The world of SEO has been largely synonymous with Google for the past two decades. Since its launch in 1998, Google has transformed how we access online information, quickly coming to dominate the search engine ecosystem. Today, more than 92.1% of global searches (in Spain, its market share is around 95.1%) are performed through Google, according to recent statistics. Its search algorithm, which began with the innovative concept of PageRank, has constantly evolved, with significant updates such as Panda, Penguin, Hummingbird, and more recently, BERT and MUM, which have shaped SEO strategies over the years.
SEO, as we know it until now, has been a complex mix of content optimization, link building, improving website loading time and user experience (no longer just for those factors included in Core Web Vitals), optimizing crawl resources and indexing… all aimed at capturing the attention of the Google algorithms and ensure a favorable ranking on their search engine results pages (SERPs). For many businesses and content creators, achieving a first-page ranking on Google has always been the key goal, as this position guarantees greater visibility and, consequently, highly valuable organic traffic.
However, it wasn't always like this. In the early days of the internet, in the late 1990s and early 2000s (when most home modems were still those 28k modems that made an infernal noise when connecting and sent phone bills soaring), there was a greater variety of search engines, such as Yahoo, AltaVista, Lycos, and several others, each with its own way of crawling and sorting information. These early competitors shared a more fragmented market, but over time, Google managed to surpass them all, establishing itself as the dominant player due to its accuracy and its focus on the relevance and quality of its results.
The new paradigm
Despite this historical dominance, the SEO landscape is now undergoing a significant new shift driven by the evolution of artificial intelligence (AI) and the emergence of conversational search engines like ChatGPT. While Google has begun integrating AI into its algorithms with technologies such as RankBrain and BERT, new AI-powered conversational search models, like OpenAI's ChatGPT, are introducing a new way to interact with information. These engines not only return links to web pages but also generate comprehensive, accurate, and personalized answers to user queries.
The arrival of these conversational search engines raises crucial questions for the future of SEO. For example, How will the rules of the game change for SEO professionals when users no longer need to click on a link to get information? Will ChatGPT, or similar technologies, be a potential rival to Google's hegemony, altering organic web traffic as we know it? We are possibly at the beginning of a new era for internet searches, and SEO professionals must prepare to adapt to this new paradigm.
A brief history of SEO and search engines
Before Google became the undisputed giant of internet search, the landscape was very different. In the early days of the internet, between the 1990s and the early 2000s, the first search engines appeared, competing for relevance and users (as well as fueling the dot-com bubble, but that's another story). Among the most important names of that era were Yahoo!, AltaVista, Lycos, and Excite (so many memories!), each with its own approach and crawling technology.
Altavista, Launched in 1995, it was one of the first search engines capable of indexing a large number of URLs, giving it an early advantage in terms of coverage and reach. Yahoo!, which also debuted in the mid-90s, began as a hierarchical directory of websites… manually organized! As it grew, it incorporated its own search engine, although initially it relied on other systems such as Google's.
Each of these engines had its strengths and weaknesses, and SEO at that time was much more rudimentary, as the engines ranked web pages mainly by factors such as keyword repetition and directory inclusion (did someone in the room say SPAM?).
The landscape changed dramatically with the arrival of Google in 1998. Founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google introduced a radical innovation: the algorithm. PageRank, This system ranked web pages not only by the number of times a keyword appeared, but also by the quality of incoming links. This revolutionary approach transformed how information was ordered on the internet, prioritizing the relevance and authority of pages.
In the years that followed, Google consolidated its position through a series of updates that continually improved the quality of search results and complicated the SEO process, effectively beginning its war on web spam, thin content, black hat SEO practices (especially in relation to link building) and everything that is now included in its algorithm, to ensure that the results returned in SERPs are as close as possible to the search intent of the users.
Some of the most notable updates were:
- Panda (2011)This update penalized low-quality content, such as content farms. These are websites created primarily to generate traffic without offering real value to users. Sites with duplicate or low-quality content saw their rankings drastically affected, forcing them to focus on creating unique and valuable content.
- Penguin (2012)Penguin cracked down on "black-hat SEO" practices, such as buying links or creating artificial backlinks. This update It changed the perception of the importance of linksIt was no longer just a question of quantity, but of quality and relevance (semantics, source authority) of incoming links.
