Why I am a Google SGE Optimist
In my last blog post, I put some thoughts “on paper” about why [many] content sites will likely survive for years to come despite the inevitable march of AI.
I analogized the world of publishing to a herd of Wildebeests. Yes, Google is coming for publisher traffic, and yes, the herd will be culled. But with 8.5 billion Google searches being performed daily, the current system will live on.
The chorus of apocalyptic predictions for publishing and SEO feels like GroupThink. After all, SEO is not an industry known for innovation or leadership. It is fundamentally a follower and copycat space, and most of the SEO “thought leaders” do little more than Tweet what they think they should to stay in Google’s good .
The most sober takes I have seen on SGE come from marketers who acknowledge a decline in search traffic to some categories, but describe it as a matter of degree (10-30%).
Ross Hodgens has been one of the best.
Yes, some affiliate sites are likely to get wiped out.
I doubt the rare good ones will.
Google may be pressured to link to publishers within AI generated answers to keep pace with Bing, which could actually be a boon for publishers.
However, the two primary reasons I am an SGE optimist are:
The continued dominance of the smart phone;
The currency of Trust
First, the dominance of the smart phone. I don’t see AI generated answers as the death of publishing as long as our devices stay handheld. Smart phones are built around keyboards, which are natural for typing search queries into a search engine (and text messages, Facebook posts, grocery lists, etc.).
As long as most of us use smart phones, I see search as a vital tool.
Consider this quote from Tim Urban.
The era of rectangular devices and screens will soon give way to the era of headsets, which will eventually give way to the era of brain-machine interfaces.
Assuming this is the way technology advances, the question is what constitutes soon?
Is “soon” 5 years from now?
I doubt it. Because I believe smart phones, and not headsets, will be dominant in 5 years, I am betting that the current publisher system has close to another decade left.
Hardware aside, most people won’t trust unattributed AI generated content salads. The idea that Google is somehow exempt from the vital role that citations play in written work is beyond me.
People still want to know who is behind the content they consume, and the erosion of trust as AI creeps into all aspects of the web will necessitate more robust citation, not less.
In the near term, this means that SGE could ultimately send more traffic to some publishers than in the old SERPs.
Stay tuned.
Will ChatGPT Destroy Content Sites?
Open AI, the company behind ChatGPT, released a list of jobs that could be eaten by AI in the months and years to come. Copywriters are on the chopping block, but interestingly, search marketers have a high likelihood of survival.
What does this mean for the future of content sites over the next 5-10 years?
What is a content site?
“Content sites “are businesses built on written content designed to drive organic search traffic from Google to a website.
There are three common monetization models for content sites:
Affiliate
Display ads
Courses
The rise of Open AI and AI derived language learning models (LLM) terrify online publishers and content site owners, both large and small. The fear is that Google’s search ecosystem will be disrupted and replaced by chatbots, or that the percentage of “zero click” Google searches will meaningfully accelerate so that fewer and fewer websites receive traffic.
There have been some very public examples of Bard plagiarizing large sections of content with no attribution.
Will AI tools replace search?
Based on what we are seeing from early versions of these tools, It seems likely that AI tools will siphon off valuable traffic from some publishers, but unlikely that AI language tools will replace search altogether anytime soon. The LLM tools developed by Google and Open AI scrape the internet at massive scale and rely on the totality of the current conversation to offer answers and prose. The technology is powerful, but it’s unclear to me how a “uni-voice" benefits users. Just as we expect multiple entrees on a restaurant menu, users want a variety of voices when asking a question or conducting in-depth research. Search offers variety, and while AI tools are convenient for loads of “top of the funnel” queries, they lack the perspective that a diverse range of voices offers.
Chatbot features will be added to search results, but not as a replacement, at least not anytime soon.
How fearful should publishers be of AI?
Nevertheless, the affiliate marketer fear vs. greed index is tilted decidedly toward the fear end of the spectrum.
Word on the street is that Bard and ChatGPT are coming to destroy publishers and remake search engines.
It’s possible.
But Google profits tremendously from search. Bing has integrated Chat GPT into search.
Search is engrained across generations and “Google” is a verb.
Despite all the fear, it’s likely we still have search driving traffic to publishers in 2027.
However, make no mistake, publishers / affiliates / and content sites are all Wildebeests on the Serengeti.
The herd is likely to survive, but individual sites will be eaten.