This time is serious, SEO is REALLY dying

You know what? I think people are getting a bit too dramatic about this whole "SEO is dead" thing. Like, yeah, I get it - AI is changing everything and it's honestly pretty scary to watch Google roll out these AI overviews that basically answer questions without anyone needing to click through to your site. But here's the thing... when people say "SEO is dead," they're really talking about one specific type of SEO dying, not the whole game.

What's actually dying is info content SEO - you know, those generic "what is X" or "how to do Y" blog posts that everyone and their mom has been churning out for years. And honestly? Good riddance. Most of that stuff was pretty mediocre anyway, just people trying to game the system with keyword-stuffed articles that barely helped anyone.

But here's where I think the doom-and-gloom crowd is missing the bigger picture. Two massive areas of SEO are going to not just survive, but actually become more important:

Local SEO Isn't Going Anywhere​

When someone's looking for a plumber at 2 AM because their toilet's overflowing, or they want to find the best pizza place near their office, AI can give them all the information in the world, but they're still going to need to actually go somewhere or have someone come to them. That local connection, that physical presence? That's not something AI can replace.

If anything, local businesses that nail their SEO game are going to have a huge advantage because there's going to be less competition in the search results. All those info blogs cluttering up local search results are going to disappear, making room for actual local businesses to shine.

Brand Searches Are About to Get Super Important​

Here's the thing - AI search is actually going to make the overall search market bigger. Think about it... when searching becomes as easy as having a conversation, people are going to search for way more stuff, way more often. And a huge chunk of those searches? They're going to be brand-specific.

This is honestly exciting news for those of us working as consultants and agencies. Every business - from the local coffee shop to Fortune 500 companies - is going to need help managing their brand presence across these AI search platforms.

It's like... we're not just competing for generic keyword rankings anymore. We're helping brands become the go-to answer when someone asks an AI about their specific niche. And since AI search is going to drive way more search volume overall, there's going to be a lot more opportunities to capture brand-focused traffic.

The Weird Paradox of Info Content​

Now here's where it gets interesting, and honestly a bit confusing. Even though info content won't drive traffic anymore, you'll probably still need to publish it. I know, I know - it sounds backwards, but hear me out.

Google's AI systems are still going to need to understand what your brand is about and whether you actually know your stuff. They call it "topical authority," but basically it means if you want to be cited by AI for marketing advice, you better have a bunch of quality marketing content on your site, even if nobody's reading it directly anymore.

It's like... you're not writing for humans to read anymore, you're writing to prove to the AI that you're legit.

pastilan said:

Where do humans get new knowledge, and how do they discover it? Do you really believe that AI can't learn to do the same? Is it reasonable to assume that AI will always rely solely on human input to gain new insights? AI isn't just parroting back what humans have already created, it's also learning how humans uncover new knowledge in the first place. It's studying the patterns, methods, and leaps of intuition that lead to discovery. And once it understands that process, who’s to say it won’t innovate on its own? SEO is very dead, accept it!

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How can LLMs discover new information?

They aren't alive. They aren't doing research. They aren't testing things. They aren't having experiences.

They just parrot patterns.

They can't innovate. They can reason by simulating what thinking in language looks like.

Very specific fine tuned research AIs can discover things in the areas they're fine-tuned in. But those are not AGIs the way 'AGI' is being marketed to the world.

And they need humans to innovate their creation and use.

But none of this is thing you should be focusing on.

The question to ask is: "Will people in their current dopamine-broken states even notice that there's very little interesting, fresh, unique experiential information available?"

Most people right now are just stuck like rats clicking and scrolling through X, youtube and fb.

Hype and fake news are what captures and retains attention.

So, do companies even need good information anymore to capture user attention, and thus monetize them?

Agreed!!! I think it may be happen!

You couldn't say SEO Is Dying, but the SEO industry is falling daily.

ValeVerga said:

For years we have laughed when someone asked ''is seo dead?''. Now, it's the sad truth, AI is killing traditional SEO and it will only get harder in the next few years.

