SEO is not going anywhere, anytime soon.
That’s a bold statement to make.
You would say, “Hey Nishant, how are you so sure? The experts are saying SEO is dead.”
True, many experts do say so. However, most of these experts have a vested interest in propagating such narratives.
For example, some are into paid ads marketing services, and they want you to be using PPC services and not be reliant on SEO. There are others who want you to buy their new courses because they are not able to drive the same revenue from SEO. There are tons of other reasons for people to support the narrative “SEO is dead.”
Anyway, let’s not get into that. We have some serious questions to look at –
- Will SEO be obsolete in the coming years?
- Will SEO specialists get replaced by AI?
- The most important one, WILL SEO be dead?
Read this insight to the end, and comment on your apprehensions, questions, or viewpoints in the comments section to get the conversation going.
First, let’s understand what you need to know to judge if SEO will become obsolete over time.
To understand whether SEO is dead or not, you should be someone who has been doing SEO for a while now. Nonetheless, to predict whether SEO will continue to be a significant source/medium of traffic for your industry, you need to know the ins and outs of SEO.
To start with, let’s look at SEO from all possible angles, and then think “Will SEO be dead?”
I’m sure, doing so will help you get a clear picture.
When you have a holistic understanding of how SEO has evolved over the past two decades, you’ll be able to
- See the future of SEO.
- Judge what SEO’s fate will be in the coming years without requiring any SEO pandits’ forecast.
- Better strategize your marketing plans for your startup.
Where do you start for a better understanding?
Simple. Explore how SEO has evolved over the years.
One of the best ways to do so is to read about all the major search algorithm updates that Google rolled out over the years.
When you go through the search algorithm update timeline, you will observe that Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has been continuously evolving all throughout; and for the better.
It’s not the first time people are propagating the idea that “SEO will be dead.”
However, there is a difference between why people used to paddle this narrative earlier vs now. And it’s important to understand that ‘why.’ One we have already shared is that people have hidden financial incentives behind making you believe SEO is not where you should invest your time/money. In the next section, read another reason.
The ‘WHY’ behind people paddling ‘SEO IS DEAD’ narrative
SEO algorithm updates over the years have been crucial for search engines in gaining ground against black hat SEO practiotioners.
I’ve been following SEO since 2011.
I’ve seen firsthand how search engine companies, Google in particular, have been continuously upgrading their content indexing and ranking systems.
Their emphasis has always been on fixing the loopholes in the existing search algorithms, empowering the good content creators, and disempowering the black-hat SEO guys. The core intent was to improve the outcomes for the audience, the publisher, and the SEM advertiser.
For example,
- In the early 2000s a series of Google updates in algorithm targeted at dynamic indexing, anchor text relevance, and backlink calculations were introduced to enhance the relevance and freshness of search results.
- The Google algorithm updates in the 2010s were all about upgraded backlink evaluation and scoring, EAT principles, and embracing NLP into the search engines.
And every time the black hat SEO practitioners were punched in the face by SEO algorithm updates from search engines, they started crying “SEO is dead.”
Are you getting it?
It’s like traders in the stock market are told that as per new regulations, you can’t manipulate any stock to scam money inflow/outflow, and traders start whining “Stock market doesn’t work anymore!”
How is that not dumb?
To me, it is dumb and hilarious too.
Well, that explains the ‘why’ behind the “SEO is dead” narrative up until a few years ago i.e., before ChatGPT entered the scene.
ChatGPT came and completely rehauled how content gets created.
Now, we are in a phase that in the future would be looked upon as the years when the content creation industry went through a tectonic shift. Just like how we look upon the early 1990s and 2000s as the years that transformed how media and publishing houses function.
The Real Concern About SEO in 2025
Now, the SEO algorithm updates of 2020s so far have been dominated by EEAT, and generative AI, aka., search generative experience.
The search algorithm update timeline will hint at that. Because of the focus on EEAT, maybe now, we are at a point where creators are far more empowered than those who rely on tricky, clickbait content to drive traffic.
But wait…if only things got that simple ever for original content creators.
Just when creators were almost convinced that soon after a series of core upgrades, good creators would get enough engagement that they are worthy of, and not be defeated on SERPs by black hat practitioners, the ChatGPT GUI application was dropped in the market.
That was phenomenal. People almost didn’t believe what they were witnessing.
