO
Best for beginners who want step-by-step SEO guidance inside WordPress
Pricing: Free version available; Premium starts at $99/year
Yoast SEO is probably the first plugin you came across when you started looking into WordPress SEO. And for good reason — it’s installed on 10+ million sites and has around 26K five-star reviews.
It’s been around for so long and has such a clear purpose that its WordPress plugin directory URL path is literally just “/wordpress-seo/”:
It’s the second of the “big two” WordPress SEO plugins alongside RankMath, and it’s worth addressing why we put it second before we get into the details of the plugin itself.
In summary: We usually recommend Rank Math for a first-time WordPress site owner. It’s packed with features, and its free version has the edge over Yoast in a few areas. These include redirects, multiple focus keywords per post, and more extensive schema markup options.
But Yoast is pretty evenly matched in a lot of ways. Especially if you opt for the paid version.
In fact, this is the specific SEO plugin we use for Backlinko.
My personal recommendation is to try them both (separately) and see which one works best for you.
Note: Don’t use them both at the same time, as running multiple all-in-one SEO plugins on the same site can lead to compatibility issues.
Okay, now let’s go through what I like most about the Yoast SEO plugin:
Optimize Search and Social Previews
Like Rank Math, Yoast helps you optimize how your content appears both in search results and on social media.
You can easily update your SEO title, meta description, and URL slug for every page or post:
You also get a live preview of how your content will appear in Google search results and on socials.
It’s very similar to Rank Math in this respect. But I wanted to call it out here anyway as it’s some fairly fundamental functionality for a WordPress SEO plugin.
Get Real-Time SEO and Readability Feedback
Yoast analyzes your SEO as you write, using a simple green/orange/red traffic light system.
Green means you’re following best practices, while orange suggests there’s room for improvement. Red highlights critical issues you should prioritize.
Each suggestion is actionable, helping you easily optimize your pages, even if you’re new to SEO.
Yoast also gives you a detailed breakdown of your content’s readability.
You’ll see checks for things like passive voice, sentence length, and consecutive sentence starters. In this respect, it does offer a bit more than Rank Math.
My advice: Don’t chase all the green lights thinking it’ll help you rank. Content quality and value for the reader matter far more than hitting a certain percentage or score.
However, Yoast’s feedback does help you spot common issues and make your writing clearer for both users and search engines.
Like I said in the Rank Math section, I don’t personally use these features. But beginner me found himself looking to them quite a lot for basic guidance.
Manage XML Sitemaps
Yoast creates a dynamic XML sitemap for your site and updates it as you publish new content.
Here’s what it looks like for Backlinko:
This is a basic but very useful feature (Rank Math does this too).
Just make sure to submit your sitemap URL to Google Search Console. This helps Google discover and index your content.
Yoast’s SEO scoring system can feel rigid. For example, you might get flagged for not using your main keyword in the first sentence even if it doesn’t fit there naturally.
And I’ll often see site owners that are new to SEO sticking too closely to these guidelines and creating pretty mediocre content as a result.
But if you treat the feedback as guidance, not strict rules, Yoast can still be a helpful way to catch easy-to-miss issues.
Further reading: Learn more about the plugin with our full Yoast SEO guide.
A word on a few alternatives before I move on:
The all-in-one SEO plugin market is dominated by Yoast and Rank Math. But another big player we can’t forget to mention is aptly named All in One SEO (AISEO).
It does a lot of the same stuff as the other two, but they just do it better. It’s missing key free features like redirects, and it can get pricey if you want to use it on several sites.
Like I said earlier though, you should try these plugins out for yourself if you’re struggling to choose. The free options are more than enough in most cases, and they’ll give you a taste of what to expect should you want to commit to a paid option.
FYI: I don’t personally pay for any SEO plugins besides WP Rocket (more on that next). But we do use Yoast Premium on Backlinko and Rank Math Pro on Traffic Think Tank.
3. WP Rocket
Best for improving your website speed without needing a developer
Pricing: $59/year for one website, $119/year for three websites
WP Rocket is probably my favorite of all the plugins on this list, even if it’s not technically the best overall. It’s a performance plugin designed to speed up WordPress websites. That’s all it aims to do, and boy does it succeed.
I run a somewhat well optimized site, and here’s how it looks in PageSpeed Insights without WP Rocket installed:
After installing the plugin and turning on the most important features, here’s how it looks:
Again, it’s a decent baseline to begin with. But WP Rocket improves my site performance in ways I otherwise can’t manage on a site that’s quite heavy on the Elementor elements.
That’s an important point in itself: you 100% can make your site run fast without SEO plugins like WP Rocket.
But you will need to make sacrifices unless you’re an experienced developer (which I am not).
So if you also want to improve your site speed without digging into the code or harming your UX, here’s why you should consider WP Rocket:
Caching Made Simple
WP Rocket makes performance optimization easy. For example, I didn’t have to touch a single setting for the caching features to kick in, and you can clear your cache at the touch of a button:
This is a feature some WordPress hosts and other plugins offer (my own web host does, for example). But I like WP Rocket’s because it’s easy to do within a dashboard that also does so much more.
For a non-developer like me, this kind of out-of-the-box performance boost is extremely useful.
File Optimization
You can also dig into advanced settings to minify your CSS and JavaScript, optimize images and fonts, and connect to a CDN.
These tweaks can cut load time, reduce file sizes, and can even improve Core Web Vitals. In other words, they can have a major impact on your site speed.
(And as someone with no coding experience, there’s no way I could do any of this without a plugin.)
Now for the second and only other feature on this list that I’ll describe with the phrase “life saver”:
It comes with one-click exclusions for popular tools like Google Analytics, AdSense, and Stripe, along with other WordPress plugins, like Elementor:
That means you’re less likely to break your tracking, ads, payment processing, or UX while optimizing. Which, believe me, is easy (and frustrating) to do.
And you don’t need to dig through documentation to figure out what to exclude.
You can also create custom exclusions, and these are handy if you do know what’s causing issues.
Downsides But Not Dealbreakers
Some layout elements may break if you enable file optimization without adding exclusions. In my case, my Elementor post cards got distorted. But excluding the right files fixed it.
(Finding the right files to exclude took me a lot of trial and error, but your mileage may vary.)
The settings can also feel pretty technical if you’re not a web developer. I had to Google a lot before knowing what to toggle.
However, WP Rocket’s help center docs were solid. And once everything was dialed in, my site’s performance improved significantly. (Again, see the screenshots at the start of this section.)
Free alternative: When I first started playing around with WordPress websites, I used Autoptimize for a lot of the things WP Rocket does.
It’s not as extensive when you use the free version, but it’ll get you a meaningful chunk of the way there if site speed is a big concern for you.
Plus, I still run this on a few of my lower priority sites when I just want to tick the main performance boxes.
4. The SEO Framework
Best lightweight, minimalist SEO plugin
Pricing: Free; paid plans start at $7/month (paid yearly)
The SEO Framework is a free and lightweight plugin for WordPress that quietly handles the SEO essentials.
It’s no Rank Math or Yoast, but it will still do a lot of the most important things for you.
This plugin is popular among developers for a reason. It runs fast, doesn’t clutter your dashboard, and avoids the “all-in-one” bloat you get with other SEO plugins.
Here’s what you get with the SEO Framework plugin:
Get Instant SEO Feedback
One of the SEO Framework’s most helpful features is the plugin’s color-coded SEO bar. This gives you a quick visual of how well optimized your pages are.
At first, the labels can look a bit cryptic.
But once you hover over them, they explain what’s working and what needs improvement.
For example, the plugin flagged my meta title as “far too short” and noted that it was automatically generated from the page title. (At least I assume that’s what the “TG” means.)
It explained that the title lacked information, which helped me understand I’d need to customize it to improve its SEO performance.
Honestly, I’d maybe like a little more specific detail here. It’s not clear what “more information” it means. But it does make it easy to do a high-level audit of your content optimization without opening each page.
If it flags your title or description, you can open the page editor and tweak the meta fields directly to optimize them:
The SEO Framework also shows each page’s indexing status. If a page is indexed, it appears in green. If there’s an indexing issue, it tells you exactly what’s wrong.
In my case, it showed that all my published pages were indexed correctly. And a few unpublished ones were flagged, as expected:
Obviously it’s not going to be as in-depth as Google Search Console. But it’s a useful at-a-glance overview of your overall indexing status.
Automate SEO Title and Meta Description Generation
Once you find titles and meta descriptions to optimize, the SEO Framework automatically generates meta them based on your content.
But you can still tweak auto-generated meta elements to add more value as needed.
That’s it, that’s the feature.
It’s nothing fancy, and it’s not always perfect. But for a lightweight SEO plugin, this is a great timesaver.
You can also control how your page appears on social media. You can even add a custom image for Facebook or X:
If you like this functionality of the likes of Yoast and Rank Math but don’t need all the extra features, the SEO Framework plugin could be all you need.
Simple Base Plugin with Room to Expand
The SEO Framework is intentionally minimal to be fast, lightweight, and free of unnecessary extras. That makes it a great choice if you’re looking for something that won’t slow your site down or overwhelm you with options.
And if you ever need additional features, like schema markup, third-party connections, or local SEO support, you can always install them as separate extensions.
Downsides But Not Dealbreakers
The SEO Framework is lightweight, which means it’s also feature-light. It has the basics, but it won’t cover everything for you.
To get a bit pickier, I noticed that when I try to edit an automatically generated SEO title or meta description, the entire field clears as soon as I click it.
That means I can’t just tweak a few words. I have to retype the whole thing from scratch. It would be a smoother experience if I could simply edit the existing text in place.
But the fact this is such a small and specific issue is testament to just how good the plugin is.
5. Semrush SEO Writing Assistant
Best for optimizing your content for search right inside the WordPress editor
Pricing: Free, but you can optimize more content with an active Semrush subscription
Semrush’s SEO Writing Assistant helps you optimize content as you write it inside the WordPress editor. It’s not an all-in-one solution, and is purely content-focused.
It works by pulling recommendations from your target keyword and analyzing your draft in real time for SEO, readability, tone of voice, and originality.
Let’s take a look at my favorite features of the plugin:
Optimize Your Readability
Semrush calls out exactly what you need to fix to improve your content’s readability, including:
Sentences that are hard to read
Suggestions to use active voice
Specific words to swap for simpler alternatives
This is super useful if you want to make your content easier to understand and more engaging.
Improve Your On-Page SEO
The plugin also provides clear on-page SEO recommendations based on your target keywords.
At the top of the panel, it shows whether you’ve used your main keywords effectively.
