Adaptify Agency Insights On Outsmarting the Alligator

Hello there,

SEO in 2025 feels a bit like staring straight into an alligator’s mouth.

Dark, ominous, and full of teeth.

The jaws are impressions (wide open, going up) and clicks (sliding down). And if you’re not careful, those sharp teeth are where your traffic gets caught—visible, but never making it back to your site.

Let’s dig into this week’s insights and see how those jaws are opening wider and what you can do about it.

🐊 Ready to learn how to outsmart the alligator with Adaptify? Start a 7-day free trial, or book a demo to discover how easy it is to wow your clients and close more deals—faster! Get started today! 🐊

Google Traffic to Publishers: Stable… But Shifted

Google isn’t letting go of its grip on new traffic but this isn’t the search we grew up with anymore either.

According to Search Engine Land, Chartbeat data shows traffic to 565 publishers in both the US and UK has held steady over the past six years. On the surface, that looks reassuring:

But the stability hides a shift: Google Discover is now doing most of the heavy lifting, not traditional search.

Direct traffic has also slipped, dropping to 11.5% from its pandemic-era peak of 16.3%. Social referrals continue their decline too, with Facebook down 50% since 2019 and X down 75%. The lone exception is Reddit, which has surged by 220%, likely helped by increased visibility in Google and a boost from AI training deals, though it still sends fewer referrals than Facebook or X.

Meanwhile, a Nielsen Norman Group study shows that even though people are experimenting with Gemini, ChatGPT, and AI overviews, old habits die hard: Google is still where the search journey begins. Habits are sticky, and Google’s dominance as the default gateway gives it an edge, even as AI eats into the number of clicks leaving the SERP.

That’s where the “alligator mouth” metaphor from Topical MBA’s podcast with Sean Markey hits home. Search Console graphs show impressions climbing while clicks fall away, creating a widening gap that looks like an alligator’s jaw opening. It’s a vivid reminder that while visibility remains high, engagement is harder to capture and agencies need to help clients see the difference.

Coming Soon: AI Brand Visibility Performance

The alligator’s jaws aren’t closing anytime soon. Not as impressions keep rising and clicks keep slipping. To help agencies measure what really matters, we’ve been working on a new AI brand visibility data set.

You can expect start to see this rolling out on your dashboards within the next week or two. It will surface insights like your AI mentions overview score, average rank of mentions, and total mentions across AI overviews and summaries.

Once it’s live, keep an eye on this newsletter as we’ll be diving into the details with a full breakdown of how to use this data to stay ahead of the alligator’s jaws.

AI Content: Friend or Foe?

If impressions vs. clicks are the jaws of the alligator, then AI content is the bite pressure thats determining what gets surfaced and what gets swallowed.

Google’s Gary Illyes recently addressed a common concern and confirmed that AI-generated images won’t trigger a ranking penalty. That's right, your AI images are not, in any way, hindering your client’s SEO.

They also don’t directly affect SEO, but in some cases they can generate extra visits through Google Image Search. While this is excellent news, the real risk isn’t penalties, but authenticity: if images don’t faithfully represent products, services, or results, user trust can quickly erode.

Meanwhile, a peer-reviewed PNAS study revealed that AI systems often prefer AI-written text over human copy. In head-to-head comparisons of product descriptions, scientific abstracts, and movie summaries, large language models consistently favored the AI-generated version at sometimes nearly triple the rate of human evaluators. This raises the specter of a “gate tax,” where businesses may feel pressured to use AI simply to avoid being filtered out by AI-driven ranking and recommendation systems.

For agencies, the takeaway is clear: AI is no longer just filling search results, it’s shaping what gets selected and promoted. That doesn’t mean abandoning the human element but it does mean finding the right balance. And that’s where Adaptify fits in. Our platform emphasizes AI-augmented content, not AI-only content. Agencies can scale output with AI efficiency while layering in the oversight, brand voice, and trust indicators that Google, and real readers, reward. It’s not about churning out robotic copy, it’s about combining speed with authenticity so your clients stand out to both algorithms and audiences.

💡 Agency SEO Tip of the Week: When clients ask why impressions are climbing but clicks are flat, don’t just defend the numbers—reframe the story.

Position impressions from AI Overviews and Discover as top-of-funnel visibility and show how you’re preparing to track downstream impact with Adaptify’s upcoming AI brand visibility tools. Agencies that guide clients through this shift (instead of waiting for them to ask) will be seen as proactive partners, not reactive vendors.

Training Corner: Measuring Beyond the Alligator

When clients see impressions rising but clicks flatlining, it can feel like their SEO is failing. That’s when agencies need to step in and reframe the story with a wider view.

Today we are looking at how Adaptify’s Agency’s can frame success within three key pillars:

Google Search vs. Discover Traditional search still matters, but more and more traffic is being driven by Google Discover, the personalized feed that serves up content users didn’t actively search for. Tracking Search and Discover separately helps explain shifting traffic patterns without losing sight of their value.

Backlink & Authority Growth High-quality backlinks remain one of the strongest indicators of long-term progress. As Domain Authority rises, so does a site’s ability to withstand volatility and rank across more competitive terms.

AI Visibility With tools like Gemini, ChatGPT, and Perplexity shaping how people research, visibility isn’t limited to the SERP anymore. Measuring mentions, rankings, and citations in AI systems is becoming just as important as tracking Google performance.

By tying these three pillars together, agencies can show clients that SEO isn’t just about feeding the alligator with impressions, it’s about proving visibility and authority that lasts well beyond the jaws of the SEO search beast.

Curious how to track these three pillars in action? This week’s Training Corner video breaks it down step by step.

Adaptify Training Corner: The Three Pillars for Client SEO Success

After A While Crocodile

The “alligator mouth” may be opening wider, but with the right strategy, your agency can avoid getting caught between the teeth. Stay focused on meaningful visibility, guide clients through the shifts, and lean on tools that turn impressions into outcomes.

Want to see how Adaptify can help? Schedule a demo or visit Adaptify.ai.

See you later, alligator. 🐊

Best,

Dominic, Hans, Bethany

Automate your Agency (by Adaptify SEO)