Is "SEO" dead?

[Biggy]

Most of forums where monthly case studies happened are dead.

What do you think are niche sites dead? Why no one is doing case studies anymore?

 

[Ryuzaki]

Because everyone took a 75%+ beating. Anyone who didn’t has by now. The very few who haven’t will. Some will lie about it and will be easy to sniff out.

So you have an entire industry where only a handful of mega corporations and two forums gained 75% of the lost traffic. People don’t want to advertise their shame or to be seen losing publicly, but the jokes on them because everyone lost. The other explanation is everyone is starting new projects and since it’s so grim, why even start drawing attention to a project that at the moment has little hope in the mind of the builder.

I have something new I’m going to do a journal thread on soon, in a semi-completely new realm (meaning it’s been a decade since I last messed with it). And it’ll make me look like a newbie chump but that’s part of being real… exposing yourself for the benefit of the group. Beware the fakers out there. It’s funny how quiet some of the braggarts are now. There’s no shame in losing or starting over. It’s a part of the process.

But SEO is on its last leg. Agencies can survive but nobody is thriving. The HCU might have been the actual final nail after many years of the “seo is dead” joke. There’s plenty of AI features to come to lower the casket.

By “dead” I simply mean SEO will finally take its rightful place as one tool in the marketing tool chest. The gold rush seems to be over since AI has been made overlord already and it’s still a dribbling baby with a pea brain. And it’s not going to be used to expose quality content. It’s going to be used to maximize profit.

 

[bernard]

But SEO is on its last leg. Agencies can survive but nobody is thriving. The HCU might have been the actual final mail after many years of the “seo is dead” joke. There’s plenty of AI features to come to lower the casket.

By “dead” I simply mean SEO will finally take its rightful place as one tool in the marketing tool chest. The gold rush seems to be over since AI has been made overlord already and it’s still a dribbling baby with a pea brain. And it’s not going to be used to expose quality content. It’s going to be used to maximize profit.

I agree, SEO is now like Google Ads or Facebook Ads, just another must-have in a well established industry of online marketing.

Is SEO as a hustle dead? Yes. It's not easy, can't even throw up an EMD site anymore. The age of the amateur is over.

Is SEO as part of a broader hustle dead? Absolutely not, plenty of SEO opportunities, if you spot an underserved market, but it won't be what everyone else is doing.

Can you keep going some years more? Yes, if you're smart about AI.

That's how I see it.

 

[CCarter]

Let me go a different route...

The old SEO affiliate marketing has evolved to a new generation making money on social media and online platforms with affiliate marketing. I gave an example here of a couple selling affiliate products on TikTok: Social Media embraces affiliates

In the past hardcore SEOs simply refused to expand beyond Google. Even PPC had a hard time getting traction with the SEO crowd. That resulted in forums overwhelmingly talking about SEO - for decades.

But there is a whole new playing field, developers can make Apps within Shopify marketplace, Salesforce, Linode, Apple iPhone App store, Android, thousands upon thousands of new ecosystems exist now to generate revenue, literally circumventing Google. And Google tightened it's grip, destroying the hardcore "only SEO" crowd.

That lead to forums seemingly getting wiped cause the conversation about other ecosystems weren't encouraged for a longtime.

What forums need to do is start talking about the different ecosystem that now exist that are literally outside Google's reach.

Example if someone wants to make money with the Salesforce crowd there is an App marketplace within Saleforce they can create Apps for which will allow them to get Salesforce customers to buy and integrate with within Salesforce. Thousands of developers within the Salesforce ecosystem exist - that could be a billion dollars right there a year being exchanged - all out of the reach of Google or SEO's knowledge.

Same with Shopify - they have an App marketplace that allows developers to develop for Shopify shops and make money. What the fuck does Google have to do with anything there?

These are the things and new opportunities we need to be talking about and exploring. Because all those opportunities are outside Google and SEO's reach, yet they exist.

I'm pretty sure a ton of SEOs didn't know TikTok allows affiliate marketing because traditional in the past affiliate were spammers and would ruin platforms. Now it's encouraged!

Slack also has an App marketplace.

You guys don't understand the underground ecosystem going on within Discord alone. There are a ton of mobile video games that generate billions from micro-transactions daily, I seen game players drop $10k on simple armor to play a fucking mobile game. And all this crazy games have clans that all communicate back and forth within Discord servers. And Discord also has an integrations.

There are discord marketplaces to exchange in-game armor and items to play within these mobile games.

