SEO news: July + August 2025

Google Search Central APAC 2025

"SEO is not dead."

SEO has survived and adapted to many changes over more than 25 years (JavaScript, mobile-first, structured data). The introduction of AI is no different. The discipline is not outdated because its core goal - understanding and satisfying user intent with quality content - remains the same across all of Google's systems. What else was said at the conference

Preparing for changes in search

Google stressed that content creators should prepare for AI insights and other new features in search to become commonplace. Instead of fighting this trend, they should embrace the change and adapt to it.

AI click-through strategy

Content creators should focus on the types of searches that lead to detailed research. While AI can answer simple questions, complex topics, unique data and studies still require a site visit.

Creating content with the goal of conversion

It is necessary to think about the user's commercial intent and create content that leads to conversion. For example, if users are looking for a product review, they need deeper information than an AI summary can provide.

The role of the brand in the future

A strong brand will play an even more important role than before. Users will prefer information from trusted and well-known brands.

Search Console and data

Google plans to improve Search Console to provide more data on how AI Overviews and other features affect click-throughs and user behaviour.

SEO in the AI era

Pat Ahern, in his study The ROI of SEO in the AI Era, estimates that SEO is less costly over time than paid channels.

Although the use of tools like ChatGPT and other LLMs is growing, most users still use traditional search engines. Google has many times more search users than ChatGPT.

There is considerable overlap between the citations given by LLMs and the results in search engines. This suggests that SEO is also relevant to how AI tools select their sources.

AI mode and AIO user adoption

In the US, AI mode has been available for all users since the beginning of June. The rate of AI Mode usage has approximately quadrupled - from ~0.25% of sessions to ~1% by early July. However, it is currently rather stagnant. There has been a similar pattern in the UK territory, with AI mode launching at the end of July.

Other highlights:

• The number of sessions per user is several times lower in AI mode than in traditional search.
• Only 6-8% of AI Mode sessions resulted in the user clicking through to an external site. This means that 92-94% of sessions were zero-click - meaning without leaving Google.
• Traditional Google Search without AI Overview has ~35-46% zero-click sessions (depending on the query/context).

In the case of phrases with AIO or AI mode display, you will also need to track metrics such as "share of voice" in AI Mode, tag sentiment, mentions, etc.

Traffic to news websites is declining

Organic traffic from Google to news sites has declined from approximately 2.3 billion visits per month in mid-2024 to less than 1.7 billion in May 2025. Since the deployment of Google AI Overviews, the share of zero-click searches has increased from 56% to 69% in May 2025.

Big news/headlines still often have their place (e.g. "Top Stories" aggregation), but content outside of the actual "headline news" (how-to's, explanations, evergreen content) is heavily influenced by AI Overviews replacing the traditional ways people access this information.

The biggest drop is in news portals related to finance and investing, followed by sports, weather, or economics.

Anti-trust complaint against AIO

The portals have already reacted to the drop in performance with a complaint to the European Commission: that Google is abusing its position in the core search engine service by using publishers' content to create AI Overviews - brief AI summaries that appear above traditional links in search results.

Criticism is also directed at the fact that publishers do not have the option to "opt-out" - i.e., not accept to have their content used for AI Overviews (or for AI model training) - without risking losing the ability to appear in search results.

AI content and influence on positions

Ahrefs conducted an analysis of the engagement of AI generated content and its impact on rankings. They tested 600,000 pages (top 20 URLs for 100,000 randomly selected keywords). They evaluated the content using a custom AI detector built into Site Explorer.

The result is positive:

• Very low correlation between AI content share and search position - correlation coefficient ρ ≈ 0.011.
• 86% of top-ranking pages contain at least some AI-generated content
• Pure AI content was rare among the top results (4.6%)

AI content alone does not harm search rankings - quality, originality and user benefit are key. A proven way is a hybrid approach: using AI to help with preparing the skeleton of the article, inspiration for content headings, etc. own research, opinions, data analysis.

GPT-5 and its applicability

At the beginning of August, a new version of GPT-5, the most advanced model from OpenAI, was released. What's new?

• It works not only with text, but also with other input types (e.g. images).
• Decides when to use the quick-answer model and when to use the deeper "reasoning" model based on the complexity of the task.
• Improved skills in coding, writing, mathematics and solving more complex tasks ("agentic tasks").
• It is better at chaining actions, calling tools, and completing multi-step tasks.
• Significantly improved accuracy and a reduced rate of “hallucinations”/ incorrect or inaccurate outputs.

The new features can be useful for everyday tasks, for example, ensuring a higher standard of content quality, generating data-based visualizations, providing faster responses, or enabling personalization.

CoPilot mode in MS Edge

Copilot Mode is a new experimental mode in Microsoft Edge designed to change the way users browse the web.

A whole new way to pilot the web | Copilot Mode in Microsoft Edge

The mode integrates AI tools directly into browsing - anticipating user needs, helping to organise work across open tabs and speed up common tasks.

Sources

1. https://intergrowth.com/seo/roi/
2. https://www.seroundtable.com/similarweb-google-zero-click-search-growth-39706.html
3. https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/googles-ai-overviews-hit-by-eu-antitrust-complaint-independent-publishers-2025-07-04/
4. https://ahrefs.com/blog/ai-generated-content-does-not-hurt-your-google-rankings/
5. https://blogs.windows.com/msedgedev/2025/07/28/introducing-copilot-mode-in-edge-a-new-way-to-browse-the-web/
6. https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-search-central-apac-2025-everything-from-day-three/552074/
7. https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7354455129506402304/
8. https://openai.com/index/introducing-gpt-5/
9. https://www.semrush.com/blog/google-ai-mode-seo-impact/
10. https://blog.google/around-the-globe/google-europe/united-kingdom/ai-mode-search-uk/