- Hummingbird (2013)With Hummingbird, Google placed greater emphasis on semantic understanding and the context of queries. This helped the search engine become able to understand the intentions behind keywords, favoring more accurate answers even for complex queries.
- RankBrain (2015)As part of the push towards artificial intelligence, Google implemented RankBrain, a system of machine learning which helped to better interpret and process new searches, those that had never been performed before. With this technology, the search engine improved in the natural language query understanding, especially those that did not exactly match the usual keywords.
- BERT (2019) and MUM (2021)With BERT, Google advanced natural language processing, allowing the search engine to better understand the full context of a query. More recently, MUM The Multitask Unified Model has promised even greater improvement, allowing Google to understand not only more complex queries, but also integrate different types of information (text, images, etc.) to provide more complete answers.
This constant focus on improving the quality of results, combined with the expansion of products such as Google Ads and Google Analytics, has allowed Google to consolidate itself as the leading search platform, with over 901% of the global market share, leaving its competitors such as Bing, Yahoo and others with very marginal shares.
Today, SEO is not only based on keywords and links, but on offering a comprehensive user experienceFrom site loading speed to mobile accessibility and proper structured data formatting, not forgetting content and crawl resource optimization, Google's success has redefined SEO, and constant updates ensure industry professionals stay ahead of the curve. However, with the advent of conversational search technologies and artificial intelligence, Google's dominance may be facing new challenges that could once again change the game.
The arrival of artificial intelligence in search engines
Artificial intelligence (AI) has already begun to significantly transform SEO, especially through the implementation of advanced algorithms that improve the accuracy and relevance of search results. Google has been a pioneer in adopting AI in its search engines, introducing a series of algorithms that have changed how information is processed and web pages are ranked.
I have previously mentioned RankBrain, BERT, and MUM, which have boosted machine learning, natural language processing (NLP), and the ability to process text, images, and even video, and understand complex queries that require multiple layers of information.
These advances have redefined the rules of SEO, placing increasing emphasis on the quality, depth (and user usefulness) of content and the ability to address complex questions. AI not only improves Google's ability to understand queries but also increases competition for those seeking to rank well on search engine results pages.
While Google has made enormous progress in integrating AI into its traditional search algorithms, a new generation of conversational search engines, led by technologies such as ChatGPT, This is beginning to radically change the way users interact with online information. Unlike traditional search engines, which return a list of links organized by relevance, these AI-based engines They generate complete and detailed answers, similar to human interactions.
SearchGPT (currently in the prototype phase), for example, is based on advanced natural language processing (NLP) models and deep learning (deep learning), like those used by OpenAI in its GPT-4. These engines not only understand natural language queries, but can also maintain ongoing conversations Conversational search engines engage with users, understanding the context and offering more dynamic and detailed responses. This is the main difference from traditional search engines: instead of requiring users to refine their search with several different queries or click on multiple links to find the desired information, conversational search engines can generate an answer directly within the same interface.
The ability of these engines to understand and generate responses based on natural language is key. While Google can answer specific queries, conversational engines are capable of maintain an ongoing dialogue, Learning from the context of previous questions and adjusting its responses based on the interaction, this ability to provide a more "human" and adaptive response could redefine how users expect to receive information.
Conversational search engines like ChatGPT (which is supposedly the basis for SearchGPT) rely not only on structured data (as traditional search engines partly do), but also on vast amounts of unstructured data, allowing them to offer much broader and more personalized responses. This means that the engine not only answers questions, but can also anticipate needs, This can clarify further doubts or provide recommendations based on the conversation. For users, this means a more efficient search and less reliance on navigating multiple websites.
The arrival of these conversational search engines poses a fundamental challenge to traditional search engines like Google. Although Google continues to lead the market, engines like ChatGPT represent a disruption potential.
ChatGPT is currently estimated to receive just over 600 million visits per month (the total number of interactions is unknown), although other sources (such as SimilarWeb) place the monthly visits for chat.openai.com at 260 million. In any case, this is far from the 82 billion visits that Google receives (plus another 32 billion visits to YouTube).
However, if users begin to prefer immediate answers, without needing to click on multiple links, traditional SEO models and the competition for web traffic could be profoundly altered. For SEO professionals, this implies a potential radical shift in strategy: optimization will no longer focus solely on ranking among the top results, but on to ensure that the content can be selected and used through these conversational engines in their direct responses.
