Building a Holistic Search Strategy for 2026
A lot happened in search last year and – according to Google, there is a lot more change to come in the next few weeks.
With so much going on and so many mixed messages, We’ll help you make sense of what really changed in 2025, what didn’t, and what actually matters.
As well as the December Core update, We’ll explore how search is evolving from keywords and pages into conversations, entities, trust signals, and decision journeys – and what that means for content, structure, and strategy.
If you’ve already started adapting, this session will help you pressure-test your thinking and sharpen your focus. If you haven’t done much yet or you’re not sure where to start – this is the right place to begin.
You’ll leave with a clear, practical framework for building a holistic search strategy that works with AI-powered search, not against it, and a grounded sense of what to prioritize in 2026.
No hype. No panic. Just clarity, direction, and a plan you can actually act on.
Overview
The search landscape is undergoing a massive shift as AI search transitions into Agentic Commerce. Hosted by Jon Earnshaw and Sylvia, this session breaks down how universal commerce protocols are enabling AI agents to interact, negotiate, and execute checkouts on behalf of consumers without requiring website visits—and provides actionable steps for SEOs to maintain visibility.
Executive Summary
Agentic commerce is shifting transactions away from traditional e-commerce websites and directly into conversational AI interfaces (such as Google AI Mode, Gemini, and ChatGPT). Rather than scraping sites at query time, AI engines rely on structured data, off-site trust signals, and direct protocol connections (e.g., Google’s Universal Commerce Protocol) to evaluate brands and complete purchases. SEOs must transition from legacy keyword tracking to building “conversationally eligible” brand knowledge, managing off-site sentiment, and training virtual brand agents.
Key Takeaways
The Evolution of Commerce Protocols:
OpenAI ACP (Agentic Commerce Protocol): Enables instant checkout within ChatGPT via Stripe integrations.
Google UCP (Universal Commerce Protocol): Integrates with Google Merchant Center, allowing merchant-trained business agents to present real-time offers and execute checkouts directly within Gemini and Google AI Mode.
Model Context Protocol (MCP): Acts as a secure, standardized information layer, allowing business and personal agents to safely query inventory, pricing, and policies without live website scraping.
Agent-to-Agent Transactions: Personal buyer agents execute multi-step tasks (e.g., checking personal calendars, reviewing third-party sites, evaluating pricing) to negotiate directly with merchant business agents.
The Importance of Off-Site Quality & Sentiment: LLMs verify brand trustworthiness through external channels (e.g., Reddit, Tripadvisor, social media, review sites). A single negative off-site sentiment cluster can eliminate a brand from an agent’s recommendation set.
Building Prototype Custom GPTs: Merchants should train custom GPT models on their internal Q&As, support logs, and product data. This reveals content gaps and establishes the guardrails needed once native Merchant Center business agents become universally available.
The 3-Layer Holistic Search Framework
The Foundation Layer (Understandability): Technical SEO, clear site hierarchy, core web vitals, and internal linking that allow search engines and AI crawlers to parse domain data accurately.
The Authority & Trust Layer (Credibility): Deep, Unique, and Original (DUO) content paired with strong off-site reputation signals (e.g., social channels, forums, expert credentials).
The Conversation Layer (Relevance): Structuring content to resolve multi-turn decision journeys and satisfy follow-up user questions directly within AI interfaces.
