What Digital Marketing Taught Us in 2025
LLMs, AI, Google updates and ton of lawsuits define 2025 in a nutshell.
This week’s #SEOForLunch is sponsored by Semrush EnterpriseSo… turns out I wasn’t the only one a little nervous about the state of SEO at the start of 2025.
Honestly, it was the first time in my 15+ years doing this that I seriously wondered:
Is my skill set going to matter in a couple of years?
Then Google kept shipping updates, AI platforms kept expanding, and my tune changed.
SEO is still wildly valuable. It just doesn’t look like the version we all grew up with.
Here are the key 2025 moments that got us here.
Thanks to this week’s sponsor: Semrush Enterprise
Who Took First Place in AI Visibility?
2025 rewired search. AI diversified how customers discover, compare, and make decisions. Owning brand visibility across both search engines and LLMs is the new advantage.
That’s why Semrush created the AI Visibility Awards, powered by data from our AI Visibility Index. No submissions or opinions, just real data that demonstrates who’s leading and who’s accelerating.
These awards celebrate the brands that are setting the pace for next year and explore what sets them apart.
Google’s update calendar
Is this even an SEO newsletter if we don’t talk about algo updates?
Officially, we had three core updates and one spam update, according to Google’s search status dashboard.
March core (Mar 13–27)
June core (Jun 30–Jul 17)
August spam (Aug 26–Sep 22)
December core (Dec 11, still rolling out (up to 3 weeks))
But honestly? At this point, Google updates are the least of your concerns.
If your current SEO strategy doesn’t check at least two of these boxes, you might deserve to get clipped by these or future rollouts: Expensive, Time-Consuming, or High Friction
Spam content, + “helpful” becoming table stakes
In my opinion, AI is an absolutely amazing tool. It’s helped me a ton. You know who else it’s helped? The spammers.
We’ve seen more automated, low-quality, copy-paste content pushed live in 2025 than ever before. And don’t even get me started on the AI “answers” clogging up our favorite social platforms.
Google has been preaching “quality” for years. I hate how corporate this sounds, but here we are: quality (aka real value) is table stakes now.
Not a nice-to-have. Not a “best practice.” The bare minimum.
Goodbye clicks, hello zero-click reality
Here’s the part that makes every “SEO is fine” report feel like a lie.
Year over year, organic clicks are down, and zero-click searches are up (Don’t listen to Google, they lie). Translation: people are still searching, but they’re increasingly getting what they need without ever visiting your site.
And it’s not just Google. AI summaries reduce clicking behavior. If an answer shows up right in the interface, most users do what humans do best: press that easy button!
This is why your dashboards can look “stable” while the business feels worse.
Your SEO report can say rankings are fine while revenue quietly walks out the back door.
Because we likely need to change how we measure organic visibility. Hell, we probably have measured it wrong all along.
Answer Engines are everywhere
Instant gratification has already rewired people’s brains. Social feeds deliver updates in seconds. Reels deliver that dopamine hit just as fast. Now, search is joining the party.
Instead of “10 blue links,” users are given a complete answer and a shortcut to the next question.
Google is pushing harder with AI Overviews and AI Mode. OpenAI made ChatGPT Search easier to access. Anthropic is layering in web search and research workflows.
The result is annoying and straightforward: the “click” is no longer guaranteed, and being #1 is no longer the win condition.
Optimization is now “be the cited option,” not just “be #1.” If the answer engine doesn’t trust the brand, the brand does not exist. Let’s not even get started on measurement; we’re going from being screwed to entirely in the dark.
Lawsuits + monetization pressure
First, the courts are getting involved. I mean, what do businesses love nearly as much as money? Legally forcing someone (anyone else) to do what they want.
The DOJ’s antitrust case against Google isn’t a thought experiment anymore. Remedies are on the table, and anything that touches distribution deals and defaults can reshape how search traffic gets “assigned” in the first place… so far, the only actionable item is a one year maximum default search deal. sigh..
Publishers are suing Google and LLMs for using their content to generate responses that keep users on-platform (and away from publisher ads and subscriptions).
And the biggest headline in the room: The New York Times and other newspapers vs OpenAI/Microsoft is still moving through the courts. OpenAI even published a post discussing their stance.
*Update* Fresh off the press. Google is suing SERPAPI for scraping search results. The irony behind Google suing anyone for scraping and profiting off others information is beyond comical. Their official stance… yeah, OK, Google, you're drunk, go home.
Now that we’ve covered the lawsuits, let’s talk about every business’s first love: money.
Answer engines are expensive to run, and monetization is still… not working. Google’s already testing the obvious path: ads inside AI Overviews.
OpenAI is pushing shopping features while saying it’s not running ads or taking commissions there, which pretty much screams: “We’re still figuring this out.”
And let’s be real: the only reason AI Mode isn’t the default experience is that Google hasn’t fully solved the business model. They’re not about to torch the golden goose to feel innovative.
So what’s the solution?
This is the magic question. Every C-suite I talk to is enamored with AI, even though it drives a fraction of the clicks and revenue we’re used to and is barely measurable today. It’s still a top priority anyway.
My biggest takeaway from 2025: embrace the change, challenge the status quo, and test with the limited data we do have. Track what you can (mentions, citations, share of voice, branded lift), run controlled experiments, and build a baseline now so you’re not left in the dark later.
And yes, I’m still holding out hope that monetization forces transparency. The second real ad dollars hit answer engines at scale, someone is going to demand reporting on impressions, citations, mentions, and influence. Because “trust me, bro” doesn’t fly when budgets are on the line.