Why This Matters Now
0:30 – Direct competitors. They fight for the same customers, use similar tools, and they actively try to outcompete each other every day: Ahrefs and SEMrush. This year, they independently published research on what is happening to search traffic, and they reached the same conclusions. Not similar conclusions, the same ones. When two rivals who disagree on almost everything else look at the data and arrive at the same verdict, that is not an opinion piece. That is a signal your business cannot afford to miss. Today, I’m breaking down 10 trends that Ryan Law at Ahrefs documented firsthand and showing you exactly where SEMrush’s independent research confirms each one. Then I will tell you what I have seen in my own client work.
Let’s go.
1:25 – I’m Jeff Payne. You’re listening to episode #16 of The Jeff Payne Show.
Meet the Data Sources
Ryan Law is the Director of Content Marketing at Ahrefs. He has fourteen years of industry experience. He works with hundreds of SEO professionals. He has access to data that most agencies would pay fortunes for. His piece, Ten SEO Trends That I’ve Seen Firsthand in 2026 with Data. Alongside that, SEMrush, which serves 10 million marketing professionals, including myself, and has been described by G2 as the top enterprise SEO platform, published parallel research on almost all of these same trends in 2026. These are not small shops running gut feeling analysis. These are the two largest SEO intelligence platforms on the planet, with independent data science teams analyzing the same market and describing the same reality. Here’s what they both see.
Trend 1: Info Sites Collapse
2:32 – Trend #1: information-only websites are in a free fall. Ryan Law’s most striking data point. He analyzed a basket of well-known information-only websites, businesses whose primary reason to exist is to educate, to inform, explain, and answer questions. No product, no transaction, just content. That basket now sits at twenty-eight percent of its peak organic traffic. That is a 72% collapse. Affiliate sites, same story, down 62% from peak, and the search demand for affiliate marketing topics has fallen to forty-one percent of what it was in 2023.
Why? Because AI overviews can now answer most informational queries directly inside Google. The click to a blog post is no longer necessary. Google absorbed it. Semrush confirms the mechanism. Search engines are now designed to answer queries directly rather than routing users to source websites. When users get the information immediately, they do not click through to a website like they used to. The business implication If your website exists primarily to inform and not to sell, transact, or demonstrate a service, you are competing directly with the answer engine. That is not a competition you can win. I’ve watched this play out with clients who built heavy educational content strategies. The traffic that used to look healthy 2 years ago is quietly evaporating. The visitors they do get convert better, but there are far fewer of them.
Trend #2: AI Search Revenue
4:19 – The era of building revenue through pure information is over Trend #2, AI search is now a revenue channel. A brand new awareness and revenue channel appeared in twenty twenty six, and in most companies, it landed directly in the SEO team’s lap. ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI mode, these are not toys. They are how a growing segment of buyers research, evaluate vendors, and decide who to hire. Ahrefs’ own data found that eighty percent of AI search traffic goes to homepages, product pages, and free tools, not blog posts. That is the opposite of what traditional SEO told us to optimize. We built content funnels top-down. The AI is sending people straight to what your business actually does. SEMrush frames this as search everywhere optimization, the recognition that your audience is already using seven or more platforms daily to search and research. They spend more time on TikTok each day than on Google search. Being visible only on Google is no longer a complete strategy. The business implication? AI visibility is not a future consideration. It is a present revenue channel. It requires a different architecture than traditional SEO, and most businesses have not built it yet. That is why Colt Melrose Photography in Houston, his website was engineered the way it was. Every page, every content decision was made with AI visibility in mind, not just Google ranking. Within one week of launch, multiple AI platforms were recommending Colt unprompted for commercial photography in Houston. That is the new game, and it is absolutely winnable if you understand what you are building.
