ChatGPT and its disruption on search engines and SEO: 40 Q&A

We may be in the midst of a massive disruption in the technology industry that makes its life around the Internet. The disruption is caused by the new AI conversational tool ChatGPT.

In this article we showcase a comprehensive Q&A article with 40 of the most important topics about ChatGPT and its disruption on search engines and SEO.

ChatGPT and its disruption on search engines and SEO

Will SEO and search engine optimization be permanently disrupted by ChatGPT?

ChatGPT has been making waves in the world of technology and has sparked discussions about its potential disruption on search engines and SEO. With its ability to generate content, there is concern among content creators about the future of their jobs and the relevance of their websites.

On one hand, there is speculation that chatbots will replace search engines and reduce the need of browsing the web for information. On the other hand, there are arguments that chatbots and search engines serve different purposes and that the cost of operating a model like ChatGPT at the scale of a search engine like Google is unfeasible, yet.

The impact of Artificial Intelligence on different industries and in the job market is also a topic of debate in social networks. Despite the concerns, it is important to remember that AI is not a direct replacement for people but rather a tool to enhance their work.

The future of ChatGPT and its disruption on search engines and SEO is still unclear, that’s why we wrote this 40 questions and answers to help you navigate the ongoing ChatGPT storm. By the way, if you need to dig in SEO, please consider to enroll in our SEO 2.0 Course.

What impact does ChatGPT have on content creators?

Many content creators are concerned about ChatGPT’s capacity to solve questions and to deliver direct answers, with some welcoming it and others dreading it. One worry is that search engine users won’t have to visit their websites, which will lower ad revenue.

Will search engines be replaced by ChatGPT?

As they are separate tools with different purposes, it is unlikely that chatbots will ever completely replace search engines. It is not profitable to run a chatbot business on the size of Google. Search engines are not meant to be directly or immediately disrupted by ChatGPT.

Instead, it is intended to work in conjunction with them by giving users conversational access to information and making it easier for them to discover what they need.

ChatGPT is optimized for comprehending natural language inquiries and offering more precise, tailored replies, in contrast to search engines, which are optimized for keyword-based queries and returning a huge number of relevant results. Both have their advantages and are practical in certain circumstances.

Will ChatGPT cause changes to or the demise of the SEO industry?

It is unlikely that ChatGPT would cause the SEO industry to vanish. Despite the possibility that ChatGPT will alter how people obtain information and find solutions to their problems, SEO will probably still be necessary. SEO is still a crucial component of online advertising and is required to raise a website’s standing and visibility in search engine results.

What will SEO look like when AI tools like ChatGPT become part of search engines?

Different AI tools, like ChatGPT, have various SEO consequences. They can be used by search engines to provide users with more accurate and relevant results in response to their searches. By using AI to help them understand the motivations behind users’ search requests, search engines can better understand the content and structure of webpages.

It’s important to realize that successful SEO techniques cannot be replaced by AI.

Even if more conventional SEO techniques like keyword optimization, producing high-quality content, and constructing backlinks can still have an impact on the technology, AI has the potential to assist search engines better analyze and categorize websites. Additionally, as search engines’ use of AI evolve over time, SEO practitioners will need to stay current with developments.

SEO is making a website as user and search engine friendly as possible. To do this, one must have a thorough understanding of how search engines operate as well as the best ways to structure and design a website to satisfy both groups’ needs. Although ChatGPT can offer customers useful information and solutions, it cannot take the place of efficient SEO methods and techniques in ensuring that websites are visible and reachable to visitors.

The best website performance you can get.

Will AI technologies like ChatGPT in search engines result in a decline in online traffic?

It is doubtful that the introduction of AI tools like ChatGPT into search engines would result in a major drop in online traffic. In reality, by giving visitors more precise and pertinent results to their searches and directing them to more pertinent websites, the incorporation of AI techniques may enhance online traffic. Better user experiences could come from this, increasing levels of engagement and traffic to websites with useful, pertinent content.

However, how AI technologies are implemented into search engines will have a significant impact on how much web traffic is affected by them. If AI tools produce a more closed search environment where users are more likely to find the answers they need within the search engine rather than exiting to visit other websites, web traffic may decrease.

The impact of AI on online traffic will ultimately depend on how search engines use these technologies and how websites alter as a result. Producing high-quality content that meets user needs will continue to be important for driving traffic to websites and achieving positive SEO results.

Will users switch to a chat-based search engine?

It’s unlikely for users to completely switch to a chat-based search engine as they have strong connections to their favorite publishing brands and special interests, and enjoy mindlessly scrolling through discovery-based sites.

Will ChatGPT impact the concept of discovery?

