2025 SEO Kickstarter: Core Updates, New Search Features, AI & SEO & Much More
SEO TL;DR #53 06/01/2025
🥳 Happy New Year to the 51 new people who’ve subscribed since my last update; it’s great to have you here. And thank you to everyone who’s put up with me for longer and encouraged me to keep writing 🙇♂️
I’ve had 2 weeks of search news to catch up on, so this update is a little longer, but I’ve cut out the fluff and tried to keep it snappy in typical TL;DR fashion.
Google Updates
Cramming for 2024, Google released two major updates in December: a core update, which I covered here and a spam update, which I totally missed, which took 7 days to roll out.
A cursory glance at Google Search Console, and thankfully there’s no fires to put out in my first week back. Both updates were pretty small, focusing on specific ranking systems, and seem to have only hurt sites which had no right to be ranking in the first place.
The usual spiel from Google to focus on creating helpful content written by the people, for the people, yada yada yada.
Technical SEO
Disavowing Toxic Backlinks is a Waste of Time
Nothing new here, but I like to repeat it every time it gets mentioned as I still see hours being wasted every week by people doing this.
Google’s John Mueller recently called the practice a “billable waste of time” on Bluesky. Many SEO tools like Semrush flag harmless links as toxic, but Google’s algorithms already ignore low-quality ones.
Unless you’ve got a manual penalty, skip the disavow tool and focus on building great content instead.
Technical SEO
What Google Actually “Sees”
John Mueller also confirmed that the screenshot in Search Console’s URL Inspection tool “mostly” reflects what Google Search sees when crawling a page. However, he noted there can be edge cases and anomalies, so it’s not always 100% accurate.
Here’s a screenshot from a site I audited a while back where the owners were confused about why Google dropped their site from the index after a design refresh:
It turned out to be a fancy Javascript animation causing the entire site to render as a blank page. Test your URLs people!
Content SEO
Two New Search Features
Google is rolling out two new features in search. ‘What people are saying” showcases (mainly video) content from (primarily) social media sites about what’s popular or trending in a location. The feature triggers for searches where you’re gathering information to visit a place.
The results are fleeting and seemingly random at times (the first video has 110+ likes while the second has 419K), but it shows Google’s shift in serving rich results within the SERPs. It’s something hammered home in 2024, but gone are the days of the 10 blue links.
The second ‘Things to know’ feature triggers for more generic informational intent keywords like “ecommerce” or “SEO”:
💡Takeaway. Like the “People also ask” feature, the “Things to know” feature could be a good reference when creating content plans.
While it’s in no way a standalone way to create a content plan, it can help you address any gaps in your content briefs and ensure you’re covering what Google expects to see when serving results. You’ll see a “Buying guide” feature in the US SEPRs, which can also be used as a reference to ensure you’re covering all angles.
These new search features showcase the importance of providing in-depth, knowledgeable content to your readers. So, if you want to get featured in more of these search features, make sure you cover the topic thoroughly yet concisely.
AI X SEO
AI First, Search Box Second: Google’s Vision for 2025
Google CEO Sundar Pichai outlined their AI-centric strategy for 2025, signalling a pivot away from the traditional search box towards multimodal AI experiences.
Three main topics covered included:
The Gemini App. Central to Google’s strategy, Gemini is set to expand its functionality, aiming to replace the search box as the primary user interface.
Project Astra: A universal assistant designed to work across text, voice, images, and video.
Project Mariner: A Chrome AI extension that enhances how users interact with data, like looking up contact information from a spreadsheet - which I covered in the last edition of SEO TL;DR.
Pichai emphasised that 2025 is about going back to Google’s routes and being “scrappy” - something they’re trying to drill into all employees. Perfection is the enemy of good enough, which is one of the main reasons Open AI stormed ahead the way it did.
💡Takeaway. With AI already redefining traditional SEO - brands need to broaden their strategies. Google's focus on agentic and multimodal tools and search engines like Perplexity and Search GPT prove how search is evolving outside the traditional 10 blue links.
In 2025, prepare for a shift in how users interact with your content and start exploring how to optimise for AI.
All of this leads to the question of…
…Is SEO Dead in 2025?
Google’s latest Search off the Record podcast tackled the now age-old question of whether SEO is dead - especially in the age of AI-driven search. The roundup from the Google team was a mixed bag of optimism and caution, and I was introduced to a new three-letter abbreviation - RAG.
