adminMaking sense of SEO and its evolution through First Principles
If you run a business today, and it most probably needs online exposure, and you’re probably still confused about SEO;
Then this is article is for you.
You’ve probably heard some version of – SEO is dying. or, dead, or Use xxx instead of SEO, etc
Especially when
- AI is replacing search.
- Google is showing answers first and links later.
- ChatGPT is summarizing content.
.. and your Traffic is also probably declining.
So the natural question becomes: Should we still invest in SEO?
Before answering that, let’s ask a better question. What was SEO really doing for your business in the first place?
Now, follow me through the whole scenario to understand this with some more depth .
SEO was never Only about Rankings
Let’s face it. Most business owners think SEO means:
- Ranking on Google.
- Getting traffic.
- Showing up above competitors.
Ok, not negating it, But that’s just the surface. Because, at a deeper level, SEO was doing something far more important:
It was making your business discoverable inside a machine.
How?
When a potential customer had the intent of doing something – learning, buying, entertainment, – “best boarding school in North India” or, “organic cooking oil best price”, or, “latest KBC episode”; they didn’t walk into your office. or call your company – they started by asking a machine.
That machine, basically the Google Search Layer or algorithm as we may now call it, carried out the following important functions.
- It interpreted your question.
- Searched its index.
- Decided who/what was relevant.
- And showed results in many ways – excerpts, faqs, video links, more suggestions, etc.
- As fast as it could
SEO was the discipline of ensuring that when the machine or Search Layer was asked a question relevant to your business, your information was eligible to be retrieved.
And not just eligible and visible and rankable, but retrievable. That distinction is critical.
Since Google was the God of the Internet, that was all you needed to understand and handle.
Now the times have changed.
The Real Shift isn’t From SEO to AI
The real shift is from one type of machine or Algorithm Interface to many Interfaces, and of different kinds.
For a long time, you used to type into Google. Now, You already
- Ask ChatGPT.
- Speak to Alexa and Siri
- Use voice search and direction map query in your cars.
- Upload images into visual search.
- Interact with AI assistants inside apps.
- Use AI agents that research and compare options automatically, in Amazon, In Travel and Booking sites, and in many other apps
So The Interface has changed; But the behavior hasn’t.
- Customers still express intent.
- Machines and algorithms (more intelligent now) still mediate the answer.
- Businesses still compete to be selected.
The battlefield didn’t disappear, it expanded.
The New Reality is – You Are Competing for Retrieval
In the old world, your Business or Service competed for Rankings. In the emerging world, more importantly you compete for Inclusion.
Inclusion in:
- AI-generated answers.
- Voice responses.
- Knowledge panels.
- Entity graphs.
- Social pages knowledge graphs
- AI comparison summaries.
- Agent-based recommendations.
When an AI answers a question, it doesn’t show ten links.
It selects sources. It synthesizes; it cites; or it ignores !
If your business is not structured in a way machines – and the new interfaces or layers – can understand, connect, and retrieve; you simply won’t exist in those answers.
Not because your business is bad, but because you’re Invisible to the system.
That’s the business risk. From SEO for rankings to Something Bigger.
The broad Optimization Layer – QLO
If SEO- Search Engine Optimization- was about optimizing for search engines,
what do we call optimization for this entire ecosystem of machine algorithm-mediated queries?
Such a broad based popular term doesn’t exist yet; so I have coined the term – this is how I think of it – Query Layer Optimization (QLO).
QLO – Query Layer Optimization – is the practice of ensuring your business information is structured, authoritative, and machine-intelligible across all systems that process customer queries, – not just search engines’ layers.
SEO is still part of it. But it’s no longer the whole picture.
Search engines were the first dominant query systems. But now we have Queries rather than just searching keywords.
Now we have: AI answer engines; Voice systems; Semantic retrieval platforms; Knowledge graphs; Vector-based AI models; Agentic systems that autonomously research options; and have other ways of sensing the world. That is what I call the ‘Query Layer.’
Your customers are already using them.
The question is whether your business is prepared for them?
A Simple Business Example
Imagine two schools. Both have good infrastructure, both have decent websites; and both invest in marketing.
(This is going to get a bit technical for a short while, but read on anyway)
Now School A has – Structured Data, Clear entity Relationships, Consistent Authority signals, Content mapped to real intent clusters, Clean semantic architecture, Recognized mentions across authoritative platforms. ( I may simplify these terms in a later article)
School B has – Content, and it has has keywords; But lacks structure and machine clarity.
Now when a parent asks an AI like ChatGPT:“What are the best boarding schools in North India with strong values and modern infrastructure?”
ChatGPT doesn’t scroll pages; It retrieves structured knowledge. It synthesizes. It selects.
If it is able to immediately make sense of one school and has to spend time and make special effort to just to understand the other school; the other school will most likely be dropped.
In the results – School A appears, School B doesn’t.
That is not a traffic issue. That is a visibility extinction issue.
This is no longer about being on page one.
It’s about being inside the Query Layer’s understanding.
Why this is a Strategic Moment for Your Business
Many businesses are reacting emotionally to AI.
Some are cutting SEO budgets. Some are freezing content investments. Some are just waiting “to see what happens.”
But This is the strategic reality. When platforms shift, the early movers define the structure.
The businesses that adapt their information architecture early will:
- Become trusted query machine-recognized entities.
- Be cited more often.
- Build durable digital authority.
- Gain disproportionate visibility in AI-driven interfaces.
Those who wait may find themselves structurally excluded. Not penalized. Just not retrieved.
And that is far more dangerous.
Let’s summarise and figure it for our benefit
SEO isn’t Dead. It’s Incomplete.
The mistake is thinking SEO was only about Google.
Lets define this as – It was about making your business interpretable by machines that mediate customer intent.
And now, that need has not reduced; rather, it has multiplied.
Search used to be one query interface. Now we operate in a multi-layered query ecosystem.
Which is why SEO is only the beginning. And the broader discipline – the one that businesses need to start thinking about immediately – is Query Layer Optimization.
So, What Comes Next?
If QLO is the expanded strategic layer, important questions follow:
- How should businesses structure information for AI systems?
- How do we measure visibility when rankings are no longer the only metric?
- What replaces keyword strategy in a semantic, entity-driven world?
- How do we ensure our brand is retrievable across AI agents and multimodal systems?
These are not tactical marketing questions, but very important competitive positioning questions.
Many of the rules of AI’s assessing these information systems are still under development.
In an oncoming blog, I’ll outline the QLO framework in detail – its core components, strategic dimensions, and how businesses can practically implement it.
SEO helped businesses win in the search era. Query Layer Optimization will define who wins in the AI-mediated era.
The ecosystem shift has already begun. And You are in it
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