Category: Technical SEO

For over two decades, Google has been the dominant force in search, shaping the way users access information online. But recent data and a declining share price indicates Google’s once-unquestioned supremacy is beginning to show cracks.

As of January 2025, Google’s market share had remained under 90% for four consecutive months, sitting at 89.78%. This decline marks a significant shift, as prior to October 2024, the last time Google’s market share dipped below 90% was in March 2015. Meanwhile Alphabet, Google’s parent company, has seen its stock price fall 20% (as of March 11, 2025) following a disappointing earnings report and volatility in the US stock market.

While Google remains the dominant player, growing competition from other search engines, AI-driven search alternatives, increased scrutiny over search result quality, and evolving user behaviour all raise serious questions about the company’s long-term future. SEOs, digital marketing professionals and businesses must take note of these shifts and prepare for a changing landscape.

Google’s Declining Market Share: Key Trends

Google’s market share had been above 90% since 2015, but the recent downturn suggests a gradual erosion of dominance. October 2024 marked the lowest point in over a decade (89.34%), highlighting a downward trajectory that coincides with competitors like Bing and Yandex making small but notable gains:

• In October 2024, Bing recorded its second-highest market share ever (4.16%), the highest since 2011.
• Yandex reached a record-high market share of 2.78% in the same month.
• This decline in Google’s market share does not account for AI-based search alternatives, meaning the real shift could be even more pronounced.
• Whilst Google is still dominant and search competitors still pale in comparison, the direction of the trend is noteworthy and something SEOs and businesses should closely monitor.

A recent study of UK and US users found 27% now prefer AI chatbots like ChatGPT over traditional search engines. AI-driven search alternatives are altering user behaviour by providing direct answers without the need for traditional search engine result pages as tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity AI, powered by Large Language Models (LLMs), deliver instant, research-driven responses, reducing reliance on Google for informational queries.

This shift to LLMs and AI platforms is underlined by data showing:

• 57% of respondents use AI daily.
• 49% see AI and traditional search engines as interchangeable.
• 67% believe AI will replace traditional search within three years.

In response, Google has started integrating AI into its search experience via the Google Search Generative Experience (SGE), or AI Overviews.

However, reaction to Google’s jump into AI has been mixed, with concerns over bias, accuracy, and its role in increasing zero-click searches, leading to outcry from the SEO world and from companies harmed. Education platform Chegg is suing Google regarding Google’s AI Overviews, alleging AI-generated content is infringing on their educational material. There are numerous examples of AI Overviews providing users with incorrect information, including suggesting users can eat rocks, stick cheese to pizza with glue, and misattributing awards to different musicians, including claiming US indie musician MJ Lenderman has won 14 Grammys, when the true number is zero, which corresponds with a recent Vox Media survey found that 42% of respondents believe Google Search is becoming less useful. While Google’s lead remains substantial, the shift suggests that users are actively exploring alternatives—not just AI tools, but competing search engines as well.

Anecdotal evidence from popular forums like Reddit suggests growing dissatisfaction with Google’s search results. Users have expressed frustration over declining result quality, increased ad placements, and ineffective AI-generated search responses:

• “Does Google realize they already had a really good search engine? The AI doesn’t work. It sucks.” (5.6k upvotes)
• “It’s shaping up to fit in with the shockingly poor Google Search results that are loaded with sponsored garbage.” (2.3k upvotes)
• “Even when you get to the first results, they are usually useless articles, AI-generated content, or sales pitches.” (2.3k upvotes)

But for now, this criticism is not slowing Google down. Recent data claims AI Overviews now appear in 42% of Google search results, and last week Google announced AI Mode, search results pages which now only exclusively show AI-generated results.

The Search Landscape has vastly changed in a short amount of time, with SEO professionals and businesses reliant on Search left no choice but to adapt to these changes. From our recap of BrightonSEO back in October 2024, we reported that when an AI Overview appears in a Google search, organic click-through rates (CTR) drop by 70%. By January 2025, a new study has revealed this estimated CTR decline to have reached 84%.

SEO isn’t dead or dying, but is evolving at a faster pace than we’ve become accustomed to. Declining CTRs due to more AI Overviews means data optimisation is more important than ever, as is having the knowledge and resources to capitalise when opportunities arise.