And then there is the "Metaverse", the real one, not zuck's, that's happening within Discord. But let's talk about Zuck's - that one will spawn new opportunities to "make money online".

And we should also be exploring and talking about those new ecosystems.

Making Money Online is beyond SEO and traditional affiliate marketing or getting someone to fill out online surveys. It's like SEOs are frozen in the past - selling candles to people using electricity to light homes.

The crazy part is the way to get into most of these places is to be a real marketer, spot opportunities, and/or a developer - because all of these ecosystem rely on coding.

I didn't even talk about gumroad - that's taking the "make money online" blueprint and created the opportunity for ANYONE to create their own courses in anything and sell it. Whoever came up with gumroad was an affiliate marketer that saw an opportunity to "create order out of chaos".

And yet there are people reading this that are trying to rank #1 on Google - waiting 2 years for that alone.

You can dropship custom tshirts now, jesus christ. Endless opportunities online to make money - without ever coming close to Google.

 

[Jesse]

I don't know that I have a lot to contribute to this, but I'll offer the following.

When I was in my late teens and early 20s, my main thing was playing online poker. I saw the writing on the wall for that and got out before things got bad.

My main thing for the next 15+ years was/has been writing in a related online space where there is a high demand and low supply of people who have my particular expertise and skill set. Because of the nature of the thing with regulatory compliance issues, etc., it will take a bit longer for AI to eat it up, but I've seen the writing on the wall for a while now.

I started a project about two and a half years ago centered around social media that has became my new "main thing" inside of the past six months. I'm still writing for one major client, and I'll continue to do that for as long as I can because I enjoy the work and the people and because the money is great for what I do, but I know that it's only a matter of time before I wake up to an email one morning telling me that it's the end for that part of my life because that whole side of things is ultimately based on SEO.

 

[Jamaica0007]

I tend to think that the human desire for decent well written content has not gone anywhere.
Similar to when the video recorder was released and movie theatres were shouting to anyone that would listen that the world was falling in.

What happened? $15 small boxes of pop corn and $40 movie tickets happened. They forgot human nature and that even though we have the option to stay in and watch a countless number of excellent quality latest release movies at home, the demand for going to the movies is higher than it has ever been.

Sure the how to groom your pet sites may no longer be raking in cash anymore and that lower tier of blog may go away but I do not see how a blog that offers information that AI is unable to replicate due to its major fault of only ever being able to provide general information is going to suddenly be a waste of time.

I think Google is grappling with the current crop of AI spam out there and part of that strategy is temporarily putting information they know is a high probability of being human (Reddit and Quora) at the top while they sort the problems out.

For a start what is now happening to Reddit and Quora? The AI scammers are moving over to them and are infesting what has been almost 100% human written posts with the same AI crap that you can see a mile off and it is devaluing those platforms because Ai is awful.

So that is a temporary measure at best.

 

[Steve Brownlie]

For a start what is now happening to Reddit and Quora? The AI scammers are moving over to them and are infesting what has been almost 100% human written posts with the same AI crap that you can see a mile off and it is devaluing those platforms because Ai is awful.

Yeah the number of posts infesting sites now about parasite SEO (spamming UGC sites/paid news placements) for temporary rankings with affiliate links in is huge. Definitely going to degrade a lot of those platforms if it becomes, even for a short while, the 'way' to make some quick cash.

 

[Jamaica0007]

Yeah the number of posts infesting sites now about parasite SEO (spamming UGC sites/paid news placements) for temporary rankings with affiliate links in is huge. Definitely going to degrade a lot of those platforms if it becomes, even for a short while, the 'way' to make some quick cash.

I thought the article you posted was very interesting. I am currently working through all of my pages and rewriting anything that is Ai so that every single article will be human content only.
I have been listing at the top of each page quite prominently that the articles are 100% human created with no AI assistance.

I think most people are where I was before I started heavily using it and that is without exposure to Ai, people may not pick up the obvious signs.

I liken it to a time years ago when I was renovating a house in the middle of summer. Turned up one day and there was a faint whiff of something rotten. I thought it was something outside so purchased a bunch of vanilla essence power plug things and for about the next 5 days it masked the smell ok.

Finally got to a point where the stench was overbearing, so bad I started drilling holes in the wall (where I found a large dead possum)

From that day on I cannot stand the smell of vanilla essence.

Working with Ai and seeing how it writes gradually did that to me and now whenever I see it, it almost angers me and I feel like I have been tricked. I now get irrationally annoyed when I see it used.

