Will ChatGPT kill SEO?

ChatGPT answers eloquently and confidently and but also delivers completely wrong answers some of the time.

See also this nice Stratchery article: https://stratechery.com/2022/ai-homework/

Similar to GitHub Copilot which always delivers nice looking code that looks correct on first glance but in 50% of cases absolutely does not do what it should.

Also, if you want to see nice photos of tiny houses, ChatGPT can bot help you, you will still need a search engine to find the pictures.

I've been thinking quite a bit about this, and I think this question (and the zillions of times I see it on Twitter) misses the point a bit.

I've tried ChatGPT and while the cohesiveness of the text is certainly much more impressive than previous OpenAI projects I still don't think it will replace Google. Quality and accuracy aside, ChatGPT excels at answering questions with concise summaries. This is great for getting an immediate answer or speeding up the process to an answer, but it's fundamentally different than what Google does.

Here's an example:

I asked it to generate models for a Django to-do list app, it did a decent job but missed an 'owner' field which would be pretty key to having a useful app. Meanwhile if I I google the same prompt I get complete guides, videos, and Django documentation... way more useful. But getting some code to play with is helpful.

This is the key difference IMO. If I want a quick answer then ChatGPT has Google beat. If I want to browse, learn, and research - well duh, Google wins.

At its core search engines are a digital index of the web. You can research, find articles, read the news, check sports scores.... there is so much that Google does within search while at its best all ChatGPT could beat Google at featured snippets.

I do think that ChatGPT has the potential to kill Quora, and possibly other Q&A and forum websites. But it doesn't afford the best of what Google has, which is:

• The ability to browse and compare answers
• The ability to know you're getting vetted and relevant info (for the most part)

Moreso once ChatGPT is a paid product and not just free for the virtue of getting 1M+ people to battle test it.

I think SEO has to evolve though. As an SEO specialist myself (and someone building an SEO coaching business) I think if we SEOs fail to adapt as the web adapts we'll be quickly left behind. Part of this means seeing where how audiences will use Google going forward and evolving with it.

SEO is killing itself, don't blame ChatGPT!

I think no, but it will change SEO.

To unpack some of the possible questions in the chat

1️⃣ Will ChatGPT replace Google as a web search engine?
IMHO this is clearly nonsense, for various reasons

2️⃣ Will ChatGPT render SEO worthless because the web is flooded in text content?
I think not, but SEO will change (I may be wrong). I would guess that creating interesting content will gain even more importance (over just creating text). Click behaviour and backlinks will continue to provide signal about content quality for search ranking.

3️⃣ Will ChatGPT change how SEO is done?
Following from (2) I'd expect the emphasis for SEO activities to shift towards research / editing over just generating text. In an ideal world that means we get more higher-quality content because humans are focused on thinking rather than writing... but that might just by my inner optimist.

That said: If I were running a SEO agency, I'd be scrambling to adjust. 😅

I think eventually but too early in its stages.

Have you ever thought about being able to see the answer of chatGPT to your Google search directly on the page, without having to click on any links? This is now possible with a Chrome extension that brings chatGPT into your search experience
Try out this: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/chatgpt-for-search-engine/feeonheemodpkdckaljcjogdncpiiban/related?hl=en-GB&authuser=0
Watch this video:
https://www.tiktok.com/@ai_life26/video/7179865803003579674

"The goal of Google search is to get you to click on links, ideally ads, and all other text on the page is just filler." Sridhar Ramaswamy - SVP, Ads & Commerce Google

It will not kill SEO, but will force Google to change. The first real contender.

If people dismiss chatGPT at this point, don't forget it's a test version. It's the first version... A few iterations later, in 1-2 years, the improvements will be considerable.

Can Google do the same engine? They probably have a version of it, and with their know-how and expertise, they can easily compete. But the big challenge is in changing the revenue models.

This articles goes into more details and some other perspectives:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/google-faces-a-serious-threat-from-chatgpt/2022/12/07/363d2440-75f5-11ed-a199-927b334b939f_story.html

take a look :D https://www.indiehackers.com/post/i-asked-chatgpt-why-it-can-not-replace-seo-content-writer-and-here-is-the-result-1b75305474

ChatGPT specifically? No.

Something like ChatGPT? No, but it will become a tool in the arsenal.

Honestly, this premise is flawed because it doesn't really engage with what SEO actually is. If you just define SEO as "some words on a page" then you probably don't know what you're doing.

