Challenges AI Poses for SEO

RIP SEO. Today was the first time Google automatically pushed me into AI Mode for a basic search. I wasn’t on Labs. I didn’t opt in. No blue links. Just a clean AI-generated answer, with no website listings in sight. This isn’t an experimental feature hidden away anymore. It’s becoming the new default in our #AnswerEconomy. As someone who’s spent 20+ years leading web strategy and SEO efforts, I’ve never seen such a dramatic shift in how information is presented for search. We began moving beyond traditional SEO to GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) in late 2023. ChatGPT’s launch three years ago shifted the web from a search economy to an answer economy. At first, it felt like a challenge to Google’s dominance. (The number I’ve seen most often is that Google owns about 90% of the search market.) Last year, I asked myself whether “Google it” would still be a verb in 10 years. Now, after seeing Google’s AI Mode in action, I think the answer is yes, but not in the way we’re used to. The traditional cluttered Google search results page is being replaced by an AI-first interface. If your content isn’t structured, factual, and optimized for AI engines, you risk becoming invisible. The future isn’t just about ranking first. It’s about being the trusted source the AI quotes. No clicks. No CTRs. Just answers. Welcome to the next era of search. #SEO #GEO #AIEO #AIsearch #DigitalStrategy #ContentMarketing #GenerativeAI #SearchRevolution #DigitalMarketing #Marketing

My last couple of posts have been heavy on this theme: The website isn’t the marketing hub anymore. AI is rewriting the rules. Now, I've gotten some pushback, and I get it. This idea is still cutting-edge in many industries and will be for a while—think the local remodeling contractor, who will remain dependent on Google map packs for some time, but . . . Shout out to John Andrews and Sam Harding for this idea to help make this point. Remember the Browser Wars of the ’90s? That battle wasn’t about browsers; it was about who controls distribution. The winner decided how users experienced the web. Sound familiar? We’re back in a similar fight. But this time, it’s not about browsers or websites. It’s about AI. And the harsh truth? Your website is no longer the center of your marketing universe. It’s just another client in an AI-driven ecosystem. If you're still building everything around your website, you’re missing where the customer journey actually starts today. AI is the new gatekeeper. Large language models are the new homepage. What to do: ~ Structure your content for clarity: headers, bullets, short paragraphs. ~ Feed your own materials into tools like ChatGPT custom GPTs. ~ Submit links to AI-friendly aggregators like Perplexity or Bing. Prompt-ready content is the new SEO. Search engines indexed keywords. AI indexes answers. You’re not writing for spiders anymore, you’re writing for synthetic assistants. What to do: ~ Write in question/answer format. ~ Use schema markup and structured data to help AI extract the right info. ~ Test your content through ChatGPT—does it summarize your message well? AI-native collateral is the new lead magnet. PDFs and landing pages are fine, but imagine giving your audience a branded GPT or app that solves their exact problem. What to do: ~ Create AI-guided chat tools (ManyChat, Intercom, GPT bots). ~ Turn key insights into prompt libraries for your audience. ~ Train a micro-assistant that delivers value in your voice and framework. The ecosystem is greater than the standalone domain. Your website is part of the story, not the whole book. You need to meet your audience inside other platforms, other feeds, other tools. What to do: ~ Cross-publish with intent: blogs become emails, videos, Shorts, GPT inputs. ~ Format content for syndication: highlights, quote blocks, stat cards. ~ Embed value inside tools—calculators, diagnostics, AI-guided quizzes. ~ Ask better questions: Can this be summarized by AI in under 60 words? Would AI recommend this if asked? Are we surfacing this in multiple ecosystems? Is this referenceable—not just linkable? We’re not in a web-first world anymore. We’re in an AI-first marketing environment. The tools have changed, but the principle hasn’t: Be where your customers are, and make it ridiculously easy for them to know, like, and trust you. Don’t just optimize your website. Optimize your ecosystem.

