Organic News Round Up – February 2025

We’ve compiled the essential updates from Google and the world of SEO, digital PR and organic search from February – keeping you up to date with everything you need to know!

Covering:

• Semrush’s deep dive into ChatGPT usage: what it means for search
• Google sued as AI Overviews impact website traffic
• Site reputation abuse covered by Wall St Journal
• Google rewarding itself again
• Instagram’s Threads platform is being given more prominence in SERPs
• Google expands its pricing markup to better showcase sales and discounts in search results
• The shifting landscape of link building following Reach PLC’s updated linking policy
• Ensuring expert legitimacy in digital PR
• An interesting read on the evolving relationship between Google and Reddit

Semrush’s deep dive into ChatGPT usage: what it means for search

In February, Semrush published one of the most in-depth ChatGPT usage studies to date, analysing over 80 million clickstream records to understand ChatGPT’s influence on search behavior and web traffic. 

With this data, they were able to see: 

• The specific ChatGPT prompts people used
• Where they would navigate to after interacting with ChatGPT

The findings reveal notable shifts in how users discover and interact with online content, offering valuable insights for us as digital marketers.​

Why this matters

We all know ChatGPT use is increasing and is altering how people search and source information. What is less clear is the kinds of things people are asking ChatGPT and that is where this study is interesting.

There are lots of interesting stats:

• Referral traffic growth: The number of unique domains receiving traffic from ChatGPT increased by 300% between July and December 2024, reflecting a growing demand for users to access source material and continue their journeys beyond AI-generated responses. This shift highlights a preference for deeper engagement with external websites rather than relying solely on ChatGPT’s outputs.
• User Demographics: ChatGPT’s user base includes a higher proportion of students and younger users compared to Google’s broader demographic distribution. This is known and expected. As marketers ChatGPT has to be built into any strategy if younger demographics form part of your target audience.

Use is up across all demographics though, so it is essential companies view  this platform as another one that impacts and influences brand perception. 

• Longer prompt lengths compared to Google. The average query on ChatGPT is 23 words, highlighting a different user behavior compared to traditional search engines, where shorter, keyword-driven queries are more common. This suggests that users are engaging in more detailed, conversational searches rather than simple keyword lookups.

The most interesting takeaway for me is that only 30% of ChatGPT’s usage directly overlaps with how people use Google.

Breaking this down further, the traditional search intent categories that define how people typically use Google account for just 30% of ChatGPT interactions:

• Navigational (finding specific websites)
• Informational (learning about topics)
• Commercial (researching products)
• Transactional (making purchases)

The remaining 70% of ChatGPT usage is completely different from traditional search behaviour. People are using it for tasks like consultancy, problem-solving, brainstorming, budgeting advice, teaching and deep research. These are things they would not typically turn to Google for.

This is what makes the shift so interesting. ChatGPT’s rising usage does not necessarily mean Google Search is in decline. Some industries will feel a significant impact, and most websites will likely continue to see a drop in informational clicks. However, that trend has been happening on Google for years.

Although billions of people are using ChatGPT, that does not mean billions have stopped using Google. Instead, it shows that AI-driven platforms are changing how people find information, rather than fully replacing search engines.

Google sued as AI Overviews impact website traffic

Google is facing a lawsuit from digital publishers who claim its AI Overviews are harming their businesses by reducing website traffic and ad revenue. The legal action, filed in a US federal court, argues that Google is unfairly keeping users within its search ecosystem rather than directing them to original sources.

• The core complaint: Publishers claim AI Overviews extract and display key information from their content without proper attribution or compensation, discouraging users from clicking through.
• Impact on publishers: With fewer users landing on their sites, businesses relying on search traffic are seeing declines in ad revenue and engagement.
• Fair competition concerns: The lawsuit argues that Google’s approach violates antitrust laws by making it harder for independent publishers to compete.

Education platform Chegg recently reported a 24% year-on-year decline in revenue for Q4 2024, citing AI-driven search changes as a contributing factor. The company believes that students who previously relied on external resources are now getting their answers directly from AI-generated responses in search results. Chegg’s case highlights the potential financial consequences for businesses that depend on organic search visibility

Google, however, defends its AI-powered search features, stating that Overviews provide users with faster, high-quality answers. The company insists that its AI-generated summaries align with long-standing search practices, though concerns remain about accuracy, transparency, and the broader impact on the open web.

With AI continuing to reshape search, this case could set a major precedent for how search engines use and display third-party content. If the lawsuit gains traction, Google may be forced to reconsider how it integrates AI-generated information in search results.

Site reputation abuse covered by Wall St Journal

For the last couple of years, major publishers like Forbes Advisor, CNN Underscored, and The New York Times’ Wirecutter have ranked prominently for product review searches, often ahead of smaller, more specialised websites. These high-authority domains have been able to appear for a wide range of commercial queries, even when they have limited expertise in the subject matter.

Last month, The Wall Street Journal covered the issue, bringing broader attention to a ranking trend that independent publishers have been raising concerns about for some time.

• The issue is known as ‘site reputation abuse’. Google’s algorithms have prioritised generalist publishers, allowing them to rank for product-related searches across multiple industries, often pushing more specialised websites further down the results.
• The impact on smaller businesses has been significant. Many legitimate review-focused websites that previously ranked well have seen organic traffic decline, making it harder for them to compete. Many have even shut down due to the shift in visibility.
• Google has started to address the problem, in places, but progress is slow. Algorithm updates have attempted to reduce the dominance of generalist publishers, but many sites with broad authority still perform well in rankings, even when they are not the most relevant source.