Trend #3: AI Overviews Click Loss
6:19 – Trend number three, AI overviews are stealing your clicks. Ahrefs ran a study on three thousand keywords. Result? When an AI overview appears on a Google search result page, the #1 website sees 58% fewer clicks than it would without the AI overview. That was updated in 2026. In the original 2025 study, it was 34.5%. It got worse. For every hundred clicks your top-ranking page used to earn, Google now keeps fifty-eight of them. You receive forty-two. Semrush confirms the mechanism and the direction. The user journey has been compressed from search, click, scan, find, answer to search, read answer in SERP, done. Your page is still powering the answer. Your brand is often invisible in it. The protection, you might ask? Commercial intent. Transactional queries, hire a photographer, book a dentist, find a ten thirty-one exchange specialist. AI overviews appear in roughly four to eight percent of those searches. That is where the clicks still live. This is a shift I keep making with clients. Stop writing to inform. Start writing to convert. The informational top-of-funnel content is being commoditized by AI. The bottom of your funnel, the page where someone makes a decision to call you, book you, buy from you, that real estate is more valuable right now than it has ever been.
Trend #4: Branded Search Wins
8:01 – Trend number four, branded search is the new SEO currency. Here’s the finding that stopped most business owners in their tracks. The brands winning in 2026 search, both traditional Google and AI platforms, are brands that people search for by name. Branded search volume is like a signal that Google uses to determine whether a site is legitimate or just built for algorithms. A site nobody searches for by name is easy to discount. It does not matter how many keywords you have optimized. If real people are not looking for you specifically, you’re treated differently. And AI is the same way. The more your brand is talked about in relevant context across trusted platforms, the more likely you are to appear in ChatGPT, in Google AI mode, and in AI overviews. Semrush’s Search Everywhere research confirms the brand as a foundation principle. The practitioners winning in twenty twenty-six have built systems to be visible across every platform where their audience researches. It’s not about gaming search results. It’s about being genuinely known across channels, which then feeds back into search credibility. This has revived something the SEO industry allowed to atrophy: brand building, advertising, earned media, PR, and making your business known beyond your website. Daniel Goodwin at Provident ten thirty one is the clearest example in my client roster. The masterclass video series, the Amazon best-selling book, and the strategic content ecosystem we built around his expertise. That is brand building with an SEO and AI spine.
Trend #5: Zero-Click Default
9:54 – When AI systems discuss ten thirty one exchanges, Daniel comes up, not because we gamed an algorithm, but because we made him genuinely known Trend #5: zero-click search is now the default.
SparkToro has tracked zero-click search for a decade. The trajectory is not subtle. In 2016, 45% of Google searches ended without a click. The searcher got the answer and moved on without visiting a website. In 2026, that number is 68%. Two out of every three searches, no visit, no opportunity. SEMrush published a dedicated playbook on this. Their position? Zero-click searches might drive direct traffic, but they can still help your business grow by boosting visibility and brand awareness. When your brand appears in zero-click features like AI Overviews, you become part of the conversation your audience is already having, even if you never get the click. That reframe is critical. Visibility and traffic are no longer the same thing. Your content can power an AI answer. Your brand can be mentioned in it and receive no visits. The question is whether you are even in the answer at all, or whether it is a competitor’s language the AI is using. Consumer demand has not disappeared. People still need services. They still hire vendors, book appointments, and make purchases. The behavior has changed.
Trend #6: Query Fan-Out Explained
11:32 – The discovery path has changed Trend #6, query fanout, the hidden way AI interprets every search. This is a concept Ahrefs called keyword research two point zero, and SEMrush published an entire research piece on it. Here’s what happens when someone types a complex question into Google AI mode or ChatGPT. The AI does not look for a single answer to a single query. It breaks the question into multiple sub-queries, runs them in parallel, and then synthesizes the results into a single response. Semrush documented Google AI mode doing this in real time, one user query triggering eight separate internal searches at the same time. Google’s own head of search, Elizabeth Reid, described it as Google I/O twenty twenty-five. AI mode calls on Gemini to break the question into subtopics and issues multiple queries simultaneously on your behalf. Why does this matter to a business owner? Because your content needs to address not just the main question a prospect might ask, it needs to address every reasonable sub-question embedded in that search. A thin page that answers one narrow query is far less likely to be cited than a comprehensive resource that covers the topic from multiple angles. When we design content for AI visibility, we think in clusters, not single pages. What is the full constellation of questions a prospect has before they decide to hire someone in your category?
