Is Google Killing SEO?

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Short answer: yes, google is killing SEO, slowly but surely.
 
SEO is always changing, recent google updates focus on AI-generated content and low-quality spammy sites. It’s best to wait until things settle down and keep working on high-quality sites with a strong backlink profile.
 
SEO is constantly evolving. Although it is tougher for smaller sites, prioritizing user experience,
establishing authority and expanding traffic channels can still drive solid results.
 
splishsplash said:
It's better than ever for many industries.

What's dead are info sites and review sites. Only the big authority sites rank for those now, or forums/reddit etc.

And info is being increasingly dominated by AI.

But business services and ecom are easier than ever to rank.

Local you can still dominate.

It's just most small SEO guys lives were info/ads/affiliate/review, so it *seems* like it's game over, but you just have to pivot.

I have ZERO info clients, and I can't even think of a single affiliate I have out of 150+ active SEO clients in my business.

They are all business services, ecom and local.

In 2018-2019, about 80-90% of my clients were affiliates.. The industry has REALLY changed.

You can still rank info, but you have to make your site transparent. Google is only ranking visible entities. That's why ecom/businesses rank, but random wordpress blogs with no address/visible owner just go nowhere for most niches.

But I wouldn't bother starting info sites at this late stage in the game. They are only going to get harder and more specialist.

Really, info has moved to video these days. No one wants to read, and when they do they want instant AI answers.

The next 5 years is the era of organic ecom. There are MASSIVE opportunities. Amazon only covers common items. They don't cover anywhere near as much as you think, and hence there are wide open opportunities in so many niches to build 8 and 9 figure empires.
Click to expand...
My business was 60% affiliate marketing and 40% Google AdSense. At the moment, only the AdSense part is still standing, but the entire affiliate marketing part has died. Besides, Amazon with its program monopolized Google's SERPs from 2012 until 2022. Then things started to change, and Google literally threw these sites out of the game.

It's not that you can't make money with affiliate marketing today, it's just that you have to spend so much to get so little that the game is no longer worth the candle. Maybe it's still convenient for those who want to learn SEO and start from scratch, it is an excellent school. But creating solid roots, without partnerships with the sites that are dominating, seems really unfeasible.
 
You're not wrong—it’s gotten tough. Google’s leaning hard into AI answers and favoring authority sites. But SEO isn’t dead, just evolving. The game now is branding, topical authority, user signals, and content that stands out. Focus on EEAT, build a loyal audience, and explore platforms beyond Google too. Still ways to win—just a different playbook.
 
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