The argument that ChatGPT will fetch content instead of users searching and surfing for it only covers those who know what they want and doesn’t take into account the concept of discovery and the relationships users have with their favorite publishing brands. There is sure to be some disruption, but it is not clear what form that disruption will take.

Can ChatGPT be used to scrape content?

Content owners would likely block access to any chat-based services that scrape their content, and there are legal considerations such as the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act in the US that can impact the legality of scraping content that a user is unauthorized to access.

Is it economically feasible to operate ChatGPT at the scale of a large search engine like Google?

The cost and difficulty of operating a model like ChatGPT at the scale of a large search engine such as Google make it an economically unfeasible goal. AI companies are choosing to monetize their models as a service for other companies rather than trying to replace Google Search.

How does AI impact various generations?

There is a discussion regarding how AI will affect different generations, however the topic is not age but rather the field in which a person works. Regardless of age, someone who has their employment eliminated by AI will probably suffer the consequences.

Will AI take over human jobs?

The effect of AI on employment and sectors will vary depending on the skill set of the individual, but AI is also generating new jobs. Focus should be placed on how AI is affecting various businesses and how people can get ready for the changes.

What modifications to AI and chatbot usage may we anticipate in the future?

We don’t yet know how AI and chatbots will advance in the future.

What is the mission of Neeva?

The Search Engine Podcast presented a discussion about AI and its impact on search, specifically Chat GPT by OpenAI. Ramaswami, Neeva CEO and ex-Head of Google Ads, Sridhar Ramaswamy, is a co-founder of a user-first search engine, Neeva, which doesn’t show ads, protects privacy, and has a freemium model. AI technology acts as x-ray vision for the internet, allowing the search engine to understand the content of a query in real-time and summarize it in a way that gives sources clearly.

Neeva’s mission is to return search back to its users and make search fun again, as opposed to it being a product for advertisers. The company is a user-first search engine that doesn’t show ads or affiliate links and protects user privacy. They aim to create a better product experience by using AI to summarize what users need to know about their queries in real-time and clearly showing sources.

What is AI in the context of Neeva’s search engine?

AI is used by Neeva as “x-ray vision for the internet” in terms of their search engine. It allows them to peer deeply into pages and understand what users mean when they type in a query. AI summarizes the information on the web and gives a real-time synopsis of what the query is about. It is this power to synthesize and crystallize information on the web that makes Neeva stand out in the search engine industry.

What are some limitations of chat GPT?

One of the limitations of chat GPT is that it may not always provide accurate information, especially in cases where it is being used to build person schema or for complex questions about specific topics. This is likely due to the underlying technology and limitations of the AI model. However, it’s important to note that the limitations of AI technology are constantly being addressed and improved over time.

AI conversational tool as a Search Assistant

In the podcast conversation they mention that Neeva cites sources for each sentence in the search result to ensure accuracy. The product is still in its early stages and they are working on improving it, such as adding a disambiguation UI and working on specific verticals. They also mention the possibility of integrating additional information or context through an extension. The verified button limits search results to reputable sources like universities and non-profits. Early data suggests that users are clicking through to read more information after seeing the AI-generated answers. Ramaswami sees the product as an AI assistant that guides users around the search results.

What is the future of ad-supported search engines?

Ramaswami discussed the future of ad-supported search engines and the potential challenges they may face with monetization. They believe there will be a lot of innovation in the field, with startups coming in to try different approaches. Ramaswami has been working on a mobile search experience that is more visual and fun, making it more amenable to ads-driven monetization.

They also mention that younger generations are breaking away from Google and finding information via different apps (like TikTok), and that Google is more focused on written content. Ramaswami also mentions their sourcing process, including working with Reddit and using signals such as upvotes and karma points, but not yet looking at author information.

Will the AI Search Experience be paid?

Neeva’s CEO believes that AI-driven personalized search experience provided by Neeva AI will lead to a more fluid and fun information consumption. Neeva AI is a subscription-based, private search engine without ads and users can personalize their search results. Ramaswami sees AI language models as becoming interpreters for the online world, making input more fluid and response more accurate. Neeva AI is working on incorporating preferred sources in their summaries. Ramaswami expects query and session lengths to increase.

How privacy will be addressed in AI Chat environments?

They talked about the issue of search privacy and the possibility of regulation around the sharing of information in a chat-style environment, however they think the real power of large language models will come when they can interact with a search engine.

Ramaswami believes that while AI models such as chat GPT are improving information and action discovery, they lack personal context and raise privacy concerns. Ramaswami mentions their own experience with 23andMe and feels similarly about the use of chat GPT. They believe there needs to be oversight in how personal information is used and stored in these models.

