BITESIZE: Latest SEO News – May 2024

OpenAI to launch their own search engine?

There are rumours that OpenAI are going to be launching their own search engine with a possible announcement on May 9^th in the morning. What it will look like and how it will function are all up for debate. However, what does seem to be agreed upon is the fact that it may be more like Gemini than a traditional search engine like Google. If you haven’t done so already, it’s worth having a play with Gemini. Read more here

So what?

We know how ChatGPT exploded in usage when it was launched in November 2022. Depending on how this new search engine is adopted by users it may have a big influence on the search engine landscape moving forwards. This may change consumer behaviours and therefore impact our strategies and tactics. I doubt a new search engine from ChatGPT will take a considerable bite from Google’s large pie but it may well have a bigger influence on things to come. Read more here

More data about Google SGE

More data has emerged (keep in mind this is US based) about Google’s SGE (Search Generative Experience) broken down by vertical. The summary being that ‘beauty’ and ‘automotive’ verticals are getting the most AI-generated answers in the search results with ‘finances’ seeing the least. This may loosely indicate which industries could be impacted by the introduction of SGE in the wild. Additionally, SGE results don’t appear by default in some cases, the user has to click a button to get them. Based on whether the results appeared automatically or required a button click, ‘hotels’ were showing significantly lower automatic SGE results. ‘Health’ showed an automatic result considerably more followed by ‘automotive’.

So what?

There’s a lot of talk about adapting our strategies now to get ahead of the curve. However, SGE has not properly launched and neither do we have user data to understand how people are interacting with the new style of results. I know some clients are asking these questions and the general advice at the moment is to wait for more information and more data before making any changes which could negatively impact current performance. As always, we are taking a data-led, evidence-based approach to this.

Potential Apple search feature

Talking of new search engines there is also talk of new search feature from Apple, which of course is AI-driven (called ‘Intelligent Search’), expected as part of Safari 18. There are two features being talked about, a new ‘page summary’ based on user searches and a ‘web eraser’. The web eraser can apparently change the appearance of a web page permanently for a user, for example, removing all ads from a page. Read more here

So what?

A new search feature from Apple is likely to be a disrupter but unlikely to be significant (keeping in mind the current DOJ case against Google which is just concluding). However, it is another indicator of the direction things are moving in both in terms of (a) AI and (b) privacy. The more of these features that are introduced to users and existing UIs, the more it is arguably going to change user behaviours and be a catalyst to change.

Need help?

If you need help with anything covered in this round-up, drop us an email to [email protected] or submit your details here and we’ll be in touch.