The SEOFOMO Newsletter​

August 10, 2025
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Your weekly SEO & AI Search News to Stop the FOMO, read by 38.5K SEOs.
Today's sponsor: Semrush & AirOps. Want to advertise? Ask here.​

Contrary to what everyone’s analytics shows

​Google Says: "AI in Search is driving more queries and higher quality clicks"​

Liz Reid / Google Blog

Liz Reid from Google says "the average click quality has increased and they're sending "slightly" more quality clicks to websites than a year ago… in contrast to third-party reports that inaccurately suggest dramatic declines in aggregate traffic."

• Here's my take about this topic: Liz Reid from Google says that AI in Search is driving more queries and higher quality clicks - Here's the reality.​

No, SEO is not dead

​SEO Is Dead. Say Hello to GEO.​

John Herrman / New York Magazine

This week yet another article was published about the dead of SEO, this time due to the rise of GEO as a new discipline to optimize for AI search.

• I was interviewed for the article, and although I believe search is shifting, that doesn't mean SEO is dead, but evolving. Why so many want to see SEO dead? Here are my two cents.

Many feel underwhelmed

​OpenAI Introduces GPT-5​

OpenAI

GPT-5 has been released by OpenAI saying that it "not only outperforms previous models on benchmarks and answers questions more quickly, but is more useful for real-world queries."

Ok. But what are the search implications? Read about early tests:

• ​Took some time to do some tests on GPT‑5’s browsing (first pass). Here’s the net new by Josh Blyskal​
• ​Diving into ChatGPT-5's web.search() Function by Chris Green​

Oooops... there's AI crawling drama

​Perplexity is using stealth, undeclared crawlers to evade website no-crawl directives​

Gabriel Corral, Vaibhav Singhal, et al. / Cloudflare

The Cloudflare team has found Perplexity to repeatedly modify its user agent, changing IPs and ASNs to hide its crawling activity, in direct conflict with explicit no-crawl preferences expressed by websites. “We have de-listed them as a verified bot”.

More data means great news

​Bing Webmaster Tools Performance Report Gains 24 Months Of Data & More​

Barry Schwartz / Search Engine Roundtable

Barry reports that Bing Webmaster Tools now offers 24 months of historical search performance data, up from 16, with new device and country filters and at-a-glance keyword trendlines.

A must-watch video interview

​Gary Illyes answers Kenichi Suzuki about AI search, AI Crawler Glitches, Crawl Budget, AI Generated Content and more!​

Kenichi Suzuki, Gary Illyes

Kenichi asked Gary about the latest AI search trends and their implications, crawling treatment, AI content assessment, among many other topics. Watch it now.

Is it plateauing already?

​What's the AI Mode Adoption in the UK after a Week?​

Aleyda Solis, Similarweb

I got the data thanks to Similarweb! AI Mode in the UK went from 0.1% of Desktop Users on July 28, 2025, growing up to 9.2% on August 1st but has started to decrease since then to 6.3% on August 3rd. Let's see what happens this week.

Google SEO guidance for AI Mode? Yes!

​Google Pitching AI Mode Ads To Advertisers​

Barry Schwartz / Search Engine Roundtable

Barry reports how Google is pitching advertisers to buy into ads in AI Mode (should we be surprised?). The information features an AI Mode SEO guidance as well! Check it out.

Some things don't really change

​Why Semantic HTML Matters for SEO and AI​

Barry Adams / SEO For Google News

Barry Adams explains what semantic HTML is, which HTML tags are semantic, and how it helps AI in this guide.

Google is ready to compete with Amazon

​Google Ecommerce SERP Features 2025 Vs. 2024​

Kevin Indig / Search Engine Journal

An in-depth analysis by Kevin showing how Google’s shopping SERPs have gone full marketplace, with increasingly visual SERPs and AI Overviews starting to replace product grids.

Because our goal is to sell to humans

​PDP Optimization: A Blueprint for Product Pages People Love & Buy From​

Gabriela Troxler / Sitebulb

Create product pages for search and users. Gabi Troxler shows how with her blueprint for effective PDP optimization, for product pages that don't only rank but also sell well.