When I created the blog post in the example below, I entered two main keywords: “content marketing” and “content marketing for small businesses.”
Since I used both naturally throughout the article, Semrush marked them green:
But below that, it suggests semantically related keywords based on content that’s already ranking well for these terms. As you include those terms, they turn green too:
This is where the Semrush plugin goes a step further than the likes of Yoast. It leverages Semrush’s data to give you a helpful way to improve your topical depth based on what’s already ranking — which is a key part of building topical authority.
Why does this matter?
Because search engines like Google are good at recognizing when a piece of content truly covers the topic in depth — rather than just using the target keyword a bunch of times.
When you include related terms, you’re showing Google that your content is contextually relevant and comprehensive.
Analyze Your Tone of Voice
Wondering what your content actually sounds like from a reader’s perspective?
The Semrush SEO Writing Assistant shows whether your writing comes across as casual, formal, or somewhere in between. And whether your tone stays consistent throughout the post.
For example, it labeled my draft as “Neutral” with 95% tone consistency:
That’s a helpful signal that the post flows well without jumping between writing styles.
That said, don’t let the score alone inform your edits. Instead, use it as a signal to evaluate your writing with fresh eyes and ask:
“Does this sound like me/my brand?”
It also pointed out a few phrases that sounded slightly off-brand. It then suggested alternatives to smooth them out:
They’re not always perfect suggestions, but it’s useful if you’re writing for a specific brand voice and want to keep it consistent across all your articles.
Downsides But Not Dealbreakers
The Semrush SEO Writing Assistant is not a comprehensive SEO plugin. It focuses on optimizing content for search engines and doesn’t replace Yoast or Rank Math.
So, it’s best to use it in combination with other SEO plugins.
http://dubadosolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/dubado-logo-1.png00http://dubadosolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/dubado-logo-1.png2025-08-14 14:41:192025-08-14 14:41:195 Best SEO Plugins for WordPress (Tried & Tested)
Advertisers spotted a new beta feature in Google’s Performance Max (PMax) campaigns that allows gender-based audience exclusions – giving marketers more granular control over targeting. It was first announced, as part of the Google Ads API v 21, last week.
Why we care. The gender exclusion option could help brands tailor messaging, product feeds, and creative for different audiences, potentially improving ROAS and conversion rates.
How it could be used:
Separate campaigns for men’s and women’s products.
More relevant ad copy and creatives per audience.
Focused product feeds for higher shopping ad relevance.
Bottom line. If you have access to a Google Ads rep, now’s the time to ask to be added to this beta. Early movers could capture performance gains before rivals know the feature exists.
First seen. This update was first seen by Aleksejus Podpruginas, senior Google Ads campaigns specialist at Teleperformance.
https://i0.wp.com/dubadosolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/1754914556403-Uv1A5C.jpg?fit=800%2C339&ssl=1339800http://dubadosolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/dubado-logo-1.png2025-08-12 17:30:302025-08-12 17:30:30Gender exclusions spotted in Google Performance Max campaigns
Many search marketers are unknowingly paying a “Google Tax”—overspending on branded keywords even when there’s no competition, due to a flaw in auction dynamics that causes them to bid against themselves.
In Stop Paying the Google Tax–Start Winning Paid Search, Jenn Paterson and John Beresford of BrandPilot AI will break down what they call the Uncontested Paid Search Problem and show you exactly how to detect and eliminate it. You’ll learn why uncontested keywords can still trigger inflated CPCs, how to spot when you’re paying too much for clicks you already own, and proven tactics to stop the waste and improve your paid search ROI.
You’ll take away:
Why uncontested keywords can still drive up CPCs
How to tell when you’re bidding against yourself
The true cost of the “Google Tax” on your brand campaigns
Strategies to cut waste and boost ROI
If you’re serious about paid search performance, it’s time to stop overpaying and make every click count. Save you spot here.
https://i0.wp.com/dubadosolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Search-Engine-Land-live-event-save-your-spot-MGcs9c.jpg?fit=1920%2C1080&ssl=110801920http://dubadosolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/dubado-logo-1.png2025-08-12 16:17:562025-08-12 16:17:56Stop paying the Google tax and lower your CPCs by Edna Chavira
If you’re not paying attention to search trends, you’re already falling behind. And in 2025, falling behind means losing visibility, traffic, and revenue, often to the tune of thousands (or millions) of dollars.
Some marketing pros and SEOs still haven’t learned this lesson. Maybe they don’t have the budget to invest in video, or a specific algorithm update doesn’t move the needle enough to get their attention.
And there are still CMOs who think AI doesn’t pose a big risk to their strategies, and other C-suite members continue to ignore the sunk cost fallacy.
Trends matter, though. Staying ahead of the curve matters. And right now, that curve is moving fast. Miss one core update or shift in user behavior, and you’re already behind. A single minute’s hesitation could set you back months.
The SEOs who are proactive, not responsive, are the ones winning big.
Take AI Overviews and Search Everywhere Optimization, for example. These trends have taken off and will continue to define the future of search. Let’s look at these and other big trends dominating search.
Key Takeaways
AI search has spread beyond Google. ChatGPT, TikTok, and YouTube are now regular search platforms for users.
44 percent of sites have seen flat or declining traffic since AIOs launched.
Zero-click will make featured snippets, AI Overviews, brand mentions, and conversational content key.
Brand mentions have serious SEO value. As much as 78 percent of marketers consider them a key visibility factor in 2025.
Winning in search now means adopting a Search Everywhere Optimization strategy that spans AI tools, video, social, and traditional search engines.
We talked to two groups to better understand how AI and other trends impacted how people used search; in one survey, we spoke to 1,000 American adults with general questions. In addition, we reached out to 600 American full-time professionals who worked in marketing, market research, sales, and advertising.
AI Overviews Take Center Stage After Some Growing Pains
Google’s AI Overviews (AIOs) had a rocky start, but they’re not going anywhere.
After rolling out globally in May 2024, AIOs quickly took a spot in all kinds of search results, but not without hiccups; in our survey of general adults, users got answers faster, but they weren’t always better. Almost 25 percent of users reported major errors. Over 50 percent said their biggest issue was just flat-out inaccuracy, to the point of danger.
That said, most users (almost 75 percent) haven’t noticed major problems. And despite some early skepticism, AIOs are already shaping how people consume content in search, with some fears that web traffic will fall off as the search giant continues its efforts to keep users on the SERP instead of clicking through.
From a traffic perspective, our survey showed 44 percent of marketers reported decreased web traffic since AIOs launched. With that said, 48 percent saw a revenue boost from ads and affiliate links. It’s a strong signal that AIOs are about more than visibility changes; they are changing the rules of the game.
So, how do you get your content to show up in AIOs? The structure matters. No matter what you (or your content team) are writing, start by focusing on:
Clear, concise answers high on the page
Use of headings to mirror search queries
Schema markup that clarifies context
High E-E-A-T (experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness) signals
A conversational tone (yes, even in technical content)
And don’t forget freshness. AIOs pull recent, relevant content first.
Showing up in AI Overviews is more than just bragging rights. It’s taking up a valuable position in the new top-of-SERP real estate. Ignoring AI SEO and failing to optimize for it just gives visibility away.
How Marketers Can Work Around Zero-Click Search
AI Overviews are part of the growing wave of zero-click searches. In a zero-click world, users get their answers directly on the SERP; no further reading necessary. Featured snippets, local packs, people-also-ask boxes, and AIOs have all made organic traffic harder to win.
But that doesn’t mean you’re out of options.
Marketers are adaptable, and this development is no exception. Forty-three percent of marketers have changed their content strategies to respond to this shift.
Their focus now? Clear, scannable content that answers questions upfront. Structured data, brand mentions, and conversational formats are more important than ever.
The goal isn’t just to rank. It’s to show up in the spots users see first.
AI Mode flips the switch on how Google displays search results. Instead of the classic link list, users now see AI-generated summaries by default, especially for complex or open-ended queries.
According to Google, the goal is to “make search smarter and more helpful with generative AI.” Their idea is to offer a faster path to answers, context, and decision-making.
The reaction? Cautiously optimistic.
Our survey shows over 57 percent of marketers already knew about AI Mode’s debut. Of those, 74 percent believed it could improve the overall search experience, with nearly a third expecting “notable” usability improvements.
But user experience isn’t the only concern. It’s a signal to marketers, too. AI Mode will likely increase zero-click results and shift keyword targeting strategies. That will push creators to optimize for summaries, not just snippets.
According to Nikki Brandemarte, Sr. SEO Strategist at NP Digital, one of the best ways to optimize for AI Mode is to focus on tactics we’ve known work for a while, but even more.
Lock in on featured schema, prioritize context-rich introductions, and use conversational formatting. Freshness and clarity win the day, too, so regularly revisit your content and adjust it. Or write something new and authoritative. That’s especially important, since AI Mode can now source information published within the last 24 hours.
Brandemarte explains: “[AI Mode] is designed for users to ask more complex, multi-part questions that go beyond basic information provided by traditional AI overviews. These more comprehensive, better-structured answers expand on AIOs and overlap.”
The bar is higher. But if your content is clear, helpful, and well-structured, AI Mode can amplify your visibility (not erase it).
AI Search Is Spreading as a Concept
AI-powered search didn’t stop with Google, and it’s not going to, either. We’re now in a landscape where search is becoming a feature as opposed to a destination.
AI search is everywhere: ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, and even AI-driven tools built into apps you open every day, like Reddit, TikTok, or YouTube. Thirty percent of our surveyed general online users now turn to ChatGPT or SearchGPT at least 10 times a week.
On the marketer side, 74 percent actively watch ChatGPT, and 41 percent track Microsoft Copilot.
That shift is actively reshaping user behavior. AI summaries are now the first impression. Thirty-one percent of users trust AI summaries more than traditional search results.
Regardless of your thoughts on AI search’s efficacy and accuracy, it’s a trend you can’t ignore.
How to Minimize Risk and Stay Visible
If your brand isn’t visible across multiple ecosystems, you’ll be left behind. That’s the ethos behind Search Everywhere Marketing, and we take it very seriously.
Right now, only 51 percent of our surveyed marketers are actively tracking their brand visibility in AI search platforms. This is despite the fact that out of our surveyed marketers, brand visibility tracking was seen as the most popular way it would impact search strategy in the next year (45 percent). That means that there’s a shift many marketers know is coming, but aren’t prepared for.
What can you do if you’re in that group? Well, here’s how to catch up:
Monitor traffic shifts with Google Analytics and Search Console (GSC). They’re still your first red flags.
Set up trend logging to detect drops or spikes in branded queries.
