Is SEO Still Worth It in 2026? Here’s What the Marketing Community Actually Thinks
TL;DR
The question of whether SEO is still worth investing in has been making the rounds in marketing circles, and it’s more hotly debated than ever. With AI-generated search results, zero-click searches, and shifting user behavior, marketers are genuinely questioning whether traditional SEO still moves the needle. The Reddit marketing community has been hashing this out, and the conversation is nuanced — it’s not a simple yes or no. Here’s what the community is actually saying.
What the Sources Say
The discussion kicked off on Reddit’s r/digital_marketing, where a thread titled “Is SEO still worth it in 2026?” sparked a lively debate with 26 comments and a steady stream of perspectives from practitioners in the trenches.
The Core Tension
The thread reflects a community that’s genuinely divided — not in a heated, combative way, but in the way professionals get when a discipline they’ve built careers around is being fundamentally disrupted. The consensus isn’t “SEO is dead” (we’ve heard that song before), but it’s also not business as usual.
Several recurring themes emerged from the discussion:
AI Overviews are changing the game. Google’s AI-generated summaries now answer many queries directly in the search results, meaning users don’t need to click through to a website at all. For informational content especially, this has cut into organic traffic in ways that are hard to ignore. Marketers are reporting that content that used to reliably drive clicks is now getting “consumed” by Google before users ever see the blue links.
Intent matters more than keywords now. The practitioners in the thread who are still seeing strong SEO results tend to emphasize one thing: understanding search intent deeply. Optimizing for a keyword is table stakes — what separates winning content in 2026 is how well it satisfies the actual need behind the search. This isn’t new advice, but the margin for error has shrunk considerably.
Local and niche SEO is holding up better. A consistent thread in the community responses is that broad, informational SEO is where the pain is being felt most. Local businesses, niche sites, and content targeting specific transactional queries are reportedly still seeing solid returns. If someone’s searching for “best plumber in [city]” or “where to buy [specific product],” AI overviews haven’t fully replaced that browsing behavior yet.
Brand signals and authority are becoming the real moat. Multiple commenters pointed toward E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) as the framework that matters most right now. Google isn’t just rewarding keyword optimization — it’s rewarding entities that have established real-world credibility. This means SEO is increasingly inseparable from brand building, PR, and genuine thought leadership.
Where the Community Is Split
There’s a genuine fault line in the discussion between two camps:
The pragmatists argue that SEO is simply evolving, as it always has. Every few years there’s a “SEO is dead” moment — first it was Panda/Penguin, then mobile-first indexing, then voice search, then featured snippets. Each time, practitioners who adapted came out ahead. The argument is that 2026 is just another inflection point, not an ending.
The skeptics counter that this time feels structurally different. Previous updates changed how you did SEO; AI overviews change why you’d bother. If Google is essentially summarizing your content and serving it directly to users, the value exchange that made SEO worthwhile — traffic in exchange for quality content — is being disrupted at a fundamental level.
Neither side has a knockout argument, and the honest answer seems to be: it depends heavily on your niche, your content type, and what you’re trying to achieve.
Pricing & Alternatives
Since the source material doesn’t provide specific tool pricing data, this section focuses on the broader strategic alternatives marketers are weighing against traditional SEO investment.
| Strategy | Trade-offs vs. SEO | Community Sentiment |
|---|---|---|
| Paid Search (PPC) | Immediate results, but costs money per click; no compound returns | Seen as complementary, not a replacement |
| Social Media / Short-form Video | High reach potential, algorithm-dependent, doesn’t drive the same purchase-intent traffic | Growing interest, especially for brand awareness |
| Email Marketing | Own your audience, no algorithm dependency; requires list building | Frequently cited as the “safe harbor” alternative |
| YouTube / Video SEO | Google indexes video heavily; video results still show alongside AI overviews | Seen as underutilized and growing in opportunity |
| Community Building | Reddit, Discord, niche forums; drives authentic word-of-mouth | Increasingly valued as SEO becomes less reliable |
| Traditional SEO | Compound returns over time; vulnerable to AI overview disruption | Still viable in niche/local/transactional contexts |
The takeaway from the community discussion isn’t to abandon SEO — it’s to diversify. Marketers who went all-in on SEO as their primary channel are feeling the most anxiety. Those who treated it as one channel among many are better positioned.
The Practical Implications Nobody Talks About
Beyond the strategic debate, there are a few practical realities worth noting that came through in the thread.
The technical bar for SEO has risen. It’s not enough to write decent content with the right keywords anymore. Core Web Vitals, structured data, entity optimization, internal linking architecture — the technical complexity of doing SEO well has increased significantly. This raises the cost of doing it properly, which shifts the ROI calculation for smaller players.
Content volume strategies are under pressure. The tactic of publishing large volumes of keyword-targeted articles — once a reliable growth lever — is now being actively penalized in many niches. Google’s Helpful Content updates have made it harder to scale through quantity alone. Quality and genuine usefulness have to be baked in, which requires more investment per piece.
Zero-click doesn’t mean zero-value. One nuance that came up: even if users don’t click through, appearing in AI overviews still provides brand visibility. Some marketers are reframing their SEO goals around brand impressions and answer engine optimization (AEO) rather than pure traffic metrics. It’s a different value model, but it’s not worthless.
The Bottom Line: Who Should Care?
If you’re a local business: SEO still absolutely makes sense for you. Local search hasn’t been disrupted by AI overviews to the same degree as informational content. Showing up when someone searches for your service in your area remains high-value.
If you’re running a niche site or affiliate blog: This is where the calculus is most complicated. Informational content that used to drive consistent traffic is getting absorbed by AI summaries. You’ll need to be honest about whether the topics you’re covering are truly serving users in ways AI summaries can’t replicate — and lean into content that requires genuine experience, perspective, or data that isn’t already widely available.
If you’re a B2B or SaaS company: SEO for bottom-of-funnel, transactional content is still worth investment. People researching specific software solutions or comparing vendors are still clicking through. The informational top-of-funnel is harder to justify than it was two years ago.
If you’re a brand-new website with no domain authority: The honest answer from the community is that starting from scratch with SEO in 2026 is a longer, harder road than it used to be. You’re competing not just with established sites but with AI that can answer questions without sending anyone anywhere. Building an audience through community, social, and email while you develop SEO authority in parallel is the pragmatic path.
If you’re an established player with strong domain authority: You’re probably fine. The sites that are getting hurt most by AI overviews and algorithm updates tend to be the ones that built their authority on thin content and keyword stuffing. Real expertise and genuine usefulness are still being rewarded — Google needs to surface something when users want depth.
The marketing community’s honest consensus seems to be this: SEO isn’t dead, but it’s no longer the reliable growth engine it was even three years ago. It’s more competitive, more technically demanding, and more dependent on genuine expertise. For many businesses, it still makes sense — but it deserves a harder look at the ROI math than it used to.