John Mueller: SEO isn’t going anywhere. Techniques like crawling, indexing, and optimising for rankings remain fundamental, even in AI-powered search.
Gary Illyes: Joked how “SEO has been dying since 2001,”, dismissing the recurring narrative about its demise.
I’ve had about 13 years of asking myself whether SEO is dead, and I’m pleased to say I’m still in a job. Rich Snippets didn’t kill SEO, Hummingbird didn’t kill SEO, mobile-first didn’t kill SEO, zero-click searches didn’t kill SEO, SGE didn’t kill SEO - I’m optimistic for 2025 😅
What’s shifting?
While core SEO practices still apply, AI integration has shifted the landscape in key ways.
Organic SERPs are changing: we see AI overviews now taking up more pixels than ever, paid and free shopping feeds dominating and recent search features like the ‘what people are saying’ carousel.
Natural language queries: users now search with more complex, conversational queries. The volume of searches with 5 or more words grew 1.5x as fast as shorter queries.
Instead of:“Men’s running shoes”
People are searching for:“How to pick the right men’s running shoes for beginners with high arches”
Content created to match traditional keyword targeting may struggle to stay relevant.Unstable algorithms: AI’s evolving ranking systems can feel erratic, making tracking rankings and online visibility harder.
What is RAG?
Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) is an advanced technique in AI that combines traditional information retrieval with generative AI models to produce factually grounded, dynamic responses.
It’s designed to overcome one of the biggest challenges with generative AI: the tendency to “hallucinate” or “make shit up”.
Information Retrieval. The process starts by pulling relevant data from trusted sources like Google's database, structured data, and other content repositories. Instead of relying solely on a model’s pre-trained knowledge, RAG retrieves current, factual data to ensure accuracy.
Integration with AI Models. Once information is retrieved, it’s fed into a large language model (LLM) like GPT or Gemini. The LLM processes the retrieved data and generates a natural language response.
Output Generation. The model produces a response that blends Contextual understanding from the AI model and factually accurate details from the retrieved information.
This hybrid approach ensures that the response is coherent, up-to-date, and grounded in verified sources.
RAG directly ties traditional SEO techniques, like making content crawlable and indexable, to the AI-driven future of search.
The retrieval process depends on accessing well-structured, high-quality content, meaning SEO-optimised content is more likely to be pulled into the pipeline.
Ranking “signals” like authority, relevance, and PageRank are still considered when deciding which content to retrieve. RAG ensures the retrieved content matches complex, intent-driven queries, making SEO’s focus on user intent even more critical!
Imagine you ask an AI assistant:
“What are the best tools for managing remote teams?”
With RAG:
The system retrieves content from recent articles, reviews, and knowledge bases about remote team management tools.
The AI uses this data to generate a tailored response, e.g. "The top tools for managing remote teams are Slack for communication, Asana for task management, and Zoom for video calls. According to reviews, Asana excels in scalability."
Without RAG, the AI might produce outdated or fabricated recommendations, reducing trust and accuracy.
💡Takeaway. SEO isn’t dying; it’s evolving as it always has. Instead of writing blogs for high-volume/low-difficulty keywords, we’re creating content hubs that serve people at all levels of the decision making cycle. Instead of collection pages designed to rank for niche searches, we’re creating landing page experiences that hook users and make them want to buy.
We’ve seen headlines like Forbes cutting ties with copywriters one week before Christmas as a direct result of Google’s stricter site reputation abuse and spam policies. Instead of seeing this as a nail in the coffin for content SEO, I see it as an opportunity for your brand to become a better source of knowledge and fill that gap.
The key challenge for 2025 will be learning how to optimise for AI-first experiences without losing sight of user intent and high-quality content.
Ecommerce SEO
E-commerce Predictions for 2025
A roundup by Shopifreaks asked 14,000 subscribers, “What are your e-commerce predictions for 2025?” Their third annual predictions report curates the submissions alongside predictions from e-commerce industry leaders.
Some of the predictions:
The costs and disruption of returns will intensify. Mike Cassidy, Head of Storytelling, Signifyd
B2B brands will have to grow a personality. Kyle Poyar, Co-Founder, Growth Unhinged
A consolidation of B2B-focused e-commerce agencies and B2B commerce platforms in 2025. Jason Greenwood, Founder, Greenwood Consulting
Google’s dominance in search will crumble by 20%. Neal Goyal, VP of Strategic Sales, Disco
Building brand recognition will be crucial to ranking high on SERPs (agreed!). Aman Chopra, SEO Lead, Stallion Express