AI search volatility is far greater than I ever imagined. I analyzed 80,000 prompts across ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Microsoft Copilot, and Perplexity, comparing citation data from June to July 2025. Nearly half of the domains cited by answer engines shifted within a single month. Google AI Overviews saw the highest turnover, with 59.3% of cited domains being new. ChatGPT followed closely with 54.1% new domains, Microsoft Copilot at 53.4%, and Perplexity at 40.5%. This is an insane amount of drift compared to traditional search. My take is that this proves that it is going to be critical for marketers to understand the volatility of authority and relevance factors within AI search. Traditional SEO and authority-building strategies clearly don’t = stable visibility in AI search. More importantly, refreshed and relevant content is becoming more crucial than ever. IMO, this is also great supporting evidence that content freshness and adaptability will provide a significant advantage to marketers. (we know from our research that AI search engines significantly prioritize real-time relevance.) Marketers aiming to optimize their visibility and citations in AI search need to prioritize timeliness and relevance and actively monitor citation drift in order to understand where their content stands, if it’s winning or being surpassed, and what the answer engines are citing today vs last month. Because AI search is never the same twice. Would love to hear your thoughts on this one in the comments: in a world with this much volatility, how could we adjust our strategies in response and how do we measure success with this little stability? 👀

There's a quiet revolution happening in the world of content and discovery, and we're barely talking about it. 🚨 SEO as we've known it is quickly becoming obsolete. AI tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Grok, and Claude are reshaping how buyers research, especially in high-involvement e-commerce sectors like consumer tech. Andrej Karpathy recently highlighted this perfectly: "It’s 2025 and most content is still written for humans instead of LLMs. 99.9% of attention is about to be LLM attention, not human attention." Imagine a buyer exploring a high-value product—say a premium smartwatch or a flagship smartphone. Rather than sifting through dozens of links, they're now simply asking: "Which smartwatch is better for health tracking: Fitbit Sense or Apple Watch Ultra?" This isn't hypothetical; it's happening right now. AI assistants are increasingly trusted as expert advisors that simplify complex product comparisons. For brands, this changes everything: ✅ Traditional SEO and "ranking #1 on Google" is no longer enough. ✅ AI agents handle the discovery process, dramatically shortening the consumer journey. ✅ Businesses must now optimize their content not only for human eyes but also for AI interpretation. (As Erik Wikander put it beautifully) A few eye-opening shifts already happening: 📉 Review platforms like G2 and StackOverflow have lost significant traffic post-ChatGPT. (Elena Verna) 📉 Big players like HubSpot, Figma, and Canva are seeing declining organic traffic as AI directly answers user queries. (Oliver Molander) 📉StackAI now receives more inbound from ChatGPT & Perplexity than from Google (Antoni Rosinol) The implications for Ecommerce and consumer tech brands are massive: Your product content must become "AI-native," meaning it's structured clearly enough for AI tools to pull and recommend. Content needs precise differentiation and expert-level detail because the AI gatekeepers are getting smarter at recognizing genuine value vs. fluff. As Tomasz Tunguz has highlighted, expect the emergence of AIO (AI Optimization)—the next evolution of content strategy where you're optimizing not just for search engines but for a multitude of personalized AI assistants serving diverse ICPs. In short, the future belongs to those who understand how to capture the attention of AI agents first, and users second. Traditional SEO is fading. We're entering a world where personal AI agents will act as gatekeepers, curating hyper-relevant content tailored exactly to individual needs and preferences. This demands a radical reimagining of CX tech stacks, particularly around product discovery, comparison, and commerce journeys. At Swirl®, we're addressing precisely this challenge by building specialized AI Agents—transforming customer experience into dynamic, personalized, and AI-optimized experiences. If your brand is navigating this shift and looking for ways to stay ahead, let's talk. #artificialintelligence #Ecommerce #AIO #SEO

For years, the SEO playbook was simple: 🔍 Find the keywords. 📝 Write a blog for each one. 📈 Watch the traffic roll in. But then AI showed up. And now, Google’s AI Overviews and ChatGPT answer: - "What is X?" - "How does Y work?" ...right in the search results. No clicks. No traffic. If your strategy is still “publish a blog for every keyword”, you’re playing a losing game. So, what’s now? 1️⃣ Prioritize buyer intent, not browser intent. Some searches are just curiosity. Other searches mean “I’m ready to buy.” Example: ❌ "What is a tenant screening service?" (low intent) ✅ "Best tenant screening service for small landlords" (high intent) Look for: - "X vs Y" searches (they’re choosing). - "Best X for Y" searches (they’re evaluating). - "X near me" searches (they’re ready to buy). Your blog doesn’t need to explain "what is a tenant screening service" anymore. AI can do that. Your job is to show up where buyers are already in motion. 2️⃣ Stop "ranking" — start leading. If your blog is just another summary of what’s already been said, AI can replace you. Here’s what AI can’t do: - Original research 🔍 - Data-backed insights 📊 - Unique points of view 🤔 Information gain = the new SEO advantage. When we worked with financial services firm RWA Wealth, we didn’t just summarize "What is the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act?" Instead, we asked, "What does this mean for your taxes in 2025?" We created new insight, not just a summary. That’s what gets people thinking. If you’re writing content that could have been written by AI, why would Google rank it at all? They can write it themselves. 3️⃣ Bring them in — and give them a next step. If your blog gets traffic but people leave, that’s on you. Here’s how to fix it: - Put a CTA in the middle of the page (not just at the bottom). - Give them a reason to act now (limited spots, exclusive offer, etc.). - Make the next step clear, immediate, and relevant. Every visitor is a potential lead. Don’t let them leave without a next step. If you take away one thing, it’s this: Google doesn’t need more "content.” They need new perspectives, original insight, and real information gain. If you’re still chasing "rankings," you’re already behind.