I also think putting in any % at all risks the reader picking up on the faint whiff of something rotten turning them off the rest of the article. If you are writing 70% of it then you are doing most of the work anyway and the last 30% risks getting a future penalty from search engines as well as turning off your audience.

will it get better? Sure but if we were even close to true Ai then captchas would no longer exist. I see it as a bag of tricks that strings common phrases together to make it look like something useful.

The problem is that unless the topic is very simple then it can only ever write in generalized terms.
It can write a 1500 word article in seconds and if you take the time to read through that article, often there is not a single useful point in the whole thing.

I just think everyone is going to get to the point where I am now and despise AI content.

 

[Politico]

the human desire for decent well written content has not gone anywhere

the demand for going to the movies is higher than it has ever been

Not trying to be an asshole at all so please forgive me if it comes off like that, but this just isn't true.

Literally no one wants to read a 3000 word article when they can watch a 15 minute video in the background instead. (and this is coming from me, a hard-headed SEO that just wrote a 5000 word article last month hoping Google showers me with an ever decreasing proportion of search traffic...)

As for the demand for going to the movies... I don't know where you live, but...

65" 4k OLED screens with the best content coming out right now being streamable instantly, ON DEMAND... Yea.. let me go back to having to make a bloody appointment at exactly 7:15 this Tuesday to sit through 45 minutes of banal trivia and semiglutide commercials in an empty theatre with $20 popcorn...

This is like saying the demand for good old driving to Blockbuster and physically renting a DVD is higher than ever or hasn't gone anywhere.

Or like saying the demand for Vinyl records is higher than ever, just because a few hipsters who don't even own a record player still buy vinyl as a souvenir.

Or that breaking a music act on terrestrial radio is better than ever because a few 50+ year old soccer moms still play Top 40 radio in the background of their hybrid SUVs to drown out their kids' screams...

The writing has been on the wall. Adapt or die. It happens to every industry - the old hollywood movie system is dying, the old music industry monoculture is dying...

AND the old write an article rank it on google and make money is probably dying. This time, it seems for real, though. Not just because of Google's self-immolating updates, but because where the CULTURE and ATTENTION is moving (audio and video).

And in all three of those industries, they're dying because they (we) are refusing to adapt to the current landscape.

Will some people still read our 5000 word articles after searching Google for "best whatever the fuck ever"? Sure. But there's also still one Blockbuster Video open somewhere out there...

The questions are... where's the MASS of attention at? What's more worth your time to do? And what has a higher probability of success?

IMHO, it ain't a 5000 word perfectly Google optimized written article...

 

[bernard]

As for cinema and books like @Politico mentino, I will agree I find it extremely difficult to pick up a book now and I used to consume books one after another. I don't think it's only tech though, more is at stake, such as being hard times, and people being too tired or feeling as if they're wasting time (while wasting time in other ways).

With cinema, part of it is also that there are simply not as many good movies being made, most of it is remakes and that cinemas are turning to gimmicks like ear destroying volumes.

There are many films that simply are a much better experience in cinema than on TV, anything that Danny Boyle directs for instance. I watched 28 Days Later and Sunshine in the cinema, both were absolutely astonishing experiences. The vast empty post-apocalyptic spaces of London in 28 Days Later and the insistent menacing monstrous sun in Sunshine.

I later watched both those films on TV and it was a much less impressive, mostly mid, experience. I watched Slumdog Millionaire (also Boyle) on TV and it was incredible, but it would have been mindblowing in the cinema.

Something to consider here, Danny Boyle is an artist, he is clearly driven by inspiration and a true love for the cinema. Does it seem as if most Hollywood is produced by love of cinema or by algorithmic profit-maximization? Yeah.

With every emergent technology, the first mover will have the advantage, just getting out there will make you popular. With established technology, it becomes only a tool.

It is like that with cinema and content production. Do you want to merely react to the algorithm or do you want to use the tech to bring your ideas into reality?

Who is one the most followed "make money online" guys on Twitter? Is it Authority Hackers or Matt Diggity? No, though they're both great, it is Levels.io, the indie hacker behind Nomadlist and many more.

He's just throwing up prototype sites in PHP with the OpenAI api before you have even done your keyword research. Making millions too.

You see the difference? Levels.io already has the ideas, technology allows him to make it happen. He isn't reactive to technology, trying to exploit it (turning up sound in cinema, just because you can), he simply uses tech to make ideas possible (the sun in Sunshine).

And I think everyone needs to think about this. Throwing mud on a wall and hoping it sticks isn't an idea. It's literal aping behaviour. You need to stop, think, take a vacation and come up with an idea.