Google has stated that its ranking systems are designed to prioritise trusted sources and high-quality content, but critics argue that these changes have made it harder for users to find detailed, expert-led product reviews. With mainstream media now reporting on the issue, scrutiny over how Google ranks commercial content is likely to increase which is no bad thing.

If Google does not take further action to balance ranking signals in favour of topical expertise, concerns around search quality and fairness will continue to grow.

Google rewarding itself again

Other than Reddit, no other site has seen visibility growth like Google’s /travel/ subfolder. The continued rise is primarily due to two factors: the increased prominence of the Google Flights widget for flight-related searches and the organic rankings of the /travel/ subfolder, which now frequently appears within the top five results.

• Major travel brands still rank, but lower than before. 
• This follows the same trend seen with Google Shopping and Google Hotels, where Google’s services have gained more prominence over time at the expense of third-party platforms.
• Google argues that these evolutions provide faster, more relevant search results, others see them as another example of Google leveraging its dominance to favour its own ecosystem.

This is nothing new, but with regulators continuously scrutinising Google’s market power, questions around how much control it has over which businesses succeed in search are only growing.

Short-form video has become LinkedIn’s fastest-growing content type, says Linkedin.

Instagram’s Threads platform is being given more prominence in SERPs

We all know that brands need to be visible across as many relevant touchpoints as possible, and Threads has seen strong user growth over the past year. The platform now has an estimated 130 million monthly active users, compared to 550 million for Twitter/X.

Until January, Google was not significantly surfacing Threads posts in search results, unlike its treatment of X. However, this has changed. Threads content is now appearing more frequently in Google’s “Latest Posts” carousel, indicating a shift in Google’s indexing and ranking approach to include more content from the platform.

For brands, this means two key things. Firstly, if your audience is active on Threads, it is worth considering whether you should be there too. Secondly, the growing Google visibility of Threads posts could provide additional organic search benefits for brands using the platform.

Implications for Digital Marketers

• Enhanced Brand Visibility – As Threads content becomes more discoverable through Google, brands active on the platform may experience increased organic reach.
• Content Strategy Adaptation – Marketers should consider integrating Threads into their social media strategies to take advantage of this expanded visibility.
• Monitoring and Engagement – Tracking brand mentions and engaging with audiences on Threads can help build community and improve search presence.

The role of social media in brand-building is huge and with brand now playing such an important role in SEO ranking efforts, this is a development that companies should be paying close attention to.

Google expands its pricing markup to better showcase sales and discounts in search results

Google has updated its product markup functionality to improve how sale prices appear in search results. This update allows merchants to better showcase discounts and promotional pricing, making special offers more visible to potential customers.

Key Updates:

• Improved Sale Price Visibility: Merchants can now use the priceType property to clearly label discounts, ensuring that sale pricing appears prominently in search results.
• Strikethrough Pricing Support: Google continues to support StrikethroughPrice, helping users differentiate between original and discounted prices at a glance.

Member-Specific Sale Pricing: A new validForMemberTier property (currently in beta) allows merchants to mark exclusive sale prices for loyalty program members, making these discounts more transparent.

The shifting landscape of link building following Reach PLC’s updated linking policy

In February, the Press Gazette reported that journalists at Reach PLC titles had been warned against unauthorised linking to commercial sites. This news circulated quickly, earning mixed reactions from digital PR professionals.

The updated editorial guidelines will make it harder to secure links in these valuable publications, but it also reinforces the need for a broader perspective on digital PR successes.

Although links remain valuable, brand mentions, contextual authority, and E-E-A-T all continue to play a huge role in website and brand authority. 

If anything, this gives us a chance to remember that digital PR strategies should focus on more than just links. 

• Developing campaign ideas that provide value beyond just these news sites will not only help reach more niche audiences that may be more relevant, but it will also help to increase the number of referring domains.
• The article cites “unauthorised commercial linking” – meaning that informational campaign landing pages are more likely to be linked to, reinforcing their importance in digital PR strategies.
• Editorial policies will continue to evolve, but brands that focus on strong, authoritative content rather than link building alone will maintain visibility in search.

Ensuring expert legitimacy in digital PR

It is no secret that the rise of AI-driven search and content creation has created both benefits and new challenges for digital PR professionals navigating this changing landscape. 

In a recent Allure article, freelance journalist Ashley Abramson spoke about her recent experience highlighting concerns regarding AI-generated “experts” being used to secure coverage for sites. 

With conversations such as these surfacing, digital PR professionals must continue to build trusting relationships with journalists. This can be done by pitching real, verifiable experts with genuine credentials. This isn’t just important for media credibility – but also for SEO.

To ensure expert legitimacy and strengthen SEO impact, we need to:

• Focus on using experts: Including a real, and importantly verifiable, person with credentials will add to the authority of any story.
• Include qualifications, if applicable: This will further reinforce the expertise you provide, and boost the credibility of the content.
• Ensure consistency: Particularly when positioning experts across multiple platforms, consistency will be an important factor to consider to improve legitimacy.

As the AI-driven media landscape continues to change, journalists and search algorithms will favour brands that offer credible, well-supported unique insights above all else and the more opinionated the expert, the better.

An interesting read on the evolving relationship between Google and Reddit

Reddit’s rise in search visibility and incorporation into most high-intent Google SEPRs is not new, but this article from NY Mag provides an interesting summary of the current state of affairs and where things could be heading.

Stay Ahead in SEO with Distinctly

Enjoyed our February roundup? Stay updated with the latest organic trends, tips, and exclusive insights by subscribing to our newsletter.