By now, you’ve heard the doom and gloom.
SEO is a white-collar job. So does that mean our jobs will be eliminated, too? The answer isn’t as obvious as you might think.
Yes, the world is changing. But if you’ve been doing SEO for a while, you should be used to that by now.
SEOs have always been forced to wear strange combinations of hats: part technical analyst, part content strategist, part UX researcher, part marketer, and part analyst.
I don’t think AI will make SEO expertise obsolete. But it will make shallow SEO obsolete.
The people who thrive will be the ones who understand search behavior, business outcomes, technical systems, content strategy, analytics, and how to turn all of that into better decisions.
The old version of SEO stopped working years ago
I’ve been doing SEO since before there was a word for “SEO.” Every few years, there’s a viral article declaring that “SEO is dead.” One of the first to catch fire was a 2005 article by Jeremy Schoemaker, repeating something he’d heard from Jason Calacanis.
Then, in 2009, Danny Sullivan wrote an article on this site reacting to a blog post by Robert Scoble declaring that “SEO isn’t important anymore.”
We know the reality. SEO never died. But over the years, it’s changed a lot.
Look at this screenshot of a Google search for [flowers] in 2007 versus the same search in 2026.
This example is near and dear to my heart because I wrote that title tag in 2007. I was fortunate enough to lead SEO at 1-800-Flowers at a time when a No. 1 organic ranking meant significant traffic and revenue.
Twenty years later, their team has maintained the No. 1 organic ranking. However, today it’s so buried on the SERP that I wonder whether it gets any clicks at all.
This phenomenon isn’t limited to searches for “flowers.” Search for any competitive head term these days, and chances are you’ll see the organic result buried.
Is SEO “dead”? That really depends on your definition of “SEO.”
If your definition is “getting to the top of Google organic search” by spending your whole day writing title tags, then yeah, SEO is pretty much dead. It has been for a long time.
If your definition of SEO is understanding that people are looking for your goods and services, understanding their needs, answering their questions, and meeting them wherever they go to find information, then your journey as an SEO expert — or whatever you eventually decide to call yourself — is only beginning.
Dig deeper: Could AI eventually make SEO obsolete?
Your customers search everywhere. Make sure your brand shows up.
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