What happened in the SEO industry this month?
Each month, Lumar’s in-house tech SEO experts hand-pick some of the SEO industry’s top headlines from across the web to keep you up-to-date on all things SEO and website optimization.
May has been a huge month for SEO industry news, with Google making some major search announcements at its Google I/O 2025 event last week and then following that up with even more news at Google Marketing Live. But that’s not all — we’ve rounded up the top news for SEOs in May 2025, including I/O event news, new Google guidance, and details on how AIO data appears in Google Search Console.
Now, let’s dig into the key SEO headlines from May…
Google I/O 2025 event announcements:
This month, Google made a whopping 100 announcements at its I/O 2025 event. You could watch the 2-hour-long keynote here, or you could read on for some of the key takeaways —
Google’s “AI Mode” unveiled in depth at I/O 2025 — it’s already rolling out in the US
At Google I/O 2025, the tech giant unveiled “AI Mode” in Search, introducing a conversational search interface powered by Gemini 2.5 Pro. This feature allows users to engage in multi-step queries, receive AI-generated summaries, and interact with dynamic content like videos and charts directly within search results. While promising a more personalized search experience, concerns arise about potential impacts on traditional web traffic and ad revenue.
(Sources: The Verge, Business Insider, and others.)
Project Astra’s live multimodal capabilities are coming to AI Mode
Google DeepMind describes Project Astra as “a research prototype exploring breakthrough capabilities for Google products, on the way to building a universal AI assistant.” At Google I/O this month, the team announced that Project Astra’s multimodal ability to process text, video, and audio in real time is being integrated into AI Mode in Labs, introducing a feature called “Search Live.”
Per Google’s The Keyword blog:
“We’ve continued to push the boundaries of visual search with Google Lens, which more than 1.5 billion people are using to search what they see every month. Now, we’re taking the next step in multimodality by bringing Project Astra’s live capabilities into Search. With Search Live, you can talk back-and-forth with Search about what you see in real-time, using your camera.”
(Source: TechCrunch, Google’s The Keyword blog)
Google’s Gemini AI suite expands and evolves with new tools and advanced reasoning models
Google introduced several new AI tools at I/O 2025, including “Deep Think,” an experimental, advanced reasoning mode for complex problem-solving and coding, and “Project Mariner,” an AI agent tool capable of automating tasks like bookings and purchases. These tools aim to enhance user interaction by providing more intuitive and proactive assistance across Google’s ecosystem.
(Sources: Google DeepMind, TechCrunch, Engadget, and others)
Watch the full Google I/O 2025 keynote
You can watch the full May 2025 keynote presentation from the Google I/O event here:
Google Marketing Live 2025 — ads are coming to AI Mode and expanding in AI Overviews
Right on the heels of Google I/O 2025 came Google Marketing Live, with a host of Google ad news.
A key headline from this ads-focused event is that the Google Ads team is expanding its paid offering within AI Overviews, letting you place your ads directly in AI responses that “are driving higher user engagement and satisfaction.” (This will soon be available in English in select countries on both desktop and mobile.)
Additionally, Google is testing new ad formats that will be integrated into AI Mode responses. This is currently rolling out in the US market. Regarding AI Mode ads, Google writes: “No matter how complex, you can present your ad as a logical and natural next action to consumers exploring any topic.”
Watch the full 2025 Google Marketing Live keynote here:
Google’s advice for AIO/GEO looks a lot like traditional SEO advice…
This month, Google’s John Mueller provided some guidance on optimizing for AI search over on the Google Search Central blog. Much like Google’s advice for traditional SEO, the focus in their AI optimization guidance is on producing high-quality content for human audiences, ensuring good page experiences, and ensuring AI bots can find, access, and crawl your web content.
Per Mueller’s Search Central post, to optimize for AI search, he recommends:
- Focus on unique, valuable, helpful content for people
- Provide a great page experience
- Ensure we can access your content (ie, crawlability still matters!)
- Manage visibility with preview controls (ie, make use of nosnippet, data-nosnippet, or noindex tags to filter out what content of yours appears in Google AI tools)
- Make sure structured data matches the visible content
- Support your text content with images and videos for multimodal search success
- Evolve with your users
As Mueller writes, “The only thing predictable in Search is that it always evolves because people’s needs are always evolving. … Our AI experiences represent yet another evolution with Search, so that we continue to best meet shifting user needs.”
(Source: Google Search Central Blog )
Google confirms that AIOs count as one position block in GSC
Via social media app Bluesky, Google’s John Mueller has confirmed that AI Overviews count as a ‘block’ or single position within Google Search Console (GSC) data. While AIOs are usually shown at the top of the SERP (therefore assuming position #1), this is not guaranteed and AIOs could actually appear anywhere.
In the same thread, John confirmed that GSC continues to show the topmost position for a site, regardless of whether the result is in a rich snippet, an AIO or a traditional blue link. More details about how AIO is counted in Search Console can be found at the bottom of their GSC support documentation on impressions, position, and clicks.
This help article states that, when it comes to AI Overviews:
“Click: Clicking a link to an external page in the AI Overview counts as a click.
Impression: Standard impression rules apply. To be counted as an impression, the link must be scrolled or expanded into view.
Position: An AI Overview occupies a single position in search results, and all links in the AI Overview are assigned that same position.”
![A Bluesky post from John Mueller, explaining how AIO data works in GSC. Text reads: “We have it documented at [link to GSC help document on clicks/impression data] (on the bottom). Basically an AIO counts as a block, so it's all one position. It can be first position, if the block is shown first, but I don't know if AIO is always shown first.”](https://www.lumar.io/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/bluesky-AIO-data-in-search-console-may-2025-1024x550.png)
(Source: John Mueller on Bluesky )
App deep linking guidance updated: connecting your website and app
Google has updated its guidance on app deep linking, emphasising the importance of connecting website content directly to corresponding in-app pages. Deep links aim to enhance user experience by allowing seamless transitions from search results to app content, improving engagement and conversion rates. There’s also guidance on how to implement deep links on both Android and iOS apps.
(Source: Google Search Central Blog )