In summary, the integration of AI into search engines is already having a significant impact on how SEO is done. However, the arrival of conversational search engines like SearchGPT introduces a new dynamic in which the clicks on links They may cease to be the main objective, while the generating more complete and personalized responses It becomes the new standard.
How are conversational search engines changing the SEO paradigm?
Conversational search engines, such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, Copilot and others are transforming the way users interact with search results, offering a more seamless experience fluid, personalized and direct.
As I said, the key to this transformation lies in the interactive nature of these engines and in which users can refine their questions in real time, maintaining a conversation that evolves according to their needs.
This shift to an experience conversational and personalized It also affects user expectations, not just the way those of us in SEO work. Instead of getting multiple website options, users expect a single, more comprehensive answer from the start. This changes the search flow by emphasizing the quality of response instead of the number of options available, which will have profound implications for SEO.
I don't think it's immediate, but it is something we are inevitably heading towards, and with the transition to conversational search engines, the The SEO approach will also be altered And once again, the old SEO motto will remain relevant: Content is king.
Although the conversational algorithm generates responses instead of listing sites, I believe there will still be a filter based on the source authority. Engines will seek reliable and relevant sources to inform their responses. Therefore, expertise, experience, authority and trust (EEAT) remains crucial in this new scenario, as engines need to feed on highly reliable content to provide accurate and valid answers.
For content creators, this means that the quality and specialization They will become more important than ever. Instead of creating content optimized solely to appear at the top of the SERPs, the focus will be on offering complete answers that adapt to the flow of the conversation and cover multiple angles of a topic. The SEO of the future may involve, more than ever, an investment in high-quality content, focused more on answering questions than on accumulating clicks.
One of the questions I find most intriguing about the future of SEO is how conversational search engines will change the SERPs traditional. Currently, SERPs (search engine result pages) display a combination of organic results, paid ads (Google Ads), snippets of different types, and other forms of rich results (such as image results, videos, or knowledge panel).
If conversational search engines begin to dominate, we could see a decline in the relevance of SERPs as we know them today. Instead of a list of snippets, users will receive complete answers directly in the search interface, which could reduce the visibility of traditional organic results and place more emphasis on snippets of answers or short, direct extracts.
In that sense, Google has already begun to offer instant answers with its featured snippets, which are blocks of text that attempt to quickly answer a question without needing to click on a link.
Conversational engines take this idea further, generating a composite response that could gather information from multiple sources. This could mean that the snippets become the norm, not only on Google, but also on other search engines, limiting the need to navigate through multiple pages to find answers.
The impact for content creators is clear: although traffic from traditional SERPs may decrease, the optimization for conversational snippets This will become crucial. Content that stands out for its clarity, conciseness, and ability to answer specific questions will have a greater chance of being used by search engines in their conversational responses.
One of the biggest changes that could result from the widespread adoption of conversational engines is the decrease in organic traffic Traditional. In the current model, web traffic comes primarily from users clicking on links in search results. However, if conversational search engines answer user questions directly within the interface, the need to click on links is reduced.
Users would no longer have to click through multiple links to find the information they need, as conversational engines can offer an instant and contextualized response. This This poses a challenge for websites that rely on organic traffic for advertising revenue., since a significant portion of this traffic may disappear.
This will also have a significant impact on the metrics that have traditionally been used as KPIs and to generate reports and dashboards. Traditionally, SEO success has been measured in terms of traffic (whether it be quantity or quality of visits, improvements in the average position of strategic keywords, etc.), and conversion. In the future, however, the focus could shift towards visibility within conversational engines and a site's ability to appear as a key source of information, even if that doesn't generate a direct click. This suggests that SEO key performance indicators (KPIs) could evolve to include metrics such as brand interactions in search engines wave frequency with which a site is used as a source of answers, something similar to the current metric of impressions provided by Search Console (i.e., the number of times a URL has appeared in Google, regardless of the average position and whether it has generated an interaction).
The end of Google's reign?
For more than two decades, Google has maintained a almost absolute hegemony in the search engine market, controlling over 90% of global searches, thanks to its innovative algorithm, its constant evolution with AI, and its ability to offer increasingly relevant results tailored to user needs. However, with the arrival of the conversational AI, We are beginning to witness a transformation that could break this monopoly and to diversify the search market again, as in the early days of the Internet.
