AI and SEO 101: Understanding the New Landscape of Search

There’s no denying that artificial intelligence (AI) has permeated our daily and professional lives. You know it has when topics like deepfake and AI tools for translating text make it to your dinner table.

As a marketer, you’ve seen how AI has changed the digital marketing scene, including the search engine optimization (SEO) game. You may have a lot of burning questions about AI and SEO.

How will it impact your SEO strategies in the future? How will it reshape your customers’ behavior surrounding search? Go through these topics to better understand AI and SEO, and how you can flourish in a world where they’re intertwined:

• The rise of ChatGPT and generative AI
• Key milestones of generative AI and SEO
• How AI has impacted search
• AI vs. SEO: What should you prioritize?
• 5 tips to thrive in the new AI and SEO world

The rise of ChatGPT and generative AI

AI and SEO coexisted long before OpenAI launched ChatGPT in 2022. However, the generative AI chatbot’s inception was a game-changer.

ChatGPT reached more than one million users in only five days, making it the fastest Internet service to achieve such an accomplishment. Thanks to OpenAI’s chatbot, generative AI became popular and accessible.

Users don’t need coding skills to use ChatGPT. You can interact with it like it’s another human.

Type your prompt, and ChatGPT can answer your questions. It can write articles and essays, and even code. SEO professionals can use ChatGPT for various tasks, such as:

• Keyword research
• Brainstorming content topics
• Creating content outlines

In 2023, ChatGPT was the most used generative AI tool by U.S. marketers, with 55% of respondents in a study using it. And it’s not just ChatGPT that’s making its way into marketers’ toolboxes.

According to a recent survey, generative AI adoption has more than doubled among marketing and sales professionals from 2023 to 2024. In the same report, 65% of respondents said their organizations regularly use generative AI in 2024.

The report also found that people are more likely to use generative AI for both their professional and personal lives in 2024 than in 2023. Only 14% of respondents said they regularly use generative AI for both purposes in 2023. That figure grew to 26% in 2024.

These AI stats clearly show that generative AI’s moment has come. And it has reached new heights since its humble beginnings in the — would you believe it — early 20^th century.

Key milestones of generative AI and SEO

Let’s look at the timeline of events related to generative AI and SEO. We’ve broken them into these eras:

• 1940s to 1980s: Early milestones in generative AI
• 1990s to 2000s: The first web page and the birth of search engines
• 2010s to 2020s: Advances in generative AI and SEO

1940s to 1980s: Early milestones in generative AI

Before AI became a modern-day buzzword, scientists from various disciplines contributed to its development. In the 1940s, AI started as an intersection of various sciences — from neuroscience, psychology, and philosophy to computer science, engineering, and mathematics.

December 1943: The concept of artificial neural networks

Neuropsychologist and cybernetician Warren McCulloch and logician Walter Pitts published the paper “A Logical Calculus of the Ideas Immanent in Nervous Activity.”

The paper introduced foundational concepts that paved the way for the development of artificial neural networks (ANN) and further ANN studies. A neural network is a subset of machine learning that mimics the way our brains’ neurons work together to solve a problem.

1950: The Turing test

The Turing test, formerly known as the “imitation game,” was introduced in the 1950 paper Computing Machinery and Intelligence. Computer scientist, mathematician, and logician Alan Turing wrote the paper.

The Turing test evaluates if a computer can think like a human. It does so by having a human evaluator analyze a conversation between a machine and a human. If the machine can converse with the human through text without being suspected of being a machine, it passes the test.

While the test was criticized and had limitations, it paved the way for AI research and the measurement of AI’s capabilities.

1967: ELIZA, the first natural language processing chatbot

Computer scientist Joseph Weizenbaum developed ELIZA, the first known natural language processing (NLP) program that simulated conversations. Through ELIZA, Weizenbaum wanted to explore human-machine communication.

1979: Neocognitron, a deep learning example

The neocognitron, the first hierarchical multilayered ANN, was developed by Kunihiko Fukushima. It was one of the first examples of deep learning, as it can recognize visual patterns through learning independently.

1985: AARON, a computer program that creates images

AARON, a program that creates original images by itself, debuted at the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence Conference in 1985. The artist Harold Cohen is attributed as its creator.

1990s to 2000s: The first web page and the birth of search engines

Here are a few highlights of this era surrounding the beginning of search and SEO.

1991: The first webpage went live

The first web page by Tim Berners-Lee, info.cern.ch, went live.