AI makes a lot of things possible. If you're only thinking about writing texts for 10 search keywords, then you're missing the point, but even if you want to do that, why are you not buying a subscription for Ahrefs API or Majestic API (or something else) and asking ChatGPT to code you a script combining it with the Google Custom Search API. Why sit around researching 10 search keywords like a chump, when you can have 10.000 of them tomorrow?

 

[secretagentdad]

So what I'm getting from this is I should go invest in a colorful dancing mascot or rando hot girl spokesman.
Then, give them a bunch of keywords to target with a mix of platform meta memes and hot takes on valuable keywords.

TLDR fire the writers and go hire the clowns to talk about your shit.

 

[Zach]

I feel the future of high-rev affiliate marketing is boiling down to 2 main skills:

1. Get good at leaking on platforms.
2. Get good at short form video content.

Follow the traffic. The traffic isn't flowing to niche Google operators much anymore. Good content doesn't matter cuz the consumer appetite has changed. A 5,000 word article is not "good content" it's a waste of time. Other forms of content do it better: more efficiently and more authentic.

The market is SPEAKING to what it wants. People vote with their search platform and queries. Real people want real answers, not affiliate blogs. So they go to Reddit, Quora, or TikTok.

My wife uses TikTok for searching anything. I use "query + reddit" increasingly for all my research. And I like it tbh. So much more efficient. So the future-oriented play seems either make the content in the form people want (short form video), or go to the platforms they regular (reddit/quora) and leak traffic.

 

[Biggy]

I feel the future of high-rev affiliate marketing is boiling down to 2 main skills:

1. Get good at leaking on platforms.
2. Get good at short form video content.

Follow the traffic. The traffic isn't flowing to niche Google operators much anymore. Good content doesn't matter cuz the consumer appetite has changed. A 5,000 word article is not "good content" it's a waste of time. Other forms of content do it better: more efficiently and more authentic.

The market is SPEAKING to what it wants. People vote with their search platform and queries. Real people want real answers, not affiliate blogs. So they go to Reddit, Quora, or TikTok.

My wife uses TikTok for searching anything. I use "query + reddit" increasingly for all my research. And I like it tbh. So much more efficient. So the future-oriented play seems either make the content in the form people want (short form video), or go to the platforms they regular (reddit/quora) and leak traffic.

What do you mean with

1) like reddit, quora etc.?
And
2) short term like youtube shorts? How to get link clicks?

 

[excelmefast]

With the introduction of ChatGPT and many other AI tools, making content has never been easier. So it seems many sites are popping up at a rapid rate. Also it seems big corporations are dominating a majority of the search results space lately.

However if one follows right methods, SEO still and will work.

 

[Biggy]

With the introduction of ChatGPT and many other AI tools, making content has never been easier. So it seems many sites are popping up at a rapid rate. Also it seems big corporations are dominating a majority of the search results space lately.

However if one follows right methods, SEO still and will work.

that comment looks like AI answer lol

 

[mikey3times]

Man, this thread is depressing. I’ve been thinking of selling my site since I have lost interest in working on it. It is down 28% since November/December. One of the big marketplaces sent a cold email asking if I wanted to sell. Maybe I will update my other thread with more details.

I’m interested to hear more about where everyone is pivoting to. I’m not sure what I would pivot to if I dumped the website, but I know I need something to build.

 

[Steve Brownlie]

Man, this thread is depressing. I’ve been thinking of selling my site since I have lost interest in working on it. It is down 28% since November/December. One of the big marketplaces sent a cold email asking if I wanted to sell. Maybe I will update my other thread with more details.

I’m interested to hear more about where everyone is pivoting to. I’m not sure what I would pivot to if I dumped the website, but I know I need something to build.

A lot of people are pivoting to making SaaS type products. I've actually got a case study of one coming out on my newsletter on Monday but the tl;dr is below for those of you who don't want to sign up:

* SaaS companies don't seem to have been smashed by the 'helpful content update' as hard
* Old fashioned link building is still working for SaaS - they all do A LOT of link swapping (whether 3-way or direct between the SaaS sites they run AND the places where they've managed to become contributors). Those of you outside SaaS might not have done many link swaps - but it's still highly effective if done smartly and not overdoing it (we use it to get real local businesses to link to our clients, for example).
* SaaS marketing lets you do all the 'not SEO' things like build a list, do paid ads, do viral marketing, become a youtube star (think the ChatBotBuilder guy - his youtube videos are more like a sermon preaching to his flock than a traditional youtube video...). Etc.

