Google Search is dead. Change is happening. AI Search is alive and well. More people are using Artificial Intelligence for their general searches, and it’s altered everything.
It’s skewing search statistics!
For the last few months, I’ve been doing what many website owners do when traffic starts doing odd things — staring at statistics.
Searches down.
Clicks down.
Visitors down.
Some days it feels as though I’ve spent more time disseminating statistics than actually writing.
Like many webmasters, I’ve gone searching for answers to why there’s a change. Not because I enjoy analysing traffic reports, but because creating content without readers eventually becomes an exercise in shouting into the void.
The internet is changing. Search engines are changing. Search habits of searchers are changing. And now AI is changing the way people find the information they are looking for.
That has left me asking a question I never imagined I’d be asking a few years ago:
Should I be writing blog posts to attract AI search traffic?
Asking that question is obvious. The answer should feel obvious too. And yet, the more I think about it, the less certain I become.
The Google Goal
For years, the formula was simple.
Someone typed a query into Google.
Google showed a list of results.
The user clicked a link.
The website received a visitor. Google reported the stats.
The relationship was straightforward.
If your article ranked well, you received traffic.
If it ranked poorly, you didn’t.
Bloggers and website owners spent years learning how to make Google happy. They researched keywords. They improved page speed. They built links. They created strong content. They reorganised categories. They chased backlinks.
The objective was always the same.
Get the click.
Everything revolved around the click.
Today, that certainty is shaky.
The Rise of AI Search
Increasingly, people aren’t searching the way they used to.
Instead of typing a question into Google and visiting ten different websites for several answers, they ask an AI assistant and get one.
The AI gathers information from various sources and presents an answer to readers.
Sometimes it provides citations.
Sometimes it doesn’t.
Sometimes it encourages the user to click through.
Often it doesn’t.
This creates a strange new reality.
Your content may be helping thousands of people without any of those people ever visiting your website.
Let me say that again. Nice. And. Slowly.
AI takes your hard earned content, shows it to someone, but it generates no traffic signals when doing it.
Imagine writing a detailed article explaining why marriages become sexless.
An AI system reads your article.
One hundred users ask similar questions.
The AI uses your information to answer every one of them.
The users receive their answers.
AI receives the praise, but your website receives nothing.
No click.
No visitor.
No indication that your content contributed to the discussion.
No recognition.
That’s a difficult concept for a webmaster to embrace.
The Statistics Problem
Part of the frustration comes from measurement.
Google Search Console tells me how visible I am inside Google.
It shows clicks.
Impressions.
Average positions.
Indexed pages.
What it doesn’t tell me is whether AI systems are reading my content.
It doesn’t tell me how often my articles influence AI-generated answers.
It doesn’t tell me whether my work is appearing inside AI responses across the world.
The statistics that webmasters have relied upon for years suddenly feel incomplete.
Imagine standing on a stage and hearing applause from behind a curtain.
You know something happened.
You just can’t see it what caused the cheer.
That is how AI visibility feels right now.
Why Personal Experience Might Matter More
One of the more interesting ideas I’ve encountered is that AI systems may value personal experience differently from factual information.
Think about it.
AI can explain what a sexless marriage is.
It can explain how photography works.
It can explain the mechanics of sailing.
It can explain the process of writing a novel.
But AI has never experienced any of those things.
It has never stood in a darkroom developing black-and-white film.
It has never photographed a wedding.
It has never sat on a yacht at anchor while weather rolled across the horizon.
It has never spent years rewriting a novel.
It has never lived through the emotional realities of a failing relationship.
Those experiences belong to people.
That creates something AI cannot manufacture.
Authentic first-hand perspective.
Suddenly My “Weak” Posts Don’t Look So Weak
This thought changed how I viewed some of my own content.
Like many writers, I’ve spent years assuming that informational articles were the most valuable content on my website.
Yet some of my most personal posts continue attracting readers.
These pieces often contain details that cannot be found elsewhere because they happened to me.
No AI can genuinely describe the transition from film photography to digital photography unless it borrows the experiences of photographers who lived through it.
No AI can describe twenty years spent developing a novel unless it learns from someone who has done exactly that.
The more I think about it, the more I wonder whether lived experience is becoming one of the internet’s most valuable commodities.
The Temptation to Write for AI
This is where things become dangerous.
