Although both SEO traffic and Google Discover traffic can be partially attributed to Google, they are different in every way. Hugo Domeur, freelance SEO consultant, brings us his expertise today to present to you the differences between these two notions.
Summary table of the differences between SEO and Discover
| Classic SEO | Google Discover |
|---|---|
| Appears in search engine results. | Is visible in the Chrome app on Android / IOS. |
| Is triggered following a keyword search. | Is displayed by default when launching Google Chrome on a smartphone. |
| The keyword defines the content displayed. | Your interests guide the content featured. |
| Optimizes by targeting searched keywords and delivering content that meets their search intent. | Triggered based on target interests, behavioral cues, and information freshness. |
Classic SEO: keywords, volume and search intent
The most important thing to remember about traditional SEO results is that they only appear when a user searches. The search engine's goal is simple: to provide the most relevant content possible based on their query. This way, the results aren't biased based on your preferred topics, regardless of whether the keyword searched is related to your interests or not.
To position yourself with so-called “classic” SEO, you should think about finding and targeting keywords searched by users, and responding to the search intent. So-called cold content (which talks about a timeless topic, such as “what is SEO”) is generally preferred to hot content (which talks about a topic that is current before fading, for example “how to optimize your SEO in 2025?”), although the latter can be perfectly integrated into an advanced SEO strategy.
Google Discover: Topic Targeting, Hot Content, and Clickbait
As for Google Discover, it's the complete opposite: the browser (Chrome in this case) uses your interests, passions, visited sites and much more data to offer you results without even having requested the slightest action on your part. So, if you like SEO, you should logically see articles on the subject (maybe even this one?). In most cases, the results displayed will either be content on a hot topic (current affairs), or defined by a catchy title (one could even call it clickbait).
And for positioning, the recipe is also completely different: Google selects sites offering regular content from sites specializing in a specific theme. Small, expert media outlets, so to speak. And regarding their content, the content selected will logically be that with high recent added value, or on catchy topics (the ultimate goal of Discover being to make users spend time on this content, even though the user probably wasn't there for this basic reason).
