Is SEO about to disappear? What Google says

Is SEO doomed? Google’s response

Since the beginnings of SEO, its extinction has been regularly announced.

Gary Illyes, an analyst on Google’s Search team, points out that this prediction dates back to 2001. And yet, SEO has continued to exist ever since.

According to him, alarmist speeches around the disappearance of SEO are not new, but they often ignore developments and adaptations in the field.

However, the arrival of AI in research (via technologies like Retrieval Augmented Generation – RAG) recently reignited the debate.

This method combines a traditional search engine with language models to provide richer, up-to-date answers.

It is still based on the fundamentals of SEO, such as crawling and indexing, but profoundly modifies the expectations and uses of users (who will no longer necessarily need to consult the web page at the origin of the information to obtain the latter).

The impacts of AI on SEO are not trivial

If Google claims that the basics of SEO remain unchangedindustry experts are seeing major upheavals.

Here are the five main impacts of AI on SEO:

1. The disappearance of classic organic SERPs. The traditional “10 blue links” have become obsolete. Today, AI-generated responses, featured snippets and summaries take center stage, eclipsing traditional organic results.
2. The evolution of requests. Users are now making more conversational and complex queries. This transition changes how content should be optimized, with more focus on user intent and less on keywords.
3. The evolution of user behavior. With the rise of AI, Internet users increasingly expect instant and detailed answers, without having to click on an additional link after carrying out their search, which risks undermining the overall economic model of publishers. of websites.
4. Capricious algorithms. Google’s AI algorithms favor relevance and authority criteria, which are sometimes unstable. This volatility makes the task of publishers and SEO specialists increasingly difficult, as the rules of the game seem to be constantly changing, as Google’s algorithms are updated.
5. “Intermediate” sites will be most affected by AI. Sites that have until now been content to provide free information to their readers will be the most severely affected by these developments. On the other side of the spectrum, sites that directly sell their products and services will have to master the art of SEO on AI chatbots to survive over time.

But why will SEO remain relevant in the AI ​​era?

If according to John MuellerSEO will maintain an essential relevance, this will be mainly to continue to supply AI with useful information.

According to him, SEO basics, like making content indexable and well-structured, will remain crucial, even in an AI-dominated ecosystem. Indeed, without up-to-date content accessible by AI search engines, they will not be able to respond to Internet users with relevant information.

That said, even if publishers optimize their sites to be well referenced on search results generated by AI, this will not help them to be remunerated directly for such placements (via advertising or via affiliation). In fact, most Internet users will not go so far as to consult the pages where the information originated, thus causing publishers to lose a source of income essential to the continuity of their activity in the long term.

Will the web ecosystem survive in the AI ​​era?

Beyond SEO, the question is whether can the web ecosystem survive ever more searches carried out by Internet users using AI search engines?

It is certainly a little early to be able to answer this question, but many publishers and content creators have already seen their traffic decrease drastically, pushed out of the rankings by AI summaries, automatic Google features or even platforms like Reddit. , the key to the survival of independent publishers should lie in the better monetization of their residual audience (via the sale of their own products and services in particular).

To succeed in SEO in 2025, we will therefore have to continue to adapt

You will have understood, as always with SEO, SEOs will have no other choice but to continue to have to adapt to new practices.

SEO is therefore not yet completely “disappearing”, but it is evolving very quickly with AI.

To remain competitive, professionals will therefore have to adapt to new standards dictated by AI. Understanding and integrating practices like RAG will be essential. The future of SEO will depend as much on the innovation of players in the sector as on the decisions made by Google (and other search engines) to support a fair and sustainable web…

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