We Once Made a Deal with Google. The Deal Has Changed

While many are cheering the advent of AI, and are saying "it's here", for most people the consequential aspect of the entire last couple of years has been Google trading the list of blue links for its AI overviews.

If you think your organic traffic has tanked, just be glad you're not a news site.

But what was the original deal we made?

* You give Google all you great content in an open way.

* Google will offer a way for your content to get eyeballs "for free".

In short, like Darth Vader, Google has altered the deal. In reality, it was never much of a deal insofar as, it was never guaranteed. Google has decided that disrupting yourself is a far better fate, and what is the result?

In Q2, Google's search ad revenue was up 12% year over year due to better targeting and results produced by AI. (This is compared to 14% last year -- down slightly, but not as much as your organic traffic, I imagine). As a result, your website's organic traffic seems to have been the tradeoff made to secure those continued search ad revenue gains.

The Movie Team America offers another bit of wisdom to harness our current dilemma: "Freedom isn't Free, It Costs a Heavy F'In Fee. Freedom Costs a Buck O'Five"

Overall, we simply don't know what Google will become next, but we do know what will influence it -- gobs and gobs of advertising revenue. Ditto Meta. Why would anyone would want a global superintelligence created by an advertising company? An answer to a question I'm still waiting for.

Many have not even stopped to think about why they have already moved on from speaking about SEO to now GEO. Beware what new deal you are getting yourself into, without you realizing.

OpenAI is another matter. Compared to Meta and Google, the company is much less beholden to advertising. They could be the ones to purse a more Apple-like approach to the market. The addition of Fidji Simo and Jonny Ive only reinforce this in my mind (Instacart revenue % of ads has been steady at 30% the last 5 years - despite the absolute number going up) and I don't need to speak about Jonny Ive focus on product experience. As a result, I still very much consider OpenAI the wildcard in the market.