1994 to 1996: The early search engines and web portals were launched

Yahoo!, which used to be a directory of websites, was founded by Stanford University graduate students Jerry Yang and David Filo in 1994. Other search engines launched during this period are:

• Lycos
• InfoSeek
• AltaVista
• AskJeeves (now known as Ask.com)

1996: The debut of Google

Larry Page and Sergey Brin launched the search engine we know today as Google. Google was formerly called BackRub because it ranked search results based on a page’s backlinks.

2009: Microsoft Bing was launched

Microsoft launched the search engine Bing. It was rebranded from MSN Search, Windows Live Search, and Live Search.

2010s to 2020s: Advances in generative AI and SEO

Search engines’ algorithms quickly evolved to outsmart black-hat SEO practices in the early days of search. Search algorithms were constantly updated to help users find what they’re looking for online and improve their overall experience.

It didn’t take long for AI to join the SEO algorithm party when Google launched RankBrain in 2015. In the next sections, let’s look at the timeline of these algorithms and the key players in the AI and SEO space:

• Google’s AI-powered search algorithms
• Google’s AI research related to SEO
• Microsoft’s milestones on AI and search
• OpenAI’s milestones related to generative AI and SEO

Google’s AI-powered search algorithms

Here’s a list of Google’s search algorithms that use AI:

Do Microsoft Bing and other answer engines use AI-powered algorithms and AI models?

Microsoft’s Bing also employs machine learning to rank pages and show the best results for searchers.

Answer engines like Perplexity and Meta AI use AI to provide answers to prompts and queries. Perplexity uses GPT-4 and Claude 3 language models to deliver answers. Meanwhile, Meta AI uses machine learning algorithms to respond to prompts.

A timeline of Google’s AI research related to SEO

January 2014: Google acquired DeepMind, an AI research lab. Google Brain, its deep learning AI research team, and DeepMind merged in 2023 to form Google DeepMind.

October 2015: Google launched RankBrain, its first deep learning-powered search algorithm. It helped the search engine understand how words relate to concepts, instead of matching search queries to keywords on the page.

August 2017: Google introduced the Transformer, a neural network architecture that aids language understanding, a key development for computers to translate and summarize text.

November 2018: Google introduced Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers (BERT), which later powered the search engine’s BERT algorithm. It enabled Google to better understand a user’s context when they use a group of words and queries.

May 2021: Google announced the Multitask Unified Model (MUM), a multimodal model that enables the search engine to understand a user’s search and intent. It can find answers to a user’s initial query and provide additional information that they’ll find helpful next. Being a multimodal model, MUM can also “understand” images and videos.

In the same month, Google launched the Language Model for Dialogue Applications (LaMDA), a large language model (LLM) that was trained with human dialogue to enable it to engage in conversations.

May 2022: A year after LaMDA’s announcement, Google unveiled LaMDA 2, its more advanced version.

In the same month, Google announced the Pathways Language Model (PaLM). PaLM was trained with 540 billion parameters and can also write code.

March 2023: Four months after ChatGPT’s launch, Google announced Bard, a LaMDA-powered generative AI chatbot that users can experiment with. It was initially available to U.S. and U.K. users. Bard was later renamed to Gemini.

May 2023: A year after its initial release, PaLM got an upgrade with the PaLM 2.

It was trained with multilanguage text, scientific papers, and public source code more than its predecessor. As a result, it had better multilingual and reasoning capabilities, and coding proficiency.

December 2023: Google announced Gemini. As a multimodal AI model, Gemini can process text, code, image, audio, and video prompts.

October 2024: Google Lens, an image-recognition technology, received new features, enabling users to search using video clips and image with voice.

Microsoft’s milestones on AI and search

March 2016: Microsoft launched the Microsoft Bot Framework, which helps developers build their chatbots.

September 2016: Microsoft announced its Microsoft AI and Research Group, a research organization with over 5,000 computer scientists and engineers. The group was created to focus on the company’s AI product efforts.

December 2016: Microsoft launched the social chatbot Zo. It was built on the tech stack of Xiaoice and Rinna, which are Microsoft’s AI chatbots in China and Japan. Zo was an important part of Microsoft’s NLP and conversational AI research.

In the same month, Microsoft launched the Cortana Devices SDK and Skills Kit, which are essential follow-ups to the Bot Framework.

The Cortana Skills Kit enables developers to use Bot Framework-made bots with new features on Cortana. Meanwhile, Cortana Devices SDK enables businesses to add voice assistant capabilities to their devices.

July 2019: Microsoft and OpenAI partnered to build generative AI with “widely distributed economic benefit.”

February 2023: Microsoft announced a GPT-4-powered Bing search engine called Bing Chat (now known as Microsoft Copilot). It was initially only available to Edge users, but in July 2023, it became available in other browsers.

