Search has changed so much recently that it’s hard to keep up. UGC platforms like Reddit rank for most queries, large brands profit from affiliate marketing, and volatile SERPs make it difficult to adapt fast enough.

To make sense of these changes, we hosted an AMA with three leading experts: Tom Capper, Senior Search Scientist at Moz; Dr. Pete Meyers, Principal Innovation Architect at Moz; and Amanda Natividad, VP of Marketing at SparkToro.

In this recap, we break down their insights on the SEO hot topics shaping 2025. Whether you're concerned about AI stealing your clicks, struggling to recover from Google’s latest updates, or looking for ways to diversify your traffic sources, this article has a practical takeaway for you.

Let’s dig in!

1. Reddit and the rise of UGC platforms on SERPs

User-generated content (UGC) is a big topic right now. If UGC is here to stay, how can brands encourage it in ways that favor them and provide value to users?

Tom Capper:

It’s interesting because Google is taking two approaches to UGC. On one hand, they reward UGC heavily when it’s on platforms like Reddit and Quora. These sites dominate discussions, while other forums and branded communities barely rank in comparison.

But on the other hand, Google doesn’t seem to reward UGC on a brand’s own platform. If you host discussions on your site, you probably don’t see the same ranking benefits as Reddit or Quora.

So, what does that mean for brands? 

You can’t rely solely on hosting UGC. Instead, you have to foster fans, evangelists, and influencers who will talk about your brand organically on other platforms. That’s hard, especially for smaller brands, but it’s the reality right now.

Amanda Natividad:

When it comes to UGC, my biggest tip is: 

Don’t just ask for content; ask for something specific.

For example, if you sell a physical product, don’t say: “Hey, tell us what you think!” That’s too broad. Make requests:

• “Show us your unboxing experience”
• “Tell us how you use this product in everyday life”
• “What made you become a customer in the first place?”

Each of these prompts generates different types of UGC that align with your brand’s messaging and goals. So be specific about what you ask for.

2. What kind of UGC should brands ask for? 

Amanda Natividad:

It depends on what you need. I always start by identifying the key asset I’m missing. For example, at SparkToro, we recently needed testimonials for our conference. Instead of asking for “a positive testimonial,” we thought:

• What’s the main reason someone would join the waitlist?
• What kind of quote best supports that reason?

Since joining a waitlist is low effort but requires an email, we needed testimonials that were:

• Short and skimmable
• High-energy and compelling
• Clear about the conference’s value

We specifically looked for testimonials like:

• “This was the best conference I went to last year.”
• “If I have budget for just one event, it’s this one.”

Focusing on specific, persuasive testimonials made it easier for people to see the value and sign up.

3. Was the Helpful Content Update really about helpful content, brands, or something else?

Tom Capper:

For those who haven’t followed it, the HCU rolled out for two years. The last named update was September 2023; since then, it’s been blended into core updates. At Moz, our research strongly suggests that brand is a huge factor in HCU rankings.

It reminds me of Google’s Panda update years ago, which downranked sites that were “overperforming” in search compared to their brand strength.

That doesn’t mean content doesn’t matter because helpful content builds Brand Authority. But I wouldn’t say the HCU is purely about content quality since brand signals play a big role.

4. How can small sites recover from the helpful content update?

Dr. Pete Meyers:

One key piece of information revealed from Google patents and the Google Leaks was that if your site is getting an unusually high number of links relative to its brand strength, that’s a red flag.

SEO has become more about signal balance:

• If you have tons of social mentions but no links, it looks unnatural
• If you have a flood of links but no brand recognition, Google assumes manipulation
• If one ranking signal is off the charts while others are nonexistent, that’s a red flag

The helpful content update isn’t something you can fix by adding schema, adjusting tags, or tweaking internal links. You might need to rethink your entire content strategy.

