Is Google Losing Its Grip on the Internet?
Welcome to the Marketing Hype Machine: Is Google Truly Dying?
Well, I don't know if you guys heard, but Google is possibly dying, and we should probably talk about that.
Let me just cut through the noise: No, Google is not dying. Stop it. That’s a whole lot of sensationalism going on in marketing circles right now—especially in the local home services space—about the “death” of Google. I’m here to tell you, it’s not dying; it’s changing. Google is simply evolving.
So, while the search giant itself isn't spontaneously combusting, you could argue that the way you used to use Google to consistently land high-volume, low-cost leads for your plumbing business? That might be on life support. That I could get behind.
Google is a massive, multi-billion dollar company. Its actual search volume is doing just fine, thank you very much. The panic stems from how businesses—plumbers included—have depended on the organic, "free" traffic Google once provided.
The real shift? It’s AI. We need to talk about how AI is changing Google, or rather, how Google is strategically changing to utilize AI, and what that means for you. But more importantly, we need to talk about what it means for your customers, because their behavior is the only thing that actually matters.
Behavior-First Marketing: Why We Don't Chase the $0.2\%$
The marketing industry is currently suffering from a massive case of Shiny Object Syndrome. Marketers are looking at the potential of platforms like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini, and they’re rushing to build expensive "AI ranking" packages. Their pitch? “Google’s dying! You’ve got to get over here and rank on the chatbots!”
Look, there’s some truth to the fact that the tech is changing, but I’ve always been a behavior-first marketer. And you, as a plumber, should be too.
You need to analyze the actual behavior of your market before you make dramatic, budget-moving decisions. Why? Because if you rush to adapt and move your entire budget too early, you are leaving a solid, paying opportunity zone (Google) to go chase air (unproven AI leads).
The risk of early adoption in this rapidly shifting landscape is huge. If you adapt after the market has started to move a bit, you can always catch up later. There will always be people who are terrible at any new platform, and if you're listening to me, you're already going to do better than most.
But let’s get down to brass tacks for home services. We have to ask: Has the user behavior for finding a plumber changed? No, not significantly yet.
I was able to validate this in a presentation recently when a major industry CEO dropped a critical stat. After crunching the conversion numbers across a huge data set, the conclusion was inescapable: Only $0.2\%$ of conversions were being attributed to AI platforms.
That is two-tenths of one percent. That is not enough for me to declare Google is dying and that all the leads are running away to the robots. Be extremely careful about pouring your hard-earned marketing dollars into chasing this $0.2\%$ conversion rate.
Everything in AI is still in flux. Ranking algorithms are changing daily. I saw a report recently that a site like Reddit was ranking well on ChatGPT one day and gone the next. If anyone is promising you a guaranteed ranking on AI platforms right now, give them a big, skeptical laugh. Good freaking luck! The technology is moving so fast; making such a promise is simply irresponsible.
The Plumbing of AI: Why Google Still Wins the Homeowner
The behavior model matters, especially in a high-urgency, high-trust industry like plumbing.
Right now, if a homeowner has a burst pipe and they go to ChatGPT and type, “best emergency plumber in [My Town],” they might get a nice list. But does that list help them? Not really.
When a homeowner is in crisis and trying to make a hiring decision, they need three things that Google has perfected and AI platforms largely lack:
Immediate Call-to-Action (CTA): They need a prominent, click-to-call button right there on the search page. No copying and pasting required.
Messaging: Is this company open? Do they offer a $24/7$ service? This immediate messaging is key.
Social Proof: Most critically, they need to see reviews. They need that five-star rating and the little badge showing they are Google Guaranteed (LSA).
As a homeowner, it simply does not behoove you to go all the way over to a chatbot yet. You're wasting precious time and search energy when you can go to Google and get social proof, verified listings, and immediate, low-friction call buttons. This is conversion optimization $101$, and it’s why AI isn't winning the local service war.
While marketers are trying to sell you on new AI packages, many of the things you do for good Search Engine Optimization (SEO) still affect AI platforms, which use similar underlying principles to crawl and ingest content. The signals are similar, but the user experience for hiring a plumber is vastly inferior on a chatbot.
The Real Battle: Paid Search and the "Graph Go Up" Principle
While the digital prophets are screaming about the death of Google, the company itself is strategically maximizing its revenue, which is why your organic results are plummeting.