This evolving search landscape presents both challenges and opportunities for SEO and digital marketing. With AI reshaping user behaviour, businesses must consider multi-platform strategies and optimise for AI-driven search as well as traditional search engines. SEO remains essential, but the rise of AI-driven platforms underscores the importance of conversion optimisation and data analysis. Businesses need to make the most of their traffic, and the utilisation of tools like Google Analytics 4 (GA4) and Looker Studio for tracking user behaviour and refining marketing strategies has never been more important.

Google’s Stock Price Downturn After February’s Earnings

At the time of writing, Google’s parent company Alphabet has seen its stock fall by 20% since its most recent earnings report. Revenue growth in key sectors, including cloud computing, fell short of expectations which fuelled investor concerns as Wall Street firms cut Alphabet’s price target, citing increased competition and AI disruption. This includes Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan, Morgan Stanley and Citi. Analysts have explained this is due to tougher year-on-year comparisons in search revenue and anticipated increases in expenditures, such as higher spend on AI to adapt to the changing market.

Google remains the dominant player in search, but its supremacy is being tested as alternative search engines, privacy-focused platforms, and AI tools gain traction. The company is heavily investing in AI and cloud services to counteract market shifts, including plans to increase capital expenditures with $75 billion earmarked for AI development and expansion. Google has also invested $3 billion into Anthrophic, and have been boosted by the Department of Justice recently deciding not to proceed with a plan that would’ve required Alphabet to sell its stakes in AI firms.

Google is heavily investing in AI and cloud computing to maintain its competitive edge, but its cloud division’s underperformance and search revenue expectations raise questions for Wall Street, investors, SEOs and businesses about its long-term dominance. SEOs and businesses must prepare for a future where Google is no longer the sole gateway to online visibility.

Of course, there’s wider geo-political uncertainty and volatility in the stock markets stemming from the policies of the Trump administration. But this sort of stock downturn and decline in market share isn’t a surprise to many within the SEO community. SEOs and businesses crave consistency and stability, and the flurry of sweeping changes from Google over the past two years has provided anything but.

So what does the future hold?

Google’s declining market share reflects a broader shift in how users seek information. While AI-powered search tools and alternative search engines continue to grow, SEO remains crucial. The past year has seen the term Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) coined, focusing on optimising content for discoverability by LLMs. For marketers and businesses, this marks a wider shift, from not just ranking well in search results, but adapting to the evolution of user behaviour as LLMs continue to gain precedence.

Companies must adapt by:

• Tracking and analysing search trends across platforms.
• Optimising for both traditional search and AI-driven search tools.
• Enhancing conversion funnels to capitalise on the traffic they do receive.

The search landscape is changing, and businesses that evolve alongside it will be best positioned for success. At SoBold, we can help you navigate these shifts and develop a strategy that keeps you ahead in an AI-driven digital world.

Back in early October, SoBold made our debut visit to Brighton SEO. Since then, we’ve been busy putting the invaluable lessons from the event’s talented speakers into action, all while navigating Google’s November and December Core Updates. Now the dust has (hopefully) settled on the update-front, and with the next iteration of Brighton SEO still a few months away, we’ve taken the opportunity to reflect on our key takeaways and their impact on our approach.

A functional relationship with your development team is critical for SEO success

During Brighton SEO, a recurring theme across different talks was the challenges SEOs face when working with development teams, particularly those that operate in silos. Whether in-house or outsourced to separate agencies, a lack of communication, deprioritised SEO tickets, and limited understanding of SEO best practices often lead to delays, errors, and missed opportunities. Many speakers and attendees expressed frustration at the need for excessive hand-holding to ensure even basic tasks were actioned correctly.

At SoBold, we avoid these risks with a collaborative effort between our development and SEO teams. As a WordPress-first agency, our integrated approach ensures SEO tickets are prioritised appropriately, and implemented to the highest standard. By removing barriers between teams, we’re more efficient and deliver results that drive SEO success.

