SEO Weekly Round-Up (1st Week of November 2025)

The first week of November carried the same restless energy we’ve come to expect from search and AI. Google expanded Gemini’s reach, ChatGPT teased monetisation, and Perplexity doubled down on social integration, all signs that discovery is morphing into something bigger than search alone. Add new data proving the power of brand mentions in AI visibility, and it’s clear: the next phase of SEO isn’t about pages, it’s about presence.

Below are the key developments from this week, and what they mean for your strategy.

1. Gemini Arrives in Google Maps

What happened:
Google has integrated Gemini AI into Maps, transforming it from a navigation app into an intelligent local discovery engine. Users can now ask conversational questions such as “Where’s the best brunch near me?” or “How busy is this café right now?”, receiving context-aware, real-time responses.

Why it matters:
Gemini is bringing AI to the physical world. Local SEO will no longer just rely on listings; it’ll depend on how well businesses show up in conversational, AI-powered queries.

What to do:

• Keep Google Business Profiles up to date with detailed descriptions and visuals.
  
• Use natural language in reviews and Q&As to feed conversational discovery.
  
• Track traffic from Maps, Gemini-driven recommendations may soon change footfall patterns.
  

2. Google AI Mode Adds 3 New Agentic Capabilities

What happened:
Google is testing three new “agentic” features within AI Mode that elevate it from an information tool to an action engine. (1) Summarising reviews (2) Booking services (3) Extracting local data

New agentic capabilities are launching in AI Mode: you can now get help booking event tickets or beauty & wellness appointments. This is available to all users opted into Labs in the U.S., with higher limits for Google AI Pro & Ultra subscribers.

Try it out in Labs here:…

— Robby Stein (@rmstein) November 4, 2025

Why it matters:
Search is shifting from finding to doing. Instead of redirecting users to your site, AI can complete actions for them, blurring the line between organic visibility and direct engagement.

What to do:

• Implement structured data for bookings, products, and local information.
  
• Write content that encourages AI to pull summarised insights.
  
• Monitor how your listings perform in AI-rich results, where transactions occur directly within search.

3. Sam Altman Hints at Ads Coming to ChatGPT

What happened:
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman acknowledged during an interview that while his company rejects the idea of the traditional “pay-to-rank” advertising model, he hinted that ChatGPT could still introduce some form of advertising or monetisation in the future.

Why it matters:
This could be the dawn of conversational advertising. Brands may soon need to optimise not just for search queries, but for AI dialogues.

What to do:

• Start monitoring how your brand appears in ChatGPT’s responses.
  
• Prepare concise, value-driven messaging that could fit within conversational contexts.
  
• Watch for early ad-beta announcements from OpenAI; entry timing will matter.
  

4. Perplexity Invests $400 Million in Snapchat to Scale AI Search Adoption

What happened:
Perplexity announced a $400M partnership with Snapchat to integrate AI-driven search and discovery tools into the social platform. The move aims to capture Gen Z users who use social media as their primary search engine.

Perplexity Bets $400M On Snapchat To Scale AI Search Adoption. via @MattGSouthern: https://t.co/jvfClHCVjR#Snapchatt #SEO pic.twitter.com/U1m8YcWGEm

— SearchEngineJournal® (@sejournal) November 6, 2025

Why it matters:
AI search is now social. Discovery is happening where audiences live, in chats, stories, and feeds. For marketers, visibility strategies must now extend beyond the SERP.

What to do:

• Optimise for conversational, short-form queries common on social platforms.
  
• Repurpose website content into social-friendly AI snippets and stories.
  
• Track referral data from new AI-integrated social apps.
  

5. Ahrefs Data Shows Brand Mentions Boost AI Search Visibility

What happened:
A new Ahrefs study revealed that brand mentions, rather than backlinks, are the stronger predictor of appearing in Google’s AI Overviews. Mentions showed a correlation of 0.66 with visibility, compared to 0.21 for backlinks.

Why it matters:
In AI search, reputation outweighs ranking. Mentions signal trust and authority to models powering AI Overviews.

What to do:

• Proactively build brand narratives through PR, podcasts, and collaborations.
  
• Monitor your brand’s unlinked mentions with tools like Ahrefs and Brand24.
  
• Treat brand storytelling as an SEO strategy, not just a marketing one.

Other Great Search Threads (1st Week of November 2025)

• AI Content Visibility — Lily Ray on X
  → Lily Ray discussed how trust signals are starting to outweigh content velocity, noting that Google’s systems increasingly reward credibility and authority over quantity. (Link)
• Referral Traffic Declines — Janet Bartoli on Bluesky
  → Janet shared data showing continued dips in referral traffic across publishers, sparking debate about AI-driven content discovery’s effect on organic visibility. (Link)
• Subdomain Indexing — John Mueller on Bluesky
  → John clarified that while subdomains are treated as separate properties, canonical alignment helps Google better understand their relationship to the main domain. (Link)
• Google Docs Backlinks — r/BigSEO on Reddit
  → A community debate questioned whether backlinks embedded in public Google Docs can influence SEO — with most agreeing they’re devalued or ignored. (Link)
• Unlinked Mentions as Signals — Vidhya Srinivasan on X
  → Google Ads’ Vidhya Srinivasan hinted that unlinked brand mentions may still feed into entity understanding and visibility signals. (Link)
• Post-Update Recovery — Brodie Clark on X
  → Brodie shared a case study showing measurable gains from pruning thin pages after an algorithmic update — reinforcing the “less is more” approach. (Link)