Generative AI
How GenAI saved blogging (kind of)
More value in human-written content
It’s been a while since I’ve used Google or any other search engine to conduct serious research about anything.
Whether it is learning about how a product works, investigating a historical event, or simply adding a new skill to my resume, platforms like Medium, YouTube, and Reddit have been my go-to. To deepen my understanding of any topic and dive deep, AI-powered tools such as ChatGPT and Perplexity were at my aid.
I recall when I started my career as a content writer, Google played a key role in finding information, conducting research, and more.
However, with platforms like Medium explicitly highlighting stories from humans and LLM-powered chatbots that will find exactly what you want, the search giant’s importance has dwindled, at least for any serious work.
So, what happened to Google?
How Google ruined the SERPs
It is no surprise that the quality of results Google spat out for any query was suboptimal, to say the least. Each article on the first search engine results page (SERP) was the average of five other articles there.
This was a result of Google’s stupid algorithm, which is identical to how college nerds rank research papers.
An academic research paper is deemed more valuable if it’s recent, has more mentions in other research papers and journals, and people spend more time analyzing it.
Although the process seems okay for research papers, as they often talk about topics and concepts that aren’t that widely discussed, it is trash for ranking web pages.
Most of the blog articles from SaaS product-based businesses, for instance, have content that is already widely discussed, debated, and commented upon.
To stand out, brands needed to get their URL mentioned in other websites and publications, write in a simple language, refurbish it from time to time to keep it ‘relevant’, and increase the reader retention time by adding entry-level visuals (which are often copied from other sources).
That’s basically what the PageRank algorithm is.
Most SEO professionals, especially technical SEO experts, will emphasize that there is more to organic search marketing than the points highlighted above.
The truth is those four things are the primary drivers of the results and all the other SEO-related action items are just manual grunt work that can be done by an intern with a week of training.
Anyway, Google, knowing or unknowingly, created a formula for content marketers and businesses that will get the most visibility, since most people don’t even go to the second page of the SERPS.
Even if you have the most mediocre content in your niche, you can attract the most traffic from the viewers by simply putting that formula on steroids. As you can imagine, everyone who could do this, did this.
GenAI leveled the playing field
LLMs decreased the time and cost associated with writing articles, making it easier for more and more businesses and blogs to build links faster (through practices like guest posting).
Of course, some dumb marketers went a bit overboard when they outsourced content creation entirely to AI rather than using it as a tool to make their existing process more effective and efficient. It backfired spectacularly, and I will share those hilarious tales in a future article. (Follow, please.)
With more and more blog articles featuring AI-assisted articles that were written to trick the algorithm or ‘play the system’ for ranking higher, the quality of Google search results went from bad to worse.
Consequently, the role of Google Search in any workflow went from a ‘research assistant’ to a ‘calculator that can also be used to check the weather and search within a website’.
You can also use Google to check the live scores of a sporting event.
The point is, the role of Google has changed drastically after GenAI made it easier for marketers to flood the internet with sh*t content while empowering users to do comprehensive research in an ad-free environment.
Conclusion
Google Search is still useful for discovering businesses around you, looking for products, and various other tasks that aren’t research-oriented, cementing its position as a digital yellow page with ads.
But when it comes to gathering information for something, particularly for research, it falls short by a mile when compared to the currently available free solutions, such as ChatGPT and Perplexity.
Additionally, social platforms like YouTube and Reddit facilitate better dialogue, enabling netizens to share their perspectives, feelings, feedback, and suggestions without worrying much about the crawling bots.
People want to talk to people.
When the conversation is moderated by a faceless algorithm with a r*tarded logic and a mercantile intent, it becomes valueless and gets abandoned.
What’s ironic in this entire fiasco is that the technology that was dubbed as the killer of human-created content made us realize that there is nothing more valuable than common folks sitting around and telling each other stories and creating new experiences.
What do you think about the importance of Google as a tool in your lives after GenAI came into your lives? Do you believe that Google is slightly more than a dynamic digital billboard?
Let me know in the comments below.
With that, I gotta bounce.
Take care and have a good one.
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