AI, Perplexity, and the Future of SEO
Big changes are on the horizon for the search market
Since 2014, Google has dominated the search market, handling in excess of 90% of all search queries worldwide. Unsurprisingly, Google has been able to leverage their vise-grip on the search market to produce massive profits. In Q2 2024, Google’s revenue from search was $48.5 billion. This accounted for 57% of Alphabet’s total $84.7 billion in revenue. Google has become so ingrained into our daily lives that its very name has become interchangeable with online search itself. When friends or colleagues express confusion about a subject and want to learn more, we tell them to ‘Google it’ and not to ‘Bing it’ or ‘Duck Duck Go it’.
However, there are signs of chinks beginning to appear in the armor. The rise of AI chatbots like Chat-GPT, AI search engines like Perplexity, as well as recent legal challenges have proven difficult for the search behemoth, and undoubtedly, the future of search is sure to look very different from the past or present. Does AI represent an extinction event for Google that will cause them to go the way of the dinosaurs? Not necessarily. In this article, I describe some of the changes in the search market and share my predictions for the future of search.
What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
With so many online searches flowing through Google, a whole industry has been developed around search engine optimization (SEO). SEO is is the practice of enhancing a website's visibility in search engine results pages to increase organic (i.e. non-paid) traffic. In other words: “How do we get our site ranked at the top of page 1 for the Google keyword searches we care about?” To accomplish this, SEO experts work on things like website optimization, content creation, and acquiring backlinks. In 2024, the value of the SEO industry was $85.06 billion, and it is estimated to grow to $279.38 billion by 2031.
Changes in the Search Industry
As mentioned in the introduction, while Google has been the uncontested leader in search for over a decade, for the first time in a long time, their dominance is being challenged. There are three primary factors here:
1). In August 2024, a judge ruled that Google suppressed competition by paying billions of dollars to operators of web browsers and phone manufacturers to be their default search engine. While it is unclear what remedies are going to be prescribed, the most likely outcome is that in the future, users will affirmatively choose which search engine they use in browsers, rather than automatically using one that paid for its default position. This is all but guaranteed to decrease the absolute number of searches flowing through Google and to give competitors a chance to gain at their expense.
2). The rise of Chat-GPT and other AI chatbots has started to eat into Google’s market share, and this is expected to accelerate. Applause's 2024 Generative AI Survey reveals that 91% of respondents use chatbots for research, and 81% prefer them over search engines for basic queries. Furthermore, Gartner has predicted that by 2026, traditional search engine volume will drop 25%, with search marketing losing market share to AI chatbots and other virtual agents.
3). Other search competitors are making major strides in integrating AI into the search process. The AI search engine Perplexity uses AI to succinctly summarize answers to user queries and provide links showing how it generated its answers. It relies on eclectic sources ranging from academic papers and studies to user generated social media content to provide answers that are both data driven and grounded in real world experience. Perplexity launched its flagship search engine in December 2022. By the latest estimates, it now has over 50 million visits per month and more than 10 million active users.
Bing has recently gotten a major upgrade as a result of Microsoft’s multi billion dollar investment in OpenAI. Bing introduced Microsoft Copilot, (formerly Bing Chat), an AI-powered chatbot that provides conversational responses to user queries. This allows for more interactive and personalized search experiences. In addition, Bing utilizes OpenAI's GPT-4 language model, which enables Bing to understand and respond to complex queries with greater accuracy.
Search Generative Experience (SGE)
As a result of the rise of AI chatbots like Chat-GPT as well as competitors like Bing and Perplexity leaping forward in terms of AI adoption, Google has had no choice but to respond in kind. Google first rolled out a beta of its Search Generative Experience (SGE) in May 2023, announcing in May 2024 that it would begin rolling it out to all users in the United States. SGE provides AI-generated summaries, or “AI Overviews”, at the top of search results for certain queries, synthesizing information from multiple sources.
While SGE certainly has value to users, who can get short but reliable summaries to queries, there is no question that it has shaken up the world of SEO. A 2024 study found that nearly 60% of Google searches in 2024 end without a click, both in the US (58.5%) and EU (59.7%). This suggests users are increasingly finding answers directly on the search results page without needing to click through to websites.
How big is the actual drop in organic traffic because of SGE? Gilad David Maayan, CEO and Founder of Agile SEO, analyzed traffic drops for 23 websites. In his study, he uncovered that after Google’s AI Overviews was launched, the organic traffic drop was 18-64%.
What is Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)?
To date, the key to showing up at the top of search results has been optimizing your SEO, but with an increasing amount of searchers going to chatbots like Chat-GPT for answers, and with AI summaries like Google’s SGE now occupying prime search real estate, it is clear that a new approach is needed. This is where Generative Engine Optimization, or GEO comes in.
