SEO Under Siege: 2025’s Collapse of Google Traffic
episode
Voices of Search // A Search Engine Optimization (SEO) & Content Marketing Podcast
57 min
2 speakers
8 chapters
transcribed 1 month ago
Transcript
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
What is the guest’s background and how did they end up in AI‑driven SEO?
The Voices of Search podcast is a proud member of the I Hear Everything podcast network. Looking to launch or scale your podcast? I Hear Everything delivers podcast production, growth, and monetization solutions that transform your words into profit. Ready to give your brand a voice? Then visit IHearEverything.com. Welcome to the Voices of Search podcast, a member of the I Hear Everything podcast network. Ready to expedite your company's organic growth efforts? Sit back, relax, and get ready for your daily dose of search engine optimization wisdom. Here's today's host of the Voices of Search podcast, Jordan Cooney.
I'm Jordan Cooney, and joining me today is Malta Landwehr, CMO and Chief Product Officer at Peak AI. Malta, welcome to the Voices of Search podcast.
Thanks for having
me. Super excited. We actually were co-workers together at Searchmetrics, got to work together for many, many years. And then you went on to Edialo, did some in-house experience. And now here you are back in this innovative software slash growing visibility space. So so we're going to dive into that a little bit as we get into this episode. But I just want to start off by just give me give me give me where you've been, where you've been going. I know you recently went on a on a vacation to South Korea and, you know, you realize that you weren't using Google as much as you used to. And just kind of walk me through where you've been in the SEO space and industry and that experience that you recently had on vacation.
Yeah, sure. So I randomly and accidentally discovered SEO when I was like 15, 16 years old, was building websites. I will spare you all the details, but I built websites when I went to school, when I went to university, co-founded an SEO agency, worked a bit in management consulting. Once upon a time, I was thinking about obtaining my PhD with a focus on social media analytics. At some point, I ended up at Searchmetrics, spent five years there. We both did. And then I spent five years at Idealo, as you already mentioned. And I think actually they are now legally allowed to say they're the largest e-commerce price comparison in the world. Not
just one of the
largest in Europe.
They're taking on that American marketing slang, the largest in the world. I
mean, they are because in America, people don't care about price comparisons. They
care
about coupons. So there's no large price comparison in the U.S.
That's why a
European one managed to be the largest in the world. And yeah, it's been, I think now already like eight months ago that my wife and I went to South Korea and I made this little challenge for myself. Let's not use Google. Let's see if ChatGPT works. And I used Google maybe 10, 12 times to find a specific website or do spell checking most of the time, actually, because I'm so used to using Google for spell checking. And everything else I did was chat GPT. And maybe there were hallucinations. I don't know. But every place where I went, every food I consumed, every item I bought, it all worked out fine for me. Zero food poisoning, zero allergic reactions. No tourist attractions that turned out to not exist.
Everything was fine. And then when we were on the airport, on the flight back home, I thought about this and I realized... that this change that is happening with AI chance search is going to come faster and it's going to be more severe than I thought. And that's
when I
decided, hey, I have to be part of this change, not become a victim of this very fundamental change, how people research information, discover content and also consume content. So, yeah, that's why I decided, hey, let's work in this space together. and not just be affected by it.
And that's a really powerful kind of statement there. And I think this is one of the interesting crossroads that the entire industry is in, right? Like yourself, not too dissimilar to myself and many of our listeners, a rich history with SEO, a rich history following those guidelines, a rich history following the algorithm updates and trends, whether they be
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the guest’s background and how did they end up in AI‑driven SEO?
0:00–6:58
2
How did a personal experiment in South Korea reveal the speed of AI search change?
6:58–14:08
3
Why are traditional click‑based SEO metrics becoming obsolete in AI discovery?
14:08–22:18
4
How can SEOs leverage their existing skill set to influence AI model grounding?
22:18–28:40
5
What new measurement frameworks replace clicks and search volume for AI traffic?
28:40–35:27
6
Which third‑party platforms (Reddit, YouTube, etc.) should brands target for AI citation authority?
35:27–43:35
7
How is ChatGPT’s shopping feature actually built on scraped Google Shopping data?
43:35–51:14
8
What practical steps can marketers take now to track and improve AI discoverability?
51:14–57:22