Trend #7: Reddit UGC Power
13:18 – That architecture is the difference between showing up in AI answers and being invisible Trend #7, Reddit and user-generated content are now SEO weapons. Here’s one that consistently surprises people when I mention it.
According to Ahrefs, Reddit receives one billion organic visits per month from Google. One billion. Reddit is also the second-most cited source in ChatGPT responses, behind only Wikipedia. Semrush’s Search Everywhere research quantifies the platform reality. Your audience engages with 7 or more research services daily, and TikTok alone spends more timeper day than Google Search. Community platforms, social platforms, and user-generated content environments are not peripheral to the search ecosystem. They are central to how AI systems train on and cite trusted information. Why does this matter? Because real human conversations, reviews, forum discussions, and community posts are now the source material that both Google and AI trust the most. For local businesses, especially, the platforms where real customers share real opinions are more important than ever. A dentist with authentic reviews on Google’s health grades, and relevant community forums is a fundamentally stronger position with AI systems than a dentist with a perfect website and no real digital footprint. The AI is looking for corroboration. It wants to see that real people vouch for your experience.
Trend #8: GEO New SEO
15:06 – Trend #8, GEO, known as Generative Engine Optimization. That is the new SEO Traditional SEO is optimization for ranked results with an ten blue links. GEO, Generative Engine Optimization, is optimization for AI-generated answers. The goal is not position one, the goal is to include citations in the AI response. And the factors that drive AI citations differ from those that drive organic rankings. Ahrefs found that sites with over thirty-two thousand referring domains are three and a half times more likely to be cited by ChatGPT. Original research drives citation. Structured content with clear definitions drive citation. Third party mentions drive citations. Brands are six and a half more times likely to be cited through third party sources than through their own domains. Semrush’s zero-click research confirms the brand authority as citation driver principle. The ultimate defense against traffic decay is building uncommoditizable branded search demand, publishing proprietary data, and leveraging hu- human subject matter experts. This is the GEO playbook described from a different angle. Proof over proximity. That is the principle that governs every content and visibility strategy I build. Your organic SEO and your GEO have to work together. They feed each other. A site that does… A site that ranks does not automatically get cited. A site that is cited typically ranks. The architecture that produces both is deliberate, not accidental.
Trend #9: Local SEO Stronghold
17:04 – Trend #9 Local SEO is still a stronghold. Here’s good news for anyone running a local business. AI Overviews appears in only about eight percent of local searches, which means the queries that drive local business, hire a dentist near me, find a commercial photographer in Houston, ten thirty one exchange specialist in Austin, these still drive clicks. These still work the way they used to work. But the ranking factors have shifted. According to White Spark’s 2026 Local Search Ranking Factors report, which I covered in episode number fourteen, proximity still controls about fifty-five percent of local rankings. The remaining forty-five percent is where you compete. Google Business Profile optimization, review volume and quality, website currency, and behavioral signals. SEMrush’s Search Everywhere research adds a layer. Your audience research– Your audience’s research behavior for high-stakes decisions. Hiring a vendor, choosing a service provider spans multiple platforms before a decision is made. For a local business, that means your reviews, your community presence, your social footprint, and your website all play a role in the multi-surface research path that ends in a phone call or a booking. The dentist prospect I am currently advising is a perfect example of this. The opportunity in local AI and search visibility is real and largely unclaimed. Most local businesses have no idea that being an early mover here is even possible.
