How ChatGPT May Transform Search Engines and SEO

At Microsoft's conference last Tuesday, the announcement was made that ChatGPT will be integrated into the Bing search engine. How will ChatGPT change the search engine and SEO?

This article will examine the changes from the following aspects:

• The new Bing experience with ChatGPT's abilities integrated

• The logic behind ChatGPT recommended information

• Potential changes that might happen in the future of search engines and SEO

1. The new Bing experience with ChatGPT's abilities integrated

When we open the Bing homepage, we will see a small column under the "ask me anything" search box, which is an example of ChatGPT's application in Bing. Click on "Learn More" to experience it. Scroll down and select a template to see the effect of the new Bing. Choose "I need a big fast car", assuming we want to buy a spacious and fast car. Ask AI what it recommends.

On the right side of the screen in the new Bing, AI gives you the answer. The numbers next to the text are the sources of the websites that AI cites, and you can see where the information is quoted from. If you want to ask AI how much it costs after looking at the information, you can click on "How much do these cars cost" and click on the chat "Chat" button to further chat with AI.

Currently, we cannot see the result after clicking the next step because the new Bing has not been fully opened yet. But overall, we can see a good recommendation from AI. 

And what's the difference between the new Bing search result and the current ChatGPT conversation result?

We can see that for the same prompt in the ChatGPT chat interface, the information given by ChatGPT in the chat does not have the ability to quote data sources like it does in Bing. The car models recommended in the ChatGPT chat interface are also different from those recommended by AI in the Bing search engine. In addition, the new Bing search result can provide more direct and specific answers to the user's questions, while the ChatGPT chat interface gives more general answers.

With the integration of ChatGPT into Bing, the search engine will be able to offer users a more personalized experience. This is because the AI will be able to understand the context of a user's query and provide relevant recommendations based on that context. For example, if a user is searching for information about a specific car, the AI will be able to suggest relevant articles, videos, images, and other content that the user may be interested in. This will allow users to get the information they need more quickly and efficiently, without having to sort through irrelevant content.

2. The logic behind ChatGPT recommended information

So what is the logic behind ChatGPT recommended information?I asked ChatGPT this question and from its AI response, it can be seen that the training data of AI comes from publicly accessible websites, with both accurate and inaccurate information, and it admits that it will produce misleading information.

The priority of information given by AI is based on two factors. First is relevance, and relevance mainly matches questions through similar language or phrases. The second is confidence. My understanding of confidence is that this is the information that AI thinks needs to be prioritized further through a large amount of data training. After all, it thinks its training is solid and it is very confident that it can think like a human being. But this sounds a bit like a black box.

Given AI's recommendation logic, even though it can query various information in real-time, it cannot guarantee the accuracy of the information source. So, back to the recently discussed hot topic, can ChatGPT really completely replace human work?

3. Potential changes that might happen in the future of search engines and SEO

In traditional search engines, people mostly use words or phrases to input information, but when new search engines emerge, AI can better understand natural language and text environments, and people can search for information using more natural language expressions, such as long questions.

People may ask questions to themselves once the new search engine appears:

• Do I still need to build a website? 
  Of course. Without websites, AI can't search for you in the internet database.
  
  
• Do I still need to invest into SEO?
  Of course. But when doing SEO, we should still focus on the content itself, that is, how relevant the content is to the search topic. The commonly used SEO methods in the past will inevitably face some changes. Evaluating the relevance of an article's content and search question should be considered more from the perspective of the article itself, after all, AI is being trained to think more and more like a human. 

The integration of ChatGPT into Bing marks a significant shift in the way search engines operate. With the help of AI, search engines will become more intelligent and more capable of understanding the context of a user's query. As a result, search engines will be able to provide more accurate and relevant results, improving the overall user experience. In addition, the integration of AI into search engines may also lead to new innovations and changes in the way search engines work.

Here are some potential changes in the future:

• Information overload may become even more serious because of a lot of content produced by AI will merge on Internet or false content compiled for AI to find
• Information from official, authoritative websites may weight more when being recommended by AI powered search engine 
• People verify the authenticity of information provided by AI search engines through real person reviews. So websites with real comments will be more convincing.

In conclusion, the integration of ChatGPT into Bing is set to change the search engine landscape in a big way. With the help of AI, search engines will be able to provide users with a more personalized and relevant experience, making the search process quicker and more efficient. While the full impact of this integration remains to be seen, it is clear that search engines are entering a new era, and that AI will play a major role in shaping the future.

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