Here's the graph of the SaaS I studied - they pivoted from 'not SEO' and 'barely AI/automated' in the recruitment space pre-generative AI to all in on SEO, link swapping like mad, and ripping up SEO landing pages for every recruitment agency type you could possibly search for.

I don't think SEO is dead - I just think SEO 'without any kind of real site or business' just to make money from ad arbitrage is pretty damned hard now compared to a couple years ago, and especially the last few months of updates have hit our traditional sector very hard.

 

[CCarter]

just think SEO 'without any kind of real site or business' just to make money from ad arbitrage is pretty damned hard

That's the thing SEO is a tool in a toolbox. It's like SEO is a hammer and for a long time when you needed to build houses you needed hammers. But now we got a flood of water coming for those houses. Hammer is useless, you need sandbags and such.

SEO is not a niche. It's a way to get to the end goal you want. It was easy to get money with SEO before every giant with money woke up and used their money to dominate. Now SEOs have to become marketers and create actual value. arbitrage for people in the intent funnel... I mean that's done.

 

[bernard]

I don't think SEO is dead - I just think SEO 'without any kind of real site or business' just to make money from ad arbitrage is pretty damned hard now compared to a couple years ago, and especially the last few months of updates have hit our traditional sector very hard.

Yes, pretty much.

SEO is not dead at all, I constantly see so many opportunities when talking to people or the few clients I have. Sites that are ranking with unoptimized or unoptimal SEO strategies but making a nice income, because they're in businesses that SEO-arbitragers won't touch such as ecommerce or personal services.

Authority Hackers talked about this too, if you want to go the tried and tested route of content SEO, then it probably is a good idea to start considering partnering up with an expert partner. Go buy a good domain on Odys, reach out to an expert that has shown some interest in publication (maybe they wrote a book some years ago) or they have an active Instagram or Twitter, then pitch them a deal 50-50, you handle all the technicalities, they provided the expert content and they promote it on their own social media and the site social media. Sell a product on that site, their book, a download, a phone consultation, a white label product etc.

It's really not that important, what's important is establishing yourself first as a non-content site. When you've been established as a real business entity and gotten those real editorial links, then you'll find it much easier to rank for other content and then you can add your affiliate reviews and your ads.

 

[Grind]

A lot of people are pivoting to making SaaS type products. I've actually got a case study of one coming out on my newsletter on Monday but the tl;dr is below for those of you who don't want to sign up:

* SaaS companies don't seem to have been smashed by the 'helpful content update' as hard
* Old fashioned link building is still working for SaaS - they all do A LOT of link swapping (whether 3-way or direct between the SaaS sites they run AND the places where they've managed to become contributors). Those of you outside SaaS might not have done many link swaps - but it's still highly effective if done smartly and not overdoing it (we use it to get real local businesses to link to our clients, for example).
* SaaS marketing lets you do all the 'not SEO' things like build a list, do paid ads, do viral marketing, become a youtube star (think the ChatBotBuilder guy - his youtube videos are more like a sermon preaching to his flock than a traditional youtube video...). Etc.

Here's the graph of the SaaS I studied - they pivoted from 'not SEO' and 'barely AI/automated' in the recruitment space pre-generative AI to all in on SEO, link swapping like mad, and ripping up SEO landing pages for every recruitment agency type you could possibly search for.

I don't think SEO is dead - I just think SEO 'without any kind of real site or business' just to make money from ad arbitrage is pretty damned hard now compared to a couple years ago, and especially the last few months of updates have hit our traditional sector very hard.

Good post. It's not just SaaS, any 'real' B2B or B2C ecom site can thrive in this environment too.

Google has always hated affiliates and arbitrage sites. They finally figured out how to death knell the latter.

SEO optimized 'content' sites with nothing to sell were directly competing with Google's goal of controlling the clicks.

Sorry if that hurts, I know a lot of you were building these types of sites.

Sourcing some related bullshit on Alibaba and selling it on a Shopify install with big blog content back ends will still allow you to steal traffic share, if you're committed to that model.

Good luck, bros.

 

[BakerStreet]

It's not dead. The sites that were helped my HCU got 3x boost in traffic. Look at it this way, beforehand, SEO and content marketing had no barrier to entry. Now, you can have a barrier to entry. If your article's good and your readers like it, great! If not, you can't entry. and Vice verse. If your content is great and your competitors can't write as well, too bad!