We're observing a material shift in referral traffic sources, specifically an increase attributable to AI-driven entities. Understanding the mechanics of this traffic is crucial for effective site management and optimization. Server log analysis surface User-Agent string revealing visits from a new cohort of crawlers associated with large language model (LLM) based applications. These aren't your traditional search engine spiders exclusively focused on indexation. We're talking about agents representing services like Google's own AI features, Anthropic's Claude, Microsoft's Copilot integrated with Bing, and Perplexity AI, among others. These bots are actively fetching content, driven by user queries within their respective AI interfaces, which subsequently results in a referral back to the source URI. Quantifying this requires granular analysis of your access logs. By filtering and aggregating requests based on identifying User-Agent patterns, you can establish a baseline metric for AI bot visit frequency and volume. This data is invaluable for understanding the impact of these agents on your infrastructure and content reach. Controlling how these agents interact with your site is where the robots.txt protocol becomes paramount. It's about preventing indexation anymore and/or managing resource allocation and guiding specific user agents to appropriate sections of your site. Implementing well-defined Disallow and Allow directives, potentially even leveraging User-Agent specific rules, allows you to curate the crawl behavior of these diverse AI entities. This ensures that helpful agents, those that contribute to content visibility and referral traffic, can operate efficiently, while simultaneously mitigating potential issues with overly aggressive or unwanted scraping that could strain server resources or expose sensitive data. In essence, the rise of AI search bots necessitates a more sophisticated approach to log analysis and crawler management. It's a technical challenge that requires understanding the nuances of how these new agents identify themselves and interact with web resources to properly harness their potential for traffic generation while maintaining site integrity. Here's a great list of AI crawlers: https://lnkd.in/gZSgr4QC