Somehow fluffy content still ranks well

​How "Substantial" is Ranking Content?​

Chris Green

Chris analyzes how content substance impacts rankings and found that "more than 50% of ranking results in the top 15 organic positions are “fluffy” according to the substance model”. This doesn't mean you should do it though. Read the analysis.

Next level International SEO

​Shaping visibility in a multilingual internet​

Jono Alderson

Jono shares how to *really* optimize for international audiences from a new angle: "This isn’t localisation for customers. It’s localisation for the systems that decide how customers see you."

AI for Quality Content? It's possible.

​How to Speed up Content With AI — Whiteboard Friday​

Andy Chadwick / Moz

Andy explains his 6-step framework to write faster, add personality, and maintain your authentic voice when leveraging AI for your content... in the right way.

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Don’t Hit Snooze on Your AI Visibility: 92% of Google AI Searches Only Show ~7 Links

Google’s AI Mode is live and a new Semrush study shows 92% of AI Mode responses have links from ~7 domains. These links have 51% overlap with traditional top 10 results. It’s a big shake up.
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While some are left wondering, smart brands see opportunity. AI Optimization (AIO) by Semrush Enterprise helps you track presence in real time and optimize across leading LLMs like Google AI Mode and ChatGPT.
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Monitor mentions, sentiment and shopping placements, then build your GEO strategy with tailored recommendations.

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Learn how to rank for Perplexity

​Breaking: Perplexity’s 59 Ranking Patterns and Secret Browser Architecture Revealed (With Code)​

Metehan Yesilyurt

Metehan has analyzed browser-level interactions with Perplexity’s infrastructure, uncovering a sophisticated “weak” cryptographic scheme that governs how content is evaluated and ranked. A must read.

Let's stop trying to overcomplicate things

​Why Splitting SEO and GEO Functions Doesn’t Make Sense​

Chris Green

Chris explains how “for now, the fundamentals of good content, accessible code, and clear markup serve both worlds equally well, and the same team can very capably do both”.

A must read to choose the right AI search tool

​2025 AEO Tool Comparison: Transparent Ratings for AI Search Visibility​

Aimee Jurenka / Women in Tech SEO

Thinking on investing in an AI search optimization tool? Aimee has analyzed which tools actually help you track, measure, and improve AI visibility comparing 14 platforms using a 48-point research-backed scorecard so you can choose with confidence. Check it out.

This is the way...

​What framework to use for increasing visibility in AI Search​

Gianluca Fiorelli

Gianluca shares an actionable framework to create content for entity alignment, AI retrievability, and human engagement.

Let's learn from Judith

​AI Is Not Your Expert: Post-Purchase SEO, AI Pitfalls & Adaptive Strategy with Judith Lewis​

Judith Lewis, Gianluca Fiorelli / Advanced Web Ranking

An excellent interview with Judith Lewis who shares how AI is changing B2B and B2C search and what that means for visibility. Why post-purchase optimization is becoming a clever SEO play. And much more.

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• ​Digital Marketing Account Manager at Rankings.io​
• ​SEO Director at Find.co​
• ​Director, Organic Growth at Talkiatri​
• ​Senior Product Manager, SEO at Yelp​
• ​Senior SEO Manager at Legend​
• ​Marketing Executive at Women in Tech SEO​
• ​Senior SEO Analyst at iPullRank​
• ​Senior SEO Analyst at DigitalMarketing.com​
• ​SEO Strategist at Click Here Digital​
• ​SEO Lead at 12100 Collective​

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Metehan Yeşilyurt

This week's SEOFOMOer is Metehan Yeşilyurt, Growth Marketing Manager at App Samurai, where he helps mobile apps and SaaS companies grow fast and reach their target audiences with effective SEO and growth strategies.

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With an in-depth interest in AI, Metehan has developed insightful must-read research and analysis in recent months, like:

• ​How to Run Query Fan-Out Analysis in Screaming Frog Using Gemini AI​
• ​Why “AI Share Buttons” Might Be the Smartest Growth Hack: The CiteMET Method​

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