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SEO trends for an online store

| Article: 6 min read | SEO and search

SEO trends are changes in how people search and how search shows results. Over 2025–2026 the picture changed most because of AI-based answers right in Google search (AI Overviews, AI Mode), the growth of zero-click search and new reporting tools. The basic SEO rules, though, stayed the same: a site that can be crawled, and pages that are useful to buyers.

In plain words

Just a few years ago the path was simple: a query, ten links, a click. Now there is often a short AI answer above the links, and some people end their search there. For a store this means two things: informational queries ("how to choose a robot vacuum") bring fewer visitors, while a buyer who has already decided to buy still searches for a specific product and a specific store.

Below is what has already happened and is confirmed by sources, without forecasts.

What has changed over the last two years

1. AI answers in search have reached Ukraine

AI Overviews became available in Ukraine on 21 May 2025 as part of an expansion to more than 200 countries and more than 40 languages, including Ukrainian (Mezha, 2025). Google expanded AI Mode on 7 October 2025 to more than 35 new languages and more than 40 new countries (Google, 2025); the official post doesn't name the languages, while Search Engine Roundtable lists Ukrainian among them (SER, 2025). According to Google itself (2026), AI Overviews have more than 2.5 billion users a month and AI Mode more than a billion (Google, 2026). More in the article AI Overviews and AI Mode.

2. Fewer clicks

Independent studies agree on direction but differ on numbers:

  • Pew Research (March 2025 data, 900 American adults): with an AI answer, people followed a regular link in 8% of visits, without one in 15% (Pew, 2025).
  • Ahrefs (February 2026): at position #1, CTR on queries with an AI Overview is about 58% lower. This is a correlation, not a proven cause; desktop data only (Ahrefs, 2026).
  • SparkToro (June 2026, Similarweb panel, US): 68.01% of Google searches ended without a click (SparkToro, 2026).

All of this data is for the US. There is no open data for Ukrainian search that could be verified. More in the article Zero-click search.

3. Google: there is no separate "AI optimization"

In May 2026 Google published a guide to optimizing for generative search features. The main points: these features run on the same ranking and quality systems, so ordinary SEO practices remain the foundation; you need unique, non-commodity content (that is, not a retelling of what is already everywhere), and "AEO/GEO" advice should be treated with caution (Google, 2026). More on this in the article GEO.

4. Reporting and control

In June 2026 Google added to Search Console a report on page impressions in generative features (impressions only, no clicks or queries) and a switch with which a site can opt out of these features; according to Google, such a site gets neither impressions nor traffic from them. As of 31 August 2026, according to Google's note, this is available to all sites worldwide (Google, 2026; Google, 2026).

5. Algorithm updates

The Search Status Dashboard shows that core updates started on 11 December 2025, 27 March 2026 and 21 May 2026; spam updates in March, June, August and September 2026 (Google Search Status Dashboard). Google doesn't explain in these entries who was affected by the updates. For a store there is one practical takeaway: in the May guide Google explicitly advises against creating lots of pages "for query variations" (this falls under the policy against mass-produced content) (Google, 2026).

6. Markup: fewer rich results

Since 7 May 2026, FAQ rich results are no longer shown in Google; the documentation for them was removed on 15 June (Google, changelog, 2026). In 2025 Google also began removing seven less-used markup types (Book Actions, Course Info, Claim Review, Estimated Salary, Learning Video, Special Announcement, Vehicle Listing); Product is not among them (Google, 2025). More in the article Structured data.

7. Traffic from AI chats: still small

According to an Ahrefs study (June 2025, 81,947 sites), AI sources gave on average 0.25% of a site's traffic, while Google gave 39.35% of all referral traffic. Ahrefs warns that views from AI Overviews and AI Mode are counted as regular search, so the figure doesn't show the full impact of AI (Ahrefs, 2025).

8. Shopping through agents

At Google I/O on 19 May 2026, Google presented Universal Cart — a shared cart for Search, Gemini, YouTube and Gmail on the UCP protocol. According to Google, it is appearing in the US, with Canada and Australia planned next; Ukraine is not mentioned (Google, 2026). For a Ukrainian store this is for now information about the direction, not a task for today. For data for such services, see the article Google Merchant Center.

What this means for a store

  • The foundation is the same: category and product pages that can be crawled, are fast and have correct data. Check this with an SEO audit.
  • "Buy X" queries and brand names suffer from AI answers less than "how to choose X"; there is no clear figure for Ukrainian-language search, so look at your own queries in Search Console.
  • Product data (price, availability, GTIN) must match on the page, in the markup and in the feed.
  • Count not only clicks but also sales and searches for the store's name. In its guidelines Google advises measuring the overall value of visits, not just clicks (Google, 2025).

Common mistakes

  • Changing strategy because of one figure from an American study.
  • Buying "GEO services" with a promise to get into AI answers: there are no guarantees (see GEO).
  • Forgetting the technical base for the sake of new fashionable words.
  • Adding an llms.txt file and considering the job done (see AI bots).

FAQ

What changed in SEO in 2026? Google kept rolling out AI answers, added reports on them to Search Console, removed FAQ rich results and released three core updates between December 2025 and May 2026.

Is SEO dying because of AI? The data shows that clicks from Google are falling on some queries, but Google itself writes that generative features rely on the same search system. In 2025 Ahrefs still showed Google as the main source of referral traffic.

Does a store need a separate GEO workstream? For Google there are no separate requirements. For other companies' chatbots there is little evidence for specific techniques; see the GEO article.

What should I look at to see AI's effect on my site? The generative AI report in Search Console (impressions) and the click trend for queries where AI answers have appeared.

Sources

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