We’re in our best SEO era yet.
The Economist literally just cited Google as one of their biggest traffic drivers at Semrush’s Spotlight conference.
Last week I spoke to Katerina Clark, Head of Optimizations at The Economist and she gave me an exclusive look at how SEO continues to be a critical growth channel for their brand.
Despite blocking all LLMs from using their original content in their answer engines, they revealed how they are still seeing a ton of traffic coming in from Google with no negative impact on subscriptions.
What sets them apart from other publications in their space? They create original content that you can’t find anywhere else.
Even with all the AI noise, it’s actually working to their advantage by helping them clear out unqualified traffic while attracting the right audience.
Here’s what Katerina shared with me:
Everyone is talking about AI as a new traffic source or conversion driver, but few are measuring its long-term effects. Traditional metrics like CTR are no longer enough.
For instance, ChatGPT may crawl 1,400+ pages before referring one click — meaning we’re entering a “crawl-to-referral ratio” era, not a simple click-through world. That raises a critical question: do we need to double or triple content creation to stay visible?
Another emerging KPI is brand recall — how long does someone remember your brand after encountering it via AI, compared to a traditional ad or social campaign?
One positive outcome is that LLMs are filtering out unqualified traffic. Users who spend time researching and refining prompts are higher intent — improving what I call the “traffic quality” KPI. So I hope we start seeing SEO dashboards built on those 3 KPIs: crawl to click ratio, traffic quality, and brand recall.
How do you see the future of SEO evolving in 2026 and beyond?
Those who give up on SEO are going to see the biggest losses in organic traffic.
What’s happening now is that the web is maturing and we are entering monetization era. All those “free” sites, blogs, and open content spaces we took for granted are moving toward monetization. The phrase “nothing is free” is finally coming to life.
Google is going through a major decluttering phase — cutting back the noise and heavying up on audio, visual, and interactive experiences. Content creators who understand this shift and start investing in those formats early will win.
I also expect another big algorithm update — something on the scale of Panda or Penguin — aimed directly at cleaning up AI-generated content. Those who continue to produce original, high-quality, human content will rise to the top. They’ll be the ones LLMs will chase to license their work, because AI will need real material to keep learning.
In the next few years, we’ll also see the web’s legal side evolve fast — expect lawsuits, licensing deals, and debates over who owns what data.
How do you remain unfazed by AI’s disruption and committed to driving growth using SEO?
I stay grounded in data. When AI emerged, instead of reacting emotionally, I asked: Who is using it? What are they using it for? And how is it changing search behavior?
The data shows SEO remains essential. AI tools like ChatGPT have actually increased curiosity — the average person now makes 13 searches per week, up from 10 pre-LLMs. AI hasn’t replaced search; it’s retrained people to research more deeply and ask better questions.
The LLM panic has made us doubt, made us rewrite our email drafts to sound more polished, made us question whether AI will take our jobs. But if you can get past the doubt and the noise and actually see clearly, you’ll realize it’s just a big tech algorithm — built on psychology — designed to change how people search and, ultimately, to make more money.
Newsflash: if you want traffic and mentions from both Google and AI, stop looking for hacks and start doing the boring stuff.
Most AEO strategies are literally just… good SEO, good social, good brand content aka everything you should be doing anyway.
The biggest brands crushing it in SEO are also the biggest brands crushing it on AI overviews, LLMs, etc.
Hope you enjoyed this weekend’s exclusive!
-Jeremy
