As SEO and content are intrinsically linked, we asked our SEO Strategist, James Chapman, and Content & PR Manager, Jenny Molloy and Technical SEO Manager, Gary Billington to share their perspectives on the future of search.
How do you perceive the growth of AI-powered search engines (Perplexity.ai, AI Overviews etc) changing the search landscape? Do you anticipate user behaviours changing with AI in search?
Gary: “I see the growth of AI-powered search engines, like Perplexity.ai and AI Overviews, as transformative for the search landscape. AI’s ability to curate content based on credibility and trust, shifts how results are ranked, prioritising authoritative sources over traditional SEO tactics. This evolution means that businesses will need to build a robust online authority and credibility within their industries to remain visible, as AI favours content that is both reliable and insightful.
I anticipate that user behaviours will also change as AI-driven search engines become more prevalent. With AI overviews providing more concise, direct answers at the top of search results, users are likely to depend less on browsing through multiple links, instead favouring quicker, contextually relevant information. This change will likely reduce dwell time on individual sites, as users find what they need within AI-curated summaries.
For SEO professionals, this means an increased focus on creating high-quality, well-researched content that can compete within the new, credibility-first AI landscape and capture attention by addressing users’ queries with precision and authority. Which really has always been the focus of a content or SEO, just well written and researched, relevant content.”
James: “At its peak, Twitter was able to deliver large volumes of traffic to publishers – however for large publishers this was a fraction of a percent of what organic delivered. And this is still much more than AI search engines are able to deliver.
For smaller publishers, I also don’t see any short term impact – however, growth is likely to become more of a struggle than it already is.
AI Overviews are readily shown in search results where users are asking questions. I’m expecting it to get harder for smaller publishers to justify creating the informational content which often answers these questions when Google’s own results are so prevalent.”
Jenny: “I think there’s likely to be an increase in misinformative results and brands will have to work harder to prove that they’re providing helpful content. We’ve seen cases where knowledgeable resources are further down the SERPS, with inaccurate answers being displayed higher up. That said, I do think when it does show accurate information it’s incredibly powerful. Many people are now using these, rather than looking any further for what they need.”
What significant changes have you observed in search over the past year? How have these changes impacted search strategies?
Gary: “I think one of the biggest changes in search in the last year alone, is the SERP’s themselves. Results are a lot more spread out in terms of page real estate and pixels from the top. Position to CTR rate models indicate that the lower the rank the less clicks you receive, but now positions 2 – 10 can be obscured by map packs, image banks, shopping carousels and even video shorts in some verticals. This change has become increasingly apparent over the last 12 months, more so than the year before. Now you could be 5 scrolls in before you hit result 2!”
James: “A decline in the quality of Google’s results has been a consistent theme of the last 2 years. The roll out of AI Overviews was hurried, mismanaged and came from a place of desperation rather than a drive to innovate. (Check out this article in The Decoder for the inside track).
Reddit’s organic visibility growth has been unprecedented, a likely reflection of the deal which has been done with Google to provide the content it needs to train its AI models.This undeserved promotion of reddit has compromised the quality of search results.
The same has can be said for sites like Forbes.com, who despite being a news publisher rank for topics it has no business being visible for. This wholesale deterioration of search result quality has made life extremely challenging for publishers, especially for those with smaller sites experiencing a profound loss of traffic.
The only action publishers can really take to counter this is to double down on improving content quality and authority. This is of course in the hope that Google make the necessary changes to rectify the problems with their poor search results. This approach also presents an opportunity to diversify content across different platforms (particularly video) to capitalise on the potential of rich results in SERPs.
2 recent events fuel my optimism:
In recent weeks, Google has taken action against Forbes. This demonstrates an apparent willingness to listen to widespread criticism.
Yesterday it was announced that Google is replacing the executive that’s been in charge of the company’s search engine and ads products throughout the decline in search quality.(). The hope is that Prabhakar Raghavan’s replacement, Nick Fox will signal a return to a quality first view of search results.”
Jenny: “Content is being pushed out at a rapid rate, which seems to be responsible for an alarming rise in inaccuracies. Whilst this might not have been a problem previously, AI doesn’t recognise the errors and rewards it with undeserved rankings leading to concerning misinformation. It’s interesting how ‘helpful’ content that was once deemed the vital backbone of search is now being undermined by content that often isn’t written by authorities, experts or even by those within the industry.”
What do you envisage being the most significant trend shaping the future of search in the next five years and what do you expect it to look like?
James: “There’s no getting away from AI, however it’s impossible to quantify the current (and therefore future) impact on the search industry. Google Search Console provides no data on click throughs from AI overviews, and the amount of traffic driven from the likes of perplexity is negligible.
If the fallout of the Google antitrust trial results in a break up of the current company, we may start to see more diversification in market share. That said, Google is so dominant I’d be surprised if any other competitor can make significant headway in 5 years. But I’d love to be completely wrong!”
Jenny: “Where article spinning, and keyword stuffing were the norm 15 years ago, I hope there will be a u-turn on content written by AI that doesn’t meet quality standards. AI is awesome for speed and helping to shape what’s needed for companies, but as with everything, where industries abuse it to get fast results, we need to see a change in how it’s rewarded.”
Gary: “AI and AEO is the obvious go to answer here but adoption rates and social adoption takes time. Not everyone is going to use it or trust it straight away. I think stronger brands will rise to the top and make SME businesses have a tougher challenge on their hands to rank through authority. Content will always be king. I for one will be watching the correlation of the search and TikTok landscapes over the next 12 months.”
