Today, the Search Marketing industry is facing the biggest confusion ever. At least, since I have joined this tide.
Everyone is arguing whether SEO is dead or not. There have been many times when this debate took place and then faded away. This time, it’s not going away, and I don’t think it will.
Over the years, Google has remained the dominant player in the space with unchallenged superiority. Search meant Google, and Google meant search. Nobody came close to it. We could hardly imagine a competitor to Google in the search space.
Today, it’s shaken.
Their entire ecosystem is trembling not because of any company, but because of technological evolution itself. Of course Google is still ahead of the game, but smaller brands can move and experiment much faster than Google can, and that’s where Google is failing.
I feel the confusion, I feel the need to have a clear path forward.
So I’m writing this open letter to founders, business owners, and executives who are torn between believing SEO is dead and moving on, or simply changing traditional SEO practices to adapt to the new search marketing landscape.
Let’s begin.
Why You Should Care
“SEO is dead” is not a new phrase. But this time, the threat is real.
In the past, Google has flipped the SERP towards different directions. Sometimes they would prefer big publishers. Sometimes they would rank forums and so on.
But NOW the threat is real for 2 reasons:
- Zero click experience: Google is going all in on providing people with zero click experience. Showing overviews that take up one third or more of the page. On top of that, the citations or mentions are minimal with alarming CTR.
- Google is losing market share: This time Google is facing the strongest competition after a decade of monopoly. They are losing market share to AI search, LLMs in general, and some to Bing as well. And it’s not showing signs of stopping.
So, whether SEO is dead or not, it’s in a crucial condition – that we can all agree on.
What Changed This Time?
Previously, “SEO is dead” just meant you needed to upgrade your SEO strategy and raise your standards.
Whether it was your link building strategy, content quality or processes, you’d adapt to a better approach and you were almost good to go.
This time, people are being asked to replace Google altogether.
Some noteworthy stats for you:
- AI Overviews Reduce Clicks by 34.5% Source: Ahrefs
- Google AI Overviews leads to dramatic reduction in clickthroughs for Mail Online. Source: Press Gazette.
- Google Search traffic decline is inevitable, execs say. Source: Search Engine Land
- For queries where AI Overviews appeared, organic CTR fell sharply – from 1.41% to 0.64% – year over year. Source: Seer Interactive
- Google search impressions are up 49% year-over-year, but click-through rates (CTR) are down 30%. Source: BrightEdge
- AI Overview citations get few clicks. Just 19% of mobile searchers and 7.4% of desktop searchers clicked on a citation. Desktop CTR drops in half when an AI Overview is present; mobile clicks fall by a third. Source: Growth Memo
- According to Statcounter, Google’s share of the global search engine market fell below 90% for the first time since 2015 Source: StatCounter
- Informational queries constitute 36.4% of known search intent on Google, whereas ChatGPT handles 52.2% of queries with informational intent. Source: Break the Web
- 58.5% of Google searches in the U.S. result in zero clicks to websites. Source: Break the Web
- 13.14% of all queries triggered AI Overviews in March 2025. That’s up from 6.49% in January 2025. The number of navigational queries that trigger AI Overviews has doubled since January — from 0.74% to 1.43%. Source: Semrush
- 88.1% of queries that trigger an AI Overview are informational. Source: Semrush
I’ll stop. You get the picture. This isn’t just vague talk – the storm is real and you have to be prepared.
I will wrap up this section with some good news though:RetryClaude can make mistakes. Please double-check responses.
- Google’s total search volume grew 21.6% from 2023 to 2024. (Break the Web)
- New Research: Google Search Grew 20%+ in 2024; receives ~373X more searches than ChatGPT (SparkToro)
So.. the world doesn’t end here.
My 2 Cents…
I Admit.. W/ a Heavy Heart..
Yeah, why not. It’s obvious.
Even if we argue about whether CTR went down or not, or whether Google users decreased, we can all agree on one thing:
Getting ROI from Google SEO is becoming harder and harder over time
And there’s no denying it.
A massive transition is happening. Just like we moved from “web directories” (Yahoo!) to “Search Engines” (Google) in 2008.
It’s clear that we are again making a transition from “search engines” to “answer engines“.
And that’s okay, that’s normal. User behavior changes over time. It’s time to adapt, not to panic.
Think Through the Alternatives
I have seen many great marketers with serious talent simply calling SEO a dead effort. I get where it comes from (mostly from the negative ROI from SEO work).
