“Googling” something is now common language in the same way that “Hoovering” has been since in the mid 20th century. While Hoovering still means to use a vacuum cleaner, the meaning of Googling is starting to change.
The market dominant search engine is currently morphing into an “answer engine“. Before, you would search for something on Google and then click a link to find information. Now Google and many other companies are encouraging users to find information without ever clicking a link. New services like AI Overviews are causing a growing number of Zero Click Searches causing organic traffic to fall in recent months.
But organic traffic isn’t just falling because of changes to Search Engine Results Pages (SERPS). Services like ChatGPT and Perplexity also appear to be partly responsible. They allow people to “search” for information without ever reaching the website source the information came from.
There are legitimate doubts of the accuracy of AI Overviews. There are also concerns over increased LLM hallucinations. Whether the information is accurate or not, how users find your site and how often people visit is changing. What we can do about it isn’t immediately obvious so we called on some experts to help. In this article Dave Peiris, head of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) at Propellernet helps shed some light on what’s happening in SEO at the moment and how to navigate it.
Summary
- Robust, reliable, fast and performant sites remain the goal. All search engines currently prioritise such sites.
- Well structured, human focussed and authoritative content is still what people and search engines want.
- Where your site features on a results page is just as important as it ever was.
- Adapting content and pages towards more specific search terms could pay dividends.
- A diverse marketing and “discoverability” strategy is key in 2025
- Economic realities and backlashes against AI may yet have a role to play in search.
- Independent and non-commercial players could be disruptors in the near future.
Discoverability fundamentals
Let’s start with the basics.
While SERPs have changed, the fundamentals for technical SEO haven’t, particularly in the case of Google. Sites with strong technical foundations and good performance metrics are more likely to rank highly for organic search results and in AI summaries.
The view from Propellernet:
“All of the principles of technical SEO still very much apply. You want to do as good a job as possible of ensuring all of your content is well structured and easy for Googlebot (or another web crawler) to parse.”
Position and rank on results pages remains important. Given that AI summaries appear at the top of the page, organisations are increasingly targeting these sections to maintain authority. High search rankings coupled with strong technical SEO helps here in two ways. Dave explains that Google’s AI overviews are partly based on the Gemini model but also grounded in organic search results. They use a process called Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) which passes new, relevant information into the AI model before a response is generated.
“In Google’s case for AI Overviews, the new information passed into the model are the top pages that rank organically in Google. So the higher you rank organically, the more likely you are to inform the AI overview and be cited as a source.”
Other platforms work slightly differently. Dave says that:
“Non-Google crawlers also don’t seem to execute JavaScript (probably because it’s quite slow and expensive to do so at web scale). This changes the game if you want to have more control over how you appear in ChatGPT. It’s more old school “like going back to technical SEO from 10 years ago”.”
There are many reasons for an organisation to try and opt out of Search Engines crawling their sites for AI summaries. Those trying to protect IP and content on ethical grounds aren’t penalised as such. Blocking Google’s AI crawlers but allowing Googlebot to facilitate page indexing, means you’ll still appear in organic search results. At present, this doesn’t appear to result in any punitive action or downgrading of search ranking across the major search engines.
Away from search, ChatGPT and other LLMs are slightly different propositions. Blocking access to them means they can’t use your information. You won’t appear in an answer and won’t therefore be cited. Whether this presents authoritative or traffic issues is not yet clear.
In essence, the game has changed but how you play it hasn’t. A site still needs to be written using clear markup and hierarchy, load quickly and contain useful pertinent information.
Has discoverability strategy changed?
Yes and no.
As you’ll note from the advice above, many of the best practices on technical SEO remain. The difference is that it appears to be driving less traffic to sites.
So what can we do to mitigate these changes?
One thing is to adapt to the new ways people are searching for information. Search is becoming more personalised and queries are becoming longer and more detailed. The example Dave gave me was about running shoes. He says:
“In the past you might have seen millions of people searching for “running shoes”. The near future might see more queries like: “the best running shoes for people who run pronated, tend to prefer distance running on flat terrain, and have had knee problems in the past so take it slower.”
This type of query might come from people using voice to speech features on devices. It might be from an AI deciding that’s the right query based on user data. Either way the specificity is the key.
