Now, it\u2019s ChatGPT<\/a> and AI.<\/p>\n I\u2019m talking, of course, about \u201cSEO killers.\u201d<\/p>\n Every now and then, a new technology comes along, and three things inevitably happen:<\/p>\n Rinse, repeat.<\/p>\n It would seem that search has more lives than a cartoon cat, but the simple truth is: Search is immortal.<\/p>\n How we search, what devices we use, and whether the answer is a link to a website will forever be up for debate.<\/p>\n But as long as users have tasks to complete, they\u2019ll turn somewhere for help, and digital marketers will influence the process.<\/p>\n There\u2019s a ton of hype right now about AI replacing both search engines and search professionals \u2013 I don\u2019t see that happening. I view ChatGPT as just another tool.<\/p>\n Much like a knife: You can butter bread or cut yourself. It\u2019s all in how you use it.<\/p>\n Will AI replace search engines? Let\u2019s ask it ourselves!<\/p>\n That\u2019s a pretty good answer.<\/p>\n Many SEO professionals (including me) have been saying for years that the days of tricking the algorithm are long gone.<\/p>\n SEO has been slowly morphing into digital marketing for a long time now. It\u2019s no longer possible to do SEO without considering user intent<\/a>, personas, use cases, competitive research, market conditions, etc.<\/p>\n Ok, but won\u2019t AI just do that for us? Is AI going to take my job? Here\u2019s a crazy idea: Let\u2019s ask ChatGPT!<\/p>\n Why? Let\u2019s dive in.<\/p>\n I still see a lot of SEO pros writing articles that ask AI to do things it\u2019s simply incapable of \u2013 and this comes from a basic understanding of how large language models actually work.<\/p>\n AI tools, like ChatGPT, aren\u2019t pulling any information from a database of facts. They don\u2019t have an index or a knowledge graph.<\/p>\n They don\u2019t \u201cstore\u201d information the way a search engine does. They\u2019re simply predicting what words or sentences will come next based on the material they\u2019ve been trained on. They don\u2019t store this training material, though.<\/p>\n They\u2019re using word vectors to determine what words are most likely to come next. That\u2019s why they can be so good and<\/strong> also hallucinate.<\/p>\n AI can\u2019t crawl the internet. It has no knowledge of current events and can\u2019t cite sources because it doesn\u2019t know or retain that information. Sure, you can ask it to cite sources, but it\u2019s really just making stuff up.<\/p>\n For really popular topics that were discussed a lot, it can get pretty close \u2013 because the probabilities of those words coming next are really high \u2013 but the more specific you get, the more it will hallucinate.<\/p>\n Given the extreme amount of time and resources it takes to train the model, it will be a long time before AI can answer any queries about current events.<\/p>\n Yes and no. They can cite sources, but that\u2019s based on how they\u2019re implementing it. To vastly oversimplify, Bing isn\u2019t asking for a pure chatbot.<\/p>\n Bing is searching for your query\/keyword. It\u2019s then feeding in all the webpages that it would normally return for that search and asking the AI to summarize those webpages.<\/p>\n You and I can\u2019t do that on the public-facing AI tools without hitting token limits, but search engines can!<\/p>\n I disagree.<\/p>\n All the way back in 2009 (when we were listening to the Black Eyed Peas on our iPhone 3Gs and updating our MySpace top 8 on Windows Vista), a search engine once called Live was being renamed to Bing.<\/p>\n Why? Because Bing is a verb. This prompted Bill Gates to declare, \u201cThe future of search is verbs.\u201d<\/p>\n I love to share this quote with clients every chance I get because that future is now.<\/p>\n Gates wasn\u2019t talking about people typing action words into search engines. He meant that people are trying to \u201cdo\u201d something, and the job of search is to help facilitate that.<\/p>\n People often forget that search is a form of pull marketing, where users tell us what they want \u2013 not push marketing like a billboard or a TV ad.<\/p>\n As digital marketers, our job is simple: Give users what they want.<\/p>\n This is where the confusion comes in, though.<\/p>\n For many queries that have simple answers, a link to a website with a popup cookie policy, notification alert, newsletter sign-up popup, and ads were never what the user wanted.<\/p>\n It\u2019s just the best thing we had back then. Search engines never set out with the end goal of providing links to websites. They set out to answer questions and help users accomplish tasks.