 

[secretagentdad]

I dunno why everybody is so committed to half assed value capture.
If you still got time to sit around and figure out google, you got time to figure out how to make the max amount of $ with your traffic. How the heck are you supposed to compete on the seo side of things if you're making a third as much as the other guys trying to rank.

All most all of the smartest richest guys from wickedfire just run call centers and hustle their own leads. (Yeah a couple of them took it to far and ended up in club fed but I digress)
If you can make money with an ad network click you can make money with some hustle or an offer you slapped together.
That's all the media buyers are doing. Buying your traffic and hustling around to service it in a way that makes them money. Whether that is buying pallets of products and shipping them out, or picking up the phone and assuring some mom that someones special expensive rehab or nursing home is the perfect fit for their loved one.
You can even do a multi step business and just focus on building the relationship. Go for social media connections, email list sign ups ect and farm that traffic for the long haul. Or just give them the old offer vault special. Get the credit card on some trial offer, then run a train on it until you end up in jail for fraud or lose your merchant account. (that's sarcasm for you esl sperg lords)

 

[socialpatterns]

As AI becomes more and more efficient at producing code, the era of AI agents, etc it will require less and less of a big dev team, so I think it is absolutely smart to focus on SAAS businesses in the coming future (Software is one of the best business models...recurring revenue, 0 marginal cost, etc).

However, it would still be a big undertaking, esp if you don't niche down into filling a specific need...meaning it will get more competitive and cutthroat than it already is (esp if going up against a decently funded startup). But the barriers will continue to get lower and lower in the coming years.

But no, SEO is not dead. Still going to be around for a while. It takes a long time for the masses to completely switch to only using Generative AI. I think the Generative AI searches will take over many types of searches, so yes, less traffic to website owners. But as far as doing SEO (Content side), It'll just be less "SEO" and more "SEO Strategy"... who can create the best content. Same trend: Rather than keywords, its about topics. Rather than keyword placement, its how you served the search intent compared to competitors, and how much you please the user. This trend will continue.

Now from the perspective of making money: I wouldn't say "SEO is dead", but it for sure has been oversaturated for a long time. If you are just now realizing this, where have you been???

There are much much better ways to make money than to only rely on SEO. So if you want to say "SEO is dead" from this standpoint, sure. But thats not accurate to say. Its about opportunity cost. I've been an SEO nerd for 15+ years, so I will always love it, but do I make most my income from it? Nope.

Other marketplaces/communities/ opportunities seem to always overshadow the old school methods of marketing in terms of opportunity cost (focusing on the arbitrage of attention). Or heck better yet, build a real business solving real problems, find your gap in the marketplace to focus on and use SEO as one tool in your tool belt.

Otherwise, focus on the new up and coming congregates of where people hang out... bigger opportunity to enter a marketplace/community/etc (where eyeballs are), before it becomes over saturated. Early Bird gets the worm...Content has been oversaturated for so long, and that trend had rocket fuel added with AI content.

 

[Politico]

Just thought I'd share this here:

Important bits:

"CEO Sundar Pichai tells WIRED that Google’s new, more powerful Gemini chatbot is an experiment in offering users a way to get things done without a search engine. It’s also a direct shot at ChatGPT."

"Pichai is also experimenting with a new vision for what Google offers—not replacing search, not yet, but building an alternative to see what sticks. “This is how we’ve always approached search, in the sense that as search evolved, as mobile came in and user interactions changed, we adapted to it,” Pichai says, speaking with WIRED ahead of the Gemini launch."

"The company said just a few weeks ago that it doesn’t anticipate a “lightswitch moment” when the generative search experience fully replaces Google Search as we know it. But Google plans to push “the boundaries of what’s possible,” and to think about “which use cases are helpful” and “have the right balance of latency, quality, and factuality,”

"Pichai says that Google is focused right now on getting the generative AI experience right, but that he is “open to possibilities around both” paid and ad-supported generative AI experiences."

Make of that what you will.

Sauce: https://www.wired.com/story/google-prepares-for-a-future-where-search-isnt-king/

 

[Steve Brownlie]

"CEO Sundar Pichai tells WIRED that Google’s new, more powerful Gemini chatbot is an experiment in offering users a way to get things done without a search engine. It’s also a direct shot at ChatGPT."

I was going to say it shouldn't matter as they return a lot of information from the web so you just have to make sure your presence there is really strong but the new Gemini outright refuses (even if I demand it searches Google) to do this query now saying it's just a large language model and doesn't know me, whereas Bing still does it. Lame!

Not really what I'd call good news for the direction Google is going - not for me anyway