4 Essential Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) Trends in 2026
Authored by: Curtis Chappell, SEO Manager at Purge Digital
Working in the trenches of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) on a daily basis, is like going to battle everyday against multiple entities; including Google!
From an SEO perspective, 2025 has been a very eventful year, with multiple Core updates, the explosion of LLM / AI-related search, also referred to as Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO), changes in highly targeted keyword search results and identifying and disavowing toxic backlinks, despite Google’s suggestion that this is no longer required.
Core Updates
Many SEO professionals are openly complaining about drops in impressions and organic search traffic, specifically after Google’s Core SPAM update in Aug/Sept. We watched intently as the update rolled out and search impressions dropped across our entire client-base by approximately 50% in some cases, but strangely enough, click-through-rates (CTR) either stayed the same or even improved. Head scratcher right?
It seemed that Google not only took down spammy sites, but also the SPAM bots as well. Then the news broke that Google changed the search parameters from 100 results per search query to only 10. This caused the big SEO tools players to pay 10 times more for their crawls.
We surmise that seemed to have reduced crawls immediately, hence the drop in impressions with little-to-no change in clicks. The bot traffic just disappeared almost overnight. Interesting to see such dramatic changes in such a short time. So, measuring CTR might end up being a better statistic to follow, than search impressions going forward.
AI / LLM Search Optimisation
Another trend we identified in 2025 was the increase in LLM / AI-driven search referrals in both Google and Bing. It’s becoming imperative to know how to optimise a site for the LLM’s, if you want to stay relevant in an ever-evolving search experience. You want your content and website listed in the AI search results as a way to “jump ahead” of high ranking competitors in the SERPs.
Understanding schemas, and how to implement them correctly, is now an essential technical SEO skill, along with creating lengthy FAQ pages, while also creating fresh content aimed at answering relevant questions. We’ve tested and measured these tactics, and found that taking these actions were fantastic magnets for getting listed in AI search results. And yes, we are getting AI generated content ranked on page one.
Many of our clients are now, not only getting listed in the AI search results, but we find that LLM referral traffic stays onsite for longer (sometimes multiple minutes) and has more engagement than organic search sessions. This trend will only increase as the LLM wars continue into 2026 with Google’s Gemini taking the lead at the time of writing this article.
Highly Targeted Keywords Changes
We noticed another new trend that I’ve dubbed “The Power of the ‘S’. We have a client who has a two word company name that is plural, with an ‘s’ on the end of the second word. After Google’s Core update in March, we noticed the ranking in the SERP’s for their name changed when using the singular version vs the plural version; by quite a bit actually.
Searching their name as a plural put them in slots 1, 2 or 3, while searching on the singular version ranked them between slots 6-11. This is particularly frustrating because most people search the singular version, so we’ve altered how we create new content to lead with the singular version of their primary keywords.
This client is also a small business with major, well-known brand named competitors, so while I’m proud of our work in ranking on page one with the big boys, the results from changing one letter in a keyword search is actually quite alarming, as in the past it seemed that Google treated plurals pretty much the same as singular words; not any more!
Disavowing Toxic Backlinks
A fourth trend is related to finding and disavowing toxic backlinks, which according to Google’s AI search results, is no-longer required as Google “knows” which are good and bad links. Really?
Recently, one of our clients started to experience a dramatic 75% drop in traffic and impressions showing in Google’s Search Console over the second week of August 2025. We conducted a site and code audit, but did not find any code-related issues or malware. Then we conducted a backlink audit and found 100+ toxic backlinks from porn sites, which we assume was a negative SEO attack by a competitor.
All the toxic links had been created in July and were listed in Search Console in August. We updated the Disavow file with all the new toxic backlinks on Monday August 18th and in 8 days, the client site impressions were back to pre-August levels.
Google’s AI says disavowing toxic links is no longer required and they are 100% incorrect!
So, with LLM’s looming as the next search engines, and Google making major changes to their algorithm multiple times per year, it’s essential to either stay informed or work with digital marketing agencies who understand this new way of implementing SEO in 2026 and beyond.
Author Bio: Curtis Chappell, SEO Manager at Purge Digital, has been testing and implementing SEO and PPC strategies in Australia since 2005. Over the past 20 years, Curtis has navigated the ever-changing algorithms and platforms by continually learning, testing and measuring. SEO is not Voo-Doo. A well planned SEO strategy can make a dramatic impact on both lead generation and sales if implemented correctly.