We didn’t know what to expect, but SEO Week exceeded every expectation. Social media was ablaze with insights, special moments, and a genuine sentiment of connection. The dust has settled. We want to take a moment to reflect on our first event and what it meant to our agency.
The iPullRank team had an absolute blast last week. We never did this before. We took in the brilliant sessions, connected with a litany of the brightest minds in search, and most of all, had fun together. We’re a remote team, so there have only been a handful of times that we could connect in person. Our 40+ speakers showed up and delivered. The attendees (despite a gaggle waiting until the last minute to purchase tickets and turn our hair gray) made this inaugural event historic.
Every moment was electric, from insightful talks during the day to the beautifully curated post-event panels, social meetups, and dancing together at night. The evening events brought the perfect mix of good vibes and great company, and the Algorhythms Afterparty? I guarantee there’s never been any professional work/conference/event/seminar party as badass as this one (stay tuned for a whole post on this blowout).
We’re beyond PROUD of how it all came together, and so grateful for everyone who made it such an unforgettable experience.
SEO Week truly was a landmark moment in the industry, confirming that the era of optimizing solely for traditional search engines is ending. With four tightly packed days of presentations covering various search-related topics from vector embeddings to a new agentic internet, one message was clear: search is evolving fast, and we as SEOs must evolve. We’ve just got soooo much to share with you all, and it isn’t easy to create this first post-event piece without diving too deeply into every single talk.
I’ll have so much content for you in the coming months. Today? I’m starting with a larger overview of the presentations, separated by each thematic day.
Each examines a different frame of the SEO industry’s inevitable transformation.
Key Topics:
- LLMs and AI Overviews are reshaping SERPs
- Agent Experience (AX) is now a ranking factor
- Search is now semantic, journey-based, and multimodal
- Relevance Engineering is the new core skillset
- Content marketing’s focus must now include consideration for AI engines
- SEO success demands entity authority and PR influence
Let’s set the scene. Over 300 attendees took their seats. Neon blue lights glowed above. The room got quiet.
The walls erupted with motion graphics, taking full advantage of the unique Resolume projection mapping technology available in Lavan Midtown’s venue.
An electronic incoming phone call. Redman. He introduces ‘SAYO’ week. If you ever need an entertainer to present your SEO conference, make sure that you explain that SEO is an abbreviation.
S. E. O.
Not SAYO.
The walls cascaded with cyberpunk visuals of blue, pink, purple, and yellow across the venue. To launch the conference, iPullRank founder and CEO, Mike King, took the stage. The rest was history.
Day 1: The Science – Technical Foundations and AI Integration
We opened SEO Week strong with a focus on the technical underpinnings of search and the integration of AI.
After an inspirational introduction, Mike plunged into his own talk, “The Brave New World of SEO.”
His presentation was dynamic, engaging the entire three walls of Lavan Midtown’s event space. He explained the importance of vector embeddings in the context of information retrieval and search engine optimization. He chastised SEO software for falling years behind Google’s algorithmic evolution. Mike stood in a literal galaxy of vectorized topics to demonstrate how the search engine determines your website’s relevance and how you can engineer visibility.
We witnessed the birth of Relevance Engineering (R17g).
In rapid succession, Microsoft’s Krishna Madhavan explored advancements from AI to quantum computing and their impact on information retrieval. Jeff Coyle discussed the shift from keyword-centric strategies to semantic understanding through vector search and AI-enhanced ranking methods.
Day 1 was big on technical advances, with speakers like Robert Hansen, Jori Ford, Elias Dabbas, Annie Cushing, JR Oakes, and Manick Bhan covering their work on data science, LLM classification, and hybrid engine optimization.
James Cadwallader introduced AX – Agent Experience – and the concept of the “Agentic Internet,” where AI agents – not just human searchers – consume, interpret, and act on web content. From James’s perspective, search isn’t just about SERPs anymore. It’s about creating content that’s accessible and understandable to AI agents, and why SEOs must now consider AX as the counterpart to UX.
Day 2: The Psychology – User Behavior and Content Strategy
How is search behavior changing? The psychological aspects of search and content creation intrigue content marketers, SEOs, and digital specialists.
We all agree that content that’s surfaced in search results is changing – a focus on pure rankings feels like an outdated mindset for your business goals.
To start the day, keynote speaker and the OG of information retrieval, Ricardo Baeza-Yates (he literally wrote the book on the topic), educated us on the foundations of semantic search before getting slightly philosophical on the risks of generative and predictive AI.
Many of our speakers discussed that AI search engines are now a primary consideration for content. Ross Hudgens, Devin Bramhall, Carrie Rose, and Talia Wolf all had great insights on how the value of content marketing is shifting when you consider AI-curated search engines and conversational search platforms.