OpenAI’s milestones related to generative AI and SEO

December 2015: OpenAI, the AI research lab that created ChatGPT, was founded as a non-profit organization.

June 2018: OpenAI published the paper “Improving Language Understanding by Generative Pre-training,” which details a method to help computers better understand human language. The paper was the foundation for models like GPT, which powers chatbots like ChatGPT and Copilot.

November 2022: OpenAI launched ChatGPT.

October 2024: ChatGPT Canvas was announced. It’s a new collaborative ChatGPT interface for writing and coding.

The same month, OpenAI launched ChatGPT search. It lets users search the web for answers and provides links to relevant sources.

How AI has impacted search

AI has been part of SEO for years, as seen in the milestones in the previous section. It has been helping search engines to:

• Better understand user’s intent: Google’s AI-powered RankBrain algorithm helped the search engine better understand the relationships between words and concepts. With RankBrain, Google shows recipes for searches like “how to make pad thai,” but lists restaurants serving pad thai when the keyword is “pad thai near me.”
• Analyze a user’s context when searching: Google’s BERT algorithm enabled the search engine to better understand long-tail keywords and even keywords in question format.
• Improve search algorithms to provide the most relevant pages for search inquiries: Machine learning-powered algorithms like SpamBrain have helped keep spammy pages from ranking.
• Provide and rank a list of relevant pages to a search inquiry: Search engines have been employing AI to rank the best pages for searchers. Google uses neural matching, while Microsoft has been using machine learning to show the best pages for users’ queries.

In the past, though, AI was a silent worker, doing things in the back end of SEO. Today, its role is more prominent and visible to users because searchers’ needs have evolved.

When users wanted quick answers to their queries, search engines like Google launched featured snippets and other SERP features to address this need. Voice search also allowed users to conduct searches through voice commands.

The dawn of answer engines and AI Overviews is another response to users’ new need: A quick summary of all the information searchers need, without going through all the pages in the SERPs.

Answer engines, or answer search engines, provide answers to searches. Typically powered by AI and NLP, they curate and outline all the information a searcher may need, so a user won’t need to visit multiple websites. Here are examples of answer engines:

• Perplexity
• ChatGPT
• WolframAlpha
• Bing Generative Search
• Google’s AI Overviews

AI vs. SEO: What should businesses prioritize?

With AI and answer engines being the latest marketing buzzwords today, you might think that businesses must shift their focus to AI and bid SEO goodbye. However, businesses must not be pitting them against each other.

SEO may be a 20-year-old strategy, but it’s not facing extinction. It’s been evolving to meet users’ needs, making it still relevant today.

Brands must prioritize both. For businesses to thrive, they must have a strong understanding of their customers’ needs. AI-powered analytics tools can help them uncover insights and customer behavior (such as search trends and emerging search keywords).

Businesses must also create unique and helpful content for their customers. To do this, they must implement SEO strategies — from understanding the user intent to improving their website’s user experience.

SEO best practices, coupled with the responsible use of AI tools, will help brands stand out in answer engines.

Will AI replace SEO?

In today’s ever-changing search landscape, it’s not a discussion of AI vs. SEO. Instead, businesses must take an OmniSEO™ approach to improve their visibility online, regardless of search channel or tool.

After all, your audience uses various channels to find information:

• Voice search
• Social search
• Answer search engine
• Traditional search engine

For businesses to thrive in today’s search landscape, they must optimize for channels that their target audience uses to make their brands discoverable.

A searcher might use voice search to find quick information while multitasking, like driving. Meanwhile, social search is useful for searchers looking for product or brand reviews before purchasing.

Answer search engines are handy for users who need a summary or outline of the information they want. Because generative AI, the AI that responds to users’ queries on answer engines, is still prone to hallucination, users also turn to traditional search engines’ SERPs to verify information and find in-depth articles.

5 tips to thrive in the new AI and SEO world

To flourish in the modern AI and SEO landscape, businesses must adopt a holistic approach to marketing online. Here are five tips for marketers:

1. Improve your website’s crawlability
2. Diversify your content strategy
3. Establish your credibility, expertise, and authenticity
4. Build meaningful relationships
5. Use AI tools ethically

Let’s break it down.

1. Improve your website’s crawlability

Searchers are using various channels and tools to look for information. The growth of zero-click searches — or searches that involve users immediately getting their answers on the SERPs without clicking on any link — is also changing how consumers discover businesses.

For these reasons, your strategy must go beyond Google. To make your brand and website visible in AI-generated responses and AI Overviews, you must make your website easy to crawl.

