What people think AI search is:
- llms.txt
- Schema
- .md pages
- AEO hacks
- Writing for AI
- GEO services
What AI search actually is:
- SEO
- Reviews
- Backlinks
- Earned media
- Owned content
- YouTube videos
- Brand mentions
- Google rankings
- Topical authority
- Entity consistency
- Comparison pages
- Community threads
- Industry publications
- Third-party recommendations
AI search needs to be treated as an expansion of SEO, not a completely different channel.
Google updates help doc to say LLMS.txt won't help or hurt you in Google Search and Google Search does not use them or markdown files https://t.co/e5fsojWrN0
After Google’s May 2026 core update, Reddit is taking the #1 spot in Google more often.
The number of keywords where Reddit ranked first grew by 54% compared with March — from 8,993 to 13,872.
That’s a different story from "Reddit gained share."
Wider presence in the top 3 is one thing. Taking the top spot outright is a stronger signal about what Google now treats as the best answer to a query.
Read the full study ↓
https://t.co/XtuVcNZaRl
Average SEO:
"Write 30 blog posts"
"Add keywords to your pages"
"Run a site audit"
"Check your rankings"
Good SEO:
"Write 30 posts mapped to one topical cluster"
"Match your H1 and meta title to the keyword. Exactly."
"Run a site audit, then actually fix the issues"
"Check rankings, then update the pages on positions 11–20"
KNOWING SEO > Knowing SEO
AI Bros: "SEO is dead because people are now searching via LLMs" 🤡
Here's the data/facts backed reality 👇
1. ChatGPT had 5.8B visits in August 2025 vs Google 83.8B visits. Yes, ChatGPT traffic is growing but still *far* away to what Google drives. (data from Similarweb)
2. Even if ChatGPT continues to grow like crazy: The reality is that it shares 95% of its audience with Google. People use ChatGPT along with Google (instead of replacing it) and for many other use cases than the ones they use Google (eg. task oriented requests). (data via Similarweb)
3. LLMs still only brings less than 5% of revenue to most sites, while SEO still brings +50% of revenue. (The SEOFOMO AI Search Optimization Survey).
4. LLMs answers also rely on grounding (retrieving real-time external information via their search integration beyond its static memory) when current, factual information is needed, this means SEO is vital for it.
5. ChatGPT is even using Google search results via APIs (besides Bing’s one) when grounding is needed for their answers as reported by The Information, which some SEOs, including myself had tested first-hand: https://t.co/cvZGMTgaOv
6. The principles and pillars of SEO remain when optimizing for AI Search: Crawlability, indexability, content relevance, EEAT and popularity towards the relevant audience behavior ... what changes are criteria we use to optimize based on the specific platforms characteristics (eg. different user agents, lack of JS rendering capacity, shifts in search behavior, bigger role of citations).
7. Let's also not forget that SEO goes beyond optimizing for Google. SEO is about optimizing for any platform used as a search channel. There's SEO for YouTube, SEO for TikTok. So even if Google traditional search interface is not used anymore... there will be SEO (or whatever you want to call it) for AI search platforms (Google's own AI Mode, ChatGPT or Perplexity) or any other platform used as a search channel to drive visibility, traffic and revenue to businesses. It doesn't matter how you call it and want to brand it, if SEO/GEO/AIO/etc.: We will continue optimizing the platform the audience uses.
TL;DR: LLMs are expanding and evolving (not killing) search as a discovery/marketing channel, and yes, some shifts will be needed but if you've been doing SEO for a while, as I have since 2007 you know how search platforms and user behavior are always shifting. The SEO I do now has nothing to do with what I started with back in 2007... and I remember how some were saying SEO was dying already back then.
Let's move forward together to continue evolving responsibly as an industry, bringing impact and results to clients/businesses, and avoid the noise!
Google's March 2024 core update is not done yet - seeing volatility and a spike in chatter over the weekend - @glenngabe also shared some eye-popping charts again - have you seen weekend movement? More at https://t.co/lsYIi3svps