Google now created an AI mode. Other search engines tend to follow their steps. Before that, they were creating AI overview and integrating AI. Nobody need to visit your unknown blog to read an AI generated boring text, they can do that directly on an AI model and get personalized answers.

For now, SEO is still alive, but in the coming years it tends to basically vanish from internet. It wouldn't be a surprise if AI mode soon completely replaces the search feature. So, there's no AI Mode in the future. There's only AI results, people click SEARCH and automatically AI start answering, no SERP. Bing and other alternatives are not against AI, no place to hide, it's not only Google.

So, what to do?

1) Pay: This is something that will never change. Nowadays if you want to easily appear on page 1, just pay for ads. In the future, if you want to be featured by AIs, just pay and it will shill your brand.

2) Optimize: If we don't want to invest $$ in the new Google A(I)ds, we'll need to figure out how those algorithms work and how they determine which kind of brand deserves to be mentioned when someone asks for it on their chat system. We will probably need to build some reputation, fake reviews, social mentions (not only links). Social media and videos tend to become much more relevant than guest posts. Instead of blog comments (it will become completely useless), comments on TikTok videos (or whatever social media is relevant in the future) will be much more important. The medium term future is social media + AI.

Just some predictions, share your thoughts too, please.

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Solid take. SEO’s not dead yet, but it’s definitely evolving. We’ll shift from ranking pages to ranking presence — social signals, brand mentions, and AI prompts. It’s gonna be less Google tricks, more brand game.

Do you face the same experiences;

I rarely find any information content or guides...? Then WTF type of content will google rank ,when they pushed out info content and guides?

For infos or a deeper guide, or marketing studies I must ask AI, but I'm not sure how accurate thevAI answer is?

Only commercial content ranks today- and longer articles not?

ValeVerga said:

For years we have laughed when someone asked ''is seo dead?''. Now, it's the sad truth, AI is killing traditional SEO and it will only get harder in the next few years.

Google now created an AI mode. Other search engines tend to follow their steps. Before that, they were creating AI overview and integrating AI. Nobody need to visit your unknown blog to read an AI generated boring text, they can do that directly on an AI model and get personalized answers.

For now, SEO is still alive, but in the coming years it tends to basically vanish from internet. It wouldn't be a surprise if AI mode soon completely replaces the search feature. So, there's no AI Mode in the future. There's only AI results, people click SEARCH and automatically AI start answering, no SERP. Bing and other alternatives are not against AI, no place to hide, it's not only Google.

So, what to do?

1) Pay: This is something that will never change. Nowadays if you want to easily appear on page 1, just pay for ads. In the future, if you want to be featured by AIs, just pay and it will shill your brand.

2) Optimize: If we don't want to invest $$ in the new Google A(I)ds, we'll need to figure out how those algorithms work and how they determine which kind of brand deserves to be mentioned when someone asks for it on their chat system. We will probably need to build some reputation, fake reviews, social mentions (not only links). Social media and videos tend to become much more relevant than guest posts. Instead of blog comments (it will become completely useless), comments on TikTok videos (or whatever social media is relevant in the future) will be much more important. The medium term future is social media + AI.

Just some predictions, share your thoughts too, please.

Click to expand...

It will not make much difference to seo guys. Those who are smart enough to game google for years will find something else as their source of living.

Happy Sunday to all !

Guys, yep it's weird today with the google serps, hard to find informational content or good deep guides, they are all pushed down or wiped out and replaced with google AI overview.

Now I ask you, damm which type and format of content will rank good in the serps nowadays? Only commercial intent content, products, then they only show up in the serps when you paid google ads for it ? Then how bigger sites with good longer content (informational) like Tim Ferris here as an example, ranks good in google when AI overview kicked out informational content? Seth Godin on the other side has only short quotes on his blog and he ranks good (featured snippet at the top now) .

Bing is little bit similar, give me better more accurate search results and Duckduckgo. But when your site is rank good in Bing and DDG to you get similar traffic like google or 10% less ?

The writing was on the wall when pages started getting visited mostly by AI chatbots that don't click on ads.

I'm not sure how webmasters will deal with this.

nvlus said:

The writing was on the wall when pages started getting visited mostly by AI chatbots that don't click on ads.

