SEO Will Change in 2026 (Get Ready)

based on over a decade of experience in the SEO industry.

My name is Nathan Gotch, CEO of RankAbility

and head SEO coach at RankAbility Academy.

So if you wanna stay on the cutting edge of SEO

and AI search, hit the like button

and let's jump into prediction number one,

which is CTR will continue to decline.

Back in the mid 2000s, multiple studies showed

that roughly 90% of clicks went to page one results

in Google.

In other words, if you were on page one,

you were in the game.

If you were not, you were invisible.

But since then, that grip has been slipping.

In 2007, Google launched Universal Search,

which introduced many of the cert features we see today,

like the local pack, video results, and news blocks.

Then in 2012, the knowledge graph

started answering questions directly in the search results.

And starting around 2014,

featured snippets rolled out widely,

putting even more answers above the classic list

of 10 blue links.

Every one of those changes chipped away

at organic click-through rates.

And by 2020, research based on similar web data

showed that only a third of Google searches

resulted in an organic click,

and nearly two thirds ended without any click at all.

And more recent studies have shown

that only 360 out of 1,000 searches

send a click to a non-Google site,

and zero-click searches are hovering in the 60 to 70% range,

especially since AI overviews have launched.

So CTR is heading in one direction, which is down,

and my prediction is that for many query types,

organic CTR on Google will effectively be

in the single digits by 2026,

especially where AI overviews and AI mode are active.

Traditional SEO is not going away,

but the share of traffic you get

from classic blue links will keep shrinking.

And now for prediction number two,

AI answers become the default entry point.

Traditional search results still matter,

and they're one of the primary sources of retrieval

for AI platforms like ChatGBT, Gemini, and Perplexity.

Those classic search indexes are critical

because they improve accuracy

and reduce hallucinations in AI answers,

but the writing is on the wall.

Google has introduced AI overviews

and AI-only AI mode view, and now WebGuide,

which uses Gemini to organize web results

into AI-generated sections.

Google hasn't flipped AI mode

as the default for everyone yet,

but if you look at how often AI overviews,

AI mode, and WebGuide appear,

it is clear that the interface is shifting

from a list of links to AI-first experiences.

And that means more and more search journeys

will start inside an AI chat interface

rather than a standard results page.

So the days of opening 25 tabs to piece together an answer

are quickly becoming a relic of the past

for many query types.

So if you're serious about this shift,

you need a way to track where your brand shows up

inside of AI answers, not just where you rank in Google.

Rankability will soon have a built-in

AI search visibility tracking

so you can actually see which prompts, services,

and citations you're winning.

So now moving on to number three,

which is UGC continues to be a huge LLM feeder.

So right now, anyone can pump out average copy with AI.

Even Google is pushing AI-generated content with Gemini

and its new Opal tools

that helps brands create marketing assets at scale.

That is exactly why the pendulum is swinging back

towards unique content.

We're already seeing it.

Google's helpful content update and 2024 Quora updates

hit a lot of generic, low-value sites.

And Google has even said that those updates

reduced unhelpful content in search by about 40%.

For years, Google has given extra weight

to UGC-driven platforms like Reddit, Quora, and niche forums,

and that trend is only accelerating.

In recent studies of AI citations across tools

like Google's AI Overviews, AI Mode, ChatGBT, and Perplexity

show that Reddit, Wikipedia, and YouTube

are among the most cited domains,

and Reddit in particular accounting for a huge share

of citations across these engines.

One big reason is that UGC is unique

and different from the kind of content

large language models tend to generate.

And large volumes of unedited, low-quality AI content

are increasingly easy to detect,

and search engines are now treating scaled content abuse

as a form of spam, especially when it is created

primarily to manipulate rankings.

So how do you win going forward?

Well, you double down on effort

and experience-driven content.

LLMs cannot actually experience anything yet,

and that is your strategic advantage.

So make your brand and your content more human,

and do not worry about publishing huge amounts of volume.

Publish less and make every piece count.

And now for number four,

standard SEO best practices still matter.

So when people say geo or AEO is just SEO,

there's actually some truth to that.

A strong technical SEO foundation

makes your site easier to crawl, index,

and retrieve for AI systems.

And ranking well in traditional search

also increases your chances of being used

as a source in AI answers.

And you can see this clearly at the local level.

After studying thousands of local queries at RankAbility,

we found that Google's AI overviews and AI mode

frequently pull information straight

from Google business profiles

for near me or best service in city type of queries.