Don’t discount the basics

It sounds very simple, but one of the biggest takeaways from Brighton SEO was how critical the fundamentals remain to SEO success. Numerous case studies and real-world examples shared by speakers reinforced that many websites fail to rank well simply because they lack a strong foundation. While advanced techniques and tools may sound exciting, the potential is often wasted on websites that haven’t addressed core issues.

Speakers emphasised that getting the basics right still yields some of the highest returns. Core Web Vitals, metadata optimisation, fixing 4xx and 3xx errors, a clear site hierarchy and URL structure, proper indexation, robots.txt configurations and ensuring basic analytics are in place all play a pivotal role. These essentials are often the difference between stagnation and significant ranking improvements. Ensure your fundamentals are sound before turning to more advanced methods and strategies.

AI can be a game-changer for audits, but nothing beats human written content

AI has been the buzzword of the industry in the past two years. Incorporating AI into everyday tasks to maximise efficiency was a key theme at Brighton SEO, specifically the use of AI to streamline time consuming tasks like audits and data analysis.

Audits are central to developing an SEO strategy and crafting roadmaps, and leveraging different AI and machine learning strategies to research, collate, and organise relevant data was a hot topic at the conference, with lots of very knowledgeable people offering extremely useful and actionable insights into how existing workflows can be enhanced through AI.

By leveraging AI tools and machine learning, SEOs can quickly identify technical errors, gather keyword insights and generate comprehensive reports, freeing up more time for the higher-impact strategic work. Speakers showcased actionable ways to integrate AI into workflows, potentially revolutionising the process of audits, roadmaps, and reporting.

However, there are clear limits to the use of AI. While it excels behind the scenes, it falls short when it comes to creating authentic, engaging content. Google’s guidelines, a number of algorithm updates, and leading voices within the SEO community on social media continue to emphasise that nothing beats human-written content based on real expertise and experience. The message was clear: AI can enhance efficiency, but content that resonates with users, builds trust and meets the intent of the searcher must remain in the hands of skilled human writers.

Google’s AI snippets are traffic thieves

Generative AI has been a hot topic across numerous industries since the launch of ChatGPT 3.5 in November 2022, especially in SEO. Google has released numerous updates (to mixed responses) to combat the large influx of AI generated content and the ability for anyone to churn out masses of content on subjects outside their areas of expertise.

There’s no doubt the rise of AI sent internal shockwaves at Google, who had to quickly innovate to withhold a potential threat to their dominance. As a consequence, they released the Google Generative AI Snippets, which generates AI answers at the top of the search results for a range of queries, based on information it’s gleaned from the top ranking pages for said query.

While the concept may seem beneficial to users, the reality is stark for website owners and their SEOs: visibility is drastically reduced. Data presented at Brighton SEO revealed that URLs in Position 1 under these snippets suffered traffic drops of 70%.

Many SEOs and site owners argue this practice borders on theft, as Google repurposes content with minimal credit or incentive for users to click through, and wouldn’t be able to surface any of this content without the websites creating it in the first place. This controversy isn’t going away anytime soon, and SEOs will need to strategise carefully to adapt to this new reality.

Test, test, and test again

Many of the talks were very insightful, offering new methods and solutions for a range of tasks. But each website is different, and what may have a profound impact on one website may not do the same on another.

There are very little one size fits all in SEO, and our testing of the new methods and techniques detailed at Brighton SEO has shown just that. We can take the direct learnings from these talks and apply them literally with minimal change, but with benchmarking the initial metrics, examining the difference once recommendations are applied, and tweaking these with our own insights, we can maximise the impact.

Whilst the wealth of talent and expertise of the speakers at Brighton SEO was at a very high standard, SEOs shouldn’t rest on the laurels and only go as far as these talks suggest, but leverage their own expertise and knowledge, pairing it with the expertise from these conferences to get the best results. Building upon some of the strategies outlined at Brighton SEO and putting our own SoBold-spin on these is already bearing fruit, and testing is at the heart of this.

Final Thoughts

From the importance of solid fundamentals to embracing AI’s potential while recognising its limitations, these takeaways are invaluable for SEOs and developers alike. By testing, adapting, and collaborating, we can turn these learnings into impactful strategies allowing us to navigate the uncertainty of Google Updates, as we look ahead to the next conference in April.