The world of internet search has been in the hands of a few parties for several decades, with the absolute ruler in the western world being Google. Nowadays it is also possible to search the internet with ChatGPT. What does this mean and how can you use it yourself? We'll cover that in this blog post, read on quickly!

Every website owner will be familiar with organic traffic to their website, as this is one of the main goals for many to attract as much traffic as possible.

If you take a look at this metric in your Google Analytics, you'll see names like Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, Yahoo and other smaller search engines in there. But more and more traffic can already be brought in via AI tools like ChatGPT, perplexity and also from Google itself, Gemini. In fact, with all these tools, it is now also possible to search the internet live, and this is no longer limited to 2022 as it used to be. You can ask live, for example, what is the best option for a product you are interested in. The live results will then give you an overview of the AI in question and how to get to the relevant website. You will see that these links are reflected in your referring traffic.

The question is, of course, whether this is positive for you as a website operator and for the user themselves. The whole game of search engine optimization (SEO) is also thrown into disarray by this, and consideration must also be given to how AI sees your website and whether it ranks first in the results. For many, sponsored results will eventually pop up here too, allowing you to advertise on these results in AI to get your website to the top. However, it is still uncertain how this will evolve and it will take some time for it to catch on.

Many everyday users and audiences on the internet still have little idea of how to use AI, although this could of course change with the younger generation. As many other search engines have tried to do over the years, it is still a task to capture users who are used to Google. As Google itself will also integrate more and more AI features into its familiar search results, the popularity of alternatives is likely to wane again. After all, most users are reluctant to switch to other methods or programs.

How does search with AI work?

If you want to use AI and specifically ChatGPT to search the Internet, you can check the following option in your search query:

ChatGPT then knows that you do not want to receive the answers in the normal way, but from the Internet. For example, in the question below you will receive advice from the website Schaatsen.nl. You can use the option at the bottom to see the sources of the answer.

If you click on the Sources option, the next screen will appear on the right-hand side of the screen, giving you an overview of the sources used. You also have the option to view other answers and sources. These links will then take you directly to the website, as will the link in the text of the answer itself:

The problem for many website administrators is that the content is indeed used in the AI. But there is not immediately a more prominent way to visit the website. This is different from search engine results, for example.



Therefore, these developments are generally received with a certain degree of caution by website and content administrators. Future developments in this area will therefore be closely monitored and it remains to be seen what exactly will happen here in the future. Have you already switched completely to AI-generated content? Or do you still insist on creating your own content for your website hosting? We would love to hear from you.