I'm not sure how webmasters will deal with this.

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Whaaaaaat? The writing was on the wall ? What does this mean ?

Marco69 said:

Whaaaaaat? The writing was on the wall ? What does this mean ?

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When ChatGPT obtained web search capability, everyone started using that instead of going to Google themselves and clicking on links.

ValeVerga said:

For years we have laughed when someone asked ''is seo dead?''. Now, it's the sad truth, AI is killing traditional SEO and it will only get harder in the next few years.

Google now created an AI mode. Other search engines tend to follow their steps. Before that, they were creating AI overview and integrating AI. Nobody need to visit your unknown blog to read an AI generated boring text, they can do that directly on an AI model and get personalized answers.

For now, SEO is still alive, but in the coming years it tends to basically vanish from internet. It wouldn't be a surprise if AI mode soon completely replaces the search feature. So, there's no AI Mode in the future. There's only AI results, people click SEARCH and automatically AI start answering, no SERP. Bing and other alternatives are not against AI, no place to hide, it's not only Google.

So, what to do?

1) Pay: This is something that will never change. Nowadays if you want to easily appear on page 1, just pay for ads. In the future, if you want to be featured by AIs, just pay and it will shill your brand.

2) Optimize: If we don't want to invest $$ in the new Google A(I)ds, we'll need to figure out how those algorithms work and how they determine which kind of brand deserves to be mentioned when someone asks for it on their chat system. We will probably need to build some reputation, fake reviews, social mentions (not only links). Social media and videos tend to become much more relevant than guest posts. Instead of blog comments (it will become completely useless), comments on TikTok videos (or whatever social media is relevant in the future) will be much more important. The medium term future is social media + AI.

Just some predictions, share your thoughts too, please.

Click to expand...

You have the correct statement for the overall SEO For blogging point but .....


Service-providing websites like massage, SEO services, or SQL providers they can still survive in this era. But I don't think they will last in the future, because AI will be able to generate SQL queries, develop complete website scripts, and so on. However, at some point, clients and agencies will still need us to handle and manage the AI.

This is the era of viral audiovisual marketing because users these days have so little attention span thanks to the shorts style content ecosystem that's been propped up by the corps.

It's not even vlogging nowadays. It's pure information overload in the form of short form media that over stimulate your brain and literally fries your CNS gradually.

SEO is dead but new avenues of online income are rising but I'm more concerned about your average internet user from the newer generation. You have to degrade yourself to be even remotely marketable to the new gen (I've seen the kind of viral shorts companies and service providers are posting across social media to appeal to the new generation).

nvlus said:

When ChatGPT obtained web search capability, everyone started using that instead of going to Google themselves and clicking on links.

Click to expand...

Ufffff I was a bit shocked, hehehehe, why using these damm dystopian words today? Speak clear my friend! Thank you for that information.

I don’t think SEO will ever die. It will endure as long as the online world exists—only its form will evolve over time.

VikingWannabe said:

This is the era of viral audiovisual marketing because users these days have so little attention span thanks to the shorts style content ecosystem that's been propped up by the corps.

It's not even vlogging nowadays. It's pure information overload in the form of short form media that over stimulate your brain and literally fries your CNS gradually.

SEO is dead but new avenues of online income are rising but I'm more concerned about your average internet user from the newer generation. You have to degrade yourself to be even remotely marketable to the new gen (I've seen the kind of viral shorts companies and service providers are posting across social media to appeal to the new generation).

Click to expand...

CNS ??? Ufffff... ok examples of new people like; katecassidy.online or sunnyleonarduzzi.com, tiny website portfolio, the other has a little blog on it that's all. Both are present on social media and youtube to get traffic and clients every month, without spending ads. Both got their yt channel growed up fast to 25k subscribers within 5 month.

Or example; ralphsmart.com has only a tiny site with his embedded youtube videos , he is present on social media and patreon.

So then this will be the new way (or become an influencer which can take a few years) out of organic google AI algo seo, to get traffic and clients, you mentioned in your thread
above ?

Happy Sunday !