Welcome to Search With Sean: Weekly News - your concise roundup of the key stories shaping SEO, AI, search, digital PR, paid media, and digital strategy this week.

Co Hosts:

Amanda Walls https://www.linkedin.com/in/amandajwalls/

We covered the following + more:

Top Stories

We unpacked the December Google Core Update, including volatility, stronger signals around real expertise + intent matching, and why E-E-A-T now matters beyond classic YMYL.

We also discussed fresh research showing AI search usage is accelerating, with Google not losing users so much as losing clicks — as more journeys stay inside AI answers.B

uilding on that, we explored Grounding + citations research, including Dan Petrovic’s “grounding chunks” analysis — and what it suggests about ranking position, chunk size, and how sources are selected.

Finally, we covered the growing impact on publishers, with major reports suggesting news sites expect significant traffic drops as AI summaries replace click-through behaviour.

Top Videos

We reviewed key videos on:

Digital PR + journalism — what actually makes a story newsworthy today, and why survey-led campaigns are becoming essential

Local SEO + AI visibility — how LLMs cite and surface local businesses, and what drives mentions

Humanoid robotics progress — showing how quickly AI is moving from “software” into real-world capability (warehouses, factories, automation)

Top Social Posts

This week’s standout posts included:

Ads inside AI Overviews — why PPC is shifting toward intent + trust, not just auction mechanics (and why brand signals now matter more)

Google Merchant Center “AI business agent” — retailers training a virtual assistant in their brand voice to answer product questions and support conversion