AI Search Indexing and SEO
There’s been a lot of buzz about AI-powered tools like OpenAI’s SearchGPT, Perplexity and Google’s AI Overview via Gemini. With these advancements changing the way the results page looks, it’s natural to wonder if these new tools will affect your SEO performance or require you to rethink your strategy.
The good news is that there’s no need to panic! While these AI tools are making some changes to the search landscape, as long as you’re already optimising your website with the right approach, there isn’t anything else you need to do right now to maximise visibility.
Understanding AI Search and How it Formulates Results
To understand how these AI tools fit into SEO, it’s important to note that SearchGPT and Gemini use different search engines.
ChatGPT Search Results
OpenAI’s SearchGPT is integrated with Bing for its answers and results.
It combines the strengths of traditional search engines with the conversational aspects of large language models (LLM’s). It delivers answers to real queries in real-time. Rather than supplying a list of links for searchers to comb through like a traditional search, SearchGPT provides direct answers, summaries and insights based on its understanding of the users search query.
While OpenAI doesn’t explicitly say how it works, we can assume it uses similar technology to the approach used by other AI search engines.
Gemini Search Results
Predictably, Gemini relies on Google for its search results.
Google announced Gemini (but called it “Bard”) back in February 2023, conveniently after OpenAI and Microsoft announced their own AI chatbot systems. Since May 2024, Gemini has become part of Google’s search engine ecosystem and has been rolled out to all Google users.
What does this mean for AI SEO?
This means your existing SEO performance on these platforms directly influences how often AI tools recommend your website.
So your performance on each of these platforms directly relates to how well and often you will be referenced in AI searches and requests.
As SEOs, we always say we only need to care about how you perform on Google, given its significant market share in the Australian market (~98% on mobile devices). We now need to monitor and think a little more broadly.
How to Rank in ChatGPT and Gemini Searches
If you want SearchGPT and Gemini to like and respect you, all you need to be doing is continuing to follow traditional SEO principles:
1. Create best-in-class content that genuinely helps your users
2. Ensure a high quality user experience on the site (speed, structure, devices)
3. Have a strong, natural link profile
4. Monitor results in both Google and Bing and make adjustments to your strategy accordingly
That's it - no special tricks needed. AI search tools recommend websites based on existing search engine data, so good SEO equals good AI visibility.
No Special AI SEO Strategy Required Here
With all this in mind, there’s no need to make drastic changes to your SEO strategy. The AI tools being introduced are simply additional features designed to enhance the user experience, but they don’t replace the need for strong, well-optimised content and a great user experience. As long as your website is performing well normally, you’re in an equally strong position.
James Richardson
Co-Founder
James is Co-Founder of Optimising who’s worked with everyone from national retailers and franchise groups to fast-growing eCommerce brands. He’s as interested in how AI engines send traffic as he is in old-fashioned rankings, and spends a lot of time testing how brands show up across search.
He started out running sports fan sites and early eCommerce stores, picked up a few senior sales and marketing roles at ASX-listed companies, then decided to build the kind of SEO agency he actually wanted to work at. Outside work, James is usually being out-negotiated by his three daughters, hosting very serious pretend tea parties, or supervising yet another cubby house build in the lounge room.