GEO encompasses a new set of best practices that one can follow to increase the chance that one’s site content is referenced by SGE or by a chatbot like Chat-GPT. A 2024 study by Princeton evaluated GEO’s seven core elements, termed Generative Optimization Methods. These included the following:
1). Authoritative - Write in a style that is persuasive and authoritative, enhancing the perceived credibility of the content.
2). Keyword Optimization - Add keywords and semantically related keywords directly from the query where they fit and flow naturally within the webpage’s content.
3). Statistics - Combine qualitative discussion with quantitative statistics, adding authority and trust.
4). Cite Sources & Quotations - Add relevant citations and quotations from credible sources, adding authority and trust.
5). Easy-to-Understand - Simplify the language of the website and make the intent of the page easy to understand for both the user and search engines.
6). Fluency Optimization - Improve the fluency of website text. This makes the content not only easy to understand, but easily skimmable and digestible.
7). Unique Words & Technical Terms - Include unique and technical terms respectively, making your content stand out from the competition.
The Princeton study outlines that most Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) methods, except for three, do not require adding new content. Instead, they focus on enhancing how existing content is presented to increase its effectiveness and appeal to AI-driven search engines. By ensuring your content is in line with GEO best practices, you will have the greatest shot of ranking highly in Google’s SGE as well as well as getting referenced by chatbots like Chat-GPT. If you want to learn more about how to implement GEO, check out this article.
What is the Future of SEO?
In addition to GEO becoming increasingly important, there are likely going to be a few other changes to SEO:
1). Content quality > quantity - In 2023, entrepreneur Jake Ward ran an SEO experiment that paid off in spades. Using 100% AI-generated content, he was able to steal 3.6 million views from a competitor. His 3-part strategy was simple: download a competitor’s sitemap, turn the entire list into blog titles, then use those titles as prompts for an AI content writer. It only took a few hours to crank out 1,800 new articles that zipped him straight to the top page of Google for hundreds of keywords.
However, a few months after Ward’s viral post, his site’s organic traffic decreased by 42%. Likely in response to Ward, Google issued a core update on May 5th 2024, which cracked down on low-quality, unoriginal content in search results by 40%. Does this mean that you can never use Chat-GPT or other AI tools to help in content creation? Not necessarily. Google has emphasized numerous times that they will not penalize content solely because it is AI produced, but content will get dinged if it does not follow the EEAT (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) best practices.
2). Increased importance of site optimization and on-page SEO - Especially with the increase in zero-click content, there is a high probability that Google will place a greater priority on Core Web Vitals (CWV) and on-page SEO optimizations.
As mentioned by Google’s guidelines on CWV, here are the best practices when optimizing for user engagement:
-Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): This measures loading performance. To provide a good user experience, aim to have LCP occur within the first 2.5 seconds of the page starting to load.
-Interaction To Next Paint (INP): This measures responsiveness. For a good user experience, aim for an INP score of less than 200 milliseconds.
-Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): This measures the stability of visuals. To provide a good user experience, strive to have a CLS score of less than 0.1.
All of these metrics can be quickly and easily measured by Google’s free tool, Page Speed Insights.
3). Leveling the playing field - Research by Search Engine Land points out something fascinating: only 4.5% of the time do URLs in SGE summaries directly match results from the top 10 organic searches. As a result, your current ranking position is much less of a factor than your content quality in determining whether you get ranked for SGE.
4). Get an edge with Natural Language Processing (NLP) - Artificial intelligence models are all built using best practices from NLP, and understanding NLP best practices can massively increase your odds of getting indexed by a chatbot. Some best practices to keep in mind include:
-Focus on Intent, Not Just Keywords: Craft content that provides comprehensive insights and actionable advice, mirroring a human conversation.
-Use Structured Data: Implement structured data to help AI understand the context of your content, making it easier for conversational bots to find and recommend your pages.
-Engage in Active Listening: Utilize social listening tools to understand the questions and conversations happening around your niche. Tailor your content to these discussions.
-Test and Learn: Continuously test how your content performs with AI-driven search tools and adjust based on feedback.
5). Search queries spread out across a wider variety of sources - An increasing number of queries are beginning to take place outside of Google, and you can expect this trend to accelerate in the future. While Google is still likely to capture the lion’s share of the search market, you can expect more searches to take place on Bing, Perplexity, as well as Chat-GPT and other chatbots. While each tool is going to have its own best practices to maximize the chance of getting ranked, you can maximize your overall odds of getting ranked by following GEO best practices.
Conclusion
SEO is already changing with the ascent of AI and as things progress, SEO is likely to continue to change at an increasingly accelerated rate. Some major changes you can expect are an increase in the importance of GEO principles over traditional SEO principles, content quality mattering more than quantity, the increased importance of site optimization and on-page SEO, a leveling of the playing field, increased importance of NLP, and search queries spread out across a wider variety of sources. I hope this provides you with greater clarity and enables you to take control of your SEO strategy in 2024 and beyond.
Wouldn’t you consider the sheer amount of data that Google has a huge advantage over competitors like Perplexity?