And, more importantly, in a world flooded with samey, AI-generated copy, original writing and thought will increase in value.

IMO, SEO is more of user intent that's constantly reshaping.

Don't think, it would be killed by ChatGPT.

First, ChatGPT needs to be as big as Google to replace it, so that many people go there and ask questions about their queries. There is no way ChatGPT is becoming that big anytime soon among the general population.

I think that it will kill SEO for certain kinds of search. I know there are certain kinds implementations of GPT that allow it to crawl the web and then distil the information into a small sensible response. In that case maybe your website will be at the top of the search however it won't be displayed to the end user because GPT acts as a filter in between the user and the website. However, when a user is not trying to have a very succinct answer than SEO will still be relevant because this technology is far from being able to answer more nuanced questions that require actual research.

As people have mentioned already it's pretty hard to beat a web search engine based on date that is over a year old.

I'll add a couple of more reasons:

• ML is expensive. I am far from being sure that a lot of corporations could finance it at the Google scale of load
• I am quite sure that Google is either cooking something similar or will be basing on the current results - there are lots of smart folks working there
• If for some strange reasons nothing else works, Google could buy the competitor (though outlets can try as well)

In the end this or that way elements of ChatGPT will be helping you too google.

I doubt it. SEO is a very broad and ever changing subject.

Definitely not. Most of SEO is actually link building rather than on site optimization.

We'll probably see ChatGPT making SEO easier for a lot of people and getting the tedious work done, but it won't kill anything.

Google is already very good at identifying AI written articles and down rating them.

I don't think so. It just helps make better content.

I dont think it will. The assumption we are making, by we I mean people in tech who can use ChatGPT or understand how to use it, are not the one running SEO companies and likely doesn't want to do as full time job.

ChatGPT is a tool that will definitely be used to level the plain field. No doubt about that

GPT-3, the underlying model ChatGPT uses, was trained primarily by Common Crawl, which works similarly to Google's web crawler.

In my mind, a lot of the same factors that influence search engine ranking will affect AI "ranking" (by "ranking" I mean how much it values each data source in terms of truth). So SEO tactics should still be relevant even if AI chatbots become more prevalent over search engines.

I think the core concern for me around these AI tools is the lack of attribution when learning from specific artists and writers. But it's a complex problem because we obviously find it okay if a human learns from a book or painting and derives new ideas from it, but the speed and scaleability of these AI tools make it easy to build profitable products that essentially are derived from free content online.

It would be ideal if at the very least there were links to sources for more specific chatbot questions. And for artwork generation, maybe an artist revenue model when specific artist names were used in the prompts.

ChatGPT will not kill SEO. Next generations of artificial neural networks will. When? Well, not in the next 5 years. Maybe 10-15, realistically.

SEO exists to get the best position on Google's Search Engine Results Pages. In order for ChatGPT to kill SEO it would first have to kill Google. This AI also has to get its data from multiple sources so if it ever grew to a point where people were asking it questions like "where is the nearest plumber" it would still need to consult data that SEO would have had a hand in influencing. If anything ChatGPT is a threat to copywriting and a benefit to SEO firms that need copywriting.

What we fail to realize is,

When people search for things especially as it relates to brands,

They are not just searching for information,

But something that relates to them on a deep personal level.

This could be testimonials, case studies, user examples, past experiences, etc.

At the moment ChatGPT cannot do this, at least not in a way a deliberate brand would.

yes

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Are you a SaaS founder looking to stay up-to-date on the latest developments in natural language processing and large language models? If so, join our group to discuss ChatGPT and its potential applications in the SaaS industry. We are a community of like-minded founders and experts who are passionate about exploring the possibilities of this technology. Whether you are looking to incorporate ChatGPT into your own products, or simply want to learn more about it, you are welcome to join us and contribute to the conversation. Join now to connect with others and stay ahead of the curve in the world of SaaS and natural language processing

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Considering ChatGPT delivers information that's 18 months out of date, in its current form, the answer is absolutely not. It confidently gives entirely wrong answers, without a single source to back up its assertions. It has zero sense of quality writing and personality, and its answers all sound exactly the same, like every single one is modelled on a "5 top tips" article.

From a tech-savvy person's point of view, it's an amazing tool in specific use cases. But I showed it to my mom and she said "So it's basically Siri / Alexa? We already have those."

That interaction helped me realise the death of Google is a long way away. This tech is going to make an impact, for sure, but currently it's a novelty, and a potentially dangerous one if they don't do a better job of saying "we're basically making all this up".