Neeva AI is currently available only in English, but it is expected to be rolled out in several other languages early in February 2023. Neeva AI is a free service that is used for 50% of queries. Neeva AI is working on offering a similar service to Google search console for website owners. Ramaswami expects the number of queries using Neeva AI to reach 60% by the end of February 2023.

Artificial Intelligence Content

What is Web Crawling Neutrality?

Web Crawling Neutrality is a concept that refers to equal treatment for all search engine crawlers, regardless of the company they belong to, in accessing websites for indexing purposes.

Why is building a comprehensive index of the web a requirement for search engines?

Building a comprehensive index of the web is a crucial step for search engines as it allows them to provide relevant search results to users.

What percentage of the market do search engine providers control?

With a market share of almost 90%, Google dominates the search engine sector. While newer competitors like DuckDuckGo and Baidu are becoming more popular, other search engines like Bing and Yahoo have considerably smaller market shares.

What distinguishes a meta search engine from a crawler search engine?

A meta-search engine and a crawler-based search engine are two independent categories of search engines.

Crawler-based search engines traverse the web and construct their index of online sites using an automated application called a web crawler. Crawler-based search engines include Google, Bing, and Yahoo as examples.

On the other hand, a meta-search engine is a search tool that sends a user’s query to a number of search engines and merges the results into a single list. Instead of using its own database of websites, a meta-search engine gets its results from the indexes of other search engines. Examples include the meta-search engines Dogpile, MetaCrawler, and MozDeck.

What is the ChatGPT data source?

OpenAI’s ChatGPT was trained on a wide variety of text data, including the sources listed below:
a massive corpus of more than 700 billion words gathered from the internet.

  1. Publicly accessible books, such as those from Project Gutenberg, are classified as books.
  2. News articles: Pieces of writing from various news sources.
  3. Text information obtained from social media sites like Twitter and Reddit.
  4. Websites: A variety of websites, such as discussion boards, blogs, and e-commerce platforms.
  5. Wikipedia: The training data also included information from the English-language Wikipedia.

Do OpenAI crawl websites to feed ChatGPT?

Yes, OpenAI likely crawled websites and other text sources to gather the data used to train ChatGPT. This data was then processed and used to train the model to generate text based on patterns and relationships it learned from the input data.

The training process involves feeding the model large amounts of text and adjusting its internal parameters to minimize the difference between its predictions and the actual text in the training data. The end result is a model that can generate text that is similar to the styles and patterns present in the training data.

Do websites block non-Google crawlers?

Websites block non-Google crawlers by either disallowing access in their robots.txt files or by returning errors instead of content.

Why do websites prevent search engine crawlers from accessing them?

In order to weed out unwanted actors and safeguard their network capacity, websites restrict access to search engine crawlers like Neevabot.

What is Neevabot?

The crawler employed by the new search engine Neeva to index the web is called Neevabot.

How does Neeva deal with limitations set by websites?

Neeva implements a policy of crawling a site only if the robots.txt allows GoogleBot and does not disallow Neevabot. Despite this, Neeva still faces difficulties accessing portions of the web that contain valuable search results.

How does Neeva work around these roadblocks?

Neeva builds a well-behaved crawler that respects rate limits, but still faces obstacles such as rate throttling by websites. Neeva has to use adversarial workarounds, such as crawling using a rotating bank of proxy IPs, to access these sites.

What is the problem with the discrimination against non-Google crawlers?

The current situation, where websites discriminate against non-Google crawlers, stifles legitimate competition in search and reinforces Google’s monopoly in the field.

Neeva and other new search engines have to spend a lot of time and resources coming up with workarounds and hope for goodwill from webmasters.

Why is it important for regulators and policymakers to step in?

Regulators and policymakers need to step in to ensure a level playing field for all search engines and promote competition in the field. The market needs crawl neutrality, similar to net neutrality, to prevent anti-competitive market forces from hindering new search engine companies.

What is the answer to a neutral web crawling policy?

The answer is to treat all search engine crawlers equally, regardless of their affiliation.

Webmasters shouldn’t have to decide whether to allow Google to crawl their websites or not appear in Google results.

The use of free-roaming search engines like GoogleBot should be prohibited until they are forced to share their data with responsible parties if webmasters find it too difficult to discern between harmful and reputable search engines.

Is there any special advantage for Bing or Google if they implement a conversational AI tool in search engines, relative to other search engines?

Yes, there can be an advantage for Bing or Google if they implement an AI conversational tool on their search engines. By incorporating AI conversational technology, they can provide a more interactive and personalized experience for their users.