The conversational AI The market's focus has begun to shift, and with it, a more pluralistic scenario could emerge regarding search players, similar to what happened on the web in the 1990s. Users are no longer limited to Google's traditional search engine results pages (SERPs), but can interact directly with conversational search engines that respond quickly and accurately. This raises the possibility that users will begin to seek more advanced alternatives, diversifying their search habits.
Unlike Google, whose business model is heavily reliant on advertising in its search results, conversational search engines can offer new forms of monetization, based on subscriptions or personalized services, which could make them attractive to both users and businesses. This change could reconfigure the search ecosystem, opening up opportunities for emerging players who are committed to AI as a competitive advantage.
While Google remains the undisputed leader In terms of market share, several emerging players are using artificial intelligence to develop conversational search engines that could change the landscape. These new players not only offer alternatives, but are also innovating with the use of advanced AI, which could further fragment the market and potentially position them as serious competitors. In addition to OpenAI, with its ChatGPT and, soon, SearchGPT, other "historical" competitors of Google, who already accompany it in the exclusive circle of the "Magnificent Seven" in the stock market, could take away market share in the search field.
Although historically it has been a secondary competitor, Microsoft has intensified its commitment to the integration of OpenAI in their products, driving the development of Bing with ChatGPT. This move seeks to integrate conversational AI directly into the Bing search experience, making the engine more interactive and user-oriented. answer queries instead of showing links. Microsoft is positioning Bing as an alternative focused on personalization and access to accurate information without having to navigate through multiple results, something that has already begun to capture the attention of users looking for a different experience than that offered by Google.
Although it has not launched its own large-scale search engine, Apple has made significant moves in recent years, investing in AI technology y development of search algorithms to improve your virtual assistant, Siri, and the search engine it uses to deliver results within the Apple ecosystem. With its focus on privacy and seamless device integration, Apple could be in a position to incorporate conversational AI and create a completely new search experience for your user base.
Companies like Amazon y Goal Facebook is also investing in AI-based technologies, such as virtual assistants and advanced recommendation systems, which, while not search engines in the traditional sense, could become new search spaces. Amazon, for example, already dominates product search, and with AI, it could expand its ability to answer broader queries, transforming how we search for information related to goods and services.
The central question is whether any of these players could dethrone Google as the dominant leader in the search market. While it's difficult to imagine a complete break from Google's monopoly in the short term, trends indicate that the The search paradigm is changing rapidly. The growth of conversational AI offers new opportunities so that other players differentiate Their value proposition focuses on a more adaptive, efficient, and personalized search experience.
Another possibility is that traditional search engines will evolve towards hybrid models, Combining its focus on links and SERPs with advanced conversational features, Google, for example, is already investing heavily in improving its AI capabilities and, with its resources and reach, is likely to also incorporate conversational engines into its ecosystem to remain competitive in this new landscape.
How will this change affect those of us who work in SEO?
With the advent of conversational search engines and artificial intelligence, the traditional SEO strategies They will need to adapt to remain relevant.
If with conversational search engines searches will be more natural and contextual, The keyword search should focus on Understanding the user's intent and not so much on identifying exact keywords (something that already happens with NLP). The focus will shift towards the need to cover topics broad that respond to complex questions. For example, instead of optimizing for terms like "best sushi restaurant", the focus could be on creating content that answers more detailed questions, such as "Where can I find the best sushi in my city?".
Therefore, content will still be king, but with a significant shift in focus. It will be about creating content that truly answer to answer users' questions accurately and contextualized. Furthermore, demand is likely to increase for highly specialized content, given that AI tends to prefer information that comes from expert sources and well documented (something that is in line with the trend set by Google EEAT).
Traditional on-page optimization, both technical and semantic, will likely remain important, but a adjustment to meet the new demands of conversational engines. clear URL structure and the logical hierarchy The content will be key for AI to understand and extract effective responses.
As search engines become more conversational, SEO professionals will likely need to develop new skills that complement this technological evolution. This includes not only optimizing content for AI, but also a greater understanding of how AI-based interactions natural language processing (NLP) and the deep learning affect the search.
