SEO
Updates by Sr. SEO Brett Woodward
ChatGPT appears to be using Google’s index
Over the past few months, it’s become clear that ChatGPT is beginning to leverage Google’s search index to answer queries and prompts. OpenAI has been openly using Microsoft Bing’s index for ChatGPT for years but that agreement is no longer exclusive.
There have been numerous call outs from individuals in the SEO community who point to evidence that indicates this shift. And according to The Information, “OpenAI is getting the data from SerpApi, an eight-year-old web-scraping firm, which listed OpenAI as a customer on its website as recently as May last year.”
Studies like this one from Profound have shown that over the past several months there has been an increase in prompt responses that align closely with Google’s search results while simultaneously showing a decrease in alignment with Bing’s.
Although OpenAI isn’t ousting Bing completely, it appears that the AI giant may be starting to favor Google’s product for powering elements of ChatGPT. You wouldn’t be alone if you felt this is all a little ironic considering ChatGPT is often thought to be a direct competitor to Google Search.
This whole development throws another bucket of water on the common claim that Google Search will become obsolete due to AIs like ChatGPT. These AIs have huge operating costs and likely won’t continue to spend massive resources in order to index the world’s information—Google is already doing that for them. As we’re seeing with ChatGPT-5, by “grounding” their models in trusted indexes AIs are able to outsource their knowledge so they can focus on providing intelligence on top of that knowledge.
As we’ll see in the next section, Google likely isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
Traditional search usage is holding strong despite AI usage increases
A new study from Datos and SparkToro shows that usage of traditional search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo is about as high as it’s ever been despite the increased adoption of AIs like ChatGPT and Perplexity.
SEMrush, who owns Datos, also ran a study to understand AI and traditional search engine usage for people that frequent both technologies. What they found was increased AI usage correlated to an increase in traditional search engine usage as well.
The data doesn’t support the narrative of a zero sum game between AI tools and traditional search engines. It’s more of a mutual expansion, and marketers will need to continue to consider both in their strategies.
Paid Media
Updates by Paid Media Director Casey Anderson
Thought Leader Ads for Events
LinkedIn has expanded its Thought Leader Ads format to let advertisers sponsor member posts that link directly to a LinkedIn Event Page.
This is a great addition to the LinkedIn suite of ads features because it allows brands to use trusted voices to build engagement and responses. Through LinkedIn we were already able to amplify the posts of certain thought leaders but now this will work for event pages as well.
So even if you may not have found value in event pages in the past, this is a good reason to begin using them to boost attendance and leverage credible, authentic voices.
TikTok Enforces a New Hashtag Limit
It used to be that hashtags were essential to visibility for posts in TikTok, so hashtag usage was prevalent for both organic and paid content. Now TikTok is taking a harder line on how many hashtags advertisers and creators can use per post.
The reasoning for this change? Too many hashtags can be spammy and hinder discovery. With TikTok on the verge of search engine stardom, they are taking action to ensure the algorithm is on the level. Similar actions have been taken on other platforms such as X, Threads and LinkedIn with a deemphasis on hashtags.
What Happened When Amazon Left Google Shopping?
While we may not know the answer as to why Amazon unexpectedly left Google Shopping back in July, we do have some insight as to what happened in that platform in general.
According to Optmyzer, who analyzed over 6,000 advertiser accounts, clicks rose by 7.8% and CPC decreased by 8.3%. While that is good news for advertisers who have seen an upward trend in CPC over the past couple of years, the downside was what happened with a few other important KPIs. ROAS dropped by 4.4% and conversion rates also fell by 7.2%. What’s interesting about this, is that the same trend did not happen for large retailers who could match Amazon in their offers, including Best Buy and Apple, though the back-to-school season could have also played a role in their success.
The big takeaway is that even though Amazon left the space, it didn’t mean automatic improvement for other brands. Anyone who has become accustomed to Amazon shopping knows they don’t necessarily have to go to Google to get prices on the products they want.
Analytics
Head of Analytics Nico Brooks covers news and ideas in the world of marketing analytics in our August Analytics Roundup.
