With so many changes in the space, new acronyms have appeared in an attempt to describe the newer activities involved in SEO job roles. However, that’s a distraction, says Charlie Whitworth.

Charlie says: “Forget the acronyms, particularly with AI search and SEO.

Let's stop focusing on what it's called and focus on what we need to do.”

Do acronyms not assist with articulating how SEO has changed?

“I don’t think that SEO has ever been a good description of what we do. It's always been a fairly inaccurate acronym, given that we don't actually optimize search engines; we optimize websites.

The term SEO has never been particularly accurate, but never more so than now. A lot of time, money, and effort have been spent debating whether or not we're still SEOs, whether SEO is dead, whether we should be called GEOs, LLMEOs, etc. It's a big waste of time.

It worries me how much time we're spending talking about these acronyms and not talking about what we should be doing. Who cares what the acronym is? The key is the work.

This constant obsession with SEO being dead or being called the right thing always comes back, whether it was after the death of link building or after Penguin and Panda. Obviously, the emergence of AI has exacerbated that. I don't think many other marketing industries are constantly talking about whether or not their acronym is accurate.

What we need to be doing is focusing on what's going to drive growth for clients.”