Seasonal industries face unique visibility challenges as search engines require time to crawl and interpret new content, even when demand peaks are brief. While research rarely addresses how search engines evaluate seasonal content, evidence shows that clear structure, strong technical signals, and early preparation help search engines understand and rank seasonal pages within limited timeframes.

Authors: Pauliina Kontio & Sari Suominen

Search engines account for a significant proportion of online information retrieval in 2025, and individuals rely on them seamlessly in daily life as part of an increasingly searchified digital environment (see Haider & Sundin 2019, Chapter 1). Google has developed its search engine behaviour drastically recent years, and matching keywords are not enough anymore (see Google 2025, 9; Rani 2023, 3–4). As a result, achieving visibility on the Search Engine Results Page requires both contextual market understanding and familiarity with complex algorithmic logic. This extended processing poses challenges for industries operating within seasonal commercial cycles or narrow seasonal windows.

According to Statcounter (2025) Google holds a dominant position in the European search market, meaning its evaluation practices largely determine how information is accessed and prioritised online. As its ranking logic has advanced, it now assesses content through behavioural patterns, semantic relationships, and a wide range of relevance indicators rather than simple keyword matching (Rani 2023, 3–4, 130–131). Even with these sophisticated capabilities, visibility still depends on a time bound-indexing process in which search engines must crawl, interpret, and classify new material before it can appear in search results (Google 2025).

Market volatility and seasonal visibility needs

Seasonal industries face distinct visibility challenges, as their products and services are relevant only during limited and recurring periods. The Dutch flower bulb industry illustrates this dynamic particularly clearly. Its commercial calendar is divided into three main product groups: summer bulbs, spring blooming bulbs, and Amaryllises. As an agricultural domain, the industry is highly sensitive to environmental volatility. In recent years, increasingly extreme weather conditions driven by climate change have led to unpredictable harvests and supply shortages. Combined with financial instability following COVID-19 and broader geopolitical uncertainty, companies are under pressure to improve marketing effectiveness while keeping costs under control. These factors reinforce the importance of understanding how search engines evaluate seasonal content, especially since search demand for flower bulbs rises sharply during predictable annual peaks that require timely visibility.

Gap in seasonal industry research

Although search engine optimisation is widely studied, existing research remains strongly oriented toward long-term ranking strategies, general algorithmic behaviour, or search advertising models. Peer reviewed work that examines how search engines evaluate seasonal or time bound content is markedly limited. Current publications do not sufficiently address the constraints faced by seasonal industries, nor do they analyse how indexing time, freshness signals, or rapid shifts in search demand influence organic visibility. This gap points to a broader need to understand how search engines process highly seasonal content and which optimisation strategies are effective when ranking must occur within restricted timeframes.

The theoretical basis for this gap lies probably in the time-sensitive nature of seasonal demand. Seasonal industries operate under conditions where visibility must be achieved precisely when search interest peaks, often within a narrow window (Soysal & Krishnamurthi 2012, 293–294). The evaluation of seasonal content therefore depends on how quickly search engines can interpret relevance signals once a page is crawled. Clear structure, strong technical signals, and early preparation help ensure that content is understood and indexed before demand rises (see Rani 2023, 133–134). Because the typical maturation period associated with search engine optimisation can range from several weeks to several months, industries with short seasonal sales cycles cannot rely on standard optimisation timelines. Instead, they require approaches that can be indexed and evaluated rapidly, allowing seasonal content to surface when it is most needed.

SEO cost efficient even for seasonal industries

Although search engine optimisation is time-sensitive and typically requires a longer period to produce measurable results, it remains a relatively cost-efficient marketing approach, even for seasonal industries. The cost structure of SEO is based on an initial investment in optimisation, after which ongoing visibility can be maintained with minimal additional expenditure (Rani 2023, 19).

In highly competitive seasonal markets such as the flower bulb industry, paid search advertising can become expensive, especially for smaller companies that compete for the same customers and product categories. In such environments, SEO offers a strategic advantage by providing durable visibility without the recurring costs associated with search engine marketing (Berman & Katona 2013, 649). Organic results also attract higher user trust, and research indicates that websites delivering superior content and usability tend to outperform lower quality competitors, even when those competitors invest in paid placements (Berman & Katona 2013, 644). For seasonal industries, this combination of cost efficiency, sustained visibility, and user preference for organic results makes SEO a compelling long-term investment.

Signals of effective short-term optimisation

The limited research on how search engines evaluate seasonal content makes practical observations particularly valuable for understanding which optimisation strategies can deliver results within short commercial windows. Kontio’s (2025) thesis contributes to this gap by examining how optimisation methods that are more technical in orientation, compared with broader on page content revisions, perform under the conditions of the flower bulb industry. The project focused on refining meta titles, improving meta descriptions, adjusting alt text, and strengthening internal linking. These actions do not change the main content itself but clarify the relevance signals and structural organisation that search engines rely on when interpreting pages (Google 2025).

Kontio’s (2025, 66–67) findings show that even modest and well-timed adjustments can lead to measurable improvements in early visibility. Average rankings improved, and impressions became more relevant, indicating that search engines can recognise updated seasonal pages despite the limited time available for ranking signals to develop. At the same time, only slight changes in customer engagement metrics reflect the broader challenge identified in the research gap. The short duration of seasonal peaks restricts the amount of behavioural data that can accumulate and influence performance. The findings therefore support the conclusion that while seasonal industries face structural disadvantages in search visibility, early and well-planned optimisation that focuses on clearer structure and stronger signals can help seasonal content appear at the moment when demand is at its highest.

References

Berman, R. & Katona, Z. 2013. The Role of Search Engine Optimization in Search Marketing. Marketing Science. Vol. 32 (4), 644–651. Cited 26 Nov 2025. Available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mksc.2013.0783

Google. 2025. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Starter Guide. Cited 27 Nov 2025. Available at https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/seo-starter-guide

Haider, J. & Sundin, O. 2019. Invisible Search and Online Search Engines: The Ubiquity of Search in Everyday Life. Taylor & Francis.

Kontio, P. 2025. Improving Organic Search Engine Visibility Under Time Constraints of Seasonality. Case: Fluwel. Master’s thesis. Lahti University of Applied Sciences, Faculty of Business and Hospitality Management. Lahti. Cited 27 Nov 2025. Available at https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2025112630091

Rani, M. 2023. An SEO Guide for Start-Ups. New York: Nova.

Soysal, G.P. & Krishnamurthi, L. 2012. Demand Dynamics in the Seasonal Goods Industry: An Empirical Analysis. Marketing Science. Vol. 31 (2), 293–316. Cited 26 Nov 2025. Available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mksc.1110.0693

Statcounter. 2025. Search Engine Market Share in Europe. Cited 26 Nov 2025. Available at https://gs.statcounter.com/search-engine-market-share/all/europe

Authors

Pauliina Kontio works in the Dutch flower bulb industry. She is completing her MBA in Digital Solutions in Business at LAB University of Applied Sciences.

Sari Suominen is a Senior Lecturer of Entrepreneurship and Leadership at the LAB University of Applied Sciences.

Illustration: https://pxhere.com/en/photo/574638 (CC0)

Reference to this article

Kontio, P. & Suominen, S. 2025. The Evaluation of Seasonal Content in Search Engines. LAB Pro. Cited  and date of citation. Available at https://www.labopen.fi/lab-pro/the-evaluation-of-seasonal-content-in-search-engines/