Here are some best practices to improve your site’s crawlability:

• Break up your content into logical, digestible sections for readers
• Make it easy to navigate your website
• Use structured data
• Use unique meta tags for each page
• Avoid duplicate content

2. Diversify your content strategy

It’s more important than ever for marketers to publish unique and helpful content to cover the upper, middle, and bottom of the marketing funnel. Because searchers can get their answers straight from the SERPs and AI responses, diversify your content strategy by addressing different search intents and distributing them through different channels, such as:

• Email
• Video
• Social media
• Blog posts
• Downloadable content

Doing so increases your chance of driving them to your site and nurturing them wherever they may be on their buyer journey. To implement this strategy, marketers can use AI tools.

“[Content marketers] can use AI to rapidly generate ideas to spur creative juices or summarize reports and white papers to help understand topics faster than ever,” Chris Varner, TeamAI’s Head of Marketing, advises. “AI platforms like TeamAI allow small and large teams to quickly share the best use cases across an organization, extending the wins.”

3. Establish your credibility and authoritativeness

AI may be basking in the limelight today, but generic, AI-generated content may get lost in Internet obscurity. If you want your content to stand out and your brand discovered (and remembered), you must publish unique, human-written content that shows your expertise on the topic.

“Optimizing for AI results involves creating high-quality, relevant content while adding to the information already available from other sources,” says Chris. “The best way to show up in these snippets is to provide the reader with information they cannot find anywhere else about the topic.”

Today, simply rehashing other websites’ content won’t get you noticed. Show your expertise by adding:

• First-hand experiences and anecdotes
• Original research or survey data
• Insights from your in-house experts
• Original multimedia, such as images, infographics, and videos

In the age of zero-click searches, it’s crucial to know your target audience well and understand their pain points. That way, you create content that offers valuable perspectives for them, not just generic information on your products and their benefits for everyone. You also get to publish content that answers their FAQs.

For example, let’s say you own a yoga studio in a city where your clientele is in their 40s to 50s. Publishing content tailored to them allows you to zero in on their concerns.

Instead of writing content about the generic benefits of yoga, you can talk about the benefits of practicing yoga later in life. That way, your target customers will see you as a studio that understands their needs and offers what they need. They may not necessarily click on your page, but they will remember your studio as the authority for yoga practice for people like them.

You can also establish your credibility and authoritativeness through other tactics, such as:

• Adding trust signals, like customer testimonials and industry awards
• Guest posting
• Collaborating with other brands with the same values and target audience as yours

4. Build meaningful relationships

The abundance of hackneyed, overoptimized AI-generated content will drive people to look for fresh, relevant stories. To attract your customers to your business, take a holistic approach to your SEO strategy by building meaningful relationships with your community and target audience.

Community engagement and relationship building will boost your credibility. In addition, you’ll get more audience insights, which will fuel your strategy! Here are ways to foster relationships with your audience:

• Encourage your audience to interact with your brand: Use your social media and email marketing channels to encourage them to interact with you and share their feedback.
• Create inspiring, helpful content based on customer stories: A satisfied and engaged customer may share their unique experience with your brand. You can reshare their testimonial or anecdote with their approval to inspire your community.
• Employ digital PR: To foster trust, implement a digital PR strategy, which involves building relationships with journalists, publishers, and content creators. Create valuable content that you can share with the press. Content examples include unique survey results, inspiring customer stories, and helpful how-tos.

5. Use AI ethically

To thrive in the world of AI and SEO, you need AI tools — and you must use them responsibly. Using AI ethically helps your business prevent the abuse and misuse of this technology.

Ethical AI practices also contribute to business sustainability, as you ensure that your AI tools’ output is accurate and free of bias. Here are some best practices:

• Mitigate bias: Bias can easily creep into your AI system. Ensure you have processes for identifying and mitigating bias.
• Protect your data and AI systems: Encrypt your data. Regularly perform security and data audits.
• Create and maintain ethical AI frameworks: Set clear guidelines on using your AI system and data. It must also detail the processes for handling ethical dilemmas and regularly updating your framework.

Harness the power of AI and SEO to grow your business

It’s no secret that the new search landscape involves AI and SEO. To improve your online visibility and grow your bottom line through digital marketing, use AI tools responsibly, boost your credibility, and implement SEO best practices.

In other words, an OmniSEO™ approach is key to improving your revenue and sustaining your growth. If you need help with AI and SEO, consider partnering with the revenue growth experts at WebFX.

Our team takes the time to understand your business, industry, and goals to craft AI and SEO strategies that will boost bottom-line growth. Our proprietary tool, MarketingCloudFX, provides insights that inform your strategies to ensure you’re getting your return on investment.

Contact us online or call us at 888-601-5359 to speak with a strategist about our AI SEO services!