We Were Never Meant to Search Like That
Apr 08, 2025
Once upon a homepage, we were told to type keywords into a little box and hope the right link appeared.
And we did. For decades.
We became masters of keyword telepathy. Guessing what the algorithm wanted rather than saying what we meant. “Shoe store near me” replaced “Where can I buy boots that won’t wreck my ankles?” We trained ourselves to speak machine. Short. Robotic. Efficient.
Then something strange happened.
We stopped pretending.
Search, as we knew it, began to fracture. The shift wasn’t sudden. It was slow. Subtle. Like a hairline crack crawling across glass.
The Long Road to Now
This didn’t start with AI. It started with Google getting clever.
Featured snippets were the first crack. The infamous “position zero.” Suddenly, Google wasn’t just showing you ten links. It was choosing one answer and pinning it to the top. By 2020, featured snippets were responsible for over 35% of first-page clicks (EngineScout), and for Google Assistant, they delivered nearly 90% of all voice answers.
Then came voice search. It moved us from typing to talking. Siri, Alexa, Google Assistant—each one training us to ask full, human-sounding questions instead of barking keywords. By 2022, 71% of consumers said they preferred voice queries over typing on mobile (TechJury/Oberlo).
But the game really changed when social media blurred the line between search and discovery. TikTok, YouTube Shorts, and Instagram Reels rewired how we explore. We stopped asking and started stumbling. No more queries. Just curated chaos.
In 2022, Google’s SVP Prabhakar Raghavan admitted that “almost 40% of young people” (18–24) were going to TikTok or Instagram instead of Google when looking for places to eat. By 2024, independent research showed that number had grown—over half of Gen Z now prefer TikTok or Instagram over Google for product discovery and lifestyle content.
It stopped being about intent. It became about influence.
Now the Machine Talks Back
Enter conversational search.
We’ve crossed a line. No more blue links. No more endless scrolling. Just answers. Dialogue. Memory. Systems that know what you asked five minutes ago. And what you didn’t.
This isn’t about replacing Google. It’s about replacing the reason you went there.
You don’t just search now. You ask. You ramble. You follow threads of thought. You don’t want ten options. You want one synthesis.
And that opens the gates to every question that was once too complicated, too vague, or too human:
“Should I fire my marketing agency?”
“What’s wrong with my website if it’s technically fine but no one’s converting?”
“Why does my brand feel invisible?”
Questions that never made it into the search bar. Until now.
As Leigh Baker, Content Strategist at Terminology, puts it:
“Conversational search isn’t about stealing traffic. It’s about revealing need. All the stuff people never asked because Google didn’t feel safe for it? That’s the new front line.”
What the Data Really Says
Here’s the part most SMEs miss: you’re looking at the wrong numbers.
Yes, AI chatbot sessions make up less than 1% of total web traffic for most sites right now (Junction/SimilarWeb). But impact doesn’t only show up in traffic. It shows up in preference.
While user trust in AI varies, one 2023 study showed that 31% of Gen Z find AI-generated answers more trustworthy than traditional search (YouGov). That number is rising. And in another, 61% of Gen Z said they already use AI tools instead of Google for certain tasks.
Not clicking doesn’t mean not listening.
And no, you won’t see this in your attribution models either. Because attribution is broken. It always was. But now it’s glaringly obvious.
As international SEO consultant Aleyda Solís notes:
“Search is no longer linear. Visibility happens across platforms, across formats, and increasingly through conversations with machines. If you’re only measuring visits, you’re missing influence.”
The SEI Method: Built for This Moment
If you want to survive the shift, you need a new lens. Not just for what you say, but for how you show up.
That’s where the SEI Method comes in.
Search Engine Influence, or SEI, isn’t SEO with a new hat. It’s a complete reframe. It ditches outdated notions of keyword stuffing and ranking obsession and asks a harder question:
Are you actually influential in your category? Do the right people remember you when it matters?
The SEI Method helps brands map and improve their entire digital presence—not just to be found by algorithms, but to be felt by humans. It breaks marketing down into seven key elements:
- Story: Does your narrative make people care?
- Message: Can people repeat what you do, clearly and with confidence?
- Brand: Are you distinct, memorable, and recognisable?
- Content: Are you producing things worth noticing?
- Delivery: Are you visible in the right places, to the right people?
- Optimisation: Are you refining what works?
- Analysis: Are you learning from what you see?
SEI isn’t about playing the algorithm. It’s about preparing for any platform—search engine, social feed, or AI interface—because your influence isn’t channel-dependent.
That’s why Terminology doesn’t just teach businesses to be SEO-friendly. We teach them to be influence-ready. Because when the next shift happens, it won’t be about links. It’ll be about trust.
So What Do You Do About It?
If you’re a brand, this is not the time to panic.
It’s the time to get interesting.
Conversational search doesn’t reward keywords. It rewards usefulness. Clarity. Tone. Context. The very things you’ve probably been skipping while chasing traffic reports.
And no, you won’t see it in Google Analytics.
But you will notice someone arriving pre-sold. Someone saying, “Oh, I’ve heard of you,” and you’ve never met. That’s not magic. That’s influence.
The Age of Untyped Impact
You’re not optimising for clicks anymore. You’re optimising for memory.
For relevance. For salience. For the edge that makes you the first name they say aloud when the question finally forms.
Conversational search isn’t coming. It’s been whispering for years.
Time to start whispering back.
Author: Ian Hopkinson
Digital Madman, Founder of Terminology and Mad Scientist Digital
Socials: Instagram / / LinkedIn
Websites: Terminology / / Mad Scientist / / Hopkinson Creative