Use social listening tools to track brand mentions in places like AI Overviews and conversational search results.
Build brand mentions through PR and content syndication. More than three-fourths of our surveyed marketers say brand mentions are vital for SEO, so this is no longer optional.
Lean into conversational content. Google and AI platforms favor content that answers naturally phrased questions.
The bottom line is that visibility isn’t about blue links alone anymore. Your content has to be everywhere that people ask questions, even if they never click.
Marketers Need to Find Ways to Start AI Visibility Tracking
If AI-driven search is the future, visibility tracking is how you future-proof your content.
Right now, most AI platforms don’t offer direct analytics. You won’t find a neat report in Google Search Console labeled “AIO Clicks.” Even though people have asked (repeatedly).
That’s a problem. As AI summaries and chat-based search tools like ChatGPT take up more screen space, marketers are beholden to something like a vibes-based approach.
As we noted above, only 51 percent of marketers track brand visibility in AI search. The rest are either exploring tools (38 percent) or not tracking at all. That’s a big visibility gap, but it’s also where you can find a competitive advantage:
Until native tools catch up, marketers have a blend of tactics. You can try to monitor traffic shifts in GA and GSC for early signals and use social listening platforms to track branded mentions and snippets.
Savvy users of platforms like Semrush can use it to help track AIO appearances, too. For priority keywords, log trends manually if necessary (even via screenshots).
AI visibility isn’t going away. Don’t neglect it.
Along with existing SEO tools and program suites, there are other products that are designed to meet the specific needs of the AI space. Profound is an AI search optimization tool designed to track important AI-related performance metrics like AI search such as sentiment, citation frequency, and AI share of voice.
Finally, monitor referral traffic from LLMs like ChatGPT or Perplexity. Currently, 24 percent of marketers have seen consistent traffic from those sources.
Google vs. LLM Referral Traffic: What’s Coming Out on Top?
For the first time in decades, Google isn’t the only game in town for search-driven traffic.
LLMs like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude have started to chip away at Google’s dominance. Given that nearly a third of users say they use ChatGPT or SearchGPT per week, and how many marketers see consistent referral traffic, the shift is subtle, but it’s happening: It’s not just curiosity. It’s a behavior change.
Ready for something even more telling? As much as 34 percent of marketers believe AI tools will account for 25 to 50 percent of search activity within the next year. Some think the number could go even higher.
Keeping your brand discoverable as LLMs grow is absolutely vital, but it’s not as complex as you’d think.
We’ve touched on many of the tactics already: Focus on meeting conversational queries with clear, fact-rich content. Monitor your referral traffic from known LLM browsers and tools.
Most importantly, diversify your strategy. Think beyond “ranking” and more about being referenced.
Short-Form and Conversational Content Are at a Premium
In a world of AI summaries and zero-click search results, brevity is everything.
Short-form, conversational content is easier for AI models to parse, summarize, and cite. If your post or article buries the answer in paragraph five, you probably won’t be featured in AI Overviews (or any other generative snippets).
Tactics like including FAQs, key takeaways, and “too long, didn’t read (TL;DR)” sections are almost mandatory. AI tools seek out and prioritize structured, scannable, and intent-matching text blocks.
Nearly 42 percent of marketers already optimize new content for conversational queries, and 58 percent are refreshing their existing content to meet these new standards.
But keep one thing in mind: This isn’t about “dumbing things down.” Instead, it focuses on getting to the point—fast—and in a way that mimics how users ask questions out loud.
What can you do to help? Use headers that sound like real questions. Keep your answers clear and focused. When possible, use schema markup to reinforce the content’s structure.
Our TL;DR? Keep it short, smart, and skimmable if you want to be quoted.
Our Key Takeaways from a recent blog demonstrate a TL;DR approach to sharing information.
Tailoring Your Content to Fit Preferred Platforms
Ranking alone isn’t enough. Your content also needs to fit where your audience is searching.
Depending on your brand and audience, that might look like long-form blog posts to show up in Google, or it could mean creating vertical videos for TikTok. Other solutions could include product explainers on YouTube or visuals to engage Instagram users.
Younger audiences have already begun to shift search behavior. Platforms like TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram are their go-to sources for product discovery, how-tos, and health information. Sixty-seven percent of Gen Z users prioritize Instagram for search, while 62 percent focus on TikTok. As a result, over 63 percent of marketers have already started to optimize or test content for these channels.
How can you keep up?
Start by adapting your message to the format. Use generative engine optimization (GEO) for AI search, vertical video for TikTok and Reels, and snackable visuals for platforms like Pinterest and Instagram.
An overarching strategy that uses different platforms to meet the same goal: Meet your users where they are and speak their language.
Backlinks vs. Brand Mentions: Where Should Marketers Focus?
Backlinks have long been a pillar of SEO and still matter a lot. But the AI-driven, zero-click environment emphasizes and incentivizes brand mentions, too. What’s the difference between them?
Backlinks are clickable URLs that pass SEO equity.
Brand mentions are unlinked references to your company or product. Think name-drops in articles, podcasts, and social posts.
Google has hinted for years that brand mentions influence trust and authority. With AI platforms pulling in content and citations differently, those mentions are more valuable than ever.
Seventy-eight percent of marketers in our survey say brand mentions are at least “moderately important” for visibility. Thirty-two percent call them “extremely important” signals.
They’re so important that over 65 percent of marketers are already prioritizing mention-building with PR, guest posts, social campaigns, and influencer outreach.
So, which one should you focus on more? Mentions or links?
Both still matter, but the emphasis or split depends on your niche. E-commerce brands, for example, often see big returns from unlinked mentions in product roundups or reviews. B2B brands may still rely more heavily on authoritative backlinks.
The balance lies in knowing which one to prioritize and when.
Search Engine Optimization Evolves to Search Everywhere Optimization
Let’s be real. Google isn’t the only place your audience is searching anymore. That means traditional SEO—a Google-focused effort—isn’t enough. As we’ve touched on above, what you need now is Search Everywhere Optimization.
The concept is simple, and it’s something many marketers have done for years, if not as a focus: Instead of optimizing for Google’s algorithm alone, make sure your content is discoverable wherever your audience hangs out online.
According to our survey, more than 60 percent of users regularly search on at least one non-Google platform (ChatGPT, Reddit, TikTok).
Meanwhile, 55 percent of marketers say they’re investing in alternative traffic channels like paid social, email, or native ads to counterbalance any potential losses thanks to AI search.
What does this look like in practice?
Publishing educational content on YouTube and optimizing Shorts
Creating bite-sized, searchable videos for TikTok and Instagram Reels
Building credibility with appearances on podcasts and community platforms like Reddit
Getting cited in AI tools like ChatGPT
Using email and push notifications to bring users back to you
Remember, we’re not abandoning SEO. We’re expanding our strategy.
Conclusion
AI has turned the world of search completely upside down, and there are still a lot of variables to account for. But that doesn’t mean you can’t proactively start taking steps to position your brand for success.
Last year, we mentioned that content volume isn’t as important as content quality. That’s still true. Keep a regular cadence but focus on shorter, quality content that AI Overviews can pull from.
As more brands rely on AI to help produce content at scale, you can prioritize building your brand with consistent messaging across all channels; that’s Search Everywhere in motion. If you’re not confident about leveraging these strategies or trends, why not partner with someone who can? Contact the NP Digital team today for a consultation.
http://dubadosolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/dubado-logo-1.png00http://dubadosolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/dubado-logo-1.png2025-08-12 14:00:002025-08-12 14:00:002025 Organic Search Engine Trends: How Search is Evolving for AI and LLMs
Search is changing. The industry as we know it will radically alter in almost all aspects as we enter the “generative economy.”
By 2034, the generative AI market is expected to be worth roughly $1 trillion.
This article outlines how SEO professionals can own the generative economy and why they must embrace the change that is coming.
No, it’s not ‘just’ SEO
While there are many cross-over skills, GEO isn’t just SEO.
SEO works on the premise that ranking on page one for keyword variations that are typed into search engines by potential customers.
It matters because, for the last decade, the best place to hide a body has been on Google’s Page 2.
Humans don’t scroll past Page 1, because it is highly inefficient to do so.
LLMs and AI-powered search platforms don’t have this problem.
They can visit hundreds of websites in seconds for a variety of search terms and use their internal data.
Ranking does not matter in this world.
You can be on Page 5 of a web search and still get found and chosen by the LLMs.
Search engines organize the world’s information, and they do this exceptionally well.
Humans, however, are terrible at searching.
And this is among the largest differences between SEO and GEO.
Humans are being replaced in this process.
In SEO, businesses have been taught to target keywords that drive the largest potential commercial match.
But that doesn’t equal the best customers.
This is because keywords have represented the only way for humans to find what they want online, which means broad keywords drive the largest commercial terms.
And the long tail tended only to be a few words long for much the same reason.
Businesses only went after lucrative terms to win the most commercial traffic.
Or if deemed “too difficult,” SEO was turned into a blog channel, targeting non-commercial terms.
AI-powered search changes this.
It is easier than ever for consumers to find the products or services that best match their needs.
Ranking on Page 1 is no longer the goal. So what is?
How to win the generative game
AI search is vastly better than human search, so it will likely become the dominant form of search online.
Organic search will not disappear completely. It does a perfect job of surfacing businesses through direct or navigational search.
However, for situations where a chosen product or business is not known, AI-powered search will be able to find the best match – and fast.
It’s easy to see why this is so valuable for businesses.
A business can find the consumers it seeks to serve more easily.
A business will convert customers faster.
A business will be able to identify and indeed expand into new markets where customers are currently being either ignored or poorly serviced by existing providers.
Often, these customers have been ignored because a brand’s profit margins are insufficient in these sectors.
AI-powered search changes this.
It will allow more businesses to activate organic search as a driver of revenue.
This is because GEO has a different value proposition.
How GEO works – and why SEOs are best placed to help
Generative engine optimization is all about understanding the information AI search platforms need and supplying this information.
And what they need is “mutual information.”
Machines hate ambiguity.
GEO is about supplying enough information about a brand’s positioning so that, when someone uses an LLM to find a solution to a problem the business solves, the likelihood of that LLM referencing the business increases.
Say you need an employment solicitor offering free online consultations.
Traditional SEO targets a keyword like “free online advice for employee rights.”
An LLM instead:
Breaks down your request.
Searches across multiple queries.
Weighs everything from case studies to testimonials before recommending a firm.
However, most businesses are considerably underoptimized for LLMs.
In our example, you might offer a free consultation on employment law.
Other elements, such as not explicitly stating that you service the whole of the UK or that you specialize in sexual discrimination and have case studies on your site detailing your wins, might exclude you from being returned in a generative result that matters.
