As stated here, CHAT BOTS like CHAT GPT (funded by Microsoft), BARD (created by Google) and others are an attempt to transition all of us from searching for words and getting a list of websites containing various sources of the information.
In the traditional search result page we have all used thousands of times over the past couple of decades, there are too important differences between traditional search results and CHAT BOT results.
Looking at Google search results for “great coffee” (top right picture) here are the important concepts to think about:
A list of websites are displayed containing information pertaining to “great coffee”. This is how Search Engine Optimization (SEO) comes into play. When a company is doing the right job of SEO or hired the right firm to do their SEO), their website will appear high on the list. When someone searches for something like “great coffee”, the search engine ranks websites based on the complicated maze of constantly changing SEO rules. When someone clicks on the results presented by the search engine, the user moves to the website. To the website owners, this is referred to as “organic search”.
All the listings on the top of the page (also referred to as above the fold) are Advertisements. Anyone with any common sense realizes the advertisements receive priority placement on the search results page over SEO results. Doesn’t it make sense to NOT pay for SEO and just pay for the ads? When someone pays for ads to appear when someone searches for any words or phrases, in this case “great coffee”, the website does NOT have to have “great coffee” anywhere on their website. But with SEO, the words used in the search HAVE to be on the page and should be in the page title and domain name (Mydomain.com/GREAT-COFFEE). So again, ask the question why?
In 2022, the SEO market size represents $51 billion! Why- When just about no one will read past the first page of search results to even get to the place where they are seeing organic websites as a result of SEO? Source
The user has a choice. The user can select to review one website, all websites that are advertising, or continue past the ads and search for organic results, not paid results.
Let us compare the above information and traditional results to CHAT BOTS. CHAT GPT and BARD are in the initial stages of development. They will mature and get a lot better but let’s stop for a moment and think about the impact. While the press (or hype) surrounding these tools today is based on how they are going to change the way computers, i.e., artificial intelligence (AI) interface with humans, that argument is not as near as important as the concept of how CHAT BOTS learn.
Looking at the CHAT GPT response on the right pertaining to “great coffee,” do you see any links to websites? Do you see any references to the source of the content?
Read on about How Chat Bots Learn to understand how CHAT BOTS will turn searches into only making money for search engines and kill your website.