Trend #10: Original Research Moat
18:49 – The window is still open, but not for long, because once your competitors figure this out, the first mover advantage is gone
Trend #10, original research is now the highest value asset in search. The trend that ties everything together in a world where AI can summarize any public information instantly, the only content AI can’t cannot replicate is content that does not yet exist. Original research, proprietary data, and first-hand expertise from lived experience. Ryan’s law entire article is about, built on this premise. He is sharing what he has seen firsthand, not what others have theorized, what he has personally observed with data attached. SEMrush reaches the same collusion– conclusion from a different angle. The survival strategy for businesses facing traffic decay is publishing proprietary data and leveraging human subject matter experts, content that could only have been created by someone who has actually done the work. That is what AI systems are built to cite, because that is what humans trust.
The question Ryan Law’s research ultimately ask is, what makes your business worth citing? If the answer is, quote, “We publish helpful articles,” end of quote, that is no longer enough. If the answer is, “We conduct original research, we document real client outcomes, we hold a defensible expert position in our market,” that is a business that will appear in AI answers. Every client case study I have shared in this series is an original research asset. The Colt Melrose website launch, Daniel Goodwin’s Masterclass, and the Burbank Dental Lab success guides, none of those outcomes can be replicated by a competitor who reads the transcript. They are firsthand. They are verifiable. They are the kind of proof AI systems are built to cite. That is not an accident. That is architecture.
Wrap Up Self Audit
21:01 – So let us land this. 10 trends confirmed independently by Ahrefs and Semrush, two direct competitors who do not agree on very much, but agree on all of this. The businesses losing ground share a common characteristic. They built their visibility on informational content designed for the old version of Google. That version is being retired in real time. The businesses gaining ground share a different characteristic. They are genuinely known. People search for them by name. AI systems cite them unprompted. Their content is built from re-real expertise and documented outcomes, not rephrased internet knowledge, and they are visible not just on Google, but across the services where buyers are actually researching. Your three-question self-audit
#1: If someone asks ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Google AI mode who to hire in your category and your market, does your business appear? Not do you rank on Google, does AI recommend you?
#2: Is your website designed primarily to inform or to convert and demonstrate authority? Those are fundamentally different websites, and in 2026 they perform very differently.
#3: What original proof do you have? Not what do you believe, what can you document with client names, measurable outcomes, and real data? In actuality, what stories can you tell? Those three questions will tell you more about your competitive position in 2026 than any keyword ranking report ever will. Thank you for taking the time to be with me. When A-Ahrefs and SEMrush look at the same market and research the same conclusions, that is the kind of consensus that deserves your attention. The data is clear. The direction is set. The question is whether you are moving with it.
I’m Jeff Payne. This is The Jeff Payne Show. Until next time.
10 SEO Trends in 2026 That Are Reshaping How Businesses Get Found Online
Ahrefs and Semrush are direct competitors. They fight for the same customers while using entirely different data sets. In 2026, they independently analyzed the same search market — and reached the same conclusions. When rivals agree, that is not a trend report. That is a verdict.
Ryan Law, Director of Content Marketing at Ahrefs, published a piece titled 10 SEO Trends I’ve Seen Firsthand in 2026 — With Data. He has 14 years of industry and access to one of the most comprehensive search databases outside of Google itself. What he documented is not a theory. It is an observed reality, backed by data.
Alongside Ryan Law’s findings, SEMrush — which serves 10 million marketing professionals, including me — published parallel research on nearly all of the same trends. Both companies arrived at the same place. Below is a breakdown of all ten shifts, what the data says, and what I have seen firsthand with my own clients.
The question is no longer whether you rank on Google. The question is whether AI knows you exist.
TREND #1:
InformatIon-only websiteS are losing ground – fast
Ahrefs analyzed a basket of well-known websites whose primary purpose is to educate — to inform, explain, and answer questions without selling a product or service. The results were stark.
A 72% decline in organic traffic for information-only websites from their peak. These sites now sit at just 28% of what they once did.
Affiliate sites told the same story — down 66% from peak. Search demand for affiliate marketing topics has fallen to 41% of its 2023 level.
