How Google Is Quietly Upending the Search Engine Landscape

As SEO becomes irrelevant, the platform is fighting to keep users on Google.

Photo by Mitchell Luo on Unsplash

The Internet was once a place of organic reach. But Google is growing increasingly dissatisfied with traffic leaving its ecosystem. The first page for the search term ‘podcasting’ reveals a concerning new reality for content creators, Startups, and marketers.

Quick question before you skim further. How many organic links can you count in the screenshot below?

Screenshot from Author’s iPad

One. The answer to our quick question is one. Congratulations, you’re not the winner. Nobody is a winner. Except maybe Google, but the platform has been winning already. No news here. (The screenshot is from my iPad and represents roughly 50% of Google’s first page.)

What can we see when we search the term podcasting?

• Paid advertisement
• Google’s Long dictionary
• Side snipped from Wikipedia (not Google’s content)
• People Also Ask section (definitely not Google’s content)