You must supply the “machines” with enough information to increase the likelihood that they are “certain” you are a good solution for their user’s query.
You must satisfy the machines. AI is the gatekeeper now.
If this sounds just like good SEO, yes, you’re right, it does.
The difference here is that you’re not chasing keywords.
You’re optimizing for online presence in terms of the business’s positioning.
This means that the business needs to have a position in the first place.
Many businesses have been built around organic or paid search keywords.
SEO and or paid search has allowed them to win big.
AI-powered search changes the game considerably, and as it grows in usage, brands that previously did well in organic and paid search will naturally see a reduction in leads and sales.
And SEOs are the single most experienced people to help brands traverse this new search world.
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The definition of “search” is changing in real time – and so is SEO. Search Engine Land went live today with an exclusive discussion on what it all means and what you need to do to keep up.
Why we care. Generative AI is shaking the foundations of how people find and interact with information online. The stakes have never been higher for search marketers, brands, businesses, and creators.
The big questions:
Is this the end of SEO – or the start of something bigger?
What matters more now: tactics, terminology, or outcomes?
How can marketers adapt as the rules – and players – of search evolve?
Who’s talking: I moderated a great discussion between our panel of experts:
Barry Schwartz, contributing editor at Search Engine Land
Michael King, CEO of iPullRank
Myriam Jessier, consultant at Pragm
Duane Forrester, CEO of UnboundAnswers.com
The conversation. Watch the video above for the full conversation and actionable insights you can use right away.
The transcript. Here is the unedited transcript. (It will be reviewed and corrected shortly):
Danny Goodwin
Hey everybody. I’m Danny Goodwin, editorial director of Search Engine Land, and we are here for a very special live with search engine land. We’re gonna be talking about what’s next for SEO and the generative AI era and about the future of visibility, trust, and connection. Uh, now we’ve all lived through a lot of huge changes in search over the years, but the definition of search continues to evolve and what worked a year or two ago may not work anymore.
And the pace of change in SEO is just. Insane right now. Uh, and it’s never been faster. Generative AI is reshaping how people discover, evaluate, and act on information. And for search marketers, brands, businesses, and creators, the stakes are higher than ever. So today we’re bringing together a few of the industry’s sharpest minds for exclusive discussion on what’s all means and how you can adapt, evolve, and thrive in this next era of search.
So settle in. The conversation starts now. I’ll let our panelists each introduce who they are and what they do. Mike, I’ll start with you.
Mike King
Hey, I am Mike King. I am the founder and CEO here at IPO Rank, and also our first chief relevance engineer. And for anybody watching at home today is IPO rank’s 11th birthday. So I’m excited. Cool.
Danny Goodwin
Congratulations. That is amazing. Duane, introduce yourself.
Duane Forrester
Hey gang, Duane Forster, founder and CEO of unboundanswers.com. I help people, what can I say? Been doing this forever. Super happy to be here with everybody and excited to get into this conversation.
Danny Goodwin
Amazing. Myriam, introduce yourself.
Myriam Jessier
My name is Myriam and I’m the co-founder of Pragm. I have been doing SEO for a very long time as well, and everything old is new again, now we’re dealing with cloaking and so many things from like the vintage era, so I can’t wait to talk about it.
Danny Goodwin
Amazing. Welcome. And Barry.
Barry Schwartz
Hi, I’m Barry. I’ve been writing about what these guys have been doing for the past 20 plus years. That’s about it.
Danny Goodwin
That’s about it. Okay. So let’s dive right in. We’ll start with the big question that sort of got us all here today. The future of SEO. Mike, you’ve been saying that SEO isn’t dead, but it’s deprecated. So let’s start there. What do you mean by that and what are the implications of that statement?
Mike King
Sure. So first, let’s explain what the concept of deprecated means. So typically when like a new specification comes out, um, a lot of software will continue to support that specification, or excuse me, the old specification, even though the new one is better, right?
And so to that point. You can continue to do SEO the way you’ve always done it, and you may get some results from it, which is why so many people are just saying like, oh, it’s just SEO. But fundamentally, the way these platforms work is different, right? It isn’t just about the retrieval aspect of it. It’s also about, uh, expanding queries, you know, to be dozens of queries that are used.
They’re pulling passages and then there’s syn, there’s a bunch of synthesis that happens. So, you know, there was some data that came out from ziptie a couple months ago where they talked about how if you’re in the top 10 of the serp, you have a 25% chance of appearing in like the AI overview. So that fundamentally tells you that you need to do something different to have a higher likelihood of appearing in the AI overview.
So that’s what I’m saying, like just us limiting ourselves to what we’ve always done is not enough to be effective in these channels moving forward.
Danny Goodwin
Great. So, Duane, how about you? Would you agree with that?
Duane Forrester
You know, um, I’ve known Mike a lot of years and, um, sometimes I agree with him, sometimes I don’t.
Um, this is one of those moments where, yeah, I agree with Mike. Um, I have very much taken the perspective that we are in a transitional phase. Um, if, for example, the SEO life that we’ve been living for the last 20 years in the industry is the equivalent of high school. Uh, we are now going to university because there is another layer.
You don’t get to walk away from what you know traditionally, but I will tell you this, okay, and this is really important, and I think Mike’s deprecation example really hits on it. And Miriam touched on this a little bit. Everything old is new. Again, the reality in my head is this. If you haven’t gotten your ducks in a row with traditional SEO at this point, a lot of people aren’t gonna help you anymore because we’re moving.
And I, I don’t know how else to explain this to companies. Like now is not the time to go back and learn what structured data is or how to deploy it. Like if you’re having those conversations, I kind of want to tell you, here’s some remedial studying for the weekend. Come back to me when you’re serious about moving forward because you had 20 years to get that done and you’re still struggling.
So I don’t know. But anyone else, but I’m pretty sure that you, this group is gonna agree with me on this. We are moving so fast now. That it is a, it is a sprint. It is a 26 mile sprint. There is no more example of, oh, it’s a marathon. It’s a, it’s a sprint. No, it’s all a sprint and it’s infinitely long and you either can keep up or you cannot.
And so I fundamentally, I agree with everything I’m hearing so far. I’m right there and mildly frustrated.
Danny Goodwin
Why are you mildly frustrated?
Duane Forrester
Well, I’m mildly frustrated by that, by the, the traditional oversimplification of something that gets applied to something that is demonstrably more complex.
Like, like people coming at me saying, I write an article about chunking, and they’re like, oh, I can’t say that to my executive. I’ll get laughed outta the room. And I’m like. Do you not understand? That word is actually from the machine learning lexicon, like it refers to something that these systems do.
And you have to understand that of course, they don’t understand that because again, no one reads, they’re scanning things, they’re moving too fast, tr thinking they’re keeping up. I’m telling you, the cost of keeping up is you’re not watching television, you’re not playing video games. You are literally 18 hours a day consuming.
You’re dreaming this stuff at this point. That’s where we are at. At least that’s where I am at. And I suspect Mike and Maryam Barry and you and, and a whole bunch of us are in that same kind of overload, buzzy head space. Mm-hmm. That to Miriam’s Point existed 20 years ago when we first started going to conferences, sharing these little tidbits of what worked and what didn’t work, and how it worked and why it worked.
We’re back to that again. And yet people wanna oversimplify it. They want to dumb it down to, oh, just one thing. Right.
Danny Goodwin
Okay. Yep. So, Miriam, I;d love your thoughts. Do you believe that SEO is deprecated as well?
Myriam Jessier
I hope that you would go for Berry because it’s not characteristic when I’m quiet. Uh, but, uh, I’m going to have a a, a spicy take here.
Um, I think that if you have been doing SEO like 20 years ago, yeah, this is brand new to you. If you’ve been doing SEO and keeping up with stuff, you would have noticed that we were headed in that direction. However, and I’m gonna nuance this, where it gets a bit complicated to explain this to folks is before we used to have a bit more control, right?
Mm-hmm. It doesn’t matter. I don’t care about branding. Who cares. I don’t care about PPC. I can do my SEOI am king or nobility of the world. Okay? We’re number one. We get money. But nowadays I find myself having to explain to executives some things that are not comfortable. Number one, the darn thing, hallucinates.
Okay, so it’s not even your own, um, I don’t know if I can swear, but, um, let’s just say cow poop. Okay? But it’s not just you pretending some stuff until reality catches up and your brand is strong. Now we have sentiment analysis. Now I’ve seen some April Fool’s jokes being integrated into the ethos of a brand and then spa out in LLMs.
So you have to explain stuff that you would think, okay, maybe the social media team should be helping as well, but nobody’s rushing. We’re the only ones in SEO o trying to figure this out. So to me. Yes. SEO O as people used to do it 20 years ago with a recipe without any curiosity, trying to understand what’s going on, that’s deprecated.
But if we’re talking about a EOG, I don’t care about the acronyms. At the end of the day, are we doing this job? Yes or no? I, I’m waiting the jury’s out on what is gonna be called. I really don’t care. I’m old enough to know everything that’s old is new again. The one thing that I would bring about though is I’m obsessed with multimodal and not too many people are interested in it, but how many times can I just like, show a video of a broken thing or a microwave that’s in German and go help me figure this out and it will help me.
Myriam Jessier
And this to me, opens brand new avenues. So now I take pictures of packaging and I tell people, that’s your landing page. Can we please optimize it for image? Vision? Yeah. It’s, it’s not that to me. Everything about SEO is deprecated. However, the concept that we had needs to be updated for sure. It’s just not the same game.
And now you’re running into new frictions with new teams. You’re no longer like, I’m Nabil, yay. I don’t care what you say. I’m number one. We now have to actually grow up and maybe be polite and learn how to deal with others. Right. So this, yeah. Mike, you, you know what I mean? Like some of us are struggling with that.
We’re having tantrums.
Mike King
Are you calling me? Not polite.
Myriam Jessier
Oh, this was not towards you.
Mike King
I’m messing with you. I’m messing with you. Yeah.
Myriam Jessier
But I have a few names that came up to my mind and I think the audience as well, you know, who’s coming up your mind when I say that?
Danny Goodwin
All right, Barry, uh, your, your opening thoughts on the future of SEO?
Barry Schwartz
Um, more on the, uh, I guess Myriam side of things. Um, I don’t think many SEOs are trying to oversimplify things, nor do I think they’re playing video games. Um, I don’t, I dunno, I never have, I never, last time I actually did any entertainment personally. I, I don’t believe in entertainment. I believe in just working and constantly working.