SEMrush confirms their research on zero-click search confirms the mechanism: search engines are now designed to answer queries directly rather than routing users to external websites. AI-powered features synthesize information from multiple sources and display complete answers on the results page.
What this means for your business: The era of building revenue through pure educational content is effectively over. Businesses that are surviving this shift have a product, a service, or a reason for someone to actually transact — not just read.
TREND #2:
AI Search Is a New Revenue Channel — And Most Businesses Haven’t Built for It
ChatGPT. Perplexity. Google AI Mode. These platforms are not novelties. They are increasingly how buyers research, evaluate vendors, and decide who to hire. A brand-new visibility and revenue channel has emerged — and in most organizations, no one owns it yet.
80% of AI search traffic goes to homepages, product pages, and free tools — not blog posts.
– Source: Ahrefs
That finding inverts everything traditional SEO taught us to optimize. We spent years building content funnels starting at the top with educational articles. AI is sending people directly to what your business actually does.
SEMrush confirms: Their research frames this as “Search Everywhere Optimization” — the recognition that your audience is already using seven or more platforms daily to search and research. They spend more daily time on TikTok than on Google Search. Being visible only on Google is no longer a complete strategy.
Firsthand: This is why every content and architecture decision we made for Colt Melrose Photography was built with AI visibility in mind — not just Google ranking. Within one week of the site’s launch, multiple AI platforms were recommending Colt unprompted for commercial photography in Houston. That outcome is not luck. It is the result of deliberate architecture.
Trend #3:
AI Overviews Are Reducing
Clicks To Your Website
Ahrefs ran a study on 300,000 keywords measuring what happens to click-through rates when an AI Overview appears on a Google results page.
There are 58% fewer clicks to the #1-ranked website when an AI Overview is present. Updated 2026 figure — up from 34.5% in their original 2025 study.
Source: Ahrefs
For every 100 clicks your top-ranking page used to earn, Google now retains 58 of them inside the AI Overview. You receive 42. This is not a penalty or an algorithm update you can optimize your way out of. It is the structural design of AI-powered search.
SEMrush confirms: The user journey has been compressed. It used to be: search, click, scan page, find answer. Now it is: search, read answer in the results page, done. Your content still powers the answer. Your brand is often invisible inside it.
The protection: Commercial intent. Transactional queries — hire a photographer, book a dentist, find a specialist — trigger AI Overviews in only 4–8% of searches. That is where the clicks still live. The strategic shift is to prioritize content designed to convert, not just to inform.
Trend #4:
Branded Search Is Now One of the Most Valuable SEO Signals
The brands winning in 2026 search — both traditional Google results and AI platforms — share a common characteristic: people search for them by name. Branded search volume is increasingly a signal that Google uses to assess whether a site is legitimate or built solely for algorithms.
A site that no one searches for by name is easy to discount. It does not matter how many keywords are optimized. If real people are not specifically looking for you, you are treated differently. AI systems work the same way — the more a brand is discussed in relevant contexts across trusted platforms, the more likely it is to appear in AI-generated answers.
SEMrush confirms: Their Search Everywhere research confirms the brand-as-foundation principle: the practitioners winning in 2026 have built systems to be visible across every platform where their audience researches. Genuine recognition across channels feeds back into search and AI credibility.
This has revived something the SEO industry allowed to atrophy: brand building. Advertising. Earned media. Public relations. Making a business known beyond its own website.
Firsthand: Daniel Goodwin at Provident 1031 is a clear example. The Masterclass video series, the Amazon bestselling book, and the strategic content ecosystem we built around his expertise constitute a brand-building effort with an SEO and AI spine. When AI systems discuss 1031 exchanges in Texas, Dan is cited — not because an algorithm was gamed, but because he is genuinely known.
Trend #5:
Zero-Click search is now the default state of Google
SparkToro has tracked zero-click search — sessions that end on the results page without a click to any external website — for a decade. The trajectory is unambiguous.