There was a tool that created content that passed plagiarism testing tools, and grammar error checking tools and was creating factually correct information without costing you a dime (not literally though). The cherry on the cake, this tool wrote content far better than an average writer.
Many started using the tool to create content for the search engines. They ranked. They got traffic too. Yet, people are saying “SEO is dead.” Why?
Why people are saying that ‘SEO is or will be dead’ is because of the shift in how users search information
Two things you need to understand at this point-
One, everyone is scared that when generative AI tools are able to answer your queries and give you what you are looking for without you requiring to open a site and look for specific information, why would people use traditional search engines?
Two, search engines like Google and Bing are themselves molding into SGE-led search engines, wherein they use genAI to answer queries by producing generative AI content right in the search engine. This leads to a situation where a user searches for a keyword- a couple of links appear for the keyword, but the user gets the query answered by genAI-generated content from the search engine itself, and the human content creators receive zero clicks.
So, most of those who relied on ad revenue from informational and navigational content lost significant traffic due to one or both of the aforementioned reasons.
Recently, many of those negligent about SEO hygiene, esp EEAT, were penalized by Google. Some got completely de-indexed.
But the major reason why people are saying that ‘SEO is or will be dead’ is because of the shift in how users search information.
So, shouldn’t we be worried that SEO CAN BE DEAD?
Thankfully, the changes in how we search are not that abrupt.
Thanks to human psychology, we take time to change habits. This is exactly why some very innovative products that are ahead of time don’t survive (Hey, Google Lens).
Anyway, the point is that most people are still using Google. There is not much change in the keyword search volumes on Google. And it’s not going to change abruptly anytime in the next 1-2 years. It will take time.
But this evolution of how people search is sooner or later inevitable.
The only thing that may stop it is government regulations to protect the rights of ‘information’ writers.
But c’mon, we know how governments function.
Plus, search platforms and organizations have the motive to evolve into SGE or conversational chatbot-led search platforms, because then they have to share far less ad revenue with content publishers compared to what they share now.
So yeah, expecting the government to stop this shift is almost delusional.
By the way, commercial keywords are also not that far from the reach of these AI platforms. So, the only keywords that are safe now are branded and transactional keywords.
My Personal Take On This HOT Topic
See, there are a couple of things-
- Google is not our relative’s company. Neither is Bing, nor any xyzGPT. So, we have no reason to be sentimental about which companies are going to survive and which won’t. Hence, there is no reason to be psychic about the shift in search behavior that’s happening. But yeah, some entrepreneurs have a history of being greedy about money (Microsoft), while others are less greedy about money and just ask enough to survive the equations of capitalism (Google). So, who decides the course of where the search is headed is going to be somewhat important for us, but that’s not a problem for you to be concerned about as a business professional. Because you can barely influence that. Topics like these are something of interest to search engines or AI brand fanatics. They make money out of this. They will try creating chaos because they enjoy it. Besides, they are good at it. They will present the topics to you in such a way that you would feel it’s a problem that you need to pay attention to. But ask yourself, do you have reasons to participate in it? If not, then don’t participate.
- I understand that the first thought you would have going through the search shift in how people search is, “Oh, what will happen to my business when SEO is dead, how will I get leads?” If you are an SEO expert professional, you might worry “What will happen if my job role doesn’t have enough opportunities in the market?”… and 10s of similar and scary questions. But hey “To panic is never the solution.” You must know that these conversational chat companies too need to make money. They have no feasible reasons to kill your business. So, even if let’s say the current search behavior completely shifts to new-age platforms, still SEO will exist. Maybe, people will rename it to AIO (Artificial Intelligence Optimization), GAIO (Generative AI Optimization), SGEO (Search Generative Experience Optimization), or something else. But these platforms would need to send traffic to your company’s digital assets if they want to make money. Because I doubt a lot that a billion people will pay even $1 a month to these AI platforms to search for something.
So, chill. SEO may get repackaged into AIO, GAIO, or SGEO…but it’s not going anywhere. On a different note, guys, I think this is high time we educate ourselves about the branding game. Because that’s the arena where the battle of clicks would be fought in the near future. More on that in some other insight. If you have a counter view on this blog, share it in the comments below. Or ping me on LinkedIn. If you liked this blog, please share it on LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter. Send the link of this blog to your colleagues on WhatsApp, or wherever they are.
Tada, Long live SEO.
