Is ChatGPT smart enough to replace Google?

There have been only a handful of AI-based innovations that have excited people with even the slightest interest in technology as much as ChatGPT. The software, dreamed up by OpenAI, is designed to act as a "conversation partner" to answer questions. It does this as if you were dealing with a real person. It is legitimate to ask: if we have a program that answers any question, why should we need Google? This is the topic we will explore in this blog post!

ChatGPT is a new thing that has only recently become available to the general public. Its novelty also comes with a lot of mystery surrounding it, with experts and laypeople alike speculating about the trends and processes it will set in motion. One of these "predictions" is that ChatGPT will bring the end of search engines, because if it can answer all questions, there will be no need for long-established giants like Google.

For example, if I want to create an environment for my orchid in the living room, I can search Google as usual and use ChatGPT. The latter will give me a point-by-point list of what I need to do to get a beautifully flowering plant in no time at all. I can also get the information from Google, I just need to navigate to a website and pick out the information that is useful.

On this basis, it would be perfectly reasonable to assume that ChatGPT will eventually bring down the search engine. In reality, however, there is no realistic chance of this happening. To understand why, let's look at the difference between ChatGPT and Google!

ChatGPT and Google - What's the difference?

The basic difference is that the two concepts belong to different categories: ChatGPT is a language model and Google is a search engine. So the former is actually a very useful chatbot that can provide linguistic answers in a very similar way to a human. Google, on the other hand, is a search engine based on artificial intelligence, which provides detailed information based on various sources.

Google's 'reach' is much broader. It can provide not only information, but also images, videos, and applications. It is therefore much more widely applicable. Crucially, the search engine can be easily integrated with other applications, but this is not the case with ChatGPT.

Google doesn't narrow down the answer, but lets the user choose what's important to them. ChatGPT, on the other hand, sets up a context based on the input, the question, and tries to answer accordingly. However, the problem is that the context is not so simple, it can easily go wrong. With Google, this is less likely to happen, and it even helps by suggesting resources, such as shops we have already shopped in, that we have already visited, to help us find our way around.

ChatGPT cannot provide as comprehensive and up-to-date results as Google. The reason is that ChatGPT currently includes what happened up to 2021, which means that today, in 2023, we can easily ask a question that catches it. Google, on the other hand, provides real-time data, for example, you can search for the dollar exchange rate, the price of airline tickets, the current weather, etc.

Now that we're familiar with the concepts of Google and ChatGPT, let's take a look at what the newcomer has in store for us from an SEO perspective!

The SEO perspective

Search engine optimisation is a powerful marketing tool that can strengthen a brand, give visibility to messages and increase website traffic. In the long term, it performs very well, and at a realistic cost, with the right SEO, you can make a nice jump in the search results. It helps to achieve the organic traffic that is the dream of every business manager and marketing professional.

The most important requirement for SEO is that the content should provide an excellent user experience. Google ranks pages according to a set of criteria to ensure that the internet user receives the most relevant content of the highest quality.

ChatGPT alone cannot replace the work of SEO specialists and copywriters, but it can be used for some tasks. For example, it can be used to inspire and give ideas. For example, if you're thinking about what topics to write blog posts about, ChatGPT can give you valuable topic ideas. It can even help you with SEO titles and FAQs.

However, there are limitations. SEO is a very complex field, with a content side and a technical side. On the one hand, it can only be really useful for a very small part of SEO, which is far from covering the whole spectrum. In fact, in some cases it can be downright damaging, misleading the copywriting process by providing inappropriate context, resulting in text that is irrelevant.

ChatGPT is therefore an excellent tool that can be used in many areas, including SEO. However, it would be a mistake to think that it can replace Google and SEO. So there is no need to choose, just keep in mind that everything should be used for what it is intended.

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