Ladies and Gentlemen, SEO Is Still Alive
I’m writing this today because, quite frankly, I’ve seen blogs and threads sent out today that are already out of date. I’ve seen one particularly about the history of Google – how it went from 10 blue links to position zero, then moved to AI overview, and how that’s supposedly killing traffic.
Guys, it’s changed. The whole world has changed. But SEO is still alive, my friends.
Let’s celebrate. Let’s have a beer. Let’s go and party because the whole industry still has a job.
Why Are You So Confident About That?
I’ll tell you exactly why I’m confident about it, because I’ve seen it. It’s happened. It happened last week, maybe even the week before (I don’t know, I was on holiday. Missed quite a lot. Lots of beers etc etc).
Essentially, what’s happened is Google has created its own little ChatGPT chatty side tab. Looks a little bit like Claude had a baby with ChatGPT but with Google’s DNA, but obviously it’s Google.
Quite frankly, we didn’t know what was going to happen with SEO. Yes, position zero freaked us out. Yes, AI overview freaked us out. AI overview particularly freaked me out, I’ll be honest with you, because it was a struggle to understand exactly how to keep traffic coming through.
We even got featured in position zero and then saw clicks move away from people’s websites. So yeah, I got freaked out.
However, post-holiday…
I came back to my desk Monday after a lovely little holiday with the wife. And I decided to just have a look at what’s going on in the world, what’s going on with my client figures, and everybody seemed to be on the way up.
I had some accounts that were – I’m going to be honest with you guys – not every account flies, you know? Some struggle. Some are at different stages of their life cycle. Some have others interfering. Anyway. They weren’t struggling anymore.
“Oh, this is interesting.” I gasped, maybe not gasped, a little dramatic that word.
And then I got an email from a client: “What the hell has happened to my Google Business page?” That’s when I saw that Google had changed all of their international and city-based domain names to go to google.com. For that particular client, all of their Romanian reseller information was showing for their brand.
Great. So we’re trying to fix that at the moment. You know how faceless Google can be. It’s tough. But we’ll get there.
But then the Game Changer
Also, on logging back in, I was asked if I’d like to try out the Google AI tool. And of course, being me and being an industry nerd, I’m not one of those people that can say no. I have to say yes. I have to have a look.
So I tested it, obvs. Before our holiday I had just released Macaw’s new website. It’s been written entirely in an SEO fashion. It’s been given lots of content love, researched thoroughly, written by a human. Tick tick tick, all the things that should get it to the top of Google. And that happened in certain cases. It’s definitely improved in terms of rankings.
However, just take a look at some of the screenshots…
First of all, and this is why I’m confident the SEO industry is still alive and kicking:
Not only did Google do a ChatGPT thing, but they’ve also referenced everything that appears in its AI generated answer and provided backlinks to statements they borrowed from you. PROVIDED BACKLINKS. Read it again. It feels like the first time your fake ID worked in a pub. Backlinks are in the Google AI.
In fact, you’ll see in the first screenshot, my client was the in the citations making the AI generation and in the second screenshot they are the first link in its AI article. It took me a good 5 minutes to close my mouth.
Ladies and gentlemen, SEO is still alive. SEO continues to be alive. Google has taken all of the SEO industry skillset, worry, and wrapped it up in its new AI tool. I mean, it even looks at your internet history and adjusts results. Such a clone of itself. You an see it’s bias in the last screenshot. We see you Google. Same tricks. Different section.
The Battle Has Shifted, Not Disappeared
It’s quite important and it’s quite interesting – we’ve got to get to the bottom of this. It’s too early to be writing a blog about the fact SEO is alive, ah… err.. But anyway, there’s not enough data right now. I’m going off screenshots. I’ve had a few days, I’ve not even had time to play with it properly because of meetings and stuff. SEO tools are charging the earth to monture your AI searches. I’m tight. I hate SEMrush as you already know. I will have to bite the bullet at some point though.
But essentially, it looks to me like the battle will be within the AI section of Google, along with the normal search, images, videos and the rest. That battle is already happening in ChatGPT and other various places, but not quite as blatant as Google has been.
And Google’s actually done a good job of the AI section, and it’s free. So I’d imagine that Google, being Google, will probably dominate or start to take back some of that market share from AI tools. Especially when we still Google a huge amount. Their ads appear on the TV. We use their Gmail blah blah blah… I mean it’s a verb for crying out loud. Like they were going to lie down and die.
So What Does This Mean?
The world is okay, people. SEO is not dead.
Next time I read something that’s out of date about SEO being finished, I shall be pointing them to this blog and saying the world is okay.
That, my friends, is why I’m here to celebrate.
Mic drop.
Can we now please stop calling it GEO / LLMO or some other sh… It’s SEO baby, and it’s here to stay.
