Are Chatbots the new search engines? Are AI, Search, and Big Advertisers the frenemies of the digitized era?

Imagine a gigantic library, containing billions of books, but only ever seeming to circulate a tiny fraction of its available titles. That's the reality of the modern-day internet - that's Google. Google perpetually has innumerable sites being published, updated, and unpublished - while simultaneously processing approximately 3.5B searches per day. Yet, in that vast sea of opportunity, 91% of live sites are receiving no organic search exposure whatsoever! Even more strikingly, only 0.3% of the discoverable internet - mostly comprised of major corporations - receives significant traffic (>1k hits/day). This paradox, the vastness of the internet juxtaposed against the minuscule reach of most sites, creates a real dilemma for businesses.

At face value, this spells out "Game Over" for small businesses and niche markets, and omens a worsening divide - but not if Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is in our corner! SEO is a process by which the smaller firm can equalize with the giants by boosting their discoverability towards their target clientele. The uniqueness in this approach is that we're not optimizing the "index" for better results - because in this context, that index is the entirety of the Google catalog. The sheer scale of effort needed would only theoretically equalize every site's visibility, which is also paradoxically counterintuitive to an individual business' best interest, as the entire goal is make your own site shine. Rather, we optimize the site and its pages, and make our "input" a highly favorable item for the index to reference sooner than later in the site lineup!

Free Attention? In THIS Economy?!

So - with this massive library of websites, how do businesses actually get their content seen? Traditionally, the answer has been paid advertising. Companies, big and small, have long relied on Big Marketing to garner visibility. However, this reliance has become increasingly problematic. The cost of paid advertising has skyrocketed, especially for smaller businesses and startups - posing an insurmountable buy-in to the average modern firm. A recent study by WordStream found that the average cost-per-click (CPC) for Google Ads across all industries is now over $2! Businesses are spending more than ever before just to get people to click on their ads, while also fighting harder than ever before for that attention. This is very troublesome, as technological advancement has only made providing this exposure the cheapest and simplest it's ever been. The small firm finds itself a wage slave to Google in the power dynamic that has manifested; the middleman has constructed an impressive dam. The resulting situation is, essentially, oligarchy - where only the largest, most well-funded companies can truly compete for online attention. It's a cycle that reinforces the dominance of big corporations and makes it incredibly difficult for smaller businesses to gain a foothold in the market.

In this aspect, SEO practices stand to empower smaller businesses to compete with the giants, even without massive ad budgets! It focuses on optimizing your website pages to rank higher in organic search results, driving traffic to your site without relying on paid advertising. Though admittedly not an end-all fix, It has provided stellar results. A study by Backlinko found that websites ranking in the top three positions for a given keyword receive nearly 60% of all organic clicks. This means that by optimizing your website, you can dramatically increase your visibility and reach a much larger audience without breaking the bank. SEO can also be incredibly effective at driving targeted traffic to your website from a search engine. A firm's optimization strategy may be customized to target specific keywords and phrases that are relevant to your target audience. This means that you're not just attracting random visitors to your site, you're attracting people who are actively searching for the products or services that you offer. This targeted traffic can significantly increase your conversion rates and ultimately boost your sales.

Yet - though SEO has previously been effective, its future as a methodology is increasingly anxious and uncertain. The rise of AI - the advent of the Chatbot, and its ability to provide direct, nuanced answers to meticulous queries, is here. The familiar search engine is the radio star, and your ChatGPT, your Gemini, your Grok, etc. - is video.

The Empire Strikes Back

Google is no longer simply indexing and ranking existing content, it's actively become a content creator itself. AI-powered algorithms are increasingly being used to personalize search results and even provide direct answers to queries, blurring the lines between search and content creation. This shift is most evident in the rise of the "snippet" feature, a now ubiquitous element on Google's Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). Using advanced Natural Language Processing (NLP), Gemini, Google's proprietary Chatbot, analyzes the content on websites and then selects the most relevant text to display as a direct answer to a user's query. This "snippet" often appears above the organic search results, sometimes even providing a complete answer without the user needing to click on a website at all!

