"When Google's AI Overviews arrived in May 2024, search engine strategists-the specialists who make a living by getting web pages to the top of people's query results-took notice. With the implementation of Overviews, Google's first page search results, a target destination for anyone creating and optimizing content, suddenly sat below a response generated by Gemini, the company's AI engine. "Our initial reaction was, 'Well, how is it going to work in the future?'""
"First, is SEO...IT? Sarah McNaughton, founder of content-strategy consultancy McNaughton Digital Media, sees SEO as the "middleman" between the content team and engineering teams. While an SEO strategist might find relevant keywords and phrases to place within a story, much of the practitioner's work is technical and unseen by a reader. A site and its content, for example, needs to be indexable and contain the right "schema" or classifying metadata that a crawler can find and process for its output. Google also processes JavaScript applications, so an IT pro and an SEO pro may have to coordinate to ensure that apps are functioning properly."
"SEO no. With AI Overviews taking a bite from search results, the SEO strategist role might appear to be in trouble. Following staff cuts of around 21%, Business Insider CEO Barbara Peng told Axios in June that the company would pull back on areas sensitive to search traffic, like its SEO and Google-driven commerce business. The same month, the Wall Street Journal reported a decline in news sites' organic traffic (i.e., the number of visitors who arrive at a site via unpaid search results)."
Google introduced AI Overviews in May 2024 that place Gemini-generated responses above traditional first-page search results, altering visibility for optimized web pages. SEO strategists reacted by trying to understand how queries and outputs would change and how to adapt tactics. SEO work increasingly involves technical coordination with engineering to ensure indexability, correct schema metadata, and JavaScript processing so crawlers can access content. Some publishers reduced SEO-sensitive operations after traffic declines, while AI-driven features began to attract significant pageviews, reshaping search referral dynamics and publisher strategies.
Read at IT Brew
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