11 December 2025 · 33 min read

Barry and Steve's SEO and Beers Podcast is LIVE!

An introduction to Barry and Steve’s informal SEO and publishing podcast, covering AI Mode, zero-click search, prompt tracking tools and digital publishing trends.

I’m pleased to announce that I’ve recently teamed up with Barry Adams to discuss all the latest digital publishing trends - whilst drinking beer.

Barry has been a good friend of mine for a number of years and we share the same passion for surfacing good journalism to our algorithmic masters. There’s been a lot of confusion about LLMs recently and the role of SEO so we felt compelled to clear things up.

Along with publisher predictions for 2026, we discuss if AI Mode will become the default search view in Google, AI prompt tracking tools, Zero Click search, how you can influence without authority as an SEO - and a drunken night in RedRuth, Cornwall.

We haven’t got a pre-planned schedule for our new Oscar contender, we’ll team up when there’s been a significant number of updates in the industry.

Transcript highlights

Steve: Hi everyone, I’m Steve and we want to welcome you to our new podcast, which we agreed actually over a beer, didn’t we Barry? So really, this is very much meant to be like an informal chat about some of the biggest trends we see in SEO and publishing but with a difference because obviously we’re to be drinking beer.

Barry: I’m an SEO consultant specialising in news and publishing. My funny accent is from the Netherlands, despite my very English sounding name. I am actually a Dutchman, but I’ve been living in Northern Ireland for the last 17 years or so.

Steve: Will AI kill SEO?

Barry: No. Next question.

Barry: Partly the confusion that we have about AI and SEO is that a lot of people have latched on to this phrase called Google Zero, where they think Google’s traffic decline will eventually reach absolute zero. Google’s traffic is not going to go to zero. It’s just going to be harder to earn your place in there.

Steve: Search traffic used to come in and create the bedrock of the monthly figures. But no one really interrogated it because it was just there.

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