genshiryoku t1_j18aj4q wrote on December 22, 2022 at 12:04 PM

Reply to comment by noellarkin in I wonder how ChatGPT and other chatbot programs are going to affect the SEO and Digital Marketing industries? by addictedposter

I really like your comment.

The curated website list you describe is how things used to work with places like Jeeves.com before google took off. I work in the industry long enough to have worked with that.

I don't think we'll return to curated lists on search engines. Instead I think the Search Engine itself will be disrupted and slowly go away. Most junior software engineers working under me seem to be using ChatGPT as a google. Both asking for information, solutions and explanations to bugs in their code, highly preferring it over something like google+stackoverflow.

I think this is a sign towards where things are headed. Search Engines are probably going to get replaced with "AI-search" that probably will get a better name. Essentially like how elderly people already use google right now. Just ask the AI something in human language and the AI will give all relevant information. It's likely that visiting websites directly won't be done by humans at all and instead the AI is going to go and extract all relevant information, make screenshots and videos of whatever you want to find/read/consume.

This is probably going to be web 3.0. A human interfacing with the AI and themselves never actually using the internet and instead all internet traffic goes through this AI middleman. I could see this happening over the next 5-10 years time.

noellarkin t1_j18cib0 wrote on December 22, 2022 at 12:26 PM

It's interesting you say that devs have switched over to using ChatGPT instead of Google + StackOverflow - - one of the things I like about StackOverflow is it gives me multiple answers, as well as a conversation between users debating the merits/demerits of an approach. I tried implementing ChatGPT in my own coding workflow, but my own processes and libraries are already in place, so ChatGPT didn't have the necessary 'context' available to give me code that worked for me.

I'm also wondering about niche specific disruptions. For example, as ChatGPT improves, keywords and search phrases related to coding for beginners may shift over from Google Search to ChatGPT, since the output required for many of these queries is a code snippet with minimal context. That definitely eats into Google's ad revenue for ads related to "Learn Python" etc courses that may have been in the search results for those keywords and phrases.

Many searches related to academia/liberal arts may also shift from Google to ChatGPT, for example, any "wiki"esque informational search terms.

I don't see many transactional searches being done with ChatGPT, because searching for something to buy usually includes a step where alternatives are vetted and compared, reviews are consulted, their legitimacy assessed etc - - if I need a new coffee machine, I don't see myself asking ChatGPT for it, although I may ask ChatGPT for "what are some essential features in a good coffee maker" - - this means that the abundance of affiliate sites that used to mass-generate informational articles as a prelude to an affiliate CTA may have something to worry about.

You're right in that search engines may incorporate elements of the ChatGPT UI, and IMO they've already started doing this, with things like knowledge panels and Q&A snippets - - they may decide to refine things further and make the search results more 'conversational', different UI, same backend.

Of course, just like social media and search engines became intermediates over the past decade, becoming middlemen instead of people visiting websites directly, AI interfaces can add a second layer of intermediation of online information, that would be the worst possible outcome.

FilthyCommieAccount t1_j1atz8s wrote on December 22, 2022 at 10:56 PM

Imagine multiple versions of chatgpt finetuned for different things. You ask the bot for a product recommendation and invisibly behind the scenes your prompt is switched over from the general question answering bot to one specifically trained on product recommendation. It scours through mountains of product reviews and spits out a top 5 for you. Then you tell it those products don't have x feature that you are looking for and it uses that info to update your results.