If AI systems value structured information, topical authority, clear explanations and authentic experiences, then surely it makes sense to create content specifically for AI consumption.
That sounds logical to you too, right?.
Perhaps every article should be organised into neat sections.
Perhaps every post should answer common questions.
Perhaps every topic should be linked to a leading page.
Perhaps every experience should be documented in a way that AI can easily understand.
As a webmaster looking for traffic, I find that argument incredibly attractive.
Especially when traditional search traffic is becoming harder to earn.
If AI visibility represents the future, shouldn’t I adapt to it?
Shouldn’t every webmaster adapt to it?
Maybe.
But this is where my confidence starts to wobble.
The Mistake We Might Be Repeating
I’ve been around long enough to watch people chase trends.
I’ve seen websites stuffed with keywords because someone claimed it was the future.
I’ve seen websites filled with backlinks because someone claimed it was the future.
I’ve seen websites rewritten for mobile.
Then social media.
Then mobile-first indexing.
Then voice search.
Each generation becomes convinced it has discovered the secret. Most of those secrets eventually disappear.
The internet has a habit of changing the rules.
Which makes me wonder whether writing specifically for AI is simply the latest version of the same mistake.
What if we’re optimising for a system that won’t exist in its current form five years from now?
What if we’re adapting to behaviour that changes again?
What if AI itself becomes better at finding genuine content and starts ignoring material clearly created for AI consumption?
The possibility exists.
The Content That Survives
Whenever I look back at websites that have survived major changes, I notice something interesting.
The winners are rarely the sites that mastered a particular trick. They’re usually the sites that created genuinely useful content.
Some of that content was educational.
Some was entertaining.
Some was deeply personal.
But it all shared one characteristic.
People wanted it.
Not algorithms.
Not search engines.
Not AI systems.
People.
The technology changed repeatedly.
The audience remained.
The Question I Keep Returning To
If I knew with certainty that AI systems would become the dominant source of traffic, I would probably spend more time thinking about AI visibility.
I’d pay attention to structure.
I’d strengthen topics.
I’d organise information carefully.
In many ways, I’m already doing those things.
But I keep returning to a simple question.
Who am I writing for?
If the answer becomes “the machine”, something feels wrong.
The machine isn’t going to buy my book.
The machine isn’t going to subscribe to my website.
The machine isn’t going to send me an email saying an article resonated with them.
Only people do those things.
Maybe the Best Approach Is Both
After all this uncertainty, I’ve arrived at a position that feels unsatisfying because there isn’t a clear answer.
I believe writing content that AI systems can understand is probably a good idea.
Clear structure helps everybody.
Strong internal linking helps everybody.
Topical authority helps everybody.
Authentic experiences help everybody.
The things that help AI understand content often help human readers as well.
I become cautious when the content itself begins to serve the machine rather than the reader or the author.
That feels like a road that leads somewhere unpleasant.
So perhaps the goal isn’t to write for AI.
Perhaps the goal is to write so clearly, honestly and usefully that both humans and AI systems find value in the work.
That sounds less exciting than discovering a secret formula.
But history suggests it might also be the safer bet.
And if there’s one lesson I’ve learned from watching internet traffic rise and fall over the years, it’s that chasing shortcuts rarely ends well.
Creating something genuinely worth reading still feels like the most reliable strategy available.
Even if the reader arrives via an AI rather than a search engine.
–Michael (Dark Fiction. Author of SEETHINGS (the first book), free for a limited time)
SEETHINGS II follows the return of the Storm Killer as a body on a secluded beach in Moreton Bay, igniting fear and denial. While police dismiss the link, the media doesn’t. Mitchell Felding forms a dangerous bond with a man who understands his darkest impulses. When Natasha enters his life, carrying love letters from her murdered mother, intimacy deepens, and truth closes in. Some futures are inherited. Some have escaped.
–Michael (Dark Fiction. Author of SEETHINGS (the first book), free for a limited time)
SEETHINGS II follows the return of the Storm Killer as a body on a secluded beach in Moreton Bay, igniting fear and denial. While police dismiss the link, the media doesn’t. Mitchell Felding forms a dangerous bond with a man who understands his darkest impulses. When Natasha enters his life, carrying love letters from her murdered mother, intimacy deepens, and truth closes in. Some futures are inherited. Some have escaped.
Discover more from Michael Forman – Author of Dark Fiction & Drama
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.