For years, the steps were pretty simple. You had a question, you searched Google, clicked on a promising result and landed on someone’s website to find the answer. Maybe you noticed who wrote it, read another post or even subscribed while you were there. That journey is disappearing. Now we can do an AI search and ask ChatGPT, Claude or another AI tool and get an answer without visiting a single website. It’s quicker and easier, and I do it myself all the time. But as someone who has spent years publishing hundreds of articles online, it raises an interesting question: what happens when people still get value from what we write, but never actually visit us to get it?
We Used To Search, Click And Read
I’ve been blogging since 2017 (and even longer before that, on different websites and about completely different subjects). I remember my first articles getting a pitiful number of views, often fewer than 50, with only a handful of subscribers. It took ages for my site to get indexed by Google, and I was mainly blogging for myself, documenting how I’d done ‘a thing’ so my future self could refer back to it. But that was essentially how it worked: write something that provided an answer or solved a problem, optimise it with the right keywords, and hopefully, when someone searched for that same thing, Google would lead them to your content.
Now We Just Ask
There’s nothing wrong with it; I do it too. I’ve become lazy with some things. Where previously I would type my question or issue into a search engine, now I’m far more likely to go to ChatGPT or Claude (other AI tools are available) and ask my question there. I get information sourced from all over the place, pulled together into one answer for me to read and digest. I don’t have to work through a list of search results, clicking on each one to see if it gives me what I need.
So already, our behaviour is removing the need to click through to someone’s website. AI tools might provide sources and links, but if you’ve already got the answer you came for, how likely are you to click on them? Most of the time, you get what you need and move on.
The Answer Still Came From Somewhere
Do people care where the answer came from? I’d like to think so, but if I’m honest about my own behaviour, I don’t always care either. If I’ve asked a question and received an answer that seems credible and gives me exactly what I need, I’m unlikely to work my way through the sources afterwards. The thing is, that answer didn’t appear from nowhere. Somewhere behind it are websites, documentation, research, forums and blog posts written by people who took the time to share what they know. The information still has a source; we’re just becoming increasingly disconnected from it.
SEO, AEO, GEO… and LLMO?
As the way we search changes, a whole new collection of optimisation acronyms has appeared. SEO is well established, while AEO and GEO are now common enough that Google itself uses the terms. You’ll also come across LLMO (Large Language Model Optimisation), although that one is less clearly defined and often overlaps with GEO. So what do they all mean? SEO is mature terminology; the others are newer, overlapping terms and different people use them differently.
SEO
Search Engine Optimisation is optimising your content to help it rank and be discovered in traditional search-engine results. The desired outcome is traditionally that someone searches, sees your page, and then clicks through to your website.
AEO
Answer Engine Optimisation is structuring your content so search engines and AI-powered systems can easily extract a clear answer to a specific question. The desired outcome is that when someone asks a question, your content contains a clear answer that can easily be identified and surfaced.
GEO
Generative Engine Optimisation is making your content more likely to be discovered, understood, referenced and cited in answers generated by AI tools. The desired outcome might be that someone asks a question, then AI uses/cites/recommends your content or recognises you as an authoritative source.
LLMO
Large Language Model Optimisation is optimising your content and online presence so large language models can understand your content, brand or expertise and potentially surface it in their response. The desired outcome is less simply “rank this page” and more “make sure AI systems understand who/what this entity is and associate it with the right subjects.”
There’s an interesting contradiction in all of this. SEO was largely about making content easier to find so someone would visit your website. Now we’re also optimising content to make it easier for AI to understand and use, potentially making that visit unnecessary.
What Does This Mean For The People Writing It?
For me, the important loss isn’t the page view and clicks in Google Analytics. Someone arriving at my site might have noticed my name, discovered another article, subscribed, left a comment, shared something, or simply remembered, “Megan wrote something useful about that.” If AI gives them everything they need before they ever reach my site, that connection never gets the chance to happen.
There’s a commercial impact too, particularly for consultants, freelancers and small businesses. For years, sharing useful content has been one of the ways we demonstrate expertise and, ultimately, generate new business. Someone searches for a problem, finds your article, realises you know what you’re talking about and perhaps gets in touch when they need more help. If AI can take the useful part of that journey and deliver it without the person ever reaching your website, that opportunity disappears too. There’s something ironic about being encouraged to create genuinely useful, authoritative content, only for that content to become good enough to answer someone’s question without them ever needing to discover the person who created it.
Pew Research analysed Google browsing behaviour and found that when an AI summary appeared, users clicked a traditional search result on 8% of visits, compared with 15% when there was no AI summary. Even more strikingly, users clicked a source link within an AI summary in only 1% of visits. And that research was carried out in 2025, so who knows what those numbers look like now.
So, Is It Still Worth Blogging?
For me, that depends on your ‘why’. Why did you start your blog in the first place? It was always about learning first for myself, then sharing that with others. Even if it was just for my own personal knowledge base, or it only helped one other person, then goal met. I’m certainly not ready to stop blogging. But I am starting to think differently about what makes something worth writing. If AI can provide a perfectly good answer to a question without someone ever needing to visit my website, perhaps the value isn’t simply in publishing more answers. Maybe it’s in sharing the experiences, opinions and ideas that couldn’t have come from anyone else.
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