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SEO Outlook – May 2025

By Daniel Falk

SEO Outlook – May 2025

Welcome to the May edition of my SEO Outlook. In this update, I'll discuss the most essential search-related changes over the past month, explain how AI is reshaping search behaviours, and share a practical method I've used for smarter keyword and topic research.

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Download the PPTX: Five B2B prompts for deep research.


Core updates, AI-powered search, and a new way to do keyword research

What's changing in search

Google's March 2025 Core Update

Google's latest core update rolled out over 13 days and affected many sites, unlike previous updates, which focused on specific industries like finance or health. Here's what stood out:

  • Significant volatility in the search results throughout the rollout
  • Many forum sites that had gained visibility in the past 18 months saw a sharp drop, with Reddit as the exception
  • Sites relying heavily on low-value, automatically generated content were hit hard

My takeaway: Google continues to crack down on content created solely for ranking. Relevance, usefulness, and originality matter more than ever.

AI Overviews are now available in more countries

Google's AI Overviews — previously only available in the UK — are now rolling out to nine European countries, including Germany, Italy, and Spain. These summaries are becoming more visible in the search results, and I'm curious how they'll impact click behaviour.

In addition to the nine countries where AI Overviews are officially available, Google is also testing the feature in a few others, including Sweden, ahead of a potential broader rollout.

Google is also consolidating local domains. Soon, we'll all be using google.com, regardless of region. According to Google, the change won't affect local search results.

AI tools are evolving fast

ChatGPT's new memory feature

In April, OpenAI rolled out memory in ChatGPT (for Plus and Pro users). It now remembers what you've discussed across sessions and uses that context to deliver more personalised responses. You can turn memory off or delete specific entries in the settings.

Product search in ChatGPT

ChatGPT can now:

  • Display product results in a visual carousel
  • Show product details and link to external sites
  • Recommend products independently (without ads — for now)

This makes it an increasingly helpful tool for product research, another sign of how search and AI merge.


Google Discover comes to desktop

Discover, Google's personalised news and content feed, is now available on the desktop. It appears directly on your Google homepage — no search required.

For some publishers, Discover is already generating more traffic than search. I will be closely monitoring this development.

Google's AI Agent Protocol: A2A

Another intriguing development: Google has introduced a new protocol called Agents2Agent (A2A). It's designed to help AI agents from different platforms communicate and collaborate securely. Built on open web standards, it could simplify how tools and assistants work together in the future.

Tip of the month: Using AI for topic and keyword research

Lately, I've been experimenting with the deep research functionality in tools like ChatGPT to guide keyword and topic discovery.

Here's how I do it:

  • I enter a general topic I'm interested in
  • The tool returns a structured overview: common questions, search intent, headline ideas, and more
  • From there, I extract applicable terms and angles to build out keyword lists and article concepts

It's an excellent way to move beyond isolated keyword tools and get a more natural, human perspective on how people search.

If you want to try it, I've compiled five of my most-used prompt templates, based on real B2B research use cases.

Download the prompt pack here

Let's talk

You are welcome to reach out if you have questions about these updates or want help applying these techniques to your SEO or content strategy.

 

Explore Zooma's SEO services

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Hi, and welcome to Zooma’s SEO outlook today

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where we go through some updates from the search engines, where

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we look at some news and trends from the search industry.

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And I will also give you a great and useful tip. 

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At the end of March,  the latest core update from Google was fully rolled out.

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That roll out took 13 days, and during the rollout

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we could see spikes in movements in the search results pages.

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during different days.

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And in connection to this update, we could see that

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the number of queries where the new Google AI overview

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search results were displayed increased a lot.

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Another thing seen during this update

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is that a lot of forum websites had lost a lot of traffic.

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These websites, had received a boost

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in traffic from Google during the last 18 months.

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But that seems to end now,

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however, and Reddit still generates a lot of organic traffic.

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While other forum websites seems to have lost

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a lot of traffic. And websites that rely on a large amount

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of automatic generated content also seems to have lost traffic.

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And this is websites that have created this

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content with the sole purpose of ranking on Google.

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The updates had a broad impact on many sectors and not,

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any specific industries as as during previous updates

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where Google focused on maybe finance websites or, health websites and so on.

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And now over to the next section,

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which is about news and updates within search and AI.

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And a big news is that Google now is rolling out

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AI overviews to nine European countries so far.

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I obviously I've only been available in UK,

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but now it's available in, for example, Germany, Italy and Spain as well.

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So this will be very interesting to follow.

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How what the impact will be in the search result pages.

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And now it's time to say goodbye to the local Google

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domains as gogle.se, google.de and so on.

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As Google is consolidating and the local search under the .com domain.

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They say that this change will happen in the coming months.

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And they also say that local search will not work any different,

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because of this update, the only thing that happens is

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that, you will use the .com domain of Google instead.

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ChatGPT

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can now remember all your previous conversations.

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This feature was released in April, and it gives ChatGPT

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the possibility to deliver more personalised results.

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And the feature can be turned on and off in the settings.

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And you can also delete specific memories if you want to.

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The memory feature is available for Plus and Pro users.

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And some more interesting news. 

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ChatGPT can now guide you in a better way when researching and buying products.

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So when you are entering a product query in ChatGPT 

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you can now display relevant product options in a visually rich carousel,

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provide additional product details, and link

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users to websites where they can buy the product.

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And they say that products are selected

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by ChatGPT independently and that they are not ads.

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So far.

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And now some news from Google.

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They are rolling out, Google Discover to desktop, and this has previously been

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a mobile only functionality, but now it's becoming available on desktop as well.

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The functionality delivers tailored results directly

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on your Google Home page without having to search.

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So you get a feed of videos, news and so on,

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and that are and personalised according to your interests.

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And for some publishers the discover feed

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is actually generated more traffic than organic search.

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And some more news from Google.

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They are releasing something called Agents2Agent,

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which is a protocol, that helps a different AI agent,

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independent on who built them to communicate in a structured way.

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The A2A protocol allows agents to discover each other's capabilities,

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securely exchange information, and coordinate complex tasks and workflow.

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The protocol is built on existing web standards, and aims to reduce

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the complexity of integrating agents from various vendors and platforms,

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and now over to the tip of the month.

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And this tip is connected to keyword and topic research.

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Recently I started to use the deep research functionality of the AI services

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to get a good overview of the topic that I'm researching.

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So I enter the topic, and I get a good,

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starting overview

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of, the topic where I can see what,

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headlines people may use, what questions they do have, and so on.

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And based on this, I can I will get a good base for my keyword research.

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You are welcome to download

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five B2B prompts that are recently used with a deep research functionality.

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Find the link somewhere here.

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Thank you for listening.

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Feel free to reach out if you have any questions.

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Thank you.
Daniel Falk
Experienced marketer and tech expert with a background in agency and company life. At Zooma since 2021.
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