For purpose driven organisations and businesses this might mean being more specific about your products and services. For Wholegrain it might mean we break down and describe the digital sustainability services we offer in a different way. Dave suggests that a “Best for” type section could help in the new model.
As an example our Website Carbon Audit might be described as “Best for large organisations looking to assess and reduce their website emissions“.
Our Digital Sustainability Workshops could be “Best for organisations asking “How can we reduce the environmental impact of our digital estate?” “.
This small change could prove useful for human users looking for solutions as well as “agentic” AI or LLMs.
“I think the days of pumping out huge amounts of content in order to appear in search results are on the decline”
There might be an interesting side effect from a digital degrowth point of view. This focus on specificity might mean a decline in pumping out huge levels of generic content. Dave advocates for diverse methods of brand and awareness building.
The irony of so called digital solutions like LLMs is that it might see more efforts put towards human connectivity such as:
- In person events
- Newsletters
- Digital round tables and webinars
- Branded Discord servers or Sub-Reddits
- Digital PR
Synthetic content or dare I say it, slop, proliferates the modern internet. Building authentic connections with your audience has never been more important.
Speculation on the future of search and AI summaries
While AI and LLMs are everywhere, it’s worth considering what the future might look like. Many AI products feel like they are fishing around for a solid use case. There’s also a question of whether these businesses will ever reach viable profitability. I think we might see a limiting of free tier access and a ramping up of costs as VC firms seek returns on investment.
Under those circumstances there are some more philosophical questions to consider when it comes to strategy. I asked Dave how he felt about organisations blocking AI crawlers and opting out of the game (as far as is possible). He saw this as an ethical consideration. News Organisations and publishers in particular have issues with their content being used without explicit consent. The New York Times, for example, blocks GPTBot and Google-Extended from crawling their content.
There are budget implications to being open to AI crawling too. At Wholegrain we’ve seen charity sites experiencing huge amounts of bandwidth being used by AI crawlers. Going over band width quotas increases website hosting costs at a time when charities and not for profits are seeing funding squeezed.
Ultimately you need to understand the implications of blocking AI crawlers from your site. Your competitors might not be as ethically minded (if you see this as an ethical question) and could steal a march on you. Alternatively an ethical stance of AI combined with a human approach to brand building could be highly effective.
The small matter of truth
The question of human truth and AI summaries also came up. Users often see search results that appear higher up the page as a source of truth or authority. We don’t know enough about how truthful users view AI overviews even when they contain inaccuracies. Users who are used to ignoring the sponsored ads at the top of the page might scroll to the organic results out of habit.
A potential backlash against the new search norms
Propellernet are taking pragmatic steps for themselves and their clients in the face of the new normal. But that doesn’t mean they can’t see an alternative future. Dave acknowledges that AI summaries on all search engines are incredibly divisive. On the one hand Google and others tell us that users are engaging with the overviews and use this as evidence of assent. But social media is full of anecdotes about AI slop and inaccurate LLM generated content. Any company going all in on new, AI heavy, user interfaces might be subject to a backlash.
A smaller player like Ecosia, DuckDuckGo might go back to what Dave describes as a “10 blue links approach”.
We might even see more independence in the search industry. Projects like OpenWebSearch.eu open the way for new players to gain traction with “ethical” search platforms. While they might not overtake Google,the possibility of more competition from more transparent sources feels like an important and hopeful one.
Wrapping up
So there we are. The search landscape is changing but in many ways the situation for businesses and organisations hasn’t changed at all that much. For all the billions of dollars invested in AI “winning” the SEO game still requires the same things. Solid fundamentals, authentic useful content and diversified channels for messaging and engaging with your audience.
Plus ça change, rien n’a changé.
Thanks to Propellernet for their invaluable input on this article.
Enormous thanks to Dave for his time and expertise in answering our questions and shedding light on the topic. Thanks too to Propellernet general manager Gill Sheen for facilitating things.
Propellernet is a team of search experts, storytellers and strategists, helping ambitious brands unlock value across performance and brand marketing. They are AI-enabled, human-led and propelled by purpose.
Since 2003, their mission has remained consistent: to hire great people, deliver outstanding work and enjoy the process along the way. A focus on innovation has driven the creation of tools such as AnswerThePublic, Blackbird, CoverageBook and Hidden Keywords.
