r/Agent_SEO

Do you think it's still worth investing your time and effort in SEO? Since AI Overviews and Gemini are pulling authoritative answers and sources directly into the first result, the incentive for users to click through seems drastically lower., I'm guessing even the #1 organic results aren't getting the traffic they used to.

​What do you guys think? Is SEO dying, or just evolving?

Quick thing I keep running into, wanted to sanity-check it with people here.

A growing number of buyers don't Google anymore. They ask ChatGPT, Claude or Perplexity "what is the best X for Y" and go with whatever it says. So I started asking the four big models the questions a real buyer types, across a bunch of categories, and counting who gets named.

The pattern is rough: each model names the same few companies every time and ignores everyone else. Not because the others are worse, but because the models recommend whatever was already written about enough in their training. If you are not in those inputs, you are invisible in the answer, and the buyer who takes the first recommendation never sees you.

The part that gets me is you cannot see it happening. No analytics, no impression count. Just buyers who never heard your name because the model skipped you.

Two things I am curious about from this sub:

- When you ask AI for a tool or vendor in your space, are you getting named, or is it always the same incumbents?

- For those doing client work, are you seeing AI referrals show up yet, or is it still mostly Google and search?

Hi everyone,

I'm working as a Digital Marketing Executive at a financial services company. I recently completed our new company website, and yesterday I submitted it to Google Search Console.

Now I want to focus on AI SEO / Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) so that our brand not only ranks well on Google SERPs but also starts getting recommended by AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, etc.

Our plan is to publish high-quality blog content consistently (almost every day) and build topical authority over time.

I'm looking for a practical roadmap from people who are already working on AI SEO/GEO.

I'd really appreciate any roadmap, resources, or advice from people who've already been through this. Thanks in advance.

I know this will get downvoted by the "SEO is fine" crowd but hear me out.

Yellow Pages didn't die overnight. It just slowly became irrelevant while the people selling ads in it kept insisting it still worked fine.

Google traffic is down for a lot of informational queries. People are going straight to ChatGPT or Perplexity for research. And the thing is, the signals those AI tools use to decide who to recommend are completely different from what Google ranks.

I've been reading everything I can about GEO (generative engine optimization) and most of it is vague. Best concrete breakdown I found was from ROI marketing agency, they laid out the difference between ranking for Google and being cited by AI in a way that actually made sense. Core of it: AI doesn't want the most optimized page. It wants the most citable source.

Are we all just going to keep selling the same product while the floor shifts under us?

​

I've been running an SEO agency for years, and lately I've been wondering whether the industry is heading toward a major shift.

With AI-generated search results, zero-click searches, clients expecting faster ROI, and many businesses preferring to spend on Google Ads and Meta Ads instead of waiting months for SEO, I'm questioning the long-term future of SEO agencies.

Some questions I'd love to hear your thoughts on:

- Do you think standalone SEO agencies will still thrive 5–10 years from now?

- Have you already pivoted into PPC, CRO, AI automation, web development, or another service?

- Are clients asking for SEO less than they used to?

- If you owned an SEO agency today, would you double down on SEO or diversify while you still can?

I'm not saying SEO is dead—I still believe organic search has value. But the market feels different than it did even a few years ago.

I'm especially interested in hearing from agency owners who have actually changed their business model. What made you pivot, and has it worked?

I've been spending some time researching why certain brands keep getting recommended by AI while others barely show up. I assumed it was mostly about content quality and SEO. After manually testing prompts across ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity, my perspective changed. Many of the consistently recommended brands were not necessarily the ones with the best content. What they did have was strong review profiles, lots of third-party mentions, active discussions in communities and a solid overall reputation online. I also looked at some AI visibility tracking data and it seemed to support the same idea like brands with stronger external signals often appeared more frequently than brands that were focused mainly on publishing content. It made me understand that we are overestimating the importance of website content and underestimating the impact of reviews, community discussions and third party credibility.

Have you noticed a similar pattern? Do reviews influence AI recommendations more than content?

I've got a small, local business and I'm trying to decide if I should invest in an SEO agency. I've tried some basic stuff myself (optimizing my Google My Business page, adding some keywords to the site), but I'm not ranking anywhere near the top for my local keywords.

Every agency I talk to promises the world, but the quotes I'm getting are huge. It's a big commitment for a small business like mine. I'm worried about paying a ton of money and getting no results. How do I find an agency that actually delivers for a reasonable budget? Any tips on what to look for or avoid would be massively appreciated.

Need help. I just completed my SEO course. I know I can do it and can bring good results. I dont have any client references and everyone I reach out to, asks for a reference.

How do I begin? Happy to offer my services at low rates to build some clientele/portfolio.

Thanks

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I'm reviewing the internal linking structure of my content site and would like to hear from people with practical SEO experience.

For a typical 2,500-word article:

Is there a generally accepted safe limit for internal links per post?

At what point do internal links become excessive and potentially dilute value or hurt user experience?

Do you regularly link to category and tag archive pages from within articles, or do you avoid them?

If multiple links point to the same destination URL within a post, does using different anchor text for each link create any SEO issues?

How do you balance internal linking for SEO versus keeping the article natural and reader-friendly?

For context, this is a content-heavy site with many related articles, so some posts could easily contain 30–50+ relevant internal links.

I'd appreciate hearing what has worked for you in real-world projects rather than just generic SEO recommendations.

How does Google treat URLs that appear on platforms such as LinkedIn, YouTube comments, Facebook posts and comments, X (Twitter) posts, Quora, Mastodon communities, Tumblr, Blogspot, Reddit, Pinterest, and similar sites?

Do these links provide any direct or indirect SEO benefits? Are they considered backlinks by Google, and can they help with rankings, crawling, indexing, brand authority, or referral traffic?

I'm particularly interested in real-world experiences and case studies rather than generic SEO advice.

Anybody here using AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, DeepSeek, Meta AI, etc. for SEO tasks such as internal linking, technical SEO audits, schema suggestions, content optimization, crawl analysis, or site structure improvements?

I'm particularly interested in real-world experiences rather than marketing claims. Have these tools actually helped improve your workflow, find issues you missed, or save time on SEO tasks?

For context, I've tested several AI tools on my websites. ChatGPT and Claude seem reasonably useful for things like internal linking recommendations, content clustering, and technical SEO troubleshooting. DeepSeek has also been surprisingly capable for some tasks.

I didn't include Gemini in the list because my experience has been disappointing so far—it struggled even with basic URL analysis and website reviews.

What AI tools are you using for SEO in 2026, and what specific tasks do they handle well (or poorly)?

What is more simple & worth path? The goal is to grow from AI tools a background helper - who can analyse competitors and keep the data into the G Sheet.

I’ve been thinking about this for a while,
with Google’s AI Overviews and answer snippets reducing clicks, and LLMs pulling information directly from websites, what happens to the incentive for creating original content?

If generative models keep using publisher content to answer queries, but send no traffic back, won’t they eventually need a monetization or revenue‑share program for site owners similar to how Google historically rewarded content with visibility?

Because no matter how advanced AI gets, it still can’t replicate the human insights that come from years of experience.
Curious if others think this is where the ecosystem is heading.