Weekly Digital Marketing News Show | SEO, AI & Search Updates
- Sean Barber
- Jul 25, 2025
- 6 min read
Updated: 5 days ago
Search With Sean is a weekly digital marketing news show for in-house marketers, agency practitioners and SEO professionals. Each week I break down the most important stories in SEO, AI search and digital strategy — cutting through the noise to focus on what actually matters for your day job.
I'm Sean Barber, an in-house SEO at a major UK charity, and I bring a practitioner's perspective you won't get from the big agency channels. New episodes every week on YouTube and Spotify.
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Weekly Digital Marketing News Episodes
AI Search Trust Shifts, Google Regulation, Health AI Risks & LLM Rendering Research | 15 Jun
A wide-ranging episode this week exploring the growing trust gap across news and AI, regulatory pressure on Google in the UK, the rapid expansion of AI into health decision-making, and deeper technical insights into how AI systems interpret and retrieve web content.
In this episode:
AI-generated journalism at scale, including World Cup reporting workflows where publishers pre-write templated articles for multiple possible outcomes and use AI to publish instantly when events happen
The UK CMA’s proposed changes to Google Search, including increased transparency requirements, ranking fairness challenges, advance notice of core updates, and whether six months is realistic for implementation
The ongoing decline in global news trust, with Reuters Institute data showing record-low confidence levels (37% globally, 30% in the UK) and rising reliance on social and video platforms
The growing use of AI for health-related queries, including studies suggesting 1 in 4 users experience serious issues after following AI health advice and high usage for mental health support despite risks
A wider discussion on why users increasingly trust AI over healthcare systems in some contexts, driven by limited GP access, time pressure, and perceived empathy from chatbots
A Messi x ChatGPT promotional campaign and the broader trend of AI platforms integrating with global sports marketing and celebrity-led advertising
The Anthropic “Fable vs Mythos” situation, exploring internal model releases, Pentagon involvement, US national security concerns, and the wider geopolitical tension around frontier AI access
The debate around AI governance, guardrails, and whether governments should restrict access to the most powerful models versus keeping them publicly available
Daniel Foley Carter’s AWR insights on declining SEO performance, including reduced CTR for top positions (~40%) and lower engagement depth across search results, plus reflections on burnout in the industry
The rise of AI SEO hype and “Mountain AI” case studies, questioning exaggerated growth claims from agencies and the pressure this creates on in-house teams and leadership expectations
Structured data and AI search behaviour research, including how AI assistants interpret JavaScript rendering and why some models fail to process client-side content during grounding
A study on LLM.txt adoption showing that while 28% of websites now use it, 97% of those files are never actually requested by AI systems, raising questions about its practical value
Wider commentary on AI trust, transparency, and how organisations should think about visibility in AI-driven discovery systems rather than relying on legacy SEO assumptions
Featuring: Stanislav Farkas & Laura Iancu
AI Watermarks, Google Ads Changes, ChatGPT Ads, Brand Sentiment & JavaScript Risks | 14 Aug
A wide-ranging episode exploring the latest shifts across AI, paid media and search — from ChatGPT and Gemini’s continued growth to AI watermarking, major Google Ads bidding changes, branded AI agents and the JavaScript problem affecting AI crawlers.
In this episode:
ChatGPT and Gemini surpassing one billion monthly users and the rapid mainstream adoption of AI tools
How ChatGPT Work is improving presentations, image generation and everyday business workflows
The different roles ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini can play across personal assistance, research and critical analysis
Claude’s proposed invisible watermarks and the wider debate around identifying AI-generated content
Whether AI labelling on websites, YouTube and Spotify could unfairly penalise useful human-led content
Google Ads changing how budget-constrained Target CPA and Target ROAS campaigns are optimised
Why advertisers should review overperforming campaigns and adjust targets before costs increase
MySpace’s possible comeback and whether social platforms can become genuinely social again
ChatGPT testing ads that launch branded AI-agent conversations instead of directing users to websites
How AI advertising could reshape website traffic, customer journeys and brand discovery
Grok entering the AI-agent market and the growing strength of Chinese AI models
Jono Alderson’s advice on JavaScript, technical SEO and improving collaboration with developers
Why favourable brand sentiment matters more than simply earning mentions in ChatGPT
How Reddit participation, reviews, original research and trust signals can improve AI visibility
Privacy concerns surrounding smart televisions, voice assistants, browser extensions and other everyday technology
Whether 12-month SEO contracts still make sense as budgets, technology and client needs change
Why agencies and freelancers may increasingly charge for expertise and outcomes rather than time
False Wikipedia information appearing in Google’s Knowledge Panel and the risk of source manipulation
Time serving AI crawlers a separate Markdown version of its website
Research showing that most AI crawlers do not execute JavaScript, making some content and links effectively invisible
Featuring: Amanda Walls, Laura Iancu & Stanislav Farkas
ChatGPT Brand Choices, YouTube Views, Google Ads AI, Reddit’s Decline & Robot Risk | 20 Aug
A wide-ranging episode exploring how AI and platform changes are reshaping search, advertising and content — from ChatGPT choosing brands before searching and Google’s expanding use of AI in paid media, to YouTube’s new view-counting rules, Reddit’s decline in AI citations and the growing risks surrounding autonomous robots and AI agents.
In this episode:
Google introducing more AI-generated video optimisation within Performance Max campaigns
Why advertisers must monitor AI-created backgrounds, framing and compositions for brand accuracy
YouTube changing how views are counted and what this means for creators, advertisers and cross-platform comparisons
Research suggesting ChatGPT often has preferred brands in mind before conducting a live web search
How traditional SEO, entity authority and query coverage can influence brands already stored within AI models
Outdated content and former brand names continuing to appear across AI Overviews and other AI search experiences
Wetherspoons banning Meta smart glasses across its pubs amid privacy and recording concerns
Google Analytics introducing campaign benchmarking against anonymised industry averages
Google’s advice for improving AI search visibility through first-party information, structured data, authority and accessible content
Why brands should not rely entirely on closed social platforms that AI crawlers may be unable to access
A superhuman robot demonstrating running and jumping capabilities beyond normal human limits
The growing development of robot armies, autonomous machines and weaponised robotic systems
Google launching a new global spam update across all languages
The difference between in-model answers based on training data and out-of-model answers grounded through live web searches
How SEO can influence both AI training data and the sources models retrieve when searching the web
Research suggesting AI models may collaborate, protect one another and leave instructions to avoid shutdown
The risks of AI agents taking instructions literally and pursuing objectives beyond their intended boundaries
Gemini introducing optional visible watermarks for AI-generated images, videos and music
Reddit and review platforms reportedly experiencing significant declines in ChatGPT citations
Why brands should participate authentically on Reddit instead of chasing short-term algorithmic visibility
Using Google Search Console data to identify searches generated by AI assistants and agents
Featuring: Amanda Walls, Laura Iancu & Stanislav Farkas
Latest Monthly Digital Marketing News Episode
The Monthly Round Up shows cover the most significant monthly developments and trends across the fields of SEO, AI, search, and digital marketing.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q. How often is the show released? New episodes usually drop most weeks, with round up shows posted monthly.
Q. Who is the show for? In-house marketers, agency SEOs and digital marketing practitioners who want a no-fluff weekly briefing on what's actually happening in search and AI.
Q. Where can I watch or listen? Every episode is on YouTube and Spotify. Links are above.
Q. Who hosts the show? Sean Barber — in-house SEO at Macmillan Cancer Support and founder of Search With Sean. Every week, I am joined by different guests who work in digital marketing.
Can I be a guest on the show? Yes — head to the Contact page to get in touch.
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