User search patterns are showing a major transformation, and focusing solely on clicks and rankings won’t fetch the expected results.
This requires embracing the new shift in SEO to calibrate with AI and seize the newly appearing opportunities.
Here, the quote of Peter Drucker, A renewed management consultant, fits the most, who said:
“What gets measured gets improved”
So the pressing necessity is to capitalize on new KPIs.
Why Approach New KPIs?
Generative AI is reshaping search behavior and reshuffling traffic sources to the site.
Semrush says AI traffic grew by 66% in 2025.
This trend triggers a major problem. The AI results satisfy users who search without clicking on a single link.
It works like this.
AI Summaries ⇨ Address User Queries ⇨ Fewer Clicks ⇨ Reduced Traffic
In such situations, solely depending on traditional KPIs will cost you by missing out on prospective opportunities.
Besides AI, the search landscape has also changed a lot.
Featured snippets, AI overviews, videos, FAQs, knowledge panels, etc are also providing a good avenue to raise traffic. Even website translation is impacting AI visibility.
So they demand adopting a fresh perspective and shifting the attention from old KPIs like keyword rankings, CTR, backlink profiles, organic traffic, etc.
The New SEO KPI to Track
The new KPIs to track in SEO are:
- AI Citation Count: It shows how often your page is cited as a reference in AI responses.
- Chunk Retrieval Frequency: It shows how many times the sections of your content are extracted and produced by generative search engines.
- Embedding Relevance Score: This KPI tells you how close your content is to the user queries or prompts.
- Vector Index Presence: It measures how much of your content has been indexed in the AI chatbot databases.
Google has also released the Generative AI Performance Report in the Search Console that provides limited information about how the website performs on AI platforms. It shows some important KPIs like the impressions, pages that appeared on Google AI features, devices on which the site has been accessed by users, and country-wise traffic.
But it lacks the clicks and query matrix for AI platforms.
Here, a doubt arises about zero-click visibility, which we talked about in the previous section. It means people got the answers in the AI overview and left without clicking on your cited page.
But does that mean it’s useless to get cited?
Absolutely not. Getting cited itself is directly linked with building brand authority and presence, which is a driving factor for your business.
Edmond Shala, head of SEO at Tactical SEO, has also suggested considering Reddit traffic as a new strategy to grow engagement, as LLMs like ChatGPT and Gemini generally extract information directly from here.
You can get the traffic your website received through Reddit by visiting:
Google Analytics → Acquisitions → Traffic Acquisitions → Session Source/Medium
Here, type Reddit in the search bar, and you will get the engagement your site got from Reddit.
The SEO Community’s Stance
Here is what Ryan Hill, Director of SEO, Glacial Multimedia, suggested for his podcast.
He monitors engagement time and page time to understand who people are interacting with.
Further, he emphasizes quality over quantity, i.e., he doesn’t run for a long list of keyword rankings. But keep the 20-30 priority keywords that actually matter and drive the business, and then chase them.
SEO expert Connor Gillivan, is also of the firm view that tracking visibility is to be focused upon and not the rankings.
Also, Matt Diggity, another SEO expert and entrepreneur, has affirmed that Google is observing the microsignals like scroll depth, click patterns, and people’s interaction with the internal linking, which makes SEO beyond just counting clicks.
Final Thoughts
Track what really matters, grow beyond the traditional KPI, and find the new dimensions to expand your visibility. The usage patterns are changing, and so are the KPIs, so focus on the new trends to attain real measurable growth.
But the foundational step here is to incorporate the AI search and LLM optimization strategies first and then utilize these KPIs to yield expected outcomes.
Next Read: Google AI Search Optimization Guide: Strategies to Improve Visibility
