I’m Glad SEO Is Getting Replaced by AIO (AI Optimization)
For a decade-plus, “winning SEO” mostly meant playing a rigged game. If you were a small digital business, your chances were slim—not because your product or content wasn’t good, but because the ladder was chained to the roof.
Why? Because classic SEO disproportionately rewarded domain authority and backlinks. Correlation studies continue to show that sites with stronger link profiles dominate rankings; one large-scale 2025 analysis (11.8M results) found the #1 result had 3.8× more backlinks than positions #2–#10. (Backlinko)
Meanwhile, the platform running the table—Google—earns the majority of its revenue from advertising. In its 2024 annual filing, Alphabet stated it generated “more than 75%” of total revenue from online advertising. Expecting that company to hand out unlimited free organic traffic is… optimistic. (Q4 Capital)
In short: big brands owned SEO. They had the backlink machines, PR budgets, and domain history. Page speed and tidy on-page tags helped, sure—but for competitive queries, links were the gravity well.
What Changed: AI Overviews (and AI Search in general)
In 2024–2025, Google rolled out AI Overviews to hundreds of millions of users, with plans to reach over a billion. In 2025 it expanded “AI Mode” with deeper, more agentic capabilities. The search experience moved from “10 blue links” to summarized answers with citations. (blog.google)
Publishers report this has reduced clicks from Google in many categories (more “zero-click” journeys). Several independent reports and industry write-ups in 2025 documented substantial CTR drops under AI Overviews, even as Google disputes particular methodologies. The direction of travel is clear: answers on the results page, links below. (Search Engine Journal)
At the same time, AI-native search competitors (Perplexity, ChatGPT/Copilot experiences) are training users to ask complex questions and receive grounded, citational summaries. This shifts the game from “who has the most backlinks” to “whose content is clearest, most quotable, and easiest for LLMs to ingest.” (docs.perplexity.ai)
Why This Is Good News for Small & Mid-Size Businesses
Answer quality beats domain clout. LLM-driven search cares about whether your page directly answers the question and is easy to cite. Backlink inequality matters less when the system composes an answer first, then sprinkles citations. (Even Google’s own spokespeople have said links matter less than they used to.) (Search Engine Journal)
Traffic is re-democratizing. As AI systems quote more diverse sources, “brand moat via links” weakens. Yes, there’s disruption (some categories lose Google clicks), but AI channels also open new discovery pathways—and they aren’t locked behind legacy domain strength. (Semrush)
Intent gets richer. People ask longer, more specific, more “how do I…” questions—great for specialists and niche operators who can provide the best, most actionable explanations. (blog.google)
Call it AIO: AI Optimization. Instead of optimizing for bots that rank links, you optimize for AI systems that read, summarize, and cite.
The AIO Playbook (What to Do Now)
If SEO was “make pages rank,” AIO is “make pages summarizable, citable, and verifiable by AI systems.”
1) Be LLM-Readable by Design
Structure your answers. Open with a crisp summary, then step-by-step instructions, then proofs (data, examples, FAQs). This increases your chance to be quoted in AI summaries.
Use schema & clean HTML. Add relevant schema.org types and keep markup semantically clean so parsers/agents can extract entities and steps. (This helps both Google’s AI Overviews and other AI engines.) (blog.google)
Chunk long content. Use clear headings, bullets, and TL;DR blocks so models can cite precise spans.
2) Welcome AI Crawlers (Robots.txt with Intention)
Allow GPTBot if you want OpenAI systems to learn/cite from your site (or disallow if you don’t). Documented user-agent:
GPTBot. (platform.openai.com)Allow PerplexityBot to appear in Perplexity results with proper attributions. Their docs explain robots.txt handling and IPs. (docs.perplexity.ai)
(Your policy might differ per section: allow docs/help, disallow private areas.)
3) Publish “Answer-First” Content
Design for questions. Create pages that directly answer the exact questions your customers ask, in plain language with examples and updated stats.
Include comparisons & trade-offs. AI systems favor balanced, well-scoped answers they can cite.
4) Prove It (Citations & Evidence)
Reference primary data (methodology, sample sizes, dates). When your page cites verifiable numbers, AIs feel safer citing you.
Date everything. Put last updated at the top; AIs and readers both need freshness to trust you.
5) Offer Artifacts AI Can Reuse
Checklists, tables, formulas, JSON snippets, CSV downloads. These are easy for models to lift and attribute.
Add a short “Copy-able Summary” box—tight bullets that an AI (or human) can quote.
6) Build an “AI-Ready” Help Center
Consolidate answers, structured in consistent templates (Problem → Steps → Edge cases → Links). These pages often get cited in AI results even when your blog doesn’t.
7) Measure Beyond Google
Track:
AI referral sources (Perplexity, ChatGPT/Copilot linkouts when available),
Brand searches (do people ask specifically for you after encountering your content in an AI summary?),
Assisted conversions from “answer” pages.
“But Doesn’t Google Still Care About Links?”
Links still matter, but much less than the old playbook assumed. Google representatives have repeatedly signaled that links aren’t the top factor anymore, especially after 2023–2024 policy shifts. And the march toward AI answers in Search reduces the marginal value of pure link-building versus being the best, clearest answer. (Search Engine Journal)
Also remember incentives: Alphabet is, fundamentally, an ads business, and said so plainly in its 2024 10-K (“more than 75%” of revenue from online ads). The economics of the results page will always favor in-SERP answers. That’s even more explicit with the new AI experiences. Optimize accordingly. (Q4 Capital)
Bottom Line
SEO rewarded the biggest backlink engines. AIO rewards the best answers.
If you’re a small or mid-sized business, this is the most level playing field you’ve had in years. Make content that’s crystal-clear, structured, citable, and actually helpful, and tell the AI crawlers they’re welcome.