The Situation

The era of “optimizing for traffic” formally ended in late 2025. Data confirms 60% of all search queries now result in zero clicks, a statistic driven by the aggressive expansion of Google’s AI Overviews (AIO) and the dominance of answer engines like Perplexity and ChatGPT. The traditional SEO playbook—keyword stuffing and backlink farming—is now effectively a liability.

The market has fractured into four distinct operational disciplines required for survival:

  • AIO (AI Optimization): Structuring data for Google’s Gemini to parse and summarize without hallucination.
  • GEO (Generative Engine Optimization): Optimizing for citation in LLM responses rather than ranking positions.
  • AEO (Answer Engine Optimization): Targeting direct answers for voice and mobile-first “micro-moments.”
  • SXO (Search Experience Optimization): Focusing purely on the post-click user journey to convert the thinning trickle of high-intent traffic that remains.

Why It Matters

The funnel has inverted. Visibility no longer equals traffic.

  • CTR Collapse: For queries triggering AI Overviews, organic click-through rates have plummeted by 61%, dropping from ~1.76% to just 0.61%. Even paid search is not immune, seeing a 68% CTR decline in these environments.
  • The Invisible Majority: Users are satisfied by the summary. If your brand is not the source of the summary, you do not exist.
  • Metric Shift: The “Session” is a vanity metric. The new currency is the “Citation.” Brands cited in AI Overviews see a 35% lift in conversion efficiency despite lower raw volume.

The Implication

Founders and operators must audit their growth assumptions immediately. If your Series B model relies on a linear correlation between “content output” and “lead volume,” you will miss projections by Q2. The “10 blue links” are now effectively page two.

Founder Action

1. Audit for Entities, Not Keywords: Shift 100% of content budget to “Entity-First” strategy. Ensure your brand and products are defined in Knowledge Graph-friendly formats (JSON-LD, Schema.org).

2. Implement “Chunking”: Rewrite knowledge bases into 800-token independent blocks. LLMs retrieve information at the passage level, not the page level.

3. Monitor “Share of Model”: Stop obsessing over SERP rankings. Begin tracking your brand’s citation frequency in ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity responses for your core category queries.