<\/p>\n Even from the earliest days, Google talked about how its goal was to be the Star Trek computer; it just didn\u2019t have the technology to do it then. Now, it does.<\/p>\n For many of these queries, like [how old is Taylor Swift?] or [how many megabytes in a gigabyte?], websites will lose traffic \u2013 but it\u2019s traffic they were probably never entitled to.<\/p>\n Who owns that answer anyway? These are questions with simple answers. The user\u2019s task is simply to get a number. They don\u2019t want a website.<\/p>\n Smart SEO pros will focus on the type of queries where a user wants to do something \u2013 like buy Taylor Swift tickets, get reviews of her album or concerts, chat with other Swifties, etc. That\u2019s where AI won\u2019t be able to kill SEO or search.<\/p>\n ChatGPT can accomplish a lot of things<\/a>.<\/p>\n It\u2019s good at showing me how to write an Excel formula or MySQL query, but it will never teach me MySQL, sell me a course, or let me talk with other developers about database theory.<\/p>\n Those are things a search engine can help me do.<\/p>\n ChatGPT can also help answer many \u201ccommon knowledge\u201d questions, as long as the topic isn\u2019t contested and is old and popular enough to have shown up in the training data.<\/p>\n Even then, it\u2019s still not 100% accurate \u2013 as we\u2019ve seen in countless memes and with one famous bank being called out for its AI-written article not knowing how to calculate interest properly.<\/p>\n AI might list the most talked about bars in NYC, but it can\u2019t recommend the best place to get an Old Fashioned like a human can.<\/p>\n Honestly, all SEO pros talking about using AI to create content are starting to bore me. Answering questions is neat, but where ChatGPT really excels is in text manipulation.<\/p>\n At my agency, we\u2019re already using ChatGPT\u2019s API as an SEO tool to help create content briefs, categorize and cluster keywords, write complicated regular expressions for redirects, and even generate XML or JSON-LD code based on given inputs.<\/p>\n These rely on tons of inputs from various sources and require lots of manual reviews.<\/p>\n We\u2019re not using it to create content, though. We\u2019re using it to summarize and examine other pieces of content and then use those to glean insights. It\u2019s less of an SEO replacement and more of a time saver.<\/p>\n What if your business is built around displaying facts you don\u2019t really \u201cown\u201d? If so, you should probably be worried \u2013 not just about AI.<\/p>\n Boilerplate copy tasks may be handled by AI. Recent tests I\u2019ve done on personal sites have shown some success here.<\/p>\n But AI will never be capable of coming up with insights or creating new ideas, staying on top of the latest trends, or providing the experience, expertise, authority, or trust that a real author can.<\/p>\n Remember: It\u2019s not thinking, citing, or even pulling data from a database. It\u2019s just looking at the next-word probabilities.<\/p>\n Unlike thousands of SEO pros who recently updated their Twitter bios, I may not be an expert on AI, but I have a computer science degree. I also know what it takes to understand user needs.<\/p>\n So far, no data shows people would prefer auto-generated, re-worded content over unique curated content written by a real human being.<\/p>\n People want fresh ideas and insights that only people can provide. (If we add an I to E-E-A-T<\/a>, where should it go?)<\/p>\n If your business or content delivers value through insights, curation, current trends, recommendations, solving problems, or performing an action, then SEO and search engines aren\u2019t going anywhere.<\/p>\n They may change shape from time to time, but that just means job security for me \u2013 and I\u2019m good with that.<\/p>\n More Resources:<\/strong><\/p>\n Featured Image: Elnur\/Shutterstock<\/em><\/p>\n\n
Will AI Replace Search?<\/h2>\n
![\"Will](\"https:\/\/marketingnewsbox.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/will-ai-kill-seo-we-asked-chatgpt-via-sejournal-ryanjones.png\")
Screenshot from ChatGPT, March 2023<\/span><\/div>\n![\"ChatGPT](\"https:\/\/marketingnewsbox.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/will-ai-kill-seo-we-asked-chatgpt-via-sejournal-ryanjones-1.png\")
Screenshot from ChatGPT, March 2023<\/span><\/div>\nAI Isn\u2019t Going To Take Your Job. But An SEO Who Knows How To Use AI To Be More Efficient Just Might<\/h3>\n
But What About Bing, You.com, And Google\u2019s Upcoming Bard? They Can Do All Of This, Can\u2019t They?<\/h3>\n
Ok, Surely This Will Kill SEO. AI Will Just Answer Every Question, Right?<\/h3>\n
What ChatGPT Can Do Vs. What It Can\u2019t<\/h2>\n
SEO Is Here To Stay<\/h2>\n
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