SearchGPT is the downfall of Google and SEO (or is it?)

ChatGPT has obviously brought about a lot since it came online. It has made countless jobs easier or even (almost) obsolete. In the meantime, OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, has not been idle - the new live search engine “SearchGPT” is already live for paying users and will soon be available to users for free. So there will be a search engine online that tries to present the best search results through artificial intelligence. Does this mean the end of Google, which seems to be missing the battle in this? And will SEO be useless from now on?

Different search experience

The answer to the first question seems to be “no” for now. It is therefore expected that Google will simply remain the largest search engine. SearchGPT and Google are in fact very different in user experience, so it seems personal preference as to which is best to use. The first thing to notice when using SearchGPT, is the absence of ads pushing out the organic search results. As a result, a much “cleaner” and more reliable-looking search result emerges from the AI search engine. Of course, the question is whether these ads will stay away once the service is made available to free users.

This “cleaner” search result is perceived to be even cleaner due to the absence of all of Google's additional SERP (Search Engine Results Page) features, such as Google Shopping, charts, statistics, videos, etc.. People will be divided on this; many people find these features incredibly useful and enjoy using them. However, there are also many who feel that it is overdone and now comes at the expense of quickly searching for the desired result. So we read a lot that SearchGPT is a breath of fresh air compared to all of Google's SERP features. Google's video feature, which for an informative search immediately shows the best video with an explanation, has become incredibly popular and thus important in recent years. Therefore, SearchGPT does have this feature available!

SEO remains useful - but different

And then SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Will competing for the top spots in organic search results die out with the advent of AI, since that always finds the best page anyway? Again, the answer seems to be “no.” Determining what is the best page will still go through certain rules, just as it does now in Google. So it will still be the case that the most optimized pages, with the fewest errors and the most satisfied visitors etc. (read more about SEO here) will get the most attention in SearchGPT. What SEO specialists should pay attention to, however, is that OpenAI cooperates with Microsoft and therefore uses the search engine Bing as a base.

For Bing, the SEO rules seem to work a little differently than for Google. For example, there is more emphasis on quality backlinks and less on their quantity, and exact keywords in titles and URLs are more important than they are in Google (where synonyms are important). The expectation is that taking Bing's rules into account can make your website rank well in SearchGPT!

So don't panic!

SearchGPT may be a crazy development that will change life on the Internet quite a bit, but for a seasoned marketer, it is one of many changes that will slightly adjust marketing efforts. Google just remains important for now and will try to screw up its own AI as well. In addition, SEO will be fine to apply to SearchGPT by observing Bing's optimization rules. In any case, at The Dare Company, we are not panicking, but are just quietly preparing for our clients. As with any groundbreaking development...