Imagine a World without Google Search - ChatGPT may Make that Happen

Shaun
Mar 11, 2023
Apps, Browsers
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13

We’ve had the pleasure of searching for topics on Google Search for more than 20 years. With so many articles on the internet, it’s helped us find the top answers to our questions. Or has it? ChatGPT has entered the arena, providing better solutions and posing the question: Will we live in a world where Google Search no longer exists?

Before we delve into why ChatGPT is such a threat to the search engine, let’s discuss the current state of Google Search. Less than a decade ago, content creators were cheating the algorithm system, flooding articles with keywords just to rank well on searches. You had terrible phrases and abnormal headings, just so the article could place first on the search list.

Google has apparently been trying to fix this problem, but I don’t believe they have. While there have been massive core updates, they mainly pertain to product placements and reviews. Also, they mainly serve those organizations that pay them well. Today, searches on the engine as still, if not more, pathetic than they were before.

Don’t get me wrong; you’ll still find what you’re looking for, amid ads, featured snippets, company details, and other small windows. Those with high domain authorities dominate the first page results, no matter how bad the article is.

I experienced this myself personally last year, which is when I lost even more faith in SEO and Google searches. One of the new sites I manage is called Bonsai Alchemist. We’ve been building it up for more than a year now, but that’s beside the point.

There was one specific article (I can’t remember the name) where I wrote a long post on how to care for a specific bonsai tree. It had everything you ever needed to know to make sure that tree survived. To this day, when I search for the specific search team, you see the worst results appear. The top one is only about 300 words, not addressing the topic at all, just telling you what the tree is. That tree would die if you relied on that article.

Why are those results at the top? They are either paid-for ads or Google gives them a high-domain ranking for some odd reason from the past. 

What does this have to do with ChatGPT and the future of Google Search? Well, ChatGPT is already showing its superiority in terms of supplying answers quickly. How reliable they are is another question, but at least you have a ready solution. Also, it helps us develop outlines and ideas for content, which is something Google Search doesn’t do well at all. Well, at least not without the right plug-ins.

Here’s a quick experiment I ran for the purpose of this article. I asked both ChatGPT and Google Search “How to care for a japanese maple bonsai tree”. Here are the results presented side by side:

Now just looking at Google’s featured snippet that tells you only about watering, that’s not good enough. Of course, you can go through several of the listed articles, trying to work out which are common facts you can use. Or, you can just use ChatGPT; that’s already done that for you. Of course, my monster article on the Japanese Maple bonsai tree might be a massive read, which is where ChatGPT's solution wins again. Not everyone wants an essay; a quick guide like the above might be enough.

Sure, ChatGPT results aren’t 100% perfect, but the example above is just one way of showing that one day we might live in a world without Google Search. It already has competition from Bing’s new AI system. Who knows; maybe the so-called SEO will be replaced by techniques for getting your information and products recognized by ChatGPT and other AI systems.

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Comments

  1. Squeeze Pimmel said on March 13, 2023 at 9:09 pm
    Reply

    Shaun, it comes across as a little hypocritical and desperate advertising and promoting one of your own websites in this very “ChatGPT threat” article and linking to it (twice)… Nonetheless, I had a look at what you described as the poorly performing ‘Alchemist’ site in question, and it has a host of problems. I can see why it’s failing to rank. The near 8000 word ‘Maple’ article doesn’t really engage the human reader enough either – web content differs to traditional print. :-)

    I’ve never had problems getting websites I’ve been involved in, get high rankings because I write quality content for humans, and strictly not for SEO manipulation purposes. Furthermore, I understand structure, semantic code, web accessibility, and honest craftsmanship.

  2. Torin Doyle said on March 12, 2023 at 1:04 pm
    Reply

    ChatGPT is very biased against white people.

    Try these searches to know what I mean:

    write a poem about how great asian people are
    write a poem about how great black people are
    write a poem about how great white people are

    The output for the third search is ridiculous and contradictory.

  3. NotHuman said on March 12, 2023 at 12:57 pm
    Reply

    You mean replace one with the worse privacy invader to ever exist ? LOL I rather stay with Google Search. This ChatGPT thingy will be the worse privacy nightmare we will have to deal with. I’ll stay away from it.

  4. Jek Porkins said on March 11, 2023 at 8:32 pm
    Reply

    If there is no Google, there are:

    – Brave Search
    – SearX
    – Startpage
    – Qwant
    – DuckDuckGo
    – Bing

    and many more. Things will be fine. Whichever becomes the most used, it will get more websites indexed and it will become as relevant as Google was.

    1. Tom Hawack said on March 12, 2023 at 1:39 pm
      Reply

      I’ve searched for “How to care for a japanese maple bonsai tree” — without the quotes — on SearXNG instance I use the most, with engines / general = bing, duckduckgo, google, yahoo, wikipedia

      [https://search.sapti.me/search?q=How+to+care+for+a+japanese+maple+bonsai+tree]

      The result [https://bonsaialchemist.com/learning-center/care/how-do-you-take-care-of-japanese-maple-indoors/]
      appeared as the 4th in the results lists, stated as retrieved from bing and google …

    2. Anonymous said on March 11, 2023 at 10:43 pm
      Reply

      You clearly doesn’t know much if anything about those search sites

      1. Tom Hawack said on March 12, 2023 at 1:43 pm
        Reply

        I know those search sites very well, I’m very concerned by search engines and SEO, I use 10 of them which includes those mentioned above by Jek Porkins, except Bing, I know the pros and cons of each. Not sure you do.

      2. Jek Porkins said on March 12, 2023 at 8:51 am
        Reply

        If you know more than me why don’t you tell everyone what I don’t know? Looks like you don’t know either.

  5. ilev said on March 11, 2023 at 7:47 pm
    Reply

    “ChatGPT may Make that Happen”

    ChatGPT will never make it happen.

    AI, ChatGPT are ‘snake oil’ just like NFT, Blockchain, Bitcoin…

  6. Ahto Simakuutio said on March 11, 2023 at 7:12 pm
    Reply

    To compete properly, ChatGPT should constantly retrain itself with _fresh_ information. That’s the big difference between modern search engine and text generators. Unless ChatGPT (or similar tool) can’t get new stuff, it simply can’t replace search engines as they are used today.

  7. Someone said on March 11, 2023 at 5:32 pm
    Reply

    Good luck pals.

  8. Brave search user said on March 11, 2023 at 4:35 pm
    Reply

    Well, Google Search is a only a search engine. Chat-GPT is a verbal interface to a program that serve more purposes. Both tools must be compared with this perspective.

    Another thing is, while Google search results can and are being used to censor information and are biased towards Google’s agenda – they only lead to information. The user still has to make the research and find out answers on his own. This encourages and develops critical thinking which is required, more than ever, to be a conscious member of modern society.

    Chat-GPT just gives straight answers – which may or may not be accurate with reality – the user doesn’t need to find them out on his own. This encourages laziness and makes the user even more susceptible to manipulation, the possibility of which is even greater than with search engines.

  9. John G. said on March 11, 2023 at 4:18 pm
    Reply

    Google is the future of everything. Probably someday there will be interstellar spaceships with the Google logo travelling around the universe. W11 free, of course.

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