AI search still runs on the same SEO fundamentals, says Google
Every few months someone declares that AI search has made traditional SEO obsolete. Ahrefs’ Mateusz Makosiewicz pushes back on that in a new guide aimed at both human operators and the AI agents running SEO workflows.
What the Guide Covers
The framing is direct: optimizing for AI search sounds like a completely new discipline. For the most part, it isn’t. Google says its AI search features still rely on its core search systems. That means the fundamentals have not changed. Your content still needs to be crawlable, indexable, and genuinely useful.
Microsoft makes a similar point about its own AI search behavior, though the guide notes the full detail of that position without spelling it out in the preview.
The Operator Takeaway
If you have been putting off technical SEO work because you assumed AI search would require a completely different playbook, this is a reason to stop waiting. The crawlability and indexability work you would do for Google’s traditional results is the same work that gets you picked up by AI-generated answers.
That said, the guide is specifically written to address both human SEOs and AI agents running audits, which signals that the Ahrefs team is thinking about agentic SEO workflows as a real use case, not just a buzzword. If you are building automations around SEO tasks, the framing here is worth a read.
Quick Context
- Author: Mateusz Makosiewicz, Ahrefs
- Published: September 2026
- Category: AI Search
- Source: Ahrefs Blog
The full guide is available on the Ahrefs blog. Given that the core claim is “the fundamentals still apply,” it’s a useful sanity check before you overhaul anything.
I’m founder of BizStack at Cagri Sarigoz LLC and a passionate advocate for entrepreneurs.
With over 14 years in tech, marketing, and AI, including my role as Head of SEO at CitizenShipper and co-founder of TaleBot at Intale AI, I’m dedicated to sharing genuine, useful product insights and tips.
At BizStack, I aim to cut through the digital noise to provide clear, actionable advice.
And more than all else, I’m a father to a (always) little girl and a husband.
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