Is Google Dying? What It Means for SEO and How to Adapt

Is Google Dying? Yes, but slowly. The company has ruled the search engine throne for the past 20 years, but now that this golden era is over, the method of performing SEO will change drastically as a result. So today, I’m going to explain exactly how and why Google is dying, what its decline means for the future of SEO, and how you can adjust your SEO strategies to avoid being left behind. But for you to make sense of all this, we first need to explore how Google achieved its traditional dominance as a search engine before the year 2000.

Search engines such as AltaVista, Ask Jeeves, LookSmart, and Yahoo dominated the web at that time. If you needed to know something, you’d visit Ask Jeeves, or if you needed something specific, you could try LookSmart or AltaVista. Each of these search engines excelled at something, but none excelled at search, so you had to use several of them. Even when you did, you received subpar results. So even if Lycos and AltaVista were identical, you would have to search using both of them for the same query to get the outcome you wanted.

How Google Changed the Game

The actual value of these search engines was that they helped you locate answers when information was scattered everywhere. In 1998, two college students in Menlo Park, California, created something that would change the world forever. Google was established with one humble purpose: organizing the world’s information in one place.

By bringing the world’s information together, Google provided more relevant results based on what individuals were searching for because it had crawled the entire web. Google was superior to all other search engines—not only in results but also in simplicity. Unlike its competitors, such as Yahoo, which were cluttered with banner ads and extra distractions, Google’s search interface was minimal: a white page with a search box and logo. You entered a query, hit search, and received ten results, with the top result generally being the best answer.

Google’s user interface was unparalleled, and eventually, the term “Google” became synonymous with search. Its market share expanded exponentially, and between the year 2000 and today, Google’s dominance of the search market has been almost complete. In fact, it has become so powerful that the United States government does not classify it as a monopoly. Google owns YouTube, Chrome, and even Android, which is used on most smartphones. It is ubiquitous and remains the default search engine on most platforms.

Google’s Loss of Market Share

Skip forward to the present, and while more than 45 billion internet queries take place every day, only about 8 billion of them occur on Google. While this sounds like a huge number, it means that Google now holds only 18% of the search and SEO market share—a negligible fraction compared to its heyday.

Other platforms have boomed. Instagram experiences 6.5 billion searches a day, ChatGPT handles 1 billion, Pinterest exceeds 2 billion, and Amazon gets 3.5 billion searches daily—many of which are direct and proactive, with people searching for exactly what they want to buy. Google is competing with all of them. When someone wants a handbag, they go to Instagram or TikTok instead of Google.

Why is Google Dying?

1. Changes in User Behavior

Users have transformed how they search. Some prefer searching in a conversational style, as provided by ChatGPT. Others want short, concise answers like those Google provides. Some users simply type a single word for inspiration, as they do on Pinterest.

Voice search continues to grow, particularly among younger consumers. While older generations were taught to type searches, children today are often introduced to searching through voice assistants such as Alexa before they even know how to type. Alternatives like Bing have also emerged with a similar minimalist design and fewer distractions.

2. Google’s Failure to Innovate Quickly

Platforms like Instagram provide a montage of images and videos related to a query in an instant. ChatGPT provides a straight answer rather than requiring users to sift through ten results. Amazon instantly displays products, reviews, and ratings based on previous purchases.

Google has tried to evolve by replicating ChatGPT, yet its performance hasn’t been as strong. It has mimicked Amazon’s search design for products, but users still prefer Amazon because the experience is simply better.

3. Excessive Dependence on Advertising

Google profits from ads, and all search results prioritize paid listings. Even shopping results feature paid listings first. This ad-heavy experience degrades user satisfaction, pushing people toward ad-free alternatives like ChatGPT. When users search for something, they want a straightforward answer—not an ad-filled page.

What This Means for SEO

Google is dying—but slowly. It won’t disappear overnight. Its market share is decreasing, but its user base is still enormous. For instance, people say Facebook is dying, yet it still generates tens of billions of dollars in annual revenue. TikTok did not kill Instagram, and Instagram did not kill Facebook.

Similarly, SEO is not dead—it’s evolving. You can no longer optimize for Google alone. Now, you need to optimize for ChatGPT, Instagram, Amazon, TikTok, and more. If someone searches for a handbag, they should be able to find you on Google, Instagram, and even in ChatGPT suggestions.

How to Adjust Your SEO Strategy

• Develop a Brand – The stronger your brand, the more mentions you’ll receive across different platforms.
• Focus on Engagement – If people engage with your content, platforms will rank you higher in search results.
• Brand Mentions – The more mentions across the web, the more “votes” your business receives, signaling credibility.
• Reviews and Ratings – Higher ratings improve visibility, especially when they exceed 4.5 stars.

The Future of SEO

SEO is no longer just about Google—it’s about being everywhere. This shift presents opportunities to engage with customers across multiple platforms and accelerate growth without depending solely on Google.