The fix is painful because there’s no shortcut:

• If you pushed out tons of content, you may need to remove low-quality pages
• If you built a ton of unnatural links, you might need to clean them up
• If your brand signals are weak, focus on traditional marketing and building credibility

Many sites don’t want to hear this because they’re looking for a quick SEO fix, but this isn’t something you can patch with a plugin or an on-page tweak.

Sometimes, Google gets it wrong, too. If you believe your content is genuinely valuable, focus on:

• Strengthening your brand
• Marketing in multiple channels
• Letting other signals build up naturally

There is no ​​ longer a single best practice for SEO. You have to be a well-rounded marketer, not just hyper-focused on a single tactic.

5. Is search shifting from Google to social platforms like TikTok and Reddit?

Dr. Pete Meyers:

The word “shifting” is loaded. I don’t think Google is dying or being replaced.

Think about mobile vs. desktop search. When mobile exploded, people assumed it would replace desktop search, but that’s not what happened. Instead, search volume increased because mobile introduced new search behaviors.

The same thing is happening with social search. TikTok is huge, and my 14-year-old daughter searches for products there first. However, she still checks Amazon, Google, and other sources.

This isn’t a replacement—it’s diversification. Some industries (like beauty, fitness, and fashion) must be on TikTok, while others, like SaaS and B2B, may not need to be.

6. What strategies should they use to capture traffic outside traditional search engines?

Amanda Natividad:

I don’t think what we create as content marketers has changed. What’s changed is where we distribute it.

For example, TikTok isn’t new—it’s QVC on demand.

Think about what works: Demos, transformations, before-and-after stories. It’s the same fundamental marketing as TV infomercials, just in a modern format.

So my advice is to get better at the fundamentals and learn the following:

• Conversion-focused copywriting
• How to create compelling product demos
• How to make content that holds attention

If you master these skills, you can adapt them to any platform, including TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn, or whatever comes next.

7. AI search features stealing clicks

We've seen organic traffic decline for many brands due to AI overviews and shifting search behavior. Should we tweak our approach going forward?

Dr. Pete Meyers:

I'm going to give an oversimplified answer.

 Google search is built on the index, which is what Google creates from the entire web and all of our content. 

Similarly, LLMs are built on our content. They are different technologies doing different things, but they're all built on the content we create.

The problem is that AI is eating into our clicks. That's the crux of the issue right now. However, AI overviews are just one of many factors reducing clicks. 

Our data shows that AI overviews mostly appear for informational queries. The same queries already had featured snippets and knowledge panels, which weren’t generating that many clicks in the first place.

A Sistrix study suggests that AI overviews drive more clicks than the featured snippets they replaced. Of course, it’s hard to verify that, but there’s evidence that the situation is more complex than just AI stealing clicks. 

I think AI overviews are a concern for those who rely heavily on informational clicks, but there's much more happening in search than AI.

Tom Capper:

Right now, my impression is that AI overviews have improved. When they first rolled out, they didn’t link out very much or, in some cases, completely irrelevant or spammy sites showed up. That has improved and there is now more overlap with regular organic search.

But I still don’t think people should worry too much about optimizing specifically for AI overviews because they mostly appear for queries that were already hard to generate clicks.

They’re not really eating into commercial traffic right now because Google makes money from commercial terms. They need to drive clicks, whether to organic results or, ideally, to ads.

So, I wouldn’t advise going out of your way to optimize for AI overviews right now. Instead, focus on providing more value than what Google can summarize at a glance.

8. How can marketers diversify traffic sources in 2025?

Amanda Natividad:

Diversification is about finding out where your audience is and meeting them there. That comes back to audience research.

At SparkToro, we’ve conducted research to better understand user behavior across the internet. Google still sends the most traffic to the open web, and about 60% of referral traffic comes from Google.

But if you look at where people spend time, it’s not on Google. That makes sense because people aren’t going to Google to hang out. They spend time on social networks, news sites, and entertainment platforms.

As a marketer, diversify by being present on the platforms where your audience is already engaging, including social media and news/media sites.

You need to be an active participant in the community, and that requires:

• Engaging with others, not just posting promotional content
• Amplifying relevant content from others in your industry
• Creating content people enjoy reading

When you diversify, you need a strong content strategy for each platform you’re on. And yes, that probably means producing more content. Thankfully, AI can handle content marketing tasks, like repurposing blog posts into social content, summarizing articles for newsletters, or generating outlines.

The key is to use AI for tasks that don’t require deep expertise while focusing your energy on areas where AI can’t replace human creativity, like original research, personal storytelling, and high-value content.

9. Can AI  platforms like ChatGPT catch up to Google’s search market share?

Tom Capper:

Short answer? No.

There’s a lot of hype, and some of it is justified, but while ChatGPT’s growth looks impressive, let’s put it into perspective:

• In the U.S. and U.K., Bing still gets 2.5x more traffic than ChatGPT.com.
• ChatGPT’s traffic is comparable to DuckDuckGo, a search engine that doesn’t seriously challenge Google.

More importantly, AI search isn’t replacing Google; it’s adding to it.

Most of the queries AI search is replacing are informational searches. But those were never Google’s money-makers. Google makes its money from commercial searches, and its biggest threat isn’t ChatGPT but  Amazon.

Amazon’s ad revenue is growing so fast that in a few years, it could outpace Google’s search ad revenue. That’s what Google is worried about.

Dr. Pete Meyers:

100% agree, and I would say, follow the money. Google isn’t panicking over informational AI search competition – they’re terrified of losing shopping searches to Amazon. Also, AI search is expensive, and even Google worries that Gemini is too costly to scale.

Meanwhile, ChatGPT and other LLMs haven’t figured out monetization. OpenAI is burning cash, and if they can’t find a way to make AI profitable, they’ll struggle to compete long-term.

10. Google favoring large brands

Google’s favoritism toward large brands was a massive frustration for SEOs in 2024. Tom, you predicted that in 2025, Google will adjust its algorithm to “leave more room for topically focused sites.” Why do you think this will change?

Tom Capper:

This is the prediction I’m least confident in, but here’s why I believe it.

For years, Google has balanced brand strength with topical relevance. A great example is Dotdash Meredith splitting About.com into smaller, niche-focused sites, which boosted its traffic.

But in 2024, we saw the opposite. Instead of rewarding niche authority, Google started pushing large brands into completely irrelevant queries because their brand was strong.

The backlash has been massive. Google hates being embarrassed, and when something makes them look bad, they fix it. That’s why AI overviews happened because Google rushed them out after Bing embarrassed them.

So, my prediction is that  Google will pull back slightly in 2025. They won’t abandon Brand Authority but make space for topically relevant sites again.

Dr. Pete Meyers:

I agree with Tom. Google made a huge mistake by letting big brands exploit their authority. We saw news sites launch completely unrelated affiliate subfolders—sports betting, coupons, you name it. It was purely for profit, and Google let them get away with it for way too long.

But the risk is that if Google overcorrects, it might start penalizing all content that doesn’t perfectly match a site’s main focus, which could hurt legitimate businesses. For example, if a finance site writes a career advice piece and suddenly gets penalized, that’s collateral damage.

Google has to find a middle ground in penalizing abuse without stifling legitimate content expansion.

11. Let’s talk about Parasite SEO

Big media sites rented out their domains to third parties for quick rankings. It feels like cheating because smaller sites suffered while these brands made millions. Google finally acted, but it took way too long.

• What’s stopping these brands from finding another loophole?
• Has Google really regained control, or are big brands still in charge?

For some context, here's a timeline of the site reputation abuse in 2024.

Dr. Pete Meyers:

If we’re being honest, Google had no choice but to crack down. These big media brands weren’t just bending the rules but stomping all over them. They’d slap a subfolder on their domain and let third parties publish anything, leveraging their Domain Authority for rankings.

These were seven, eight, nine-figure deals. That’s how much money they were making. Now that Google has cracked down, they’ll find another loophole. There’s too much money at stake for them not to.