A dynamic that's been in place since the advent of the internet itself: the longer a user remains on the SERP, the more money Google makes. Having long-played the role of middleman, merely the path to content access but never the producer, this was more or less a non-issue. After all, everyone needs a profit model at the end of the day! However, as Gemini's highly intuitive, spontaneous capabilities only galvanize by the day, they are now effortlessly capable of at-will content generation. The entire business logic of the Gemini plug-in, already attached to the Google search engine, is to eliminate the need for site traveling and ideally to address all queries within the SERP. This not only demonstrates the growing influence of AI in search - but also highlights a fundamental shift in the further development of search as a whole.

One of the most contentious aspects of this paradigm shift, and a major cause of concern for us all, is the lack of legal protections for content creators. Gemini's ability to synthesize information from websites, potentially displaying it directly within the SERP without attribution or compensation to the creator(s), raises significant concerns about copyright infringement and the potential for exploitation. If Gemini intercepts a user's query with an answer spliced off of a website, effectively diverting traffic and commerce away from the original creator, does the creator deserve any credit or compensation? This absence of clear legal precedent, combined with Google's vast resources for legal defense, creates a potential for exploitation of content creators under the guise of "fair use" referencing. The implications of this AI-driven content creation are profound for SEO, as it will inevitably be rendered obsolete by the time the Chatbot fully outloads the search engine - which is not far on the horizon - and this anxiety-inducing point is without a doubt the highest priority to the public interest.

A Challenger Approaches

The coming day when Chatbots overtake the search engine is a growing concern - for every business, across all sectors. The driving pressure behind Google's own paradigm shift is largely attributable to OpenAI. The immensely popular ChatGPT has taken over an astounding share of the search market. While OpenAI doesn't explicitly share figures, like Google, it is estimated that since 2023 ChatGPT has on average served 100M users/month. While Google still dominates the overall search landscape, ChatGPT's success demonstrates that many users are seeking conversational and AI-powered ways to access information. This shift in user behavior has sent shockwaves throughout Google, forcing them to prioritize AI content generation and accelerate the development of their own Chatbot technologies. The resulting crushing pressure put on Google to accelerate its own AI development, has led to the launch of Bard and the rapid integration of Gemini into its search engine. AI is Google's utmost highest priority. A "race to the top" is afoot in the AI-driven search market, forcing Google to prioritize one-upping the first mover: OpenAI. Truly for the first time in decades, Google has a legitimate competitor, and they take the threat to their empire very seriously. The stakes are high for Google, not just in terms of their market share, but also in terms of their future revenue streams. When AI chatbots become the dominant method for accessing information, Google's advertising-based business model will be significantly impacted.

SEO has historically been a powerful tool for businesses of all sizes to compete in the online landscape. But with the rise of AI-powered search, traditional SEO strategies, as we know them, are facing extinction. As search engines are out and more sophisticated AI algorithms are in, businesses need to adapt their content creation and optimization strategies. This involves creating content that is not only relevant to human readers but also easily understood and analyzed by AI. This means focusing on clear language, structured data, and content that answers user queries directly. The sun is setting on the keyword approach, and semantic analysis will define the top new pics.  The future of SEO will ultimately likely involve a hybrid approach, combining traditional techniques with AI-focused optimization strategies as such. Businesses that embrace this shift will be better positioned to thrive in the evolving search landscape. This shift towards AI-driven search presents a profound challenge for businesses across all sectors. The reliance on traditional SEO strategies for organic visibility is becoming increasingly tenuous. Businesses need to adapt to this new landscape, focusing on creating content that is optimized for AI algorithms and exploring new avenues for reaching consumers through conversational interfaces. The future of online marketing will likely be defined by the ability to create content that is both engaging and AI-friendly. The era of the internet as we know it is evolving, and the winners will be those who embrace the power of AI to connect with their audiences in a new and exciting way!