This can help them differentiate their services from other search engines and increase user engagement, which can in turn drive more traffic and revenue.

Additionally, having an AI conversational tool can help them collect and analyze more data about their users’ search queries and preferences, which can further improve their search results and user experience.

What is the advantage of Bing and Google being preferred for crawling?

Bing and Google having information from crawled websites and preference for crawling information from websites is a significant advantage for them over other search engines. They have been around for a long time and have built up a comprehensive index of the web, which allows them to provide more accurate and relevant search results.

They also have relationships with websites (through robots.txt) that allow them access to index their content, whereas new search engines may struggle to scan websites and get the essential data, because other crawler bots may be blocked by default in the robots.txt file. New search engines may not have the same amount of information and data to work with as a result, which puts them at a disadvantage.

Therefore, Bing and Google have an edge in the search engine industry and make it harder for new search engines to compete with them because they have a well-established and thorough index of the web and access to crawl information from websites.

What is the web crawl budget from search engines?

The web crawl budget of a search engine refers to the amount of resources, such as time, bandwidth, and computational power, that the engine is willing to allocate towards crawling and indexing the web. The web crawl budget is an important factor in determining the comprehensiveness and freshness of the search engine’s index, as well as its ability to discover new and updated content.

Typically, larger and more established search engines like Google and Bing have more resources and a higher web crawl budget compared to smaller and newer search engines. This allows them to crawl and index a larger portion of the web more frequently and in greater detail. As a result, they are able to offer more comprehensive and up-to-date search results to their users.

If more processing power and storage space are needed, the cost of operation and maintenance may rise with a bigger web crawl budget. In order to deliver users relevant and reliable search results, more modern search engines may need to prioritize specific sorts of material and be more frugal with their spending on web crawling.

Can a website owner let Google, Bing, and other search engine crawler bots full access to their website?

Yes, it is possible for a website owner to allow free crawling access for the crawler bots of multiple search engines, including Google and Bing. This is typically done through a file called robots.txt, which is used to specify the pages and content on a website that can be crawled by search engine bots.

Website owners can include instructions in their robots.txt file that allow all search engine crawlers to access their site freely, or they can specify which search engine bots are allowed to crawl their site and which are not.

By allowing free crawling access, website owners can improve the visibility and discoverability of their website and content in search results, which can help to drive more traffic and exposure to their site. However, website owners should also be aware of the potential negative impact of allowing too much access to search engine bots, as it can put a strain on their server and affect the performance of their website.

Can you prevent SPAM crawling?

To prevent spam crawling, website owners can limit or block access to certain pages or sections of their website using the robots.txt file. This can help to prevent unauthorized access and reduce the potential for spam and malicious activities. However, it’s worth noting that the effectiveness of these measures can vary, as some spammers may ignore the instructions in the robots.txt file and attempt to access restricted areas anyway.

In a situation when a website needs to be crawled by several search engines, will be important its performance in terms of availability and speed?

Yes, the performance of a website being crawled by multiple search engines’ crawl bots can be affected in terms of availability and speed. If too many crawl bots access the website simultaneously, it can lead to increased server load, slower response times, and potential downtime.

To ensure a good user experience and prevent server strain, website owners can use tools such as “robots.txt” files to limit crawl rate and access for crawl bots. It’s important for website owners to monitor the impact of crawling on their website performance and make necessary adjustments to avoid negative consequences.

Content Outlines. How we win for this topic?

We provide our readers two perspectives regarding the ChatGPT disruption on SEO and search engines: one from the standpoint of what people is commenting on social networks, and the other from the experts and key players.

Ongoing debate and conjecture surround the potential effects of ChatGPT on SEO and search engines. Despite the fact that some consider ChatGPT as a danger to traditional search engines and the income streams they give to content producers, others think the two are separate tools with different purposes and that chatbots are unlikely to completely replace search engines.

Additionally, the impact of ChatGPT on jobs and industries remains uncertain, with some new jobs being created as others become redundant. Ultimately, it remains to be seen how the future of AI and chatbots will unfold, and how they will affect the way people search for and consume content online.

Nevertheless, it is clear that AI is a tool that can be used to create and improve upon human work, and that embracing this technology is essential for individuals and businesses looking to stay ahead in an ever-evolving digital landscape.

The web crawling neutrality problem refers to the potential biases and unequal treatment of websites by web crawlers, which can negatively impact the visibility and accessibility of certain sites on the internet. This issue raises important questions about the fairness and impartiality of search engine algorithms and highlights the need for greater transparency and accountability in their design and implementation. While some steps have been taken to address this problem, much work remains to be done to ensure a truly neutral and open web for all.

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