That being said, um, one thing I’ve been doing is writing about how SEOs have been operating for the past 20 plus years. And SEOs who are around today, that were around 20 years ago, are always stepping up. They’re always, it used to be back in the old days, submit your page to the index and submit ’em to 20 different search engines over and over again every single day.
Then it was due OnPage, SEO, then link building, then Universal search came out, uh, feature snippet optimization. I’m jumping a little bit, entities, et cetera. We’re constantly stepping stuff up. Um. So the best SEOs continued to like, add things to their plate? Yes. This is a huge jump in terms of what SEOs are adding to their plate.
A lot of SEOs were focusing on like one thing or two things. Now you really need to have, you have to have everything under your belt to make this possible. And the best SEOs, the ones who’ve been here for many, many years, um, many of you guys on this, on this video right here, um, are the ones who could adapt.
The ones that don’t adapt are the ones that die. We’ve seen many SEOs with big names over the years that either fell off and are, no, no, no longer doing SEO working for big companies, um, doing marketing in general and so forth, uh, but no longer doing SEO and like optimizing their own stuff. That being said, there are a lot of changes coming.
Um, obviously clicks are vanishing for a lot of people. You know, branding is becoming more and more important ’cause of that. Uh, and this whole angen experience stuff, having, how do you get, get your client to think about, you know, building agents that integrate with these AI engines and so forth. Um. I’m the guy who always, it’s not always often like will cite Google about things as well.
And Google just, you know, had us, um, just, it was an article right now in a adage I think, or one of these places where Google spokesperson told adage that, um, basically everything remains the same when it comes to optimization or SEO Um, there’s nothing specific you’re gonna do to optimize, uh, for a I re or AI mode outside of their existing SEO fundamentals.
But again, how you work with clients is gonna change. Like, are you gonna count clicks anymore? No, you’re not gonna say, oh, I got you this amount of clicks or this amount of conversions and so forth. ’cause it’s, it’s gonna be harder to target and, and, and track and track and so forth. And only the ones that are actually looking at, you know, how do I show my clients that this the return on investment?
How do I show my clients what I’m doing? You know, how do I show that we’re adapting to this are the ones that are gonna survive? And this happens every several years, but with this change in search, which is the most fun, I think. I’ve had covering search in a long time because it’s changing so fast. It it, it’s gonna change.
It’s gonna, it keeps changing like very, very quickly and it’s gonna, it’s gonna make and break a lot of SEOs. Um, not that we should call them seo, I don’t wanna call them, but whatever it is, I don’t think SEO the name is necessarily gonna change so fast. Um, but I think the best SEOs that are here today, um, are gonna probably stay and adapt.
But at the same time, there are a lot of lazy SEOs out there that work off a checklist. And those checklists, you know, those checklists are going out the window. Um, so I do think things are gonna change, but I don’t think it’s gonna change. Looking back at the 20 past 20 years, I don’t think it’s gonna be like, oh, they’re, they’re doomed.
The ones that are, were here 20 years ago and that are still here today, I think will be fine.
Danny Goodwin
Yeah. And I, I think that’s a, a key point there, Barry. It’s like, for the, for the near term, it feels like SEO remains as relevant as ever. Uh, would you all agree with that? Like, I mean, you know, yes, deprecated, but there’s still, you know, Google’s saying there’s 5 trillion searches.
I know a lot of those clicks go to Google, uh, and don’t actually go out to the web. But, uh, how are you sort of po positioning that yourself with the clients you’re talking to? Um, you know, as AI search grows, uh, do we just kinda accept like, Hey, this traffic’s not coming back from Google. Or like, how are you sort of talking about that with your clients?
Uh, Mike, you wanna start there?
Mike King
Yeah, so I don’t, I don’t think what we’re talking about is that like SEOs are gonna disappear. Like I, that’s not what I’m saying.
What I’m saying is that everything is fundamentally different. The channel is different. Mm-hmm. The user behavior is different.
The expectations of what we do in order for us to achieve something in this channel has dramatically changed. And one of the biggest follies that we’ve done as an industry is just accept that. It’s like, oh, okay. Core web vitals, we’re suddenly performance engineers. Nobody’s getting paid more for that.
So it’s like silly for us to just continue to accept things that Google impresses upon us. Now to the question you just asked me. Absolutely. We’ve been educating our clients on how the channel is changing for like the last two years. You know, like I wrote a blog post on this very site. Like two years ago talking about how retrieval, augment generation was gonna change everything about our space and how everyone was gonna see losses between 20 and 60% in traffic.
Here we are, you know, so like we’ve been telling clients that for a while and they were, at first they’re like, cool, cool, cool, whatever. And then once they started seeing these impacts from AI overviews, they’re all ears. And then, you know, when I wrote the thing about, um, AI mode, again, they’re all ears.
And then everyone at the C level is all about, well, how do we get visibility in chat GPT? And even though I keep telling them like, Hey, you’re not gonna get any traffic, it’s not gonna have the same level of business outcomes, they still wanna be there because of the, uh, immense growth that these channels are having.
So. Yes, it is a complete reframe of what we do because to the point that Miriam made, like we have to interface with a whole bunch of dis different disciplines here. It’s not just about text on webpages, it’s about what’s going on in video, it’s what it’s about, what’s happening across the content ecosystem.
And so I had a meeting with one of my clients last week when they were like, Hey, we are going to stand up a GEO team. How should we structure this? And that’s my whole point. SEO is defined in a lot of people’s heads as a specific thing. It’s free traffic, it’s content for robots. It’s all these like backdoor things that people don’t, um, give much value to, which is why our industry is very much undervalued right now.
We’re talking about AI and people are saying to us, what do we do? How does this work? Who do we need on the team? And so for us to keep living in this, this limited SEO lens, we’re missing out on this opportunity to reshape what this is and the media is coming in and defining it for us. And then clients are starting to come to us with those questions rather than, than the framework that we can develop as the industry that’s been here for the last 20 years.
Danny Goodwin
Right. Duane, your thoughts there?
Duane Forrester
Yeah, so this is, this is really interesting, right? Um, Mike is touching on something here that, uh, I, I’ve written extensively on recently on my substack. Um, and it’s this whole notion of, um, skill retraining, um, new skills that we need. Um, I even did a four-part series on inventing new job titles that might exist.
They’re fictional, right? They’re, some of them are just like tongue in cheek funny, uh, but the point behind them is very serious. Um, I’ve had a half a dozen calls with companies looking to restructure teams, and they want guidance on how, like, what skills should I be hiring? I took a tremendous amount of heat from people in the industry a couple weeks back when I suggested that we need to start hiring new skills now so that in two years those people are executing on the work you need them to execute on.
If you are hiring someone to do keyword research now. You think somehow miraculously in two years, they will be an expert at the concept of query fan out and how to utilize that information in a content context. You’re delusional if they don’t understand it. You are going to have to have a training program.
You are gonna have to bring them up to speed or you’re gonna have to hire people who already have this skillset. And that’s what I’m advocating is you have to hire the skills today. Look, this, I think the industry’s gonna be a mess for the next couple of years. I think companies are gonna be a mess for the next couple of years.
Um, we are back for better or worse, Barry said, you know, like it’s kind of some of the most fun a lot of us have had in a long time because the change is so rapid and it’s interesting and, and I don’t, I won’t speak for everyone else, but I will speak for myself when I say. It forces me to learn new things every day for hours a day going deep.
And it’s stuff that I normally would not, I would not have gone and read all these academic papers on all of this stuff just for fun. But it is such a fundamental part of what we’re doing, what we have to do in the future, dude. Like I just, it’s not optional now. So you, you need those skills. You need that understanding.
You need that curiosity. I think, and Barry raised an interesting point, like we are seeing a lot of people burn out of the industry. They’re not interested in all of this change we’re seeing. Thankfully a lot of people willing to adapt, want to learn about it. And we’re seeing, I had a call, um, really large brand, like a Fortune 50, and they’re very concerned about their procurement pipeline for tool sets in 2026.
So I launched the quadrant ra like kind of ranking all these 40 different AI tools and where they are on trust versus features and they’re using that to define the top 10 that they will then go put time into to interview and look at and demo and all of this. And I’m like, I’m not saying what I did was the right path, but it is a path, it is something and it’s saving someone a lot of time.
And we’re gonna see a lot more of this happening. People wanting to add, excuse me, wanting to identify tool sets and what they can do with them and what they can use them for. Mike mentioned zip tie. It’s amazing. It is awesome. Extremely technical. So if you’re not a technical person, you may not be able to wrap your head around a lot of it.
There’s a lot of talk about Profound, they just scored 20 million a few weeks ago in funding, so obviously they have an advantage, but there’s a lot of new things out there and you know, it’s not just know the tool, it’s know the tool, know the work, know your work. What are your goals? This is across everything in your company.
You’re no longer the little pet off in the dark corner doing your strange language. No, no, this, this work is now impacting everyone and it is really important that people doing this work truly step forward. I, I, I can’t stress that enough.
Danny Goodwin
Right. Um, so I’ll, I’ll shift topic just a little bit. Uh, we know that at this point AI search is still driving, you know, pretty small amount of traffic to websites despite, you know, what Google’s, Elizabeth Reed may have, uh, told us in a recent blog post.
Um, I’m just kinda curious, uh, Miriam, I’ll, I’ll send, throw this to you first. You know, do you think people are expecting like AI search to eventually become a Google level of search or, you know, ’cause obviously we’re all seeing a lot of traffic declines, a lot of, uh, websites are seeing that. So do you, do you, what do you make of all this, do you think do GEO or whatever we’re gonna call it as over overblown or, uh, is it just not there yet?
Myriam Jessier
I have plenty of opinions. So first of all, I don’t think it’s quite there yet. Here’s why many people that have companies will not be willing to throw a bunch of money on something that could one day just say the opposite of what it was saying. The day before, and these types of inaccuracies, like I really appreciate the fact that Mike’s clients and Duane’s clients are like looking towards the future, are invested in it.
I deal with the scared clients, okay? Mm-hmm. I deal with the ones that have the legal department going, what you do in here? Mm-hmm. And so this is something that I’ve been paying attention to. Whenever Sam Altman needs money, he’s going to talk about AGI and then there will be funds coming in. Okay. The other thing is I am.
I’m obsessed with something, uh, that Mike said, and uh, uh, I’ll tie it in a second. We are redefining the web. We helped build the web as SEOs. We helped make it a trash fire. Okay? And right now we have a chance to not make the same mistakes. So this is fascinating to me, but it also means that, um, rest in peace to all the ex SEOs that ran into analytics land because now they’re struggling because the metrics are changing and we have to rebuild them.
