Google’s Martin Splitt and Nikola Todorovic, Director of Software Engineering at Google Search, recently discussed how AI is changing Google and SEO. Todorovic encouraged SEOs and businesses to take advantage of AI to analyze data, research competition, and improve their ability to provide value.
AI And The Web Ecosystem
Google’s Martin Splitt asked a question that many SEOs and online businesses have on their minds related to what they should do for AI features like AI Mode and AI Overviews. Splitt and Todorovic both said that there are opportunities, especially with the use of AI within a narrow scope.
Martin asked:
“But one thing that we keep hearing from the ecosystem pretty much at every event we do and it’s everywhere is, how do we make sure that with AI features being part of Search now, that the ecosystem continues to thrive.
And I think that’s an interesting challenge, but also there are lots of opportunities thanks to AI features these days. And I know that we at Google try our best to go on this journey together with the ecosystem.
But how do you see it from your perspective? What is it that we do to make sure the ecosystem thrives with these new features?”
The question asked was specifically about what Google can do to assure that the web ecosystem thrives, but the answer wasn’t about what Google can do, but rather about what SEOs and businesses can do.
Todorovic acknowledged that this is a concern he’s also aware of, but he also said that there’s no “magic wand,” meaning there is no simple solution or a roadmap, and he did suggest that focusing on delivering value is a key way to adapt to the new AI search features.
He answered:
“This is clearly one of the key questions and you see them a lot on the social media as well. And I don’t think there is like a magic wand that can clearly give the guidance.
Okay, what do I do now? Like what would the SEO experts do now in the new system?My kind of guiding principle or my like the way I see here is that the site owners, they do need to continue making sure that their products, that their websites, that their platforms are providing value to the user. Because ultimately, if you provide a particular value, then the users will continue coming to you and they will continue coming to you through Google as well.”
On the surface, this sounds like “content is king” or “be awesome” type of advice, but I think that would be missing a deeper point. One, there is so much that a Googler Engineer can say directly. But there is a lot that they can say indirectly, and I think that’s what Todorovic is doing here.
For example, if Google’s systems reward sites that users are actively looking for, then “providing value” is the kind of thing that’s going to ring bells in that kind of algorithm, where external signals generated by users play a role in what sites Google is ranking. I think it would be a mistake to conflate the advice to “provide value” as a platitude. Knowing what we know about Google’s external signals, the advice to provide value makes a lot of sense.
Todorovic continued his answer:
“So… for example, you’re selling something, you have like a product or like a platform, you have like some subscriptions, et cetera. …if you are providing value to your clients, they will continue coming to you.
In the AI centric or AI oriented system, …those kind of bringing the value still continues. …if you don’t provide value, nobody’s going to buy your newspaper or book or nobody’s going to listen to the radio or to the podcast.”
Master The Use Of AI To Provide Value
Todorovic next acknowledged that, as an employee at Google, he also faces questions of whether AI is going to take his job away, just like online businesses are worried about whether AI is going to replace them or make their businesses obsolete.
His answer is to adapt to AI and use it in a way that increases your value as an employee or as an online business.
Todorovic explained:
“So I think everybody, including all of us, there’s a lot of questions… Like, is AI going to take our jobs and so on. I think we all need to continue thinking, how do we provide value on top of all of this? And in many cases, this is about mastering the AI tools and being able to use them in the best possible way.
So this is one of my recommendations to all the SEO professionals, site owners, and the whole ecosystem, that they continue providing value, but then do not neglect the new technology and make sure you use it in the best possible way for you.
Now, obviously I don’t think we would …recommend the best possible way is to just multiply all the content and just generate because you know, it’s cheap and easy …it’s not going to provide a ton of value.
But if you’re using it to improve your grammar, to improve the style a little bit, make it kind of more interesting and so on, I don’t think that’s a wrong use of the technology. But then there’s plenty of ways, okay. Maybe AI can help you better understand your data. Maybe AI can help you understand the competition potentially better as well. So clearly this is something we can advise.”
My Example Of An AI Prompt For SEO
One of the ways you can use AI for SEO is to ask the AI to do a reverse knowledge search on your web page content. A reverse knowledge search is when an algorithm reviews content to extract the questions the web page is likely to answer. If you run this prompt for examining your web page, it will tell you what search queries your web page is likely to answer.
For example, I recently wrote an article about how Google uses clicks as part of the ranking process.
I uploaded a copy of the finished article to ChatGPT with the following prompt:
“Analyze the document and extract a list of questions that are directly and completely answered by full sentences in the text. Only include questions if the document contains a full sentence or contiguous sentences that clearly answers it. Do not include any questions that are answered only partially, implicitly, or by inference.
For each question, ensure that it is a clear and concise restatement of the exact information present. This is a reverse question generation task: only use the content already present in the document.
For each question, also include the exact sentences from the document that answer it. Only generate questions that have a complete, direct answer in the form of a full sentence or sentences in the document.”
The first question that ChatGPT said my article answers is: “What are clicks considered in the context of ranking signals?”
The following is a screenshot of ChatGPT’s response where it shows the question my article answers and a snippet of text from the article that answers that question.
Screenshot Of ChatGPT’s Answer
Query Ranks #1 In Google
I then took that question and entered it on Google and it ranks #1 for that question in the organic part of the search results.
Screenshot Of My Article Ranking #1 In Google
Query Ranks #1 In Bing
I then asked the same question in Bing and my web page content ranks in (1) the featured snippets, (2) Bing News, and (3) the top of Bing’s organic listing.
Screenshot Of Bing #1 Ranking
I didn’t use AI to create the article or to optimize it. I just wrote it based on all the different things that I know about clicks and Google’s algorithms, using a list of topics I wanted to cover. I have been doing SEO for 26+ years, so I don’t really need an AI to tell me how to optimize a web page, it’s second nature to me.
But I did use AI to check grammar.
The Reverse Knowledge Prompt is something anyone can use to test if their content is focused on the right topics, to check if the content is off-topic, or to understand what the web page is really about in order to clean it up if it’s not about what you hoped it would be.
It’s not a way to reverse-engineer search engines. It’s a way to reverse knowledge search your content with AI to see what it’s really about.
Hidden Gem Advice
I went to Google’s Search Central Live last year, and I was talking to an attorney who was attending the show, and he asked me what is an important thing to do for ranking better, and I said for you it would be branding your site’s offerings in the mind of potential site visitors with the services that you offer. Part of doing that is getting the word of mouth going so that potential clients will think of the law firm’s brand name when they need their specific service.
After the break, we went back into the auditorium, and Danny Sullivan started talking about how sites should try to be brands, and I looked over at the guy I had just been talking with, and he raised an eyebrow back at me.
The advice to provide value is a hidden gem type of advice, in my expert opinion.
Listen to the Search Off The Record Podcast here:
How AI Is Changing Google Search and SEO
Featured Image by Shutterstock/dee karen