But guess what, we are still in the transition.
And most likely your SEO efforts and investments were made to cater to the pre-AI era. So how can you expect to get a fair return on investment in this era?
I get this, it’s not fair, but it is what it is.
Yes Paid Media is Great Until…
I’m seeing people leaning more towards paid media more and more everyday. And it’s great that Meta ads and other PPC ads are giving great ROI… for now.
We are experiencing the biggest revolution humans have ever experienced. Greater than the industrial revolution by a far margin. And you’d be living a dream if you believe the paid media landscape won’t change in the near future.
I’m not saying don’t do paid ads. Do it for sure, especially if it works for you. But don’t put all your eggs in the paid media basket and abandon search marketing.
Don’t ignore user behavior for what you see or read online.
All Your Users Turn to ChatGPT and Other AI Search…
Unlikely, but for a moment, let’s imagine everyone in the world woke up one day and forgot what Google is and they turned towards ChatGPT and other LLM powered searches.
How do you tackle this? How do you get mentioned or cited in LLMs?
Options:
- By blocking all the robots, and deindexing all pages of the site
- By deleting all the frontend pages
- By not having a frontend website in the first place
- By having a killer facebook page with 3 likes and 2 followers
If your answer is none of the above, then try this:
- By having a good, crawlable website
- By having proper service/solution pages that describes your business
- By having useful, quality content for the users
- By getting mentioned and cited in reputable sites
Ring a bell? I know it does!
Again, SEO doesn’t mean optimizing for Google – it means optimizing for search.
Whether in Google, Bing, ChatGPT, or Gemini.
Before we conclude…
Search marketing is not the only industry that faces this big dramatic changes.
Here are some other marketing channels that have seen dramatic shifts.. More or less.
Social Media: Brand pages lost organic reach while individual creators and personal brands dominate engagement and distribution.
Email Marketing: Heavily impacted by spam filters and privacy regulations, forcing brands to focus on segmentation, consent, and value-first messaging.
Paid Ads (PPC): Costs have surged due to saturation and competition, while ad blindness and privacy updates (like iOS14) have reduced effectiveness.
Influencer Marketing: Shifted from mega-influencers to micro- and nano-influencers who drive better trust and niche engagement.
Content Marketing: Once blog-focused, it now demands multimedia (video, carousels, short-form) and real-time updates to stay relevant in search and social.
Webinars and Virtual Events: Exploded during the pandemic, but now require much higher quality and interactivity to compete with on-demand content.
See? The common thing between all of them – they are prone to change.
Because technology will change, user behavior will change. Nothing is constant in this world, how can technology be?
So Kabir.. Now what?
I feel like a broken radio when I repeat this, but we are facing a crucial time. No denial. So work smart, think about what you’re doing, and always be brave enough to do the things others don’t, so you can move ahead where others aren’t.
Telling you what to do at large scale would be a foolish attempt, but if I have to generalize:
“Be where your customers are”
I know, the classic. But it’s what you’ve got to do now. Talk to your customers (another cliche, I know).
Understand where they are, where they hang out and what are their source(s) of information. Be there.
Let it be Google, Bing, ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, forums like Reddit and Quora, social media like LinkedIn or Twitter. Just be where they are.
Use paid media for quick exposure.
Don’t Jump Around. Adapt.
Adapt to the new way of search marketing. Avoid relying on top of the funnel blogs for traffic. Focus more on conversion pages, describe your offering in detail, have proper landing pages, create content that holds unique value.
Get mentioned on reputable sites that LLMs cite from. Execute PR tailored for AI.
Build a brand.
Nothing new. Building a brand goes a long way and it takes time. But it’s more like an asset than a marketing strategy. Build a brand that AI and search engines know and mention.
As a founder, push yourself. Don’t live under a rock. You don’t have to be an influencer, just connect with industry people and users.
Omnichannel marketing… strategic
Don’t rely on a single source of traffic, be omnichannel.
Build a system that you can scale. Sure, start with one channel and slowly enter other channels. Don’t create new content individually for each platform, create one piece of valuable content that you can convert to different channels.
The new way of SEO
The old SEO technique just won’t cut it. Be on the same page with your SEO agency, in-house team or freelancer.
You need to adapt. You need clicks, conversion and revenue.
But doing the old stuff will only make you disappointed.
Want to have my recommendations on how to design your SEO system for the current time?
Check out the next article I’m publishing next week.
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