So this is a notion that I have and profound, I great for the $20 million. Fantastic. I’m wondering other stuff. Yeah. So what is this nascent industry built on? Okay. Mm-hmm. So first of all, there’s the whole, we need money and I, I’m waiting for the hype bubble to burst. And whatever remains behind will be what we use.
That will be the gold and. For profound. I’m just wondering, okay. How do you get the data? And this leads me to having this, this thought that for core web vitals, we have what we call lab data and field data. So what happens in perfect conditions and what happens out in the wild when users are coming on your website?
Well, when it comes to tracking LLM visibility, it’s the same. We have the prompts that us as a company have defined because that’s why we want, in ideal conditions, no personalization, no memory, nothing. And then we have the field data. And that field data. Right now, the closest thing to it is clickstream data.
So whenever I evaluate these solutions, I’m like, where do you buy that clickstream data? Where is that coming from and how do you cut it up? Because if I’m in France, I don’t need the US clickstream data. That’s not the same real world that I’m facing. Mm-hmm. So I think that all of these situations really need to be figured out on the business end of things for this to become a viable thing that we look at and go, okay, this is serious.
We have some compliance, we have some legal frameworks around it, et cetera. Um, Danny, if you’re comfortable with it, I need to dovetail into something because I’ve seen a very good set of questions from Navah Hopkins. I’m going to read them. I don’t know if anyone else has seen them, but what does ethical SEO look like in the AI era versus Black hat and.
There’s a few PPC people that thankfully are interested in SEO, and they had a discussion regarding how brands might be able to fool AI into believing something about a brand based on UGC or other inputs, and I’ve seen that happen. I’ve also seen some hackers enjoying themselves very, very much with poisoning all of these LLM outputs.
So what would a holistic SEO perspective look like? So for me, the work I’ve been doing with some big enterprise clients is slowly trying to explain to them. You need to think about your branding quadrants, not in I own brand, and then I’m gonna make SEO demands and PPC demands. There’s what you say about your brand, your known brand, all your assets that you put out there.
There’s the latent brand. Everything that everyone is saying on social media about you that you may influence but you don’t control it. There’s the shadow brand, all the stuff, all the leaks, all those forgotten PDFs on like page four of Google search results. They come back to haunt you. You had a lawsuit in 2016, you’re still having that lawsuit according to chat, GPT.
So once it’s out, how do you handle that stuff? And then from all of these bits, you have the AI narrated brand, it’s now your brand ambassador. And for better or for worse, and that’s the portion that brands are struggling with. So. Just before I pass it off to someone else. When we talk about holistic stuff, that’s what I think about.
And I know I’m going to break Zara’s heart, but when we’re looking for fun, summer, spring, uh, summer or spring dresses, that typical Zara model face of, uh, is not gonna cut it because machines are not looking at the model’s face going, you don’t look like you’re having fun. I have 89% confidence. This is not joy on your face.
So this is the type of stuff we have to think about now.
Danny Goodwin
Absolutely. Okay. Uh, Barry, I’ll come back to you. Um, I, we sort of started with is GEO overblown there before we veered off for a minute. So, I mean, obviously you’ve been covering the industry for, you know, 20 plus years. You’ve seen a lot of stuff come and go. You’ve seen SEO declared dead probably more than anybody else on this, uh, on this call.
So, um, what are you, what are you thinking as we, as we see this heading forward? Do you, do you think GE Geo at this point is overblown? Or, or how are you feeling about it?
Barry Schwartz
Uh, I, I don’t know. That’s a tough question. I, it goes back to our original conversation about SEO versus geo. I think, I don’t know. I don’t know if it’s overblown.
There’s a lot of money. At these days being thrown at this place. Mm-hmm. A lot of, like I said, 20 million to profound. They’re all gonna get consolidated at some point. Somebody’s gonna buy most of them up and consolidate them into, into something else. Um, I know several companies, not just profound, they got a lot of money from massive investments, um, to build tool sets around this stuff.
So I, is it the new blockchain? No. I think AI search and AI chat bots and all these things are really the future. Um, I just don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t, I don’t like to diminish SEO and say, SEO was just somebody in the back room. It was SEO O is not like it was 20 years ago. I mean, you have VPs of mm-hmm.
Marketing and SEO Yep. At massive organizations. I don’t think, s se I try not to believe that SEO is something that’s undervalued anymore. It used to be undervalued. I, I really don’t wanna believe that it’s undervalued anymore in this year. 2025. That being said. Yeah,
Mike King
very. What, what Fortune 500s do you work at? It’s still very undervalued.
Barry Schwartz
The, we had a number of, uh, VPs of like SEO for, like their New York Times and different organizations that are really high end. I mean, I don’t know, I don’t know off the top of my head, but I know we had them on search engine land and XMX speaking and so forth with vice president staff.
Mike King
Sure. There are, there are VPs of SEO, I’ll give you that, and some of ’em make like $300,000. Yeah. But they manage a channel that yields billions of dollars and they’re only getting 300 k. Like, that’s a pretty big disparity. Whereas you’ve got people in the media side that are making closer to like five, 600.
So I, I don’t, I, I still don’t believe. It’s valued that way. And also like when people come to go get a, uh, an SEO agency, most of them wanna spend like 10 grand a month when again, they’re spending millions on paid search.
Barry Schwartz
I have people coming to me looking to build an Amazon clone for five grand. Yeah, I hear that.
I mean, there’s always people like that out there. So yeah, it’s all, a lot of that has to do, do what you brand your company. I mean, there’s one SEO company, a reputation management company charging, you know, $500 a month and you have one charging, you know, I don’t know, hundred, you know, tens of thousands of dollars per month for the same exact service.
So I think a lot of that is around branding, which goes back to a lot of what we have to do in terms of this whole new model. It’s not really new per se. I mean, there’s the fundamentals that you need to do, and there’s the stuff that SEOs, the really good SEOs have been doing, like yourself, Mike and Duane, you guys, and, and Miriam, you guys have been doing this stuff for a long time.
Mm-hmm. Um, you’ve been talking about this well before the AI rev revolution over, when you wanna call it, there’s some new elements to it, like. That’s really API integration is the whole nGenx stuff. So a lot of this stuff is new, but it’s really not new. And I think, like, like I said before, the best SEOs will survive and adopt these things and tell their clients how to incorporate it.
I don’t know if we need to change the name so that, I don’t know, some VP could get another 200 grand on a salary. I mean, it’ll be nice. I don’t care about that per se. Um, but I do think, um, I would like to see the SEO name become more and more credible and I think this is the avenue toward, towards it.
And we don’t, I don’t think we have to change it to being GEO or a EO or E-I-E-I-O or whatever you wanna call it.
Mike King
So that’s why I disagree, because if that was true, it would’ve happened by now. You know, I think it’s been happening. Like you said, all of these people have been doing great work for so long.
It hasn’t changed the perception of SEO.
Barry Schwartz
I mean, Duane, how many of the former speakers back from the early SES days that were sitting black hat SEO are now like in. Like massive corporations doing SEO, um, maybe with bigger taxes, what you’re thinking
Duane Forrester
And it’s, it’s a very real thing, right? Like, like there, there is a number of people historically from the industry who were really good at, at traditional SEO, black hat, SEO, understood all of it.
Um, were very successful. And those people have largely gone into the background to be the guiding force at larger, technically minded companies and, and they’re doing good work, right? Like, I, I, I think both you guys, like, it’s funny, you know, I, I’m kind of envisioning this like boxing match happening, but it’s all like candy canes and, you know, like fluff and popcorn and whatnot.
Because I agree with both of you and I disagree with some things. I fundamentally think that, um, I’d say about seven, maybe 10 years ago, we hit the peak. Of SEOs getting large titles and large salaries, and we’ve seen that trailing down because, not because of necessarily a lowering appreciation of the work, but because a vice president of marketing is an easier title for a company to understand, especially a publicly traded company that has to report to a board that has a C-suite making these organizational decisions.
And marketing then becomes the catchall that holds all of the disciplines within that, including SEO, which ultimately means as an SEO, you’re never really gonna get above director. And if you do, it’s probably a smaller company or sometimes at a much larger company where they need more executives to spread across.
So I, I think everybody’s right. I mean, that’s my kumbaya statement on it. Um, but I will say this, um, I, I fundamentally think that, that we are seeing a change here. Um, you can’t let go of the face. I love how Miriam put this. You know, when Sam needs money, he comes out and talks a GI, right? It’s like, this is a really, really, really important nuance for SEOs to wrap their head around.
Okay? It’s, she says, Sam, right? But really she means perplexity. She means quad. She means anthropic. Like every one of these companies has their little pull that they, they go for. And what’s incredibly, so, very important about this is the 700 million people that use chat GPT, because most of those people.
Don’t know what search actually is or is not. All they know is they asked a question and they got an answer that seemed trustworthy and that seemed trustworthy part is really important. Okay? Because for us to actually trust answers out of these systems, we need universal verifiers and universal verifiers are a minimum.
Beta versions are 18 months away, and then probably 20, 27 before we see practically applied universal verifiers and LLM fact checking and LLM, I’ll let you go down your own rabbit holes about the efficacy of that concept, but it’s being worked on. Fact is 700 million people don’t know the difference and they’re looking at something.
I needed a new washing machine two weeks ago, so I took a photo of the barcode that was on mine, was shocked to realize I’d had it for 10 years and was like, oh, no wonder. It’s kind of like crapping out on us. There you go. Immediately, Chachi PT 4.0 comes back with, here are the top three compete products to that modern version.
You know, would you like a, a summary of each one? And sure enough, I’m not joking, I went from 11:00 PM at night having that conversation in the dark because I couldn’t sleep and needed to solve this problem to the following afternoon. Lowe’s was delivering our new washing machine to us. And so do I really care whether it’s a search engine, whether we call this geo or SEO, or no, I don’t.
As a consumer, I really don’t care. And I got a good answer and I’ve got a great machine, and I love the music it plays every time the, the cycle ends. Like, like that’s what matters to me. I solve my problem. And you guys know this. I mean, if you’re on this group, you, you’ve heard me, you know, go on about this ad nauseum, like this is the fundamental thing that marketers need to wrap their head around is the consumer side of it.
Their intent, their interest. And, and the rest of it is, is kind of, um, I don’t know. It’s a little squishy right now. There’s, you know, I look, I, I can sit here and argue and tell you there’s all kinds of new technical stuff and you have to know this, and you have to do these things. And then Barry can just look at me and say, yeah, but you know what?
