Is the end of search engines near?
27 May 2025The market share of Google Search has fallen to 90.14% for the first time since 2018 according to StatCounter figures. Will the search engine soon be replaced by the arrival of AI tools such as ChatGPT, ChatGPT shopping, AI overviews, Perplexity, Claude and Chatsearch? What we do know is that the functioning of search engines is going to change and users will search for information in other ways.
How does that affect the findability of websites?
Are AI answers better than answers from regular search engines?
Yes, AI-based search solutions such as ChatGPT, CoPilot and other virtual assistants and chatbots can give you answers to search queries without you having to sift through all kinds of websites yourself. In addition, AI can tailor the search results to the individual preferences and behavior of the users. This increases the quality of the answers.
Does AI mean the end of the search engine era?
No, the way of searching changes due to AI, but that does not immediately mean that this is the end of search engines, it is more of a collaboration that will arise between search engines and AI tools, resulting in better and faster answers.
How do you invest in GEO?
Investing in GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) is not very different from investing in SEO (Search Engine Optimization), except that your content must be of even higher quality, more relevant and unique. The overall user experience and mobile optimization of your website will also become even more important. If you want to be found by AI, you will have to adapt the website to the AI algorithm.
How do AI tools read?
AI tools do not read from top to bottom, as we humans do, but they scan block by block and extract what can serve as an answer. The structure of your website must therefore be clear with short paragraphs, clear headings and lists. This makes the content usable for AI tools, so they can easily read, understand and reuse it.
What is different about GEO compared to SEO?
- The best thing is to write short paragraphs with a maximum of 4 lines and clear H2 and H3 headings.
- Use lists
- Create step-by-step plans to make answers easy to copy and paste
- Ensure that each paragraph is understandable and that a quote can be made from it by AI
Is GEO also better for visitors?
Yes! Optimizing for AI is actually optimizing for regular visitors. By writing relevant clear content, the user experience is improved.
How does AI collect and process information from your website?
Structured data and rich snippets are already important for the findability of your website in search engines, and will become even more important, because AI uses this information to provide answers.
What is structured data?
Structured data are pieces of developed data in a language that help search engines and AI search solutions understand the content of a web page. This data is an organized way of telling what the visitor can expect when they go to the page, or continue reading the page. If you know how to implement this well on your website, the information provided is easily recognized and understood and it may be picked up by search engines and AI solutions (Rich Snippets).
Examples of structured data:
- For media files: name of the creator, the rating and the date of publication
- For products: brand name, price, availability, images, review, offers, ratings and stock status
- For events: show artists, the location, the date and the number of available tickets
- You can also add structured data for company information, for people, articles, blogs, recipes, videos but also breadcrumbs and FAQ as structured data can be useful to implement and improve the visibility of your website.
How do you implement structured data?
Did we develop your website? Ask us about the possibilities for implementing Structured Data Contact sonja.vanbreen@infracom.nl
