The New Search World: Key Questions

Artificial Intelligence is revolutionizing the search landscape, with Bing and Google leading the way in developing AI-driven search interfaces. As AI technology evolves, it's interesting to consider the implications it has on the future of search optimization and the search experience as a whole.

AI Technology

With Bing making waves by announcing their new ChatGPT-powered search interface a few short weeks ago, the industry as a whole got a clearer picture on how these emerging AI tools will be integrated into search moving forward.

The first few questions that comes to mind as an SEO are:

Is Bing a serious threat to Google's market share?

How seriously do we need to start optimizing towards Bing?

Should they eat up enough new market share, will Bing operate with a different set of "optimization rules" (as compared to Google's criteria) and force content producers to make a decision?

Google has since introduced their counterpart, Bard , and has provided their own examples of how AI will be integrated into users' search journeys. This also raises questions about the future of SEO, as traditional optimization strategies may no longer be as effective.

Search Engine Optimization

Optimizing for AI-driven search interfaces poses new challenges for SEOs.

The Bing Chatbot pulls from resources online to provide a quality output to the query it's presented with.

Do we need to place a heavier emphasis on structuring content to optimize for quotability/sourceability?

As we all know as SEOs, the easier you make Google's job of crawling your website, the more favourably you'll be viewed. Is sourceability one of those factors moving forward?

By the way, optimizing for quotability/sourceability already exists:

The Human Experience

The rise of AI-generated content is also a key area of concern for SEOs. Tactically, its become extremely simple to use an AI content tool to generate any copy, from a 3000-word whitepaper to a Google Ad headline. Because of these technologies, one has to wonder:

Not if, but when, will AI-generated content outnumber human-generated content?

Will we reach a point where AI-driven search is referencing/sourcing AI-generated content?

A third question would be: "Where does that leave human-generated content, and will it be considered less or more valuable?" Fortunately, Google is already addressing this. Google has updated its E-A-T content standard to E-E-A-T, the additional E for Experience. This emphasizes the importance of creating high-quality, human-driven stories and case studies that offer a unique perspective and provide value to users.

Human-generated content is safe and actually preferred, so long as Google has anything to say about it.

Conclusion

The future of AI-driven search is fascinating, and it will continue to transform the search landscape in the years to come. As SEOs, it's interesting to consider the latest trends and developments in SEO and if there are any shifting winds from the monopoly that exists now to the possibility of Bing, and even Quora , entering the AI-driven search market.

Quotability and sourceability will become increasingly important, and human-driven stories and case studies will remain crucial in maintaining the human experience aspect of search. As SEOs, its important to remind ourselves of these questions as new developments take place in this new search world we're about to enter.