And the businesses that show up there

tend to be the ones that are already strong

in the local pack and maps.

In other words, solid local SEO on Google

improves your visibility in Google's AI products.

But notice that I keep saying Google,

and that's where just do SEO stops being 100% accurate.

When you run a query like best plumber in Chicago

inside a chat GBT or perplexity,

you'll usually see a different mix of sources,

reviews, directory listings, publisher roundups,

Reddit threads, and so on.

Google business profiles

are not the primary retrieval source there.

So doing well in Google does not automatically translate

to visibility in chat GBT or other AI assistance.

So every AI platform has its own retrieval patterns

and nuances, and the businesses that will win

will be the ones that keep their SEO fundamentals tight,

but also learn how to optimize

across multiple search and AI platforms.

Moving on to number five,

social platforms and YouTube dominate informational queries.

So most businesses need to be very careful

about creating blog content for purely informational queries.

First, you're feeding the next LLM training cycle,

and second, the effort to reward ratio is getting worse.

Take an example.

Let's say you rank for an informational query

like how to build backlinks.

Google can take your content, remix it with other sources,

simplify it, and spit out an AI-generated answer

that sits above your page.

And most people will not admit it,

but the AI answer is good enough for the average user.

And if you wanna go deeper,

Google conveniently lets them open AI mode

and keep that conversation going.

So what did you actually get in return

for all of your time and effort you put in that blog post?

Well, maybe a few accidental clicks,

and for most informational keywords,

it's just getting harder and harder to justify.

So what is the alternative?

For informational queries,

I would shift more of that effort

to platforms like YouTube, LinkedIn, Reddit,

and even TikTok.

Multiple studies of AI citations

and Google's own experiments

show that Reddit, Wikipedia, and YouTube

appear again and again in AI answers,

and even in web guides group sections.

And the wild part is this.

If you have an established YouTube channel,

it's often easier to rank a video

than a blog post on your website for the same exact topic.

And now for number six is that chat GPT

will add some levels of spam filtering.

You've probably heard the phrase marketers ruin everything,

and it's probably more accurate

to say SEOs ruin everything.

And right now, people are hammering AI platforms

with spam and self-promotion,

and I'm pretty agnostic when it comes to SEO tactics,

and to me, it's mostly a question of risk tolerance.

Back in my gray hat days,

I got hit by Google one too many times

to keep playing that game,

but here's the truth.

Black and gray hat SEOs often understand these systems

more deeply than many so-called SEO experts.

They're not just reading patents

and repeating Google's talking points.

They learn by taking action, running experiments,

and pushing these platforms to their absolute limits.

And the pressure is exactly why platforms

like Google and chat GPT will keep tightening their spam

and quality filters.

And if they don't adapt,

the experience gets flooded with junk

and the platform stops doing what it's supposed to do.

So in 2026 and beyond,

expect much stricter spam detection

and filtering on AI platforms,

especially chat GPT and AI-powered search experiences.

And now for SEO prediction number seven,

search everywhere optimization

becomes the default strategy.

So I hate to say this,

but anyone who still thinks of SEO

as search engine optimization in the classic sense

is living in the past.

AI assistants like chat GPT, Gemini, and Perplexity

behave more like answer engines

than traditional search engines.

They blend model knowledge with retrieval

from existing search indexes

and licensed publisher content,

and then synthesize these answers

instead of just showing a list of static pages.

They're also non-deterministic,

so you can run the same query

in two different chats at the same time

and get completely different answers

with a completely different set of citations.

They simply do not behave like classic search engines.

And that's why search everywhere optimization

is a more accurate way to think about SEO today.

SEO is now a multi-channel discipline

and Google is still the king,

but even inside of Google,

there's a lot of fragmentation.

So if you want to succeed,

you need to understand the unique ranking variables

for traditional search results,

the local pack, AI overviews, AI mode, Gemini, and YouTube,

and that's all just in Google.

And then you layer on chat GPT, Perplexity, and Claude

and other AI platforms,

and you start to see that this game is far more

than just ranking blue links.

Modern SEO is an extremely challenging discipline

because it often requires input from multiple teams,

content, technical, PR, video, social, and more.

But the businesses that are willing to adapt, test,

and roll with the punches

are the ones that will win going forward.

So what do you think will change in 2026?

Drop your prediction in the comments.

And if you want to stay on the cutting edge of SEO

and AI search, apply for RankAbility Academy.

Thank you so much for watching.