SEO in 2026: The Trends That Will Matter (and the Ones That Won’t)

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Remember when Sindar Pichai said in 2024 that "Search itself will continue to change profoundly in [2025]. I think we are going to be able to tackle more complex questions than ever before. I think you'll be surprised even early in [2025] the kind of newer things search can do compared to where it is today"?

Yes Mr. Pichai, and the biggest surprise - if that's what were calling it - is how much traffic AI Overviews took away from publishers. Study after study shows that search has changed... and one way it did is, it's sending less traffic to websites...😄

So if you're wondering how search will change AGAIN in 2026, here's my 2 cents.

ChatGPT and LLMs will still lag behind Google

Despite all the click-bait stuff you see circulating around, I don't see Chatgpt or other LLMs catching up with Google search let alone overtake it. The growth curve for Chatgpt looks like a slow steady growth, not exponential growth or anything [chart source]:

Chatgpt gets ~6.165B visits per month in October 2025, compared to Google's 105.6 billion monthly visits... that's a lot of catching up to do 😃

So in 2026, Google is still king of search and traffic referral, Chatgpt and other LLMs may grow in importance, but will still be a minor competitor to Google.

The future of search is AI Mode

"AI Mode is where we’ll first bring Gemini’s frontier capabilities, and it’s also a glimpse of what’s to come. As we get feedback, we'll graduate many features and capabilities from AI Mode right into the core Search experience. " ~ Elizabeth Reid on AI in Search.

Pretty much the same as what Sindar Pichai said "Our current plan is AI mode is going to be there as a separate tab for people who really want to experience that, but it’s not yet at the level there, our main search pages. But as features work will keep migrating it to the main page, and so you can view it as a continuum. AI mode will offer you the bleeding edge experience, but things that work will keep overflowing to AI overviews and the main experience."

and thus, my second prediction for 2026, is that we will see more of AI mode in traditional search, not sure how, but more if its features are going to graduate and be part of the current AI Overviews setup.

perhaps an example of this is the "web guide" feature? It's worth checking if you can turn it on in the Lab experiment so you can play around with it.

SEO will require a wider skillset

I think this is perhaps the most important prediction for 2026. We all know that search is changing and AI is playing a major role and as SEOs we need to be able to:

• leverage multiple platforms
• look deeper into data
• use more advanced tactics that require automation (like analyzing competitors at scale for a specific aspect)

All of this and more translates into one thing, to remain competitive in the job market, you need to double down on your skillset, review your processes, learn from your peers and stay on top of things.

Am I trying to promote my Python for SEO course? of course 😄 but I'm not saying that's the only way to grow, it's definitely one valid way, but there's plenty of ways to develop yourself. Check out my guide on how to upskill yourself in SEO.

And That’s a Wrap (Almost 😄)

No one knows everything, all we know is the data we have, questions we're trying to find answers for, our experiences, gut instinct and passion for SEO!

I'm optimistic about the future of search, even if it does not look great right now, but that's only because we don't know how the dust will settle and what tactics we need to apply.

Whatever you do, stay away from click-baity titles and posts.... maybe, just maybe as an industry... critical thinking should be on the top of our list for things to learn in 2026?

That's that for today folks and see you next newsletter!

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Disclaimer: LLMs were used to assist in wording and phrasing this blog.