Remember the goal of a massive multi-billion dollar company? Graph Go Up. That is the endgame. Google is not incentivized to give you high-quality leads for free. They are incentivized to make you spend money on their platform.
If you look at the modern Search Engine Results Page (SERP) for a local service search, the hierarchy is crystal clear:
Local Service Ads (LSA): The Google-Guaranteed results with the green checkmark.
Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Ads: The traditional text ads.
AI Overview: The new summarized answer box (if it appears).
Map Pack: The three local listings.
Organic SEO Results: Way, way down the page, below the fold.
Google is pushing down organic SEO results because they want you to invest in LSA and PPC. That's where they make their money. LSA, in particular, is a priority. It's built on performance-driven metrics rather than purely budget-dependent bidding, which is Google’s way of controlling visibility and ensuring they capture maximum ad revenue for high-intent searches.
The notion that Google is dying is dumb. The notion that the way we acquire leads is changing is absolutely true, and it’s happening because Google is prioritizing their shareholders over your free organic traffic.
From SEO Gold Rush to Mental Real Estate: The Tip of the Spear
Let’s be honest: The SEO Gold Rush is over. That time is gone.
The gold rush effect that SEO enjoyed five, ten, or fifteen years ago, where you could simply optimize a few pages and watch the leads roll in, is dead. There is too much competition, and organic SEO has become a heartbreakingly slow-moving needle.
What should your new SEO goal be? It's simple: Do you show up for your company name, and do you show up in the Map Pack results for the immediate area around your shop?
The most important takeaway for every plumber is this: You cannot rest your entire company’s lead generation strategy on SEO.
What I really want for my clients is for them to be such a force in their market that everybody who Googles them can find them by name. This is what I call creating mental real estate.
Mental real estate means you’re the talk of the town. You’re the company people remember when they hear a plumbing joke or see a billboard. You’ve got the SEO happening in their brain.
The beautiful thing? When you have that mental real estate, you accidentally send Google the strong signals that your company should rank better anyway! People search for your brand name, they dwell longer on your website, they watch your videos, and they consume your content. This high-engagement behavior confirms to Google that you are a true authority in your space.
The Tip of the Spear vs. The Back Foot
Remember the distinction:
The Back Foot: SEO, PPC, LSA. These are all forms of lead aggregation. You are standing there, waiting for the customer to take the first step. You are on a list of competitors, and the customer is asking, "Which one should I try?" If you don't have existing trust signals, you lose, and you become a price-sensitive commodity.
The Tip of the Spear: Brand Building. This is the intentional marketing that introduces you to people for the very first time. This includes Meta (Facebook/Instagram) ads, community events, high-visibility billboards, mailers, or even old-school door-knocking. These strategies ensure your company is top-of-mind before the homeowner even has an emergency.
The Ever-Shifting Landscape and the Power of Diversification
Marketing is a fluid, ever-shifting landscape. The key to navigating it is understanding that the user psychology is the only constant. Focus on the homeowner's panic, their need for trust, and their desire for a quick fix, and you’ll always win, regardless of the platform.
As someone whose first ad was in a phone book, I can tell you that every platform has its gold rush, followed by sensationalism designed purely to sell the next shiny package. Don't be the business that jumps into things too early when there is no proven opportunity. You will just be bleeding cash.
I’ll leave you with my favorite guiding principle:
"A market segment that accounts for less than $1\%$ of your conversions should not take up more than $1\%$ of your marketing energy."
Based on the $0.2\%$ conversion stat, your marketing guns should be firmly trained on Google's paid products and, most importantly, on building your brand. Marketing will always be a stack—a mix of strategies. You must diversify. That diversification is what allows you to survive and thrive on these digital shores of shifting sands.
Ready to Focus on Real Growth?
Marketing, especially for plumbers, requires constant adaptation. The old playbook is done. If you're tired of chasing low-value SEO keywords and want to focus on building a robust, diversified lead stack that centers on powerful brand building and high-conversion paid search, the crew at Mammoth Marketing for Plumbers is here to help.
If you would like the Tyler Williams crew to take a look at what you need to focus on to grow your business, schedule a consultation today! We'll give you an honest hour of our time, pressure-test your current strategy, and send you off with clear, actionable next steps. We want to be helpful before we're salesy.
Schedule your consultation with the Tyler Williams crew right here:
