I attended Brighton SEO San Diego 2025! 23rd & 24th September, 2025 Manchester Grand Hyatt San Diego, USA
As I’m based in London, I previously attended Brighton SEO in Brighton, but since I was in the States this summer and autumn, I decided to join the San Diego event! I had a complimentary ticket, so I only attended the second day.
I’d heard rumours that San Diego wasn’t quite up to scratch, and to be honest, in terms of overall event scale, session content, and everything else, Brighton was superior. The attendance seemed to be less than half that of Brighton as well.
However, there were many local attendees, and I met some absolutely lovely people. I was able to enjoy an event with a completely different atmosphere from Brighton, so I’m glad I attended.
Exhibition Stands:
Most exhibitors were local companies, and major players like Semrush, Ahrefs, and Yoast SEO weren’t present. The merchandise and stands were more modest compared to Brighton.
Several speakers who had presented at Brighton SEO were there, so I asked if their talks were the same. Everyone said they’d updated them! Indeed, despite only five months having passed, there were significant changes, and being able to compare with five months ago was quite interesting.
This time, I couldn’t tell whether it was an SEO conference or an AI conference—there were so many sessions analysing the structure within AI. It felt like they might as well rename it Brighton GEO!
The general conclusion across many sessions was that, whilst it depends on the AI tool, fundamentally one’s own company information and brand influence are stronger than third-party information, so businesses should focus on their own brands.
Sessions I Found Particularly Interesting:
1. “We Analysed 250 Million AI Search Results: 5 Months Later”
An updated version of the talk I heard at Brighton
- Dramatic pace of change: Reddit citations increased by an astonishing 800% in just the past five months
- AI search ecosystem shifts: Referral traffic from ChatGPT decreased by 52%, with a tendency to keep users within AI, etc.
- Technical insights: Practical discoveries such as semantic URLs being cited 11.4% more often, JavaScript issues, etc.
2. “How AI is Rewriting the Rules of Local Search: Data from 100 Cities”
- Experimental approach: An empirical study that searched for “best pizza” in 100 cities and tested across multiple LLMs. The pizza theme was so American and amusing, and the fact they thoroughly researched everything about pizza was brilliant.
- Discoveries that overturn conventional SEO wisdom: The shocking finding that brand mentions (without links) are more important than backlinks
- Reddit’s influence: The fascinating discovery that Reddit posts without links still influence AI results
Rather than theory, this was data-driven analysis revealing the new rules of local SEO in the AI era.
3. “E-E-A-T Your TOFU: Why B2B Top-of-Funnel Content Still Matters”
- Shows reality with concrete figures: Rather shocking data showing AI Overviews caused a 33% traffic decrease, with top articles losing 56% of traffic
- Practical success stories: Specific examples like a Microsoft licensing article achieving a 3.5% CTR (industry average 0.3%) and leading to over 50 client acquisitions, etc.
Networking & After-Party
Brighton SEO’s appeal lies not only in the sessions but in the exceptionally high calibre of attendees. Honestly, I’d be happy with just the roundtables and after-parties! (Though the AI evolution is so rapid that even in just five months, I felt considerable updates at the event, and it was good to make friends between sessions)
Recently, perhaps due to the political climate, I’ve noticed American communities tend to be predominantly domestic, and this event had many local attendees as well. Brighton has participants from neighbouring European countries and is very international, so I felt a bit of an outsider there. But the people I met this time were genuinely wonderful, and I had a brilliant day.
I was also delighted to reconnect with people I’d met at Brighton.
One persistent issue: there’s not a single snack throughout this marathon event. This time, the hotel restaurants had enormous queues, and we massively overran the lunch break. In the evening, there were no corporate after-parties, which was nice as we all went together to a rooftop beach party, but there was no food, so we just consumed alcohol continuously. We ended up going downtown for dinner after 9pm. Well, that was fun in its own way, so it was alright, but this is genuinely a point that needs improving.
I was planning to attend Brighton next month, but I’m staying in the States, so I’ll next attend Brighton SEO Brighton in April! And LA Tech Week starts this week, so I’m off to an LA SEO meet-up.
I’m really looking forward to seeing my colleagues again! I’ll continue researching SEO across Europe and America whilst remaining Europe-based.
For enquiries or meeting requests: info@a-digitalworks.com