Wil Reynolds and Garrett Sussman talked about how search behavior is changing. It’s not too late to pivot your strategy. Wil demanded that we do better. That we fight the algorithms and create authentic content that people give a crap about. Does your content generate engagement on social? Then, hopefully, Google and conversational search platforms reward it with more visibility.
Dawn Anderson talked about how you can’t blame SEOs for a broken internet anymore. Information retrieval has transformed SEO, but SEOs are still battling the underlying negative connotations of search optimization as a sleazy industry. Her discussion dovetailed perfectly into the content/search discussion of what’s to come with AI and AX focus.
Bianca Anderson and Brie Anderson shared frameworks and processes that revealed valuable metrics, leveraging data and semantic search, rounding out an excellent day of content-focused presentations. Their talks were some of the most popular at the entire conference.
Day 3: The Ecosystem – Specialized SEO Strategies
The third day splintered across a range of different verticals and platforms. We love to talk about SEO in a generic capacity, but specialists understand the nuance and complexity that differ between eCommerce, Local, Video, Social platforms like Reddit, and beyond.
Aleyda Solis and Will Critchlow both tackled the intricacies of eCommerce SEO, offering complementary perspectives. Together, their talks underscored the growing need for precision and adaptability in a competitive commerce landscape.
Content discovery and visibility formed another key theme, explored through talks by Phil Nottingham, John Shehata, and Crystal Carter. Nottingham emphasized the unique dynamics of video search, while Shehata’s deep dive into over 200 million articles offered rare visibility into what makes content thrive on Google Discover. Carter extended this conversation into the realm of generative AI search.
Greg Gifford – with a bit of help from Greg Gifford (iykyk) – and Ruth Burr Reedy addressed the challenges of localized and large-scale SEO initiatives. And Ross Simmonds capped it off with his exploration of the intersection of AI, search, and user-generated content. The man gave a master class on marketing on Reddit.
Day 4: The Future – Emerging Trends and Strategic Planning
Where do we go from here? There were actionable takeaways in every presentation, but the final day of SEO Week brought a forward-looking perspective. Speakers centered on the strategic shifts shaping the future of search and digital visibility.
Rand Fishkin argued that search is no longer the only, or even the primary, path to online discovery. Lily Ray echoed this sentiment in her closing talk, reflecting on the shifting rules of the industry and cautioning against reactive SEO tactics that chase algorithms rather than focus on long-term value creation.
On the tactical and organizational front, Tom Critchlow and Andrew Prince shared insights on managing SEO initiatives at scale. Several talks examined how AI and new search models redefine the SEO landscape.
Cindy Krum explored the implications of Google’s Multitask Unified Model, which requires SEOs to rethink content structure and context. Dan Petrovic expanded on this, showing how association networks built from language models can be used to map brand perception and topical authority in ways traditional rank metrics cannot.
Others emphasized how SEO is broadening its scope to include audience development and content relationship-building. Fajr Muhammad reframed content strategy as an opportunity to foster meaningful interactions rather than just drive traffic, while Nick Eubanks highlighted M&A strategies for accelerating audience growth by acquiring rather than competing for attention.
The Future of SEO Is Contextual, Conversational, and AI-Native
Together, these talks captured the shift from traditional SEO metrics and tactics toward a more integrated, strategic approach—one that blends technical expertise, brand vision, and a deep understanding of evolving digital behaviors.
Across all sessions, one unifying theme emerged: The future of SEO is no longer about keywords; it’s about knowledge. It’s about showing up in the AI conversation, being understood by machines, and meeting users wherever their journey takes them – be it traditional search, voice, chat, or visual discovery.
And that future is already here, to which our nearly 300 attendees can attest! With dozens of expert speakers and breakout events like the Algorhythms Afterparty – starring Busta Rhymes – SEO Week was a celebration of both community and innovation. The engagement, the curiosity, and the high-level conversations made it clear that the SEO industry is ready to meet this new frontier head-on.
The best news I have to share today is that we’ll be back in 2026 – bigger, smarter, and even more future-focused. The inaugural SEO Week was such a resounding success that the iPullRank team decided mid-way through the conference that we’re definitely making this an annual event!
We already have super early bird tickets on sale. As of the time of this blog post, there are only ten tickets left.
Thanks again to our amazing speakers, event staff (Charlene Kate Events!), sponsors, and, of course, attendees, for making this conference truly more successful and spectacular than we could’ve imagined. We all came home re-energized and full of excitement and great ideas we can’t wait to implement.
Here’s to The Future of Search – WE ARE READY!