𝗦𝗘𝗢 𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗴𝗼𝘁 𝗮 𝗻𝗲𝘄 𝗯𝗼𝘀𝘀, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗶𝘁𝘀 𝗻𝗮𝗺𝗲 𝗶𝘀: 𝘈𝘐 𝘔𝘰𝘥𝘦. Backlinko’s latest deep-dive (10-min video—𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘩 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 𝘴𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘥) lays it out bluntly: 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘨𝘢𝘮𝘦 𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘎𝘰𝘰𝘨𝘭𝘦 𝘧𝘭𝘪𝘱𝘴 “𝘈𝘐 𝘔𝘰𝘥𝘦” 𝘵𝘰 𝘥𝘦𝘧𝘢𝘶𝘭𝘵. 𝗛𝗲𝗿𝗲’𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗱𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗱, 𝗻𝗼-𝗳𝗹𝘂𝗳𝗳 𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗽𝗹𝘂𝘀 𝘄𝗵𝘆 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗰𝘂𝗿𝗿𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝘆𝗯𝗼𝗼𝗸 𝗶𝘀 𝗮𝗹𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱𝘆 𝗼𝗯𝘀𝗼𝗹𝗲𝘁𝗲. 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗔𝗜 𝗠𝗼𝗱𝗲 𝗮𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗱𝗼𝗲𝘀: 𝗧𝘂𝗿𝗻𝘀 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆 𝗾𝘂𝗲𝗿𝘆 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗼 𝗮 𝗺𝘂𝗹𝘁𝗶-𝗾𝘂𝗲𝗿𝘆 𝗳𝗮𝗻-𝗼𝘂𝘁. Google fires off dozens of sub-questions, stitches the answers, and hands the user a single synthesized response. Page-level rank is irrelevant; passage relevance wins. Source: ipullrank.com 𝗣𝘂𝗹𝗹𝘀 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗮 𝗽𝗿𝗶𝘃𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘇𝗲𝗱 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗹𝗶𝘀𝘁. Community hubs (Reddit, Quora) and heavyweight authority domains dominate citations—because they show up everywhere the model looks. Source: xponent21.com 𝗣𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘇𝗲𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝘀𝘄𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗳𝗹𝘆. Two users, same query, completely different sources. Logged-out rank tracking is officially a vanity metric. Source: ipullrank.com 𝗦𝗹𝗮𝗺𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗹𝗶𝗰𝗸-𝘁𝗵𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵 𝗱𝗼𝗼𝗿. Publishers already see 50 %+ traffic drops where AI summaries replace blue links. Source: wsj.com 𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗻𝘂𝗸𝗲𝘀 𝗼𝗹𝗱-𝘀𝗰𝗵𝗼𝗼𝗹 𝗦𝗘𝗢 𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘤𝘢𝘯’𝘵 “𝘰𝘱𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘪𝘻𝘦” 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘶𝘴𝘦𝘳 𝘯𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘴𝘦𝘦𝘴. Being cited matters more than being clicked—and no mainstream SEO tool shows your citation share. 𝗥𝗮𝗻𝗸 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗰𝗸𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝗺𝗲𝗮𝘀𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗽𝗼𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀; 𝘈𝘐 𝘔𝘰𝘥𝘦 𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘱𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘨𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘦𝘴. 𝗠𝗼𝘃𝗲-𝗳𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝗰𝗵𝗲𝗰𝗸𝗹𝗶𝘀𝘁 1. 𝗘𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗱 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗿𝘁𝗶𝘀𝗲. Break long posts into quotable, high-context chunks; LLMs lift passages, not pages. 2. 𝗦𝘂𝗿𝗳𝗮𝗰𝗲 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗿𝗮𝘄𝗹𝗲𝗿 𝘀𝗻𝗮𝗰𝗸𝘀. Q&A forums, transcripts, niche wikis—if it’s crawlable, it’s eligible. 3. 𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝗰𝗶𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀, 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗸𝗲𝘆𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗱𝘀. Scrape AI Mode outputs at scale (Profound, custom browser automation) to see if you’re in the answer set. 4. 𝗢𝘄𝗻 𝘁𝗿𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗹-𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗲. Buy or build domains with existing authority; control beats outreach when the algorithm is the audience. 𝗕𝗼𝘁𝘁𝗼𝗺 𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲: Google’s AI Mode doesn’t reduce search— it compresses it. The prize isn’t traffic; 𝘪𝘵’𝘴 𝘣𝘦𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘤𝘦 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘯𝘰 𝘤𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘬𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘲𝘶𝘪𝘳𝘦𝘥. 𝗢𝘄𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗮𝘀𝘀𝗮𝗴𝗲, 𝘰𝘳 𝘸𝘢𝘵𝘤𝘩 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘨𝘦 𝘰𝘸𝘯 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘧𝘶𝘯𝘯𝘦𝘭.

🚨 SEO is in crisis—double-digit traffic drops across industries! 🚨 🔥 Key takeaways from Lindsay Boyajian Hagan (Conductor): 🔹 Fewer searches—Users are turning to AI for direct answers. 🔹 Organic results pushed down—AI Overviews, ads, and image carousels now dominate the top. 🔹 40% of searches display AI-generated summaries. 🔹 Reddit & Quora are outranking brands—Forums are seen as more “authentic.” 💡 What can you do? ✅ Ditch generic content—Double down on expertise. AI-generated content is everywhere—your edge is experience, authority, and trust. ✅ Meet your audience where they are—Create content on Reddit, Quora, and forums that Google prioritizes. ✅ Rethink your KPIs—Traffic is down, but brand impressions in search engines are up (thanks, AIO!). Measure what matters. ✅ Remember: Your great content is feeding LLMs. Don’t just create—strategize. And then, Chris Andrew (Scrunch AI) dropped this bombshell: 🔹 AI crawlers—not humans—are now your biggest site visitors. 🔹 Browsing is dead. AI delivers answers, not links. 🔹 2B+ users search in AI tools every month. 🔹 Optimize for AI search: • Give AI access to your content. • Create conversational, persona-adjusted content. • Ensure your site’s infrastructure is AI-friendly. At the Chief Marketing Officer Summit by CMO Alliance, the conversation was clear: Google Search is transforming at an unprecedented pace, and brands must adapt—fast. SEO isn’t dying—it’s evolving. The question is: Are you keeping up? Would love to hear—how is your brand adapting to AI-dominated search? #SEO #AI #Marketing #DigitalMarketing #CMO #SearchOptimization #AIO #MarketingStrategy #CMOSummit #CMOAlliance