That said, Google’s response was aggressive. They went beyond deindexing shady subfolders to manually penalizing entire domains. That sends a strong message that brands can’t just move the content to another part of their site and expect to keep ranking.

But will they try again? Absolutely. There’s too much money in affiliate SEO for them not to.

Further reading:

• Dr Pete explains which websites are at risk from Google's site reputation abuse updates
• Lily Ray explains what to do if you've been hit by the HCU or core update

12. Why is content attribution so difficult?

According to CMI’s 2024 Content Marketing Trends, attribution is the number one challenge for marketers. 56% of B2B marketers struggle to prove ROI on content.

Why is content attribution so tricky?

Amanda Natividad:

If I could say this honestly, one reason attribution is so difficult is that some executives just don’t get it. Not all, of course, but generally, there’s a misunderstanding of how content works.

I’ve had awkward conversations with executives who ask, “Show us the value of this blog post.” My reaction is, what? 

• You don’t ask that about every department
• You don’t ask customer service to prove the ROI of every single phone call 
• You don’t demand that the finance team show the revenue impact for every spreadsheet

But for some reason, content is held to this unrealistic standard where every piece is expected to have a direct, measurable return.

I think this comes down to a few systemic problems:

Obsession with attribution

First, digital marketing has made us obsessed with tracking everything down to the click. We want perfect attribution, where we can say, “This blog post generated X amount of revenue,” and we assume that’s possible, but it’s not.

Internal politics

Second, attribution is often tied up in internal politics. Other teams like demand generation or paid media use similar metrics, so when a conversion happens, there’s a fight over who gets the credit. 

The demand gen team might say, “That lead came from our landing page,” ignoring the fact that the customer initially found us through a blog post or social content. That creates a situation where content isn’t properly valued, even though it plays a crucial role in the buyer journey.

Inaccurate tracking

Then there’s the issue of inaccurate tracking. Dark social is a huge problem because traffic from sources like Facebook DMs, Instagram messages, Slack, and WhatsApp often gets lumped into “direct” traffic in Google Analytics. So, even when content drives conversions, it might not be properly attributed.

What can we do differently?

Instead of obsessing over ROI, we must shift the conversation to value on investment. What value is the content providing across different business functions? How is it supporting sales, customer service, and brand awareness?

For example, content isn’t just about lead generation. It can also:

• Help customers get more value from a product, reducing churn
• Support sales by answering common objections and improving conversion rates
• Reduce the burden on customer service by addressing frequent questions in blog posts or help documentation

When we start framing content this way, it becomes easier to see how it contributes to the broader business goals.

Dr. Pete Meyers:

I want to add to what Amanda just said. 

Years ago, at Moz, we found that getting people to sign up for a free trial wasn’t a one-touch process. It was a three-touchpoint sale.

Most of our conversions came from people who had engaged with multiple pieces of content. Usually, they might read a blog post, check out the beginner’s guide, or watch a Whiteboard Friday before signing up.

Once we recognized that, we stopped treating content as a one-step conversion tool. Running an ad that takes someone directly to a landing page doesn’t work if they don’t already know and trust you. But when content is part of a multi-touch journey, it builds trust and moves people toward conversion.

The problem is that many marketers are so focused on bottom-of-funnel conversions that they ignore the journey that got the customer there. The conversion rate will be much lower if someone lands on a page with no prior exposure, brand trust, or content to guide them.

Attribution needs to reflect that journey. Don’t just assign value to a single blog post or tweet. Instead, recognize how all the different pieces work together to create a pipeline of engaged, ready-to-convert customers.

A few takeaways to remember:

• AI search isn’t replacing Google; it’s adding to it.
• There is no single best SEO tactic anymore. Instead, it takes a combination of efforts that prioritizes Brand Authority and multi-touchpoint content. 
• Your content strategy should be omnichannel going forward. Prioritize creating content that AI can’t surface in an overview and create high-value content that keeps your audience coming back for a dopamine hit.