I imagine that, as the way users perform their searches changes, the search results will also change. analysis tools, This will bring new features to Ahrefs, Semrush, and the other tools we use daily. Furthermore, SEO professionals will need to familiarize themselves with new metrics and learn how to interpret this data… which means a lot of "evangelizing" with clients to convey this paradigm shift. I'm sure many of us in consulting will recognize some absurd things, like customers who in 2024 still request the use of the meta keyword or they forward you an email they received from a provider that guarantees them "number one on Google" when you purchase the listing in their directory.
Of course the Technical SEO It will continue to be a cornerstone for ensuring websites are accessible and understandable to search engines, and in fact, I believe it will become increasingly important. While content remains fundamental, technical aspects, such as data structure, the accessibility and the loading speed, They will play an even more important role, especially as conversational engines rely on the ability to understand and efficiently navigate a site.
In summary, SEO professionals will need to adapt not only by learning new skills, but also by optimizing their content and websites for a world in which... Machines understand, interpret, and respond to user queries in a more human and direct way.
Theories and predictions about the future of SEO: more technical or more creative?
One of the big unknowns about the future of SEO in an environment dominated by artificial intelligence is whether it will be more technical o more creative. Both directions have considerable weight in the development of SEO, but the nature of conversational search engines raises a new perspective.
On the one hand, with the rise of the Advanced AI, SEO is likely to become more technical, as the AI requires structured data and one clear web architecture to understand and classify information efficiently. However, there is also a strong trend towards more SEO-focused approaches. creative. The conversational AI They will tend to favor content that comes from reliable sources and demonstrates a deep understanding of the subject, which means that the storytelling and the creation of unique content y original They will become more valuable.
Therefore, I venture to predict that the future of SEO will likely be a fusion of both approaches, creating a true synergy between SEO and AI.
As AI continues to advance, AI-based tools are beginning to be seen not just as competition, but as key allies for SEO professionals. We are already seeing how the content generators AI-powered tools, including ChatGPT itself, can help in the creation and optimization of content, offering faster and more efficient solutions. These tools can serve as attendees creatives, supporting in the content generation process, helping to produce initial drafts, suggest style improvements and adapt the content to better meet the search intent from the user. Although, at least for the moment and I believe also in the future, human creativity remains irreplaceable for creating truly original and persuasive content, AI can help to accelerate the process optimized content production.
AI is also being used to process large amounts of data, and tools like SEMRush and Ahrefs will increasingly integrate these technologies and may eventually become capable of performing predictive analytics, This is something that is already being applied in other areas and that I expect will also reach SEO and, in general, digital marketing.
Also of interest will be the role that conversational search engines will play in a key issue in the debate about the future of SEO: the balance between search personalization and the user privacy protection. Search engines already have a high capacity to provide results. hyper-personalized, adapting to the preferences, habits y behaviors of users, which greatly improves the relevance and usefulness of search results (a very obvious example is the YouTube feed, which suggests videos based on interest and search history). However, this personalization is based on the collection of personal data, which raises concerns about privacy and data security.
Interestingly, the AI can also be part of the solution to this problem. Some AI tools are being developed to enable personalization without the need to collect large amounts of personal data. For example, local algorithms that process data on the user's device, instead of relying on external servers, can offer personalized results while preserving privacy.
All of this will have a significant effect on data collection, which currently causes so many headaches with biased and very different data between tools (the classic: Google Search Console vs GA4), due to cookies, ad blockers, etc.
The times are a-changin'… nothing new under the sun!
If there's one good thing (and there are many good things) about dedicating yourself to this profession, it's that SEO professionals are used to having to adapt to change, Google has toughened us up in this regard, presenting us with countless challenges over the years.
Conversational AI may be about to fundamentally transform how users interact with search tools (I say "search tools" because I do believe Google will lose market share), but this change will also bring opportunities for SEO professionals, since the optimization It will no longer depend solely on traditional factors, but also on the ability to understand and adapt to AIs that interpret user queries in a more complex and contextual way.
Of course it will be very important stay up to date, Because AI technology and search trends are evolving rapidly, a more strategic approach is needed. holistic, which includes the optimization for conversational engines and the technical structuring Advanced website features will be essential.
Now, for you, reader who has reached this point: as SEO becomes more complex, having a experienced SEO professional will be more valuable than ever. The ability to interpret data, anticipate algorithm changes, and optimize both technically and strategically will be crucial to staying competitive in this new environment. If you're looking for a professional to help you navigate these changes, it's important to have a SEO expert that understands the evolution of the sector and can guide you through this transformation. Contact me