68% of Google searches now end without a click to any website. Up from 45% in 2016. Two out of every three searches. Gone.
SEMrush confirms: Their playbook on zero-click search offers a critical reframe: zero-click searches may not drive direct traffic, but they can still help a business grow through visibility and brand awareness. When your brand appears in AI Overviews or featured snippets, you become part of the conversation your audience is already having — even without a click.
Visibility and traffic are no longer the same thing. Content can power an AI answer, a brand can be mentioned in it, and the business receives no visit. The question every business owner should ask: are you even in that answer — or is a competitor’s language and expertise what the AI is using?
Consumer demand has not disappeared. People still hire vendors, book appointments, and make purchasing decisions. The behavior and discovery path have changed fundamentally.
TREND #6:
QUERY-FAN OUT: HOW AI SECRETLY INTERPRETS EVERY SEARCH
When someone types a complex question into Google AI Mode or ChatGPT, the AI does not look for a single answer to a single query. It breaks the question into multiple subqueries, runs them simultaneously, and synthesizes the results into a single response. This process is called query fan-out.
SEMrush documents this extensively: Google’s Head of Search, Elizabeth Reid, described it at Google I/O 2025: “AI Mode calls on our custom version of Gemini to break the question into different subtopics, and it issues a multitude of queries simultaneously on your behalf.” SEMrush observed a single user query triggering eight simultaneous internal searches.
Ahrefs calls this “keyword research 2.0” — a fundamental shift in how content strategy must be approached.
The business implication: A web page that answers one narrow question is far less likely to be cited by AI than a comprehensive resource that addresses a topic from multiple angles. Your content needs to answer not just the main question a prospect asks — but every reasonable sub-question embedded in that search.
When designing content for AI visibility, think in clusters rather than individual pages. What is the full set of questions a prospect has before deciding to hire someone in your category? Answering that constellation of questions — thoroughly, with verifiable expertise — is the architecture that earns AI citations.
TREND #7:
Reddit and User-Generated Content Are Now Legitimate SEO Assets
“1 billion organic visits per month from Google to Reddit. Reddit is also the #2 most cited source in ChatGPT responses — behind only Wikipedia.”
Source: Ahrefs
SEMrush confirms: Their Search Everywhere research quantifies the platform reality: audiences engage with seven or more search surfaces daily. Community platforms and user-generated content environments are not peripheral to the search ecosystem — they are central to how AI systems train on and cite trusted information.
Real human conversations — reviews, forum discussions, community posts — are becoming the source material that both Google and AI systems trust most. For local businesses, the platforms where actual customers share genuine opinions now carry more SEO and AI weight than ever before.
A business with authentic reviews across Google, relevant review platforms, and community forums is in a fundamentally stronger position with AI systems than a business with a polished website and no real-world digital footprint. AI systems look for corroboration. They want to see that real people vouch for an expertise claim — not just that a website makes one.
TREND #8:
GEO — GENERATIVE ENGINE OPTIMIZATION — IS THE NEW SEO
Traditional SEO is optimization for ranked results in Google’s ten blue links. GEO — Generative Engine Optimization — is optimization for AI-generated answers. The goal shifts from achieving a ranked position to earning a citation inside the AI response itself.
The factors that drive AI citation are materially different from those that drive organic rankings.
6.5× More likely to be cited in AI answers through third-party sources than through your own domain. Brands with 32,000+ referring domains are 3.5× more likely to be cited by ChatGPT.
Source: Ahrefs
SEMrush confirms: Their zero-click research reaches the same conclusion: the ultimate defense against traffic decay is building uncommoditizable branded search demand, publishing proprietary data, and leveraging human subject-matter experts. This is the GEO playbook described from a different research angle.
Organic SEO and GEO are not separate strategies — they feed each other. A site that ranks does not automatically get cited by AI. A site that earns AI citations typically ranks. The architecture that produces both outcomes is deliberate.
