Aleyda Solis breaks down the week's SEO news: Google says AI search hasn't killed traffic overall, but clicks are shifting toward Reddit and YouTube instead of independent sites. SEO isn't dead, it's evolving into GEO (generative engine optimization). GPT-5's browsing tool works better with Bing results than Google's.
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Let's go through the top news in SEO and AI search in today's edition of the SEO FOMO Too Long, Didn't Read, sponsored by Similarweb. This week in a new revamped edition of the SEO FOMO newsletter, in which I already highlight, as you can see here, this week's biggest search stories, I start with an article from Liz Waid from Google saying how AI in search is driving more queries and higher quality clicks. She says that with AI overviews and more recently AI mode, they have been able to keep sending as much traffic to website as well. Also highlights how the data that they have contradict third-party reports about a decline in aggregate traffic, often based on flawed methodologies, isolated examples, or traffic changes that occur prior to the rollout of AI features in search. It's very interesting for me that they took the effort to write this piece because it really feels that it is a reaction or an answer to so many reports and people complaining about the drop in the organic search traffic, not only independent websites, but also major publications, especially those relying on informational queries that we know that had been the most hit. By the great decoupling because the piece doesn't say literally anything else other than traffic is not really decreasing and other than they will continue to help businesses and creators and website size the opportunities as they build the future together. I went through the piece analyzing what she said, and I think that the angle that she took in the piece is very, very important here. Because she mentions that the dramatic traffic decline reported due to third-party reports is based on flawed methodologies or isolated examples. Realistically, most of the screenshots and shares that we see around are from first-party Google Search Console and Analytics data, not third-party data on one hand. And even the Google Search Relations teams have showcased and acknowledged that there has been drops in clicks. And what we can expect on the other hand is that the clicks that the websites keep are high quality. But I don't think that nobody at this point had disagreed that there has been a decrease in clicks to websites. But here's the thing. She mentioned how while overall traffic to sites is relatively stable, the web is vast and users' trends are shifting traffic to different websites. Resulting in decreased traffic to some sites and increased traffic to others. Also mentioning how people are increasingly seeking out and clicking on sites like forums, videos, and podcasts. So I think this is where the key is. So if we read between lines, this might explain the high-level claim that AI search hasn't hurt the traffic sent to websites overall, simply because the traffic as a whole by Google hasn't decreased. But most of this traffic is being sent to the big UGC websites and platforms that they are showcasing more, like Reddit, that they have an agreement with, and YouTube, which is also Google at the end of the day. So of course, the ones that end up getting hurt are the independent sites. Additionally, she mentions that as a search company, they care about the health of the web ecosystem and will continue to send billions of clicks to the websites, although realistically, if more and more of these clicks are going to bigger platforms owned by big corporations like Google and their partners, at the end of the day, it does end up hurting the web ecosystem. So at least good to hear that the overall traffic hasn't decreased, but the traffic that you actually send to independent websites has, and that is what is concerning. And it would be particularly great if you allow us to better understand understand the behavior of this AI search traffic by providing filters and easy segmentations in Google Search Console and Google Analytics. On the other hand, the other big piece of the week was this article from the New York Magazine about SEO is dead, say hello to geo. Sorry that I have already accessed it a few times and I am not able anymore to see it, but it says pretty much how SEO is now dead because more and more users are using AI search platforms and GEO or generative engine optimization is meant to overtake SEO as a discipline. Even if in that post, it's also explained how there's a very high overlap though, with a few nuances, right? So I think that at the end of the day, it was the heading that wanted to do a little bit of clickbaiting here. I was one of those interviewees. For the article. So I also wanted to clarify a little bit my stance here in this LinkedIn post that I did a few days back, mentioning how even if it is very obvious that search is shifting, that doesn't mean that SEO is dead. On one hand, AI search is still a fraction of what traditional search is still today and is meant to change in the future. That also doesn't mean that SEO dies, but only shifts, expands, and evolve to optimize for these AI platforms as discovery channels. I also clarify that SEO is at the end of the day about findability, whatever the platform the audience uses. So we know that there is already specialists focusing on TikTok or YouTube as platforms, and they do SEO for YouTube or SEO for TikTok, but we don't say that SEO has died for them at the end of the day. Also about SEO becoming another thing and having to be called differently, GEO, AIO, or whatever you want to call it. There are a lot of different takes about this in our industry. And at the end of the day, I prefer to call it as my clients do. For me, it's optimizing for AI search. If my clients and decision makers want to call it differently, I will do accordingly because the least that we need at this point is to confuse them, making them think that we're not the best to optimize for this new channel on one hand, and we are, and how We are not able to keep up and shift what we do. So I think that connecting with our audience and decision makers in this case is critical. Speaking of the relevance of SEO also in a new search reality, it's interesting to see how Google is pitching here AI mode ads to advertisers in this coverage by Barry Schwartz. He shares information that Google is sending explaining AI mode and how ads will work for them. Even more interesting is that they have included some SEO guidance in the information that they have sent, focusing on unique, valuable content for people, ensuring we can access your content, crawlability, indexability remaining critical here, and understanding the full value of your visits. Nothing groundbreaking, but it's interesting to see how SEO plays a prominent role that is even highlighted here to advertisers. The other big news of the week was the introduction of GPT-5, the new model from ChatGPT. A few have complained about it, even if it is meant to be a big leap, a big evolution from the previous model. Josh Bliskell from Profound shared a few initial insights from testing GPT-5 browsing, highlighting that direct search behavior is asymmetric. GPT-5 could not scrape a live Google results page, falling back to its own custom pipeline, which is something that I have noticed as well in a few tests. But it could parse a live Bing SERP when instructed it to open the exact URL. Overall, he sees that GPT-4's OmniSearch has been trending closer to Google and GPT-5 Browse feels ever so slightly more Bing anchored for what it can scrape, but still fundamentally proprietary blended in what it returns. Chris Green also did an initial analysis and highlighted a few key questions and observations that I highly, highly recommend you to take a look. Last but not least, I want to thank again Similarweb for having sponsored today's SEO Formula to Learn and Read. I want to highlight that Similarweb has actually just released GenAI as a new channel that they showcase in their reports, allowing you to compare the traffic coming from LLMs versus your competitors, facilitating benchmarks and putting the channel in context versus others. So if you haven't yet, go and check it out. Remember to subscribe to the SEO FOMO News newsletter now with the revamped design, making it much easier to go through and my additional commentary in the newsletter as well. And if you don't want to wait until the next week for the latest SEO and AI search news, go and take a look at the SEO FOMO News aggregator where you are able to keep up in real time with all of it. Thank you very much. Subscribe to the channel, like the video as well. So you get an alert next time that I publish a new edition. Until the next one, bye-bye!
