Having used Semrush for SEO for many years, I would never have imagined it was worth as much as US$ 1.9B which is what Adobe is acquiring it for according to this TechCrunch article.

Indeed, for some time there, it started looking like search engine optimization or ‘SEO’ was no longer a major part of digital marketing as it had been in the past with social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram stealing attention and search traffic from Google. 

However, the mainstream arrival of ‘Generative AI’ three years ago with ChatGPT and subsequently ‘Answer Engines’ like Perplexity and Google’s AI Overviews shifted that perspective dramatically as these offerings are disrupting traditional SEO as we know it.

In a nutshell, Semrush is suddenly hot again, not just for SEO, but also because it helps businesses and brands improve their visibility via ‘Generative Engine Optimization’ or ‘GEO’ as its more popularly known — and its also referred to as ‘Answer Engine Optimization’ or ‘AEO’. The Internet loves its acronyms! 🙂

Google is still the dominant search platform globally but people no longer want or need search engine results pages or ‘SERPs’ as they are known and instead are looking for a singular and (mostly?) accurate answer to their Internet search queries. 

Therefore, Semrush is perfectly poised to exploit this paradigm shift in Internet search and Adobe wasted no amount of time to pounce on what could become an incredibly valuable business for the future of GEO to bolster its own digital marketing offerings.