Have SEOs Ruined the Internet? User Awareness of SEO in 2025
Speaker: Akash Hashmi. Explore my experience and other talks.
Audiences are getting smarter about how search-optimised content works – and more sceptical of it. This talk explores what that shift means, how user awareness of SEO is measurably changing, and why genuine expertise and credibility have become the only strategy that holds up long term.
About this talk
Delivered at Brighton SEO in April 2025 – one of the UK's largest search marketing conferences. The talk draws on original research into how internet users are consciously detecting and filtering out AI-generated and SEO-optimised content, and what that means for brands and organisations trying to rank in a post-trust environment.
The core argument: E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) is not just a Google signal. It is what actual people are now using to decide whether to engage. Organisations that understand this shift have a genuine advantage – particularly those in the grassroots and voluntary sector where real-world credibility is already there.