Why Google Search Isn't So Useful Anymore (and what that means for ChatGPT Search)

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Recently, ChatGPT Search was released and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has been praising it since day 1 with tweets like this:

“search is my favorite feature we have launched in chatgpt since the original launch!

it has probably doubled my usage over the past few weeks.“

He’s also been encouraging users to install the Chrome extension for search, which makes ChatGPT the default search engine in Chrome.

Although he might be overhyping his product, I find it interesting that he’s promoting ChatGPT Search as the default search engine (he literally tweeted the link to the Chrome extension).

Could this be the beginning of a new search engine war? I’m not quite sure.

Google is still king, but as a search engine, it has disappointed users over the past years.

Nowadays when we google something, we get ads, irrelevant content optimized for SEO, or long YouTube videos that don’t answer our questions. Google has become less useful for finding high-quality information on the internet.

Here’s what happened to Google and what platforms are taking its place lately.

How the internet used to be

When the internet first started it was a completely different place from what we know now.

The internet was full of independent resources, and blogs that had a lot of useful information, but with one single problem — it was a mess.

And that’s how Google conquered the game. Back then, Google provided the best way to find anything you wanted. Google’s job was to dig up the necessary information in the fast-growing internet world.

But then things changed when social media entered the game.

The most interesting conversations, ideas, news, and trends began to take place on platforms like Facebook, Reddit, Myspace, and Twitter. The main goal of these platforms was (and still is) to keep the attention of their audience.

And that was a problem for Google.

You see, sites like Facebook or Instagram are not designed to work with the Google search engine. Why?

Most of its content is not searchable
They encourage users to use their platform from their apps
You need to log in to their platform to have full access to their content

Google keeps updating its search engine, but the relevancy of its results has been sinking and there’s a reason for that — SEO.

How Google search results lost relevance

When search engines became indispensable in our daily lives, it didn’t take long for entrepreneurs to understand that having their websites on the first page of the search results was the most effective marketing move.

I mean, nobody checks the 2nd or 3rd page of the search results.

Soon entrepreneurs realized that instead of paying for advertising, they should get new users coming to their websites from the search results. But how do you get on the first page of Google?

To begin with, you had to pick a niche, choose different topics, and write articles on your website.

But to get to the top, you didn’t have to make high-quality content!

You could select some keywords for your product and hire low-cost copywriters to churn out many articles optimized for SEO. They’d create long articles with irrelevant information and full of keywords that help their clients rank their websites on the first page of Google. That’s why nowadays some pages on Google search results are full of useless information.

So when people don’t find the information they’re looking for on Google, where do they go? To places that are free of SEO.

Reddit is real

When it comes to finding solutions to problems, Reddit is one of the places where people go.

Flooded with low-quality SEO content, Google has lost the trust of people. Especially in the younger generation.

Over the years, it’s been those tired of useless and standard SEO content who unconsciously contributed to the growth of the most extensive community where everyone can share their opinion on any topic — Reddit.

Over the past 15 years, this platform has retained its popularity, bringing together different audiences who are tired of Google’s artificial (not intelligent) answers.

Even when using Google search, some people often enter the word “Reddit” at the end to avoid the content optimized for SEO.

But Reddit isn’t the only place free of SEO where young people look for information.