I can't decide if LLM/GPT is a seismic shift in the "search industry" or if it's just a gimmick. For now I'm considering it more of a gimmick that everyone is just very very excited about.
I think the problem is the popular media coverage makes it hard to allow people to actually focus on the value this actually brings. I work in ED and its astounding how many people fundamentally think basically the school is going to shutdown imminently (clearer heads are prevailing... for now).
But the tool clearly has some value, which may even reveal itself to be quite significant. I think a useful metric is to look at what happened with Copilot, which is a domain where there has been a lot less media frenzy about, and in which, arguably, this kind of model could've have much more readily made a tremendous impact. I think even in the dev community we went through a small period of folks thinking this was going to be earthshattering, followed by a natural cooldown, followed by a probably much saner interpretation that it is a tool, and in the right contexts might actually be useful.
I've always wondered: Is LLM/GPT already how Google is generating answers to "People also ask" questions or are they using a prior, or unknown, ML approach for this? I ask this because the quality of answers linked to these queries is often so astoundingly awful that I can't believe this is in production.
The question is often very relevant. I'll readily admit that I have a high engagement with that accordion feature, but I can't believe how often I open it to find a disappointing text selection or even page.
And if it is, I wonder where that leaves JSON-LD schema in all of this. Schema is the perfect signal for something like this, but I'm afraid, and I believe I can speak representatively about this from an agency perspective, the trust is kind of broken for that model.
Too many people, myself included, are uneasy about how much information to give to Google since they have an insidious aim to use it to get information to users faster regardless of how much impact it has on a business' ability to remain competitive. Yet, on the other hand, I sympathize with the idea that the more Google reverses course on this and leans into embracing SEO industry-driven control they risk compromising the product. It makes me think that Google has reached a theoretically maximum level of product optimization.
But the tool clearly has some value, which may even reveal itself to be quite significant. I think a useful metric is to look at what happened with Copilot, which is a domain where there has been a lot less media frenzy about, and in which, arguably, this kind of model could've have much more readily made a tremendous impact. I think even in the dev community we went through a small period of folks thinking this was going to be earthshattering, followed by a natural cooldown, followed by a probably much saner interpretation that it is a tool, and in the right contexts might actually be useful.