Answer
Jan 08, 2026 - 02:01 PM
Well...things continue to shift but not as much as you would think, or how you may be thinking it's going. As of today, January 8, 2026.....Google is still by far the most used search engine on the planet with 90% of searches going to/through Google. See here:
So...there are rumors in the SEO world and from ecommerce merchants that "Google is Dead"...and those comments are simply not true...they're "dead wrong" on that. So when it comes to "SEO" and your goals to drive organic visibility and traffic, Google is clearly the search engine to focus on (nothing has changed there). What's more interesting is when you look solely at "Generative AI Traffic Share" (data from Similarweb).....see what's happening with Google's "Gemini" over the last 12 months (again, as of January 8, 2026).
You can see that Google Gemini's global market share just reached 21.5% as of today.
12 months ago: 5.7%
6 months ago: 8.6% 3 months ago: 12.9%
Now: 21.5%
So....not only is Google's organic search statistics dramatically higher than any other source of organic visibility and traffic....but it's very quickly gaining a large percentage of the Generative AI searches/questions as well. Answerbase has continued to see ecommerce merchants thrive through these updates and again (just like for the last 3 years)....the Google December 2025 core update (just finishing within the last 30 days) has shown dramatic increases in positions, impression, and traffic to Q&A content produced through Answerbase. See example here:
That is consistent with everything we've seen through previous Google Core Updates (see stats and charts here) and our team has insights into why it's happening and why we think it will continue. We encourage you to schedule a call with one of our ecommerce SEO specialists and we'll show you exactly what has happened, the Google updates and patents that are driving the changes....and why it's going to continue (as it has for 3 years now). You can schedule a call here.
So...there are rumors in the SEO world and from ecommerce merchants that "Google is Dead"...and those comments are simply not true...they're "dead wrong" on that. So when it comes to "SEO" and your goals to drive organic visibility and traffic, Google is clearly the search engine to focus on (nothing has changed there). What's more interesting is when you look solely at "Generative AI Traffic Share" (data from Similarweb).....see what's happening with Google's "Gemini" over the last 12 months (again, as of January 8, 2026).
You can see that Google Gemini's global market share just reached 21.5% as of today.
12 months ago: 5.7%
6 months ago: 8.6% 3 months ago: 12.9%
Now: 21.5%
So....not only is Google's organic search statistics dramatically higher than any other source of organic visibility and traffic....but it's very quickly gaining a large percentage of the Generative AI searches/questions as well. Answerbase has continued to see ecommerce merchants thrive through these updates and again (just like for the last 3 years)....the Google December 2025 core update (just finishing within the last 30 days) has shown dramatic increases in positions, impression, and traffic to Q&A content produced through Answerbase. See example here:
That is consistent with everything we've seen through previous Google Core Updates (see stats and charts here) and our team has insights into why it's happening and why we think it will continue. We encourage you to schedule a call with one of our ecommerce SEO specialists and we'll show you exactly what has happened, the Google updates and patents that are driving the changes....and why it's going to continue (as it has for 3 years now). You can schedule a call here.
