Why SEO Isn’t Enough Anymore – And Why That’s A Good Thing
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Harry Clarkson-Bennett October 14, 2026 ⋅ 13 min read Harry Clarkson-Bennett SEO Director at Telegraph Bio Follow 1.4K READS SEO has been the most profitable channel by some margin for the last 15 years. We can debate about the rights and (broadly) wrongs of last-click attribution until the cows come home, but SEO has been the money channel. The channel the execs have leapt at. But now, the days of traffic for old rope are gone. Audience journeys have become more complicated than ever, and some of the shine has been taken off search. While it was always over-buffed, you’d be a fool to forget Google. According to all of the clickstream data I’ve seen, the majority of user journeys – regardless of whether it’s AI-led – use Google at some stage. Particularly when they’re close to the point of purchase. Google sees more than 5 trillion searches per year (Image Credit: Harry Clarkson Bennett) But you cannot build a brand through Search anymore. If you’re an SME, it’s very tough to break into. These aren’t bad things. It’s so lucrative it should be hard. We need better spam policies from Google and we need them to figure out how to combat the slew of slop AI has turned the internet into. We need brands that have real presence, heft, quality control and an audience before they start to crack the Search code. Google knows they have a quality problem. They’ve been very slow to act, but I hope that’s about to change. In the July 2026 snapshot, signs of AI authorship can be found in over one-third of pages published after ChatGPT was released.(Image Credit: Harry Clarkson-Bennett) The Helpful Content update was, let’s say, interesting. Interesting in the brands that got nuked by it at least. In the way it was handled. In the subsequent handling of the Site Reputation Abuse update. And you’re talking to someone who had a small content and price comparison site destroyed by the HCU. And I think they were right to do so. Well, broadly. Because Google cannot have SEOs ruling the web. Not if they want to create a loyalty ecosystem. The HCU was a clear attempt to purge SEO-first sites. Sites with no wider presence – built by people who were extremely competent at SEO – were exposed. Content created for search engines was decimated. We’re now seeing something closer to Google’s dream. Where you only rank if you have a profile outside of the search ecosystem and over-optimised content isn’t necessarily a good thing. Worth noting that their dream is very ad and AIO heavy. Make of that what you will. The fact Search Console now shows you how your social content performs in Search is about as clear a sign as we ever get. Google’s entire algorithm is a proxy for trust. And what do people trust? People. Which historically has been problematic… HouseFresh was, or rather is, an independent air-quality review site. According to their own guidelines: “Every product you read about on HouseFresh has been tested in our home… 130+ products reviewed… 0 sponsored product reviews” First-hand, expert, original: the content Google’s guidelines ask for. By their own admission, the HCU took away >90% of their traffic from Search. From over 4,000 daily visitors in September in 2023 to just 200 in early 2024. HouseFresh stated that Google’s March 2024 update finished the job, with spammed Reddit threads and old Quora posts outranking its reviews. Now, obviously I can’t tell you if HouseFresh were doing all of the right things. Nor do I have the inclination to look. But there was a dirty little pattern that emerged and niche sites bore the brunt of it. Over this period, Retro Dodo lost 85% of its organic traffic, while Reddit surged by 190% almost directly after signing a deal with Google – albeit one for data-licensing. You could absolutely argue that Reddit became Google’s bastion of first-hand experience – but big sites and publishers were far more resilient. Other big publishers saw record levels of affiliate revenue. Even if those publishers showed very little first-hand experience or E-E-A-T that Google so keenly espoused. Really that’s where the crux of the argument lies – Google clearly favored big brands. The internet needed a change. While this was handled with a level of empathy now synonymous with Silicon Valley (or ICE for that matter), something needed to happen. Worth noting that HouseFresh has made a strong recovery in Search over the last year or two. Search makes up nearly 64% of their total traffic (Image Credit: Harry Clarkson-Bennett) But they’re extremely reliant on Search and that’s not where you want to be. I am sure this level of search reliance would’ve been part of the original HCU. There’s an excellent nugget of information here. Since their recovery, HouseFresh have built a near 30,000 YouTube channel. Much needed diversification that has, ironically, coincided with an uptick in Search. While sitewide demotions were algorithmically applied to niche sites, the Site Reputation Abuse Update was handled in a much more considered manner. If the HCU was dealt with with an iron fist, the Site Reputation Abuse Update was a velvet glove. Instead of sitewide demotions, Google used manual actions to remove larger sections of publisher sites from its search results – particularly voucher codes and betting. This, but at a subfolder level (Image Credit: Harry Clarkson-Bennett) I would argue the quality of their results diminished significantly when they did this. Who doesn’t want betting advice from fans of The Archers? (Image Credit: Harry Clarkson-Bennett)
Source: Search Engine Journal
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