Is search traffic dying?
It’s a question that’s been asked many times over the years, but major content publishers have continued to trundle forward, relying heavily on Google for audience scale.
Looking at the industry now, the question seems akin to “Does climate change exist?”. Of course it does, but some won’t believe it until the Atlantic Ocean is lapping at their ears when they pop-out to mow the lawn.
The irony is that SEO has become more of a priority for publishers over the last couple of years, driven by the fact that a giant torpedo was fired through the hull of the Facebook traffic referral cruise ship.
With social traffic drying-up, publishers realized they’d been lounging under the warmth of the Facebook Snuggie and hadn’t bothered to build up any other direct traffic sources. In fact direct sources all seemed a bit 2010, with many a product-exec running around telling anybody who’d listen the homepage is dead and the “side door” ruled.
So with social gone, direct traffic malnourished, and paid traffic economically unsustainable – everyone swiveled their heads and started to stare, with a mildly unhinged look in their eyes, at Google.
SEO consultants came roaring back with site audits and H1 tags and article gradings, happy to work with anybody who needed to fill the Facebook void. When the social crack runs out, it’s time to source some search ketamine.
And in their defense, it worked for a while.
Content publishers saw their search numbers increase while others rejoiced as a new, entirely unfathomable traffic channel – Google Discover – began generously tossing around referrals.
The Challenge Facing Publishers
But as the industry formed a celebratory search conga line and danced away their social blues, dark clouds were gathering.
Because publishers are under assault from two different fronts.
The first, is AI. Google is getting more aggressive with its AI generated snippets at the top of search results. While this is still new to many users, over time people will undoubtedly become conditioned to rely on it more and more – and click on links less and less.
And of course the number of links – and weight given to them – from publishers is lower than Google OG.
While search is attempting to embrace AI, the irony is that AI is also trying to embrace search. OpenAI recently integrated search functionality into ChatGPT and at first blush, it’s very good.
The interface is identical to the core ChatGPT product, marking a distinct contrast from the increasingly chaotic and crowded search results page of Google. The same is true for the results it returns, which includes a simple and neat AI-generated summary along with several links to external websites.
But perhaps more importantly, ChatGPT uses natural language – rather than keyword focused searches – and also understands context. So you can ask it to suggest a Mexican restaurant near where you live, and then continue the conversation with a simple “What time does it close?” – without having to include the name of the restaurant in your follow-up query.
If I was Google, I’d be concerned.
It also presents another conundrum for publishers, who have spent the last 15 years or so trying to master the art of SEO to boost their Google rankings. SEO still remains somewhat of a mysterious endeavor and even the most seasoned experts don’t understand exactly how Google decides to organize its results.
But after 15 years of grasping in the dark to out-fox Google, suddenly publishers will need to figure out how the ChatGPT search algorithm works. Get ready for a whole host of SEO for ChatGPT vendors to start flooding a LinkedIn feed near you.
So while ChatGPT’s entry into search isn’t a threat to publishers at the moment, I’d expect it to start having measurable impact within the next couple of years.
In addition, if you think content is commoditized now – wait and see what happens when publishers and click-farms and individuals start flooding the Web with AI-generated content.
If there are 500 AI generated articles on exactly the same topic that are published around exactly the same time, it’s going to increase the noise (and competitiveness) of search in ways we’ve never seen before.
Secondly, Gen Z is starting to look elsewhere for its search needs. TikTok is becoming the platform of choice to find things. Reddit is surging in popularity as a platform to answer questions. It’s not a point-of-concern – yet – but as with the rapidly plummeting Gen Z TV consumption that media companies face, there is a generational time-bomb waiting to explode.
If the bottom falls out of Google, publishers are left with a problem. There’s nothing really left.
The good news is there’s still time. Any smart content publisher should be rapidly shifting to a model that involves creating a direct relationship with their audience.
Maybe the homepage isn’t dead after all, but is instead a vehicle that can encourage an audience to come back day-after-day to read/watch/consume your content.
Email newsletters, once written-off as a stodgy tactic, are in fact a way to create a connection with your fans that simply wouldn’t be possible through search.
Maybe – just maybe – it isn’t a good idea to keep ceding the relationship with your audience to third-party platforms. Because there’s a certain tragedy involved when you know very little about the people who like you the most.
And maybe it’s time to realize that the relentless, myopic pursuit of scale is a thankless task. You’re always trying to bail out water faster than it comes in. Instead, focus on building a higher-quality audience that gives you stronger lifetime value and sticks around for the long-haul. Scale will obviously always be important, but it can’t be the only game in town.
So while the search industry may be changing, now is the perfect opportunity to double-down and figure out your direct-to-consumer strategy before yet another algorithm change leaves everything in tatters.