Will the $68B SEO Industry Go Extinct? Ep. 2616

This stuff's not going to fade away immediately. There are some people that are saying it's going to go extinct.

What would happen to their stock price? It would just get annihilated.

If you don't evolve in business, if you don't evolve in the way you do things, you're going to die. All right, so we're going to talk about how the $68 billion SEO industry and how— where we think it's going. Because here's the thing, there are some people that are saying, it's going to go extinct. Some people are saying it's not going to go extinct. And there's actually this Forbes article— or sorry, it's a Fortune article. And it says— here's the headline. It says, here's how Google and other tech firms could render it extinct with AI. And so, Neil, you've read some stuff around this. I've read some stuff. And look, the search in its current form has been around for 30+ years or so, the blue links, the 10 blue links or whatever. And What are our thoughts overall?

Well, you know, Google generates a lot of money from its ad—

$162 billion comes from Google Ads in 2022.

Yes. And from this article that I'm seeing here, or a quick Google search, over $30 billion a year is coming from AdSense and partner networks, right? Like, so partner sites. I doubt— and a lot of these sites, they can't buy Google traffic. From ads and then send them to their page and then monetize through AdSense. It would be a loss leader. They would lose money and they would have nothing to actually upsell them into. So it wouldn't even be a loss leader. It would just be a loss. So there's no way Google is going to crush $30+ billion in revenue. What would happen to their stock price? It would just get, you know, annihilated. But on the flip side, You know, Google's smart. If there was a way for them to use AI to give all the answers to people's questions when they're performing a search, they can slowly transition and make sure their new form of monetization makes up for the AdSense revenue plus more before they really pull the switch, right? Because they can just test it on a percentage of their traffic and slowly roll it out to more and more. But here's the kicker that most people don't realize. Okay? If Google is giving you the answers to every single search result, whenever you do a search on Google right now, I bet you there's a good percentage of the chance, and when I say a good percentage, 10+ percent, you find inaccurate listings, people giving you false information, wrong information, whether it's drastically wrong or somewhat wrong, There's just a lot of misinformation. Google's been trying to solve this for years. They know this. I bet you if Google just started giving people the answers, and I would bet $1 million on this, for every search query, I bet you they would get sued through the roof, especially on things related to finance, health, really sectors like that that can just impact people's life in a really negative way. They would get sued through the roof. And it would be really detrimental to the business. And Google knows this. Google has publicly stated they're not here to just say, hey everyone, we're going to end up going out there and using AI, give you the answers to everything. They're trying to inform you on options and let you make your own decision. They don't want to just give you the answer unless it's black and white. Like 2 2 4, because forget the lawsuit end, it also reduces their credibility. If you keep searching and you see a lot of inaccurate information and Google's just giving you the answers, you're going to be irritated. Right now, the way the world works with SEO is you have 10 listings or 9 listings or 7, whatever it may be on the first page. Bless you, bless you, baby. And if you don't find what you're looking for on the second result, you go to the third result, or then you hop maybe back to the first result or whatever it may be until you find it. what you're looking for. I think AI is going to change search and create less clicks to organic results, but it's not going to crush it. And you can even optimize for AI and have them pull your results just like you do right now with, you know, a lot of times when people do searches, you're hoping that Google pulls you with their whole knowledge graph.

Look, I'm just going to read this line over here. So it says, search engines run by massive companies with many revenue streams like Google and Microsoft will likely find ways to offset those losses by coming up with strategies to make money off generative AI answers. I mean, they also have large cash cushions as well, but the SEO marketers and consultants who depend on search engines, mostly small and medium-sized companies, will no longer be needed as they are today. And so the industry is unlikely to survive much longer. So I think it paints it in a bit of a negative light because as long as people are searching for things, A, there will be search, but also SEO will just evolve, right? Marketers evolve. It's just like any business. If you don't evolve in business, you're going to die. in the way you do things, you will die as well. So I think, I mean, that's kind of a not so smart statement. And so it is what it is. And so is Google going to change things over time? Yes. Is search going to be reimagined? Yes. It's about time. 30 years, 3 decades, right? It's time to reimagine it and it's time to adapt it. But as long as you listen to this podcast, you're going to be able to adapt, right? But like Neil said, this stuff's not going to fade away immediately. We're already seeing some changes happen in the next couple episodes where we are going to talk about how SGE or Search Generative Experience, which is coming from Google, how that's already starting to affect or might potentially affect future click-through rates, which is the number of clicks you're going to have coming back to your website. So we'll cover that. Anything else, Neil?

One thing to add is at my ad agency, NP Digital, we're getting hit up by a lot of companies saying, hey, AI is happening, which we all know. How do we get Google to pull from our sites and, you know, source us or even optimize for these AI engines like Bard and get them to recommend you when people are asking questions? As Eric said, SEO is going to evolve. It always has, you know, evolved over the years and has changed a lot and it'll continue to change. I don't see it dying. I just see it changing and evolving. And if you don't adapt with it, yes, your business will get crushed, but you have the time right now to adapt. With the changes that are happening.

Alright, so that is it for today. Please don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe, and we'll see you tomorrow.