I can find homes for every one of those things conceptually in content and topics that we’ve already talked about. And I, I can’t really argue that it’s, it’s maybe a shinier version of that old thing. Everybody went nuts a month ago for Query Fan out. It just blew up. Like it was something, and I’m like, I literally do not know a single SEO on planet Earth who doesn’t understand this concept and hasn’t been working on it for 15 years.
It’s, it’s the basic concept with a new name on it. And yeah, in the world of ml it’s important and it, you know, should have that name and do whatever, but you as an SEO should know better. You should be doing this already. So nobody should be shocked by it saying, oh my God, that’s new. Now I have to do this, and I will buy a plane ticket and give somebody a crisp high five If they end up as the vice president of a query fan out at some company.
Like I, I swear, I like, that would be just like Fonzie jumping the shark. And if you’re young and you don’t get that reference, go look that one up. You’ll enjoy the video.
Myriam Jessier
I need to update my LinkedIn profile right now.
Mike King
Here’s my problem with that though. We, we talk about this idealized form of SEO that very few people actually do, right?
Like when you talk about like, oh, everyone should have known about Query fan out. Like, yes, query expansion has existed the whole time, uh, in a partially different way or what have you, but what tools do we have that explicitly show you this is the direct relationship …
Duane Forrester
Mike. I, I just, just to, to push back on that. I will point out, um, um, is it answer the people and, um, there’s another tool that’s similar conceptually to what you are saying, right? Where Yeah. You’re talking about it goes on.
Mike King
You’re effectively talking about like, okay, I’m mining. People also ask, which is a form of that.
Duane Forrester
Yeah.
Mike King
But it’s not exactly what these systems are doing. Oh, I agree. My point, my point is this, like a lot of us know these concepts, but the average practitioner of SEO, the people that watch these videos, read these blog posts. They, they read all this stuff and they’re like, okay, well what do I do next?
And so then they don’t do anything different than the checklist. So yes, the knowledge, yeah, that’s fair, but it’s not actually happening because our space is just so backwards in that regard.
Myriam Jessier
It, I would say that it is happening, but we haven’t been paying attention to it. So here’s why we have done our job so well.
That search is now. Democratic, I mean, watching people go on Instagram, like community managers and social media experts explaining to me how hashtags are working. And I was looking at them for years going, you are adorable. Thank you for doing the SEO work. I don’t wanna do good for you. So it’s, it’s one of those situations where I think it’s the opposite.
People take search for granted and there’s nobody else but us going into the LLM space trying to figure this out. So it, it’s, it’s bit unusual. And when it comes to query fan out, I’ve been dealing with this as an internal search nerd forever because what do you do when people go on your own website to buy groceries and they’re typing for healthy, um, um, healthy cheap snack.
Of course you’re gonna query fan out in your own internal search engine. You need to match that expectation with your own store and with what you know about your audience, how they purchase stuff. So. I think that just certain things have caught up and are going much faster, but then there’s some stuff that is just so backwards.
Like, I am not going to recommend to clients that they remove all their JavaScript just because some crawlers from LLM are slow, inefficient, and costly. I’m sorry, I’m not here for this. So we’re No, no, I, I see you laughing and I agree. But I mean, uh, Chris Green was bringing up an example with a big e-commerce site where in the code it said, product is available and product is not available.
These were the two states available in the code. And then what do LLMs do take for granted that if it says not available, let’s ignore the available, we’re gonna say the product is not available.
Mike King
Right.
Myriam Jessier
So now we’re, we’re, we’re dealing with things that are going way too fast. And to me, it seems normal.
It’s like, Hey, weren’t we all on the same page that we have to write good content, just period for humans? And then there’s this other end where we have to figure. Okay, so Agent Agentic AI stuff, I think about in the shower, INP as a core web vital is super important now. Mm-hmm. What happens with mobile overlap?
Like if the bot is going on there and you have three popups, it’s gonna be pretty deterministic. It’s gonna go first button, I don’t care. I’m not gonna mm-hmm. Waste my time. So you are gonna end up with even weirder behaviors that you may attribute to humans going, oh, humans are getting less smart. No, they’re sending bots to do the job.
Mm-hmm. And we have to think about that as well, these new mm-hmm. Behaviors. And, um, FYI for my PPC people, yeah. INP is now something that you should get friendly with your SEO about your technical SEO because this will impact you. People are buying shoes with agents now. I know that. Um, I think it was like the SEO max, uh, waffle.
I’m so sorry for pronouncing your last name like this. I can’t German. Well, he purchased a pair of his own brand’s shoes with an agent and it’s working super well for him. I don’t know how well it’s working with everyone like Duane, I’m glad that you did not delegate the purchase of your washing machine to an agent so far.
Okay. Yeah. I don’t trust it quite well. And last but not least, no. Yeah, not quite. Tinfoil hat moment perplexity is headed by people who have a. Contract with Google. They used to be with Google Labs, and in a few years they have to return. Haven’t you noticed that some of the stuff that works well in Gemini, that they want to popularize, they will take out and put in perplexity and vice versa?
Like the check sources from Gemini is now in perplexity and there’s other stuff I see like, uh, let’s just say a walkway between the two. Mm-hmm. And when we know that Google had a few moonshots as well, would I say that, um, Google and so SEO as a whole, because they are the main driver behind that industry at the end of the day, not saying that they like it, just saying they have to deal with it.
Are they going to really lose out? I don’t think so. That clickstream I was talking about, Ooh, isn’t that useful for AI mode ads that are coming? Isn’t that a leg up on the competition? Mm-hmm. I, I can’t wait to see how it plays out.
Danny Goodwin
All right. So I wanna circle back to something we touched on a little bit earlier.
Uh, you know, if we call the, if we do call this a new marketing discipline, which is, you know, being found on AI engines, is this something that SEOs today are going to own? And do you think this will allow them to maybe get big, bigger budgets, uh, and maybe salaries too, like Mike was alluding to? So, uh, Mike, do you wanna answer that one first?
Mike King
Yeah. Mike, check 1, 2, 1, 2. Okay. Um, yeah, so. It’s my hope that they can do that because again, you’re in a space where you’ve got a lot more responsibility. You have to do this across a bigger content ecosystem rather than just your website. And again, it’s an opportunity to reframe because people associate a very high value with AI, and this is AI.
So I think if we’re smart, it is an opportunity for everyone to reframe. And the question on the name, I mean that that ship is sailed, guys. Like as soon as Andreessen Horowitz was like, this is generative engine optimization, that’s what it’s, as soon as the media starts saying, this is generative engine optimization, that’s what it is.
We can push back all we want, but it’s too late. We should have done that a year ago when this thing first popped up, rather than just saying it’s more SE. So I think that there’s an opportunity, but again, just as we generally have as SEO to begin with, it’s a huge branding problem that needs to be overcome.
Danny Goodwin
Duane, what do you think?
Duane Forrester
Yeah, um. You know, I think that, is there a chance for more budget? Yeah, I think so. Um, but you know, as we’ve seen since the pandemic budgets have been slashed, there’s been massive headcount reductions. Um, you know, people are slowing their purchasing, um, large companies still have large procurement cycles that take, you know, six months to a year to get through sometimes.
Uh, forget government, i, I if you’re gonna look at that, just, you know, plan for your kids to take over your contract because it’s, it’s a long haul with, uh, with.gov. Um, I think that, um, what we’re likely to see in this kind of interim. Timeframe is you’re gonna see a lot of people who don’t understand the space, didn’t understand SEO, but were responsible for the teams managing that work.
Um, understood it enough to listen to the team and, you know, like accept the guidance or say no to the guidance that the team gave them. Um, but, but they’re not practitioners themselves. They don’t have a deep knowledge. They’re not gonna have a deep knowledge in this space either. But they’re going to accept responsibility.
They’re gonna hire the people with the skills, they’re gonna listen to the conversations they’re gonna spend, the company’s budget. Um, I think there’s gonna be a lot of that. And I think that maybe in five years, um, we will see people with skills in those positions because it will matter to companies.
Right? Like, you know, something that Mike was talking about earlier, right? Like this decline in click volume that we’re seeing. Like I don’t see a lot of people talking about the fact that if. If we can agree that our future is built around an answer as opposed to, you know, a clickable link, for example.
Um, if we continue to see that growing and it goes in that direction, we will inevitably find ourselves trying to track a mention versus a citation versus a linked citation. And was that my phrase that was used in that answer? And how exactly do I do it right? Which kind of comes back to the tools and their ability to do these things properly.
And, you know, the viability of all of that. Um, it, it becomes kind of an ecosystem unto itself. Uh, its own arcane, um, vertical of data tracking basically. Um, I think that we’re gonna see expansion in that area. We’re going to see, unfortunately, a lot of people, um, you know, look, we got, I’m tracking 40 tools right now.
Like there’s probably gonna be another 20 in the next year. And then we’re gonna see to Barry boy, like. A metric crapton of consolidation where all of those ones and twos that made up, the companies are just gonna drift off because they never got funding. They’re just gonna walk away. They didn’t care in the first place and the whole thing dies.
Um, but until that two to three years from now, everybody’s gonna be walking around this weird kind of landscape of, well, this does this and this does that, and this does this over here, and this does this, and it’s, it’s going to be hugely messy, which means there’s opportunity for some people. And some of those people will be internal people looking to bulk up their, you know, budgets with their teams and proposing new headcounts.
And because AI is so shiny, when you start talking in that direction. Boards of directors lean in and pay attention, and C-suites start to lean in and headcounts get approved. I need a keyword researcher on my content team. No, you get no more head count. I need somebody to manage, query fan out to determine what content that we should be focusing on moving forward.
Is that related to ai? Yes. Great. Have two headcount. Like it’s this type of world that I think we’re about to see turbulence for the airplane, right? It’s gonna be a lot of it over the next couple years.
Myriam Jessier
You wanna talk about messy? I wanna complain about something. My work is being attributed to another SEO called MIM because some person took a YouTube transcript of one of my talks.
Yeah. And because my name is not spelled with a Y, it automatically assumed that because I’m talking about local SEO, well who’s the other MI that’s known for local SEO. And all of a sudden my entire. Life. Like my Hawaii references, my Jewish background. All of that is attributed to that poor woman out there.
And in lms. I’ve been working hard and the agency that published that slop, it’s literally, I slop
Myriam Jessier
Has not changed it. And the efforts I’ve had to do to fix that, I mean, I, I dug into this and that’s why I say like it, like LLMs do need to grow up because the ai Oh yeah. Brand semantic drift is Yeah.
Off the walls. It’s not just one thing. You have like factual drift, you have intent drift, you have the drift of people on Reddit, memeing your brand, you have narrative collapse, like all of these things. Are going to be something we have to deal with and we’re gonna have panicked brands coming and going.