TREND #9:
Local SEO Remains a Protected Channel — But the Rules Have Shifted
For business owners serving a local or regional market, this is the most encouraging data point in the entire report.
8% of local searches trigger an AI Overview. Compared to ~40% for informational queries. Local, transactional search remains predominantly click-driven.
Source: Ahrefs
Queries like “dentist near me,” “commercial photographer Houston,” or “1031 exchange specialist Los Angeles” still drive clicks. These still function the way search used to function.
The ranking factors, however, have evolved. According to Whitespark’s 2026 Local Search Ranking Factors report, proximity to the searcher controls approximately 55% of local rankings — that is uncontrollable. The remaining 45% is where competitive advantage lives: Google Business Profile optimization, review volume and quality, website currency, and behavioral signals.
SEMrush confirms: For high-stakes purchasing decisions — hiring a service provider, choosing a vendor — research behavior spans multiple platforms before a decision is made. For a local business, reviews, community presence, social footprint, and website content all contribute to the multi-surface research path that ends in a phone call or a booking.
The strategic opportunity: Most local businesses have no concept that AI visibility in their category is a competitive arena they should be competing in. The first-mover window remains open — but it will not stay open indefinitely.
TREND #10:
Original Research and Firsthand Expertise Are Now the Highest-Value Content Assets
This is the trend that ties all nine others together.
In a market where AI can instantly summarize any publicly available information, the only content AI cannot replicate is content that does not yet exist elsewhere — original research, proprietary data, and expertise derived from lived professional experience.
SEMrush confirms: Their research is unambiguous: the survival strategy for businesses experiencing traffic decay is publishing proprietary data and leveraging human subject-matter experts. Content that could only have been created by someone who has actually done the work — that is what AI systems cite, because it is what humans trust.
Ryan Law’s Ahrefs piece is itself a demonstration of this principle. He is sharing what he has personally observed — not what others have theorized. That is why it carries weight. The same logic applies to every business that wants to earn a place in AI-generated answers.
What makes your business worth citing? If the answer is “we publish helpful articles,” that is no longer sufficient. If the answer is “we document real client outcomes with verifiable results, conduct original research, and hold a defensible expert position in our market” — that is a business AI systems are built to surface.
A 3-Question Audit
Before your next strategy conversation, answer these questions.
These three questions will tell you more about your competitive position in 2026 than any keyword ranking report.
The Bottom LIne
Ten trends. Confirmed independently by two rival research teams with no incentive to agree.
The businesses losing visibility share a common characteristic: they built their digital presence around informational content optimized for a version of Google that is being systematically retired.
The businesses gaining ground share a different one: they are genuinely known. People search for them by name. AI systems cite them unprompted. Their content comes from real expertise and documented outcomes — not rephrased information available anywhere online.
The data does not require interpretation. It requires a decision about what to do next.
“When Ahrefs and SEMrush look at the same market and reach the same conclusions — that is the kind of consensus that deserves your attention.”
Key terms
AI Overview
The AI-generated summary Google places above traditional search results, often answering a query without requiring a click to any external website.
Zero-Click Search
A search session that ends on the results page with no click to an external website. Now accounts for 68% of Google searches per SparkToro 2026 data.
GEO — Generative Engine Optimization
The practice of optimizing content to be cited or referenced by AI-powered answer engines such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Mode.
Query Fan-Out
The process by which an AI search system breaks a single user query into multiple sub-queries, runs them simultaneously, and synthesizes results into one response. Named by Google at I/O 2025; documented in depth by Semrush.
Search Everywhere Optimization
The practice of building visibility across every platform where an audience searches and researches — not just Google. Framework researched by Semrush in 2026.
LLM Seeding
The strategic practice of building a brand’s presence across the internet so that large language models learn to associate the brand with relevant topics and recommendations.
Branded Search
When someone searches for a specific business or person by name. Strong branded search volume signals legitimacy to both Google and AI systems.
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