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  • Dofollow Digest #15: SERP shifts - AI disruptions & organic stability

Dofollow Digest #15: SERP shifts - AI disruptions & organic stability

Author

Eric Carrell
February 28, 2025

Hey, it's Eric 👋

Found some good, fresh data showing that AI Overviews (AIO) are changing much faster than organic search results. If you've been scratching your head trying to figure out why your rankings are all over the place despite no major algorithm updates, this might explain it.

I spent the weekend digging into this research (so you don't have to) and found some fascinating insights about how AIO and organic search are operating on "independent parallel paths." What does this mean for your SaaS company's SEO strategy? I'll break it down below without the usual doom and gloom that comes with every Google change.

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🔍 DEEP DIVE: Google's AIO and Organic Search Are Not Even Dating (And Why That's Good News)

I spent the weekend diving into new research from Authoritas about Google's AI Overviews, and honestly? This changes the game for SaaS content strategy.

Here's the thing that blew my mind: AIO and organic search results have almost nothing to do with each other. They're changing at completely different rates, with AIO being significantly more volatile. The researchers found the AI text changed for literally every single query they tested. Every. Single. One.

Let me put this plainly: Google is running two separate search engines side by side.

Organic search is still doing what it's always done – finding topically relevant pages. But AIO? It's building precise answers to complex questions by pulling bits and pieces from different sources across the web.

Think about what this means for your SaaS company. That meticulously crafted blog post targeting "best project management software" might still rank well organically. But when someone asks "How can project management software improve remote team productivity?" – that's where AIO kicks in, and it's playing by entirely different rules.

So what exactly triggers these AI Overviews? The research shows it's often "how" and "what" queries – the complex stuff that doesn't have a simple answer. When someone asked "How is men's fashion influenced by military style?" Google didn't just serve up a blog post – it created a unique answer by stitching together information from completely different websites.

Now here's why I'm actually excited about this for SaaS companies:

  1. Your competitors are clueless about this: Most are still obsessed with traditional rankings while completely missing this parallel opportunity

  2. SaaS products are built for complex problems: You literally solve the kind of specific issues that trigger AIO responses

  3. The playing field is more level: AIO seems less concerned with who's providing the information and more about how precisely it answers the question

I was talking to a client last week who's been frustrated about their organic rankings plateau. When I showed them how their content was being cited in AI Overviews for complex queries – even though it wasn't ranking #1 organically – they completely changed their content strategy.

Here's what's working for our SaaS clients right now:

  • Keep building links (they still matter tremendously for organic rankings)

  • Create hyper-specific content that directly answers complex questions in your niche (to get cited in AIO)

I've been monitoring which sites get cited most in AIO responses, and there's a clear pattern: strong E-E-A-T signals and solid backlink profiles still win the day. The fundamentals haven't changed – just how Google packages and delivers the results.

Will AIO kill organic search? Not a chance. But it's creating a massive opportunity that 90% of SaaS companies are completely sleeping on. Don't be one of them.

🔗 LINK ROUNDUP

Til next time,

Eric