Clean that up. No, I can’t just bury the body in page two of Google search results. Now you have content debt.
Barry Schwartz
It’s funny, it’s a, it’s funny because I have people coming to me and saying, you know, this is what I, this is what some topic, what could be anything, like what’s the best washer and dryer to buy?
Or whatever it is. And then this, this is the answer from Chatt PT and I’m gonna go with it. I’m like, it’s, you’re like, it’s like, first of all, on our topic, I know about SEO O they ask this question that I know about, which is only SEO. Um, I’ll be like, that’s wrong. And it’s just outright wrong. Yeah. And it’s like talking to a really confident friend who thinks they know everything, but they know nothing.
Yeah.
Mike King
Drunk and that’s what confident. Yeah, but they’re gonna
Barry Schwartz
get better. But at this time, it’s like, you
Mike King
mean it’s like talking to SEOs?
Barry Schwartz
Exactly. Uh, but you know what I’m saying? It’s like you have that one friend that really knows everything. Yeah. And they act like they know everything and they’re so confident about it.
That’s what it’s like asking these chat GPTs and these ai, and they’re getting better. Mm-hmm. Um, but then optimizing for that, like they could run out, you know, chat. GBT came with a new model last week, it’s brand new. And they had to like, they, we were getting rid of all the other old models and they’re like, right.
And everybody’s fighting and like, we want the old models back. We don’t like the new models. We want the old models back. Yeah. It’s, it’s, it’s, we’re in a really exciting space. It will get really, really good. And the AI will, we’re not gonna have to hire anybody, Duane. It’s just the AI’s gonna do it all for us.
Duane Forrester
yeah. So, you know, it’s funny you say that Barry, and like half joke, half truth, right? Yeah. Where, where like, like I, if, if you’d have talked to me like nine months ago, I would’ve been telling you we gotta be careful with Chachi BT five, because it’s probably gonna be capable of doing a lot of work that SEOs do.
And like it’ll get there. Right. And so I believe in that, but now that it’ll live through a bunch of cycles. The hockey stick is further away, right? That moment where it ramps up and it becomes a truly utility-based trustable asset, we are not there and, and I just like, we will get there. I believe that, but boy oh boy, you need human in the loop now more than ever.
Right? Miriam’s example is like critical for this, right? I mean, anything at all. I do a lot of writing and I put my writing into these systems and I say, find the facts that are incorrect. Find examples of backup, this statement. Go do this, go do that. I asked chat GBT the other night, and this is on 5.0. I asked it, I have a YouTube channel, it’s got nothing to do with SEO.
And I said, Hey, you know what I’d like is I’d like a ten second bumper that I can add a video that I can add to the beginning of every one of my videos. Kinda like an opening reel, right? Can you do that? Oh yeah. No problem. About 18 hours into the project, I asked it, can you actually make this video? And it assured me it could make the video.
The problem was uploading it. Now Dropbox wasn’t working. Google Drive wasn’t working, all these things weren’t working. So after about another hour, I said to it, are you lying to me? And it said, well that depends. And I’m like, what? Uh, there is no version of this answer that should start with that depends coming from you.
And then it went on to it. It went on to explain how it was working on everything I asked theoretically as a simulation in the background. And it was not capable of building a video interfacing with any of these third party systems or doing any of the work that I thought we were doing that it kept telling me we were doing.
And, and then it just went on to like apologize a bunch of times and whatever else. Right. And I’m just like. Okay. Object lesson, right? Like this is, you see
Mike King
Canadian
Duane Forrester
God, dude. I dunno. Right? Like, like I get, you know what? I can find it. I’ll ask it about maple syrup. I know this. So, so like, I’ll dig in deep on it.
But, but the point is like, like you cannot, every single word has to be vetted. Every single concept has to be vetted because the basic concepts, like if I ask about my king in relation to an article, I’m assuming there’s no other, my king in this industry that is well known as the My king I know. And therefore my reference is solid.
And it turns out that there’s like two other Mike Kings in America. One’s a real estate agent and one’s this, and, and then the system just conflates those Mike Kings with my reference in SEO. And it gives me a link to someone’s company that has nothing to do with the topic. And I’m like, geez, you know, this creates more work than it fixes.
And so that’s like the reality I tell people, it’s like you are working with a genius level 7-year-old who has access to humanity’s knowledge, but is so interested in saying yes to you that they will lie and not necessarily care about the lie, so that you, you’re constantly needing to be on top of it.
We’re not there yet. And it kind of makes me think, and it kind of makes me wonder, look, the money that’s being poured into these tools, you are building your tool on the backbone of Chachi PT that API call into their system using their logic to come up with an answer to this admittedly very narrowly focused questions.
Okay. And I think we can all agree that if you can narrowly focus in AI on narrow data, the hallucinations dropped precipitously. Like it gets very accurate and it’s really good. Okay. But are the tools that narrow? Is the training set that focused versus what the customer’s asking for? I don’t know if we’re there yet.
So my fear is that we’re seeing a lot of money thrown into these systems and we’re gonna find ourselves like kind of hitting the edges of the envelope really quick. And a lot of customers who are paying on a monthly basis or an annual basis are gonna back away when they get stung a couple times and they’re like, oh, the data told me this and I made this decision.
The decision you made was dollars, cents and resources and it was made on data. You have no way to really validate or that you just trusted and didn’t validate. So I, you know, this is, this is like a hugely problematic layer. I think that’s there. And we have a lot of people taking shortcuts right now. We see it already.
We know it.
Danny Goodwin
Alright, I’m gonna move on because we are rapidly running outta time. I’d love if I could get kind of maybe a quick tip from each one of you. How can the people watching adapt as AI search continues to evolve? Or any new skills that we need in the next era of search. Barry, I’ll throw it to you first.
Barry Schwartz
Um, yeah, I’ll just repeat what I said. You know, branding, which is, yeah. And then, uh, I would look into all the new stuff around Ntic, experiences, agents and so forth. Play with it a lot. It’s new, but play with it. All right, Myriam.
Myriam Jessier
I actually have more than one tip. I always have more than one tip. So number one, you don’t need to be technical.
Just disable the JavaScript and see if the important stuff is still there. I could nuance this. If you’re a technical SEO, let’s go talk. That’s fine. But if you are just trying to survive out there, disable the JavaScript and see if all the real information you need on there is on there, like the price of your product, for example.
The second tip is you’re not happy with the output you get in an LLM for your brand. Click the thumbs down button and give some feedback as to why it’s bad. I know, I know it sounds completely just, you’re wasting your time, but I believe that Chad GPT stopped. Working, like speaking in Croatian, because Croatians, unlike Americans, are not positive.
They were like, you are crap. It got so overwhelmed. I was like, I don’t wanna speak anymore. Okay. I just don’t do it anymore. And the third tip that I have is go on perplexity.ai and select, because you can do that. The Reddit, the social search, disabled the web. Just look for Reddit and check what people are saying about your brand because that stuff is getting eaten up.
Like beyond that in social. I love the fact that Biba a huge financial group. Their logo, if you ask, Hey, who is this brand? They will go pull from bird logos, volume one on Pinterest from some dude named Marco or whatever. Pay attention to social. It does some weird stuff. So go on perplexity and check it out.
Danny Goodwin
Duane, your tip or tips?
Duane Forrester
Okay. Um, I’m gonna keep this one pretty simple and I’m, I’m hoping a lot of folks are already doing this. Um, you should be using the major, um, models in all of the systems. Um, my preference would be that you have a paid account, even at the lowest level of paid. Um, however, I’m not gonna spend your money.
You know, you, you could go in with the free ones. ’cause what you’re gonna do here, start with your query fano. Create a whole bunch of actual prompts that are related to your company, a hundred, 200. Run those daily, weekly, monthly, through the system. Track the results that you’re seeing with dates. Make a matrix for yourself of where you’re showing.
Then start applying all of this logic that Barry and Miriam have shared, and I’m pretty sure the genius that Mike is gonna add here. Start applying it to what you are seeing as the actual outputs. I am not aware of a tool that does this for you on mass. Currently. It may be out there and I simply haven’t found it yet.
That’s fine, but you have to have this view. You have to see what’s happening in these systems. You already have tools that’ll do that in traditional SEO and the regular engines. You need to create your own version and these new systems. It’s a really, really important view for your company.
Danny Goodwin
All right, Mike, you get the final word.
Mike King
All right, I got three thoughts. One, SEOs, you need to demand more, demand more from your tools, demand more for what the work is that you’re doing. You’ve been the janitor for the web, for Google for the last 20 years. Like you deserve more. Um, and also you gotta demand more from yourselves. ’cause again, there’s so much that’s happening in this space that you need to learn the nuances of difference.
Like if you don’t understand what a vector embedding is, and you don’t really know what you’re doing in this space right now because everything operates on that. Next thing is, um, embrace omnichannel content strategy. Again, it’s not just about what’s on your website, it’s what’s across your ecosystem.
So you need to be thinking about what are we doing in Reddit? What are we doing on YouTube? What are we doing on LinkedIn Pulse? ’cause for whatever reason, you publish something there and then you’re in an AI overview, right? Like overnight. And then my last thought is really on measurement, especially if you work at the enterprise, like that is the first.
Thing that needs to be solved. I think Duane wrote a great blog post on this that you can check out on his substack. But the way I I break it down is in the three different buckets. So you have your input metrics, that’s things like, um, you know, your passage. Relevance for the queries. Queries and the, the fan out matrix, what have you.
Also bot activity. Also the classic rankings ’cause they’re all inputs there. Then you’ve got your channel metrics. Those are the sorts of things that you get from profound. And for the record, from my perspective, profound is the only tool. There’s 40 tools out there, but none of them are as good as profound and profound.
Has the lead on collecting the, um, the clickstream data as well. As far as I know, like few of those other tools have clickstream data. And the last bucket gonna your, um. Performance. And that’s not, not any different from what it’s, that you already look at. That’s like, okay, how many people come to your website from this channel?
And then what do they ultimately do? So traffic, conversions, things like that. But the main thing to know is that there’s no connective tissue between there, there is no Google search console for uh, GPT and so on. So the best you’re gonna be able to get, at least in the short term, is gonna be that clickstream stop.
So yeah, those are my three tips.
Danny Goodwin
All right, well, this has been an absolutely amazing conversation, but we’ve got to end it there. Thanks to Mike king, Duane Forrester, Myriam Jessier, and Barry Schwartz. Uh, and as a reminder, SMX Next is coming November 18th to 19th, and of course, we’ll be continuing to dig deeper into the future of AI search and where we’re heading next.
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