{"id":7069,"date":"2026-03-18T14:56:34","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T12:56:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fortismedia.com\/en\/?p=7069"},"modified":"2026-03-18T15:49:31","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T13:49:31","slug":"michal-suski-surferseo-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fortismedia.com\/en\/articles\/michal-suski-surferseo-interview\/","title":{"rendered":"SEO Isn\u2019t Dead: Micha\u0142 Suski on AI, Surfer & the Future of Search"},"content":{"rendered":"

Vilnius has, in recent years, become an unlikely but increasingly important stop on the global SEO circuit. This week, that momentum gathered at the Baltic-Nordic SEO Summit<\/a>, a two-day conference that draws together some of the industry\u2019s most recognizable names for a mix of keynotes, workshops, and closed-door mastermind sessions on everything from AI-driven search to content strategy.<\/p>\n

Held at the AC Hotel in the city center, the event blends theory with practice: short, insight-heavy talks, hands-on sessions with large language models, and smaller group discussions designed to turn ideas into tactics. It\u2019s also increasingly where different schools of SEO, technical, content-led, and more experimental approaches collide.<\/p>\n

Micha\u0142 Suski was in town for exactly that. As a speaker and mastermind host, he had spent the previous days discussing the future of search with peers and competitors alike. Before returning to the conference floor, he stopped by the Fortis Media headquarters for a conversation that quickly moved beyond product updates and into something broader: how the rules of visibility are changing and what replaces them.<\/p>\n

As the co-founder of SurferSEO<\/a>, Suski has watched the industry evolve from a \u201cblue ocean\u201d of opportunity into a crowded, fast-moving space now shaped by artificial intelligence. Yet his core belief remains disarmingly simple: SEO isn\u2019t disappearing, it\u2019s adapting.<\/p>\n

What followed was a candid conversation about Surfer\u2019s origins, the realities of building a product far from traditional tech hubs, and what it takes to stay relevant as search itself is being rewritten.<\/p>\n

How did SurferSEO start? What\u2019s the story behind it?<\/h2>\n

For me to join the SEO industry, it was by accident because I live in a rural area in the southeast part of Poland, with only small villages around. A friend of mine had an SEO agency in a neighboring village, and he said, \u201cMaybe you want to try SEO.\u201d<\/p>\n

At first, I didn\u2019t even know what it was. I started writing PBN content, basically what everyone does at the beginning. But what I really liked about the industry is how fast it changes. You don\u2019t need 10 years of experience to deliver results.<\/p>\n

Because we were in a village, there was no one to hire. So instead of scaling through people, we decided to scale processes.<\/p>\n

We built a prototype in 2017 with my brother, who is a programmer. It worked for our agency, so we thought: if it works for us, maybe it can work for others.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s when we decided to quit client work and focus fully on the product.<\/p>\n

What were the biggest challenges in the beginning?<\/h2>\n

The biggest challenge was dealing with changing Google search result pages. We were scraping data, and every time Google changed something, like adding new ads, we had to adjust.<\/p>\n

Eventually, we realized it was better to outsource scraping and focus on what we do best: reverse engineering search results.<\/p>\n

That decision freed up resources and allowed us to build better tools.<\/p>\n

What was the most difficult period in the last 10 years?<\/h2>\n

The most difficult time came recently, about 2\u20133 years ago.<\/p>\n

There were three main challenges:<\/p>\n