SEO for the age of AI?

Questions
1

AI is likely to completely change the way content is found online. I can see how tools like ChatGPT or Perplexity will partially take users away from Google search.

Has anyone done anything with their app to account for this?

I’m not even sure how to formulate the question with enough precision, but feel like it’s worth posing nevertheless.

2

I am no expert in AI, but I suspect that unless ChatGPT were to integrate a common UI, search engines like Google will continue to rule. Pages of results with pagination (and links to sources) are still super helpful - at least for how I browse the web! I also feel that companies like Google will continue to integrate AI into their results, keeping ChatGPT users coming back. All theory for sure but one can hope :smiley:

3

What’s Google search these days? Don’t those guys eat your privacy for dinner?

Haha just kidding, I’m likely a hypocrite. I use Bing so likely the same, right?

Two things in consideration:

1: What are you looking for?
2: What kind of response do you need?

To answer that some examples;

  1. if you’re searching for the closest mall near you… Google.
  2. if I need to find local businesses… Google.
  3. if I want to find a nice pair of shoes for my baby… Google.
  4. I want to figure out what the molecular level of a goat’s eyeball… ChatGPT.
  5. I need help talking to a girl… ChatGPT.
  6. I have no friends… ChatGPT.
  7. For all seriousness, I honestly use ChatGPT (with assistants and trainers) to debug and automate my library structures when I am coding, not only that but I use a particular AI that analyzes my code-structure and sticks with my patterns as I code. It’s very helpful.
  8. Math related questions, or science related questions… ChatGPT (why? cause it will give you the answer, but also the reasoning behind and it help you figure it out from step A to Z).

So to summarize, AI will always have different use-cases. Bing has already implemented AI into their search, but it’s still just a search engine as it doesn’t actually “know” any of the information, it just searches for relevant articles based on your keywords. Same for Open-AI’s “Web Search” feature. Google will always be in the ballpark, especially with their Bard/Gemini in the works (which is going to likely annihilate a lot of the AI competitors in terms of workflow and automation).