How ChatGPT and AI Search Are Changing SEO

Search used to be a list of blue links. Type a keyword, scan the page, click a result. AI chatbots flip that flow. They ingest the open web, build private indexes and then answer questions in plain English. The large language model (LLM) inside each service blends two inputs:

1. Frozen training data. ChatGPT was trained on a snapshot of public text, code and docs that stops at a cut-off date. Gemini and Claude do the same.
2. Live retrieval. When a user asks something fresh—“Who won AFL Round 15 last night?”—the model hits a real-time search layer to fetch up-to-date pages. Those pages are chunked, vectorised and fed back into the model so the answer includes the latest facts.

OpenAI calls the approach “Retrieval-Augmented Generation”. Google’s Gemini calls it “Search and Reason”. Anthropic labels its Claude pipeline “context retrieval”. Under the hood, each company is crawling at scale, but they are not leaning on Google’s index. They are building their own. Over time, that index will rival traditional engines in size and freshness.

Because the bot sits between the user and the source, a click is no longer guaranteed. The content that wins is the content the bot quotes. Links still matter, but clarity, structure and authority matter more.

AI search is stealing attention fast

Traffic numbers paint the picture. Statcounter shows that in May 2025 ChatGPT owned 79.8 per cent of global AI-chat traffic, with Perplexity on 11.8 per cent and Gemini under 2 per cent. The same data set had ChatGPT at 65 per cent a year earlier. Growth is steep.

DigitalInformationWorld reported ChatGPT hitting 5.1 billion visits in April 2025—up 30 per cent in two months. FirstPageSage notes Perplexity rising from 3 to 6 per cent market share across 2024. Claude is smaller, yet its share has doubled quarter-on-quarter.

Search engines still dominate total queries—Google holds 89 per cent of classic web search—but the share of “informational” queries handled by chat keeps expanding. Axios, citing Similarweb, shows ChatGPT’s daily user count outpacing Bing Chat and closing on Bing search itself.

The takeaway: your audience is fragmenting. Some ask old Google. Others ask a bot and never click out. SEO now means serving both.

How AI changes the rules of SEO

Keywords versus natural language

Classic SEO loved short “head” keywords: “cheap flights”, “Sydney plumber”. People are now typing full questions: “Can I take CBD oil through Australian customs?” or speaking them to a phone. Bots prefer that style. They rank content that answers conversational queries in context.

Content farms are toast

Google’s 2024 leak and the 2025 Helpful Content updates punished pages churned out by spinners and low-cost writers. AI chat bots punish them harder. If your article repeats stock advice it adds zero value to the model’s answer. It will be ignored.

Authority beats volume

Backlinks still count, but relevance counts more. A single link from abc.net.au or an in-depth mention on Reddit out-weighs 100 links from thin blogs. Chat bots weigh E-E-A-T signals—Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness—then pick a handful of sources to cite. If you make that cut, you win impressions and implied trust.

Clear user intent

In Google SERPs a user scans ten links. In chat, they lean back and read the answer. That means searcher intent is purer. They want a direct fix, not options. Your content has to satisfy completely, fast.

How to write for AI search

• Open with a one-sentence answer. Give the gist before the detail.
• Use short paragraphs, bullet lists and clear sub-heads. Bots parse markdown-like structure with ease.
• Insert “Key takeaways”, “In summary” and FAQ sections. LLMs love explicit summary cues.
• Mark up facts: use <h2> tags, ordered lists, tables, schema.org FAQPage where it fits.
• Host your pages on fast infrastructure. Aim for sub-2 second Largest Contentful Paint.
• Ensure every page is public, crawlable and free of cookie-wall slowdowns.
• Link out to primary sources. Citations act as proof for the bot.
• Keep content fresh. Update dates on guides when you add new numbers.
• Maintain a unique voice. Bots compress bland text. Personality gets quoted.

Andreessen Horowitz calls the strategy “GEO over SEO”—generate - engage - optimise. Their note https://a16z.com/geo-over-seo/ argues that content must work in two layers: a public layer for bots to ingest and a community layer (newsletters, Discords, forums) where loyal readers live. The public layer feeds AI; the private layer deepens trust. Together they future-proof reach.

For more practical style tips read our post Website Marketing for Beginners.

Extra tactics to boost authority

1. Be present on Reddit. Perplexity cites Reddit more than any other domain. Answer niche questions, link your research and watch citations grow.
2. Refresh your Wikipedia footprint. Many ChatGPT answers pull lines straight from Wikipedia. If your brand or product has a page, keep it updated and referenced with third-party sources.
3. Run local PR. Local papers and radio sites hold high PageRank. A small feature in the Illawarra Mercury can echo through chat results because the domain is trusted.
4. Publish original data. Survey results, mini benchmarks or pricing indexes gain natural links and get quoted by bots looking for numbers.

Need help pitching journalists? See our guide How to Rank Higher on Google.

How Revised helps you win AI search

• Authority scanner. Revised scans ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity citations and shows where your competitors are winning mentions.
• Contextual link finder. The platform suggests high-value backlinks from news sites, blogs and directory pages relevant to your niche.
• Content optimiser. It rewrites bulky paragraphs into bot-friendly structure, adds schema and inserts summary blocks.
• Performance dashboard. Track which of your pages are being cited in AI answers, along with classic Google impressions.
• PR workflow. Build media lists, schedule announcements and log resulting backlinks – all inside one screen.

Automation leaves you free to create deep, human content. Revised makes sure that content gets found by humans and by bots.

Final thoughts

AI chat bots are not the death of SEO, just its next chapter. They prize clarity, trust and real expertise. Build those into every page, keep your technical health tidy, and earn links in places real people hang out. Do that and the bots will quote you, users will click through, and authority will snowball.

Backlinks, structure, speed, voice: nail the basics, adapt to the new formats and let tools like Revised watch your flank. SEO is evolving, but the core goal stays the same—help users. AI search is simply raising the bar. Meet it head-on and the traffic will follow.