Forbes estimates 60%+ of organic traffic is being effected due to the introduction of AI summaries, the adoption of LLMs, and ultimately the changes in SEO. I recently spoke at Affiliate Summit East on the emergence of AI and the impact to eCommerce. I touched on SEO and the move to SGE (search generative experience), the issues facing identity capture and noise created by bots as well as AI-generated content, and how content goes viral with changes to TikTok & Meta's algorithms. Sharing some of the learnings (and slides) on AI summaries and rankings: Impact - Google's AI summaries can take up to 3 full mobile scrolls or 2 desktop scrolls (1500 pixels) - LLM search went from 0.25% of traffic to 2.25% in <12mo - 60% of organic site traffic is impacted meaning the CTR drops aka people do not end up landing on your site. How to adapt - SEO & SGE are underpinned by the same recipe: content. - How to show up as the featured AI summary or authority? 1. Create unique content and lots of it 2. Build contextual content At Checkmate we get 1.5M+ unique visitors/week to our public-facing product pages. We also are featured on 1700 ChatGPT pages. How we were able to do that is by pulling in long-form structured content for the products we help sell as well as using LLMs to generate some unique content. For those in eCommerce I featured Stanley 1913 with what I think as a really strong product pages that rank well for SGE. If you look at any of their products they have extremely rich, unique content. They leverage product descriptions, product specs, related other products, reviews (not hidden or collapsed) & FAQs. For SGE shorter isn't better, the more unique content the generally better the indexing. Stanley 1913 also has a really strong formatting structure with clear H1, H2 tags, and containers. You have to remember if a bot can't make sense of the text then it won't surface in AI summaries. This will also be extremely important in the future of agentic commerce. 2. Building contextual content The way people are searching is moving from "black shoes" to "best shoes for running a marathon". Context is key. To be able to show up in LLMs or AI summaries, you need to associate your products within that context. 3 easy ways to do that: 1. Create and leverage a PR strategy 2. Build your own written contextual information in a blog on your website 3. Contribute/invest to review sites If you are able to both create unique content with a strong structure and build contextual content AI summaries and LLMs can be a great source of traffic. It is early days so investing in content and structure is a must. Drop me a note if you have other tips you see working or other brands doing it well!

You know when you have those conversations with people that open up your mind to new things? I legit just had one recently with my man John Kunz of VELOX Media talking about SEO and AI and all the impacts of what is happening. I had to share some of his thoughts, so with his permission, wanted to share these 8 points to be aware of in 2025 for AI and SEO: AI Changes the Rules, Not the Game SEO isn’t going anywhere, but AI is rewriting how it works. Google doesn’t just reward keywords anymore—it prioritizes user intent, trust, and authority. Focus on quality content and clear relevance. Schema Markup is Critical AI algorithms use schema to understand content structure. If your schema markup isn’t optimized, you’re invisible. Schema connects intent to authority, making it the backbone of future rankings. Intent Beats Keywords Google and AI-driven search tools like ChatGPT prioritize why people search, not just what they type. Are they learning, acting, or solving a problem? Create content aligned with intent, or you’ll miss the mark. Trust and Authority Decide Winners AI-generated content floods the web, but trust still rules. Build backlinks from respected sources and focus on producing content that helps, not just ranks. AI rewards authority, not fluff. Black Hat Tricks Don’t Work AI doesn’t fall for hidden keywords or cheap SEO hacks anymore. Trying to game the system will get you penalized. Focus on ethical, white-hat strategies that deliver long-term value. AI Content Needs Human Hands Flooding the market with AI content doesn’t help if it’s generic. Use meta-prompting to guide AI outputs, then refine them. High-quality content wins—quantity alone won’t cut it. Long-Tail Keywords Matter AI tools focus on long-tail keywords and context. They read between the lines of a query to understand the whole picture. Your content should do the same—comprehensive, clear, and contextual. AI Doesn’t Replace Fundamentals AI speeds up SEO but doesn’t replace the basics. Backlinks, linking strategies, and strong site structures are still essential. AI enhances what already works—it doesn’t reinvent it. AI elevates SEO, but it can’t fix bad strategy. Align your efforts with intent, trust, and authority while using AI to support instead of replacing your expertise. Thank you John Kunz! #AI #SEO #SearchStrategy