AI Will Augment SEO

AI Will Augment SEO,    By R. Colin Johnson

Commissioned by CACM Staff, May 24, 2023

"I fully expect that future personalized AI-enhanced search engines will allow you to query any corpus of information by requesting that the results be limited to a specific basket of domains," said Kevin Lee, CEO of the eMarketing Association.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is an Internet marketing technique that analyzes how the algorithms in a search engine work, then add metadata (for instance keywords, links, and other embedded content) to boost the page's ranking on the search engine results page. According to business marketing company Clutch, there are over 15,000 search engine optimization (SEO) companies in the U.S. alone.

However, without using artificial intelligence (AI) to rank Web page content (the text and images), SEO companies are left to boost rankings on the basis of metadata alone, according to researchers at Germany's Hamburg University of Applied Sciences, who claim non-optimized but high-quality content may thus be outranked (appearing lower on the list of search results) by search-engine-optimized content of lower quality, but attached to more alluring meta-data.

"To improve search result ranking, SEO companies add metadata to Web pages that match queries to the ranking criteria of the search engine's results," said Sebastian Schultheiß, lead SEO researcher at the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences. "However, a Web page that complies with SEO criteria does not necessarily provide content of higher quality from the user's perspective. For example, if the content of a Web page is one-sided and therefore not objective, this lowers the information quality of the page from the user's point of view but has no effect on the search engine's ranking. As a result, Web pages with content of lower information quality can receive better rankings than a page of higher quality but lacking SEO."

Such regrettable outcomes were measured by Hamburg University researchers using real test subjects, as documented in a paper presented at last year's ACM Conference on Human Information Interaction and Retrieval (CHIIR). The content was confined to Web pages with medical data; the researchers found users chose to click on results at or near the top of the results stack, regardless of their medical efficacy.

"The potential danger is that Web pages with inappropriate content, but which make intensive use of SEO and are thus ranked higher, will be chosen over Web pages with higher-quality content and no SEO measures. Our results show that users consistently select those items prominently placed by SEO," said Schultheiß.

In a paper he presented at this year's CHIIR '23 conference, Schultheiß described how he is expanding this line of research to include not just the influence of SEO, but also the wider field of search engine marketing (SEM), which manipulates not just the metadata, but the content itself. Schultheiß also aims to research paid search marketing (PSM) services, where search engines permit marketers to pay cash to lift Web pages near the top of search results. Schultheiß also is expanding the scope of his research to the fields of health, politics, and the environment, to see if lower-quality content there is also attracting users' focus due to SEO, SEM, and PSM.

AI to the Rescue

The solution to raising the quality of search engine results, according to Google senior vice president in charge of search Prabhakar Raghavan, is artificial intelligence (AI). "With artificial intelligence," he said at the latest Google I/O meeting, "we are transforming search to be more helpful than ever before." For instance, later this year, Raghavan said Google will add a new way to scan store shelves that overlays metadata about the products on them in your camera screen.

SEO expert Kevin Lee, who is CEO of the eMarketing Association, agrees that AI is the solution to obtaining higher-quality results from search engines. According to Lee, having intelligent algorithms built into search engines will allow them to "read" Web page content, look up related information (such as user reviews), and improve the resulting search engine ranking on the basis of "qualitative" matches to a user's query, rather than depending solely on SEO, SEM, and PSM.

If Search is Really Reinvented

Seen from the retail direction, if Search is reinvented significantly, what will that mean?  Faster, more accurate?   Supply chains?   Search engine optimization certainly.    Mused about in pundits from Retailwire.  

Will ChatGPT reinvent search?  by Tom Ryan

Microsoft and Google both revealed plans last week to introduce their own ChatGPT-style product, joining the hype around the AI-driven chatbot technology.

Developed by San Francisco-based startup OpenAI and introduced last November, ChatGPT taps generative artificial intelligence to provide people with human-like responses to their questions. The technology also generates a wide range of digital text that can be repurposed in nearly any context, including in tweets, blog posts, term papers, poetry and even computer code.

Microsoft, which is investing $10 billion in OpenAI, will integrate ChatGPT technology with its Bing search engine and Edge web browser

Brad Smith. vice chair and president of Microsoft, said in a blog entry, “Today’s cutting-edge AI is a powerful tool for advancing critical thinking and stimulating creative expression. It makes it possible not only to search for information but to seek answers to questions. It can help people uncover insights amid complex data and processes. It speeds up our ability to express what we learn more quickly. Perhaps most important, it’s going to do all these things better and better in the coming months and years.

Google will soon offer an AI and natural language-enhanced version of its Google search engine called Bard, as well as a chatbot.

However, Microsoft created more buzz, having introduced a limited version of the new Bing available to some users this week to rave reviews and drawing predictions that Bing may threaten Google’s search dominance.

Microsoft’s CEO Satya Nadella said at a media event, “This technology is going to reshape pretty much every software category.”

In China, JD.com, Alibaba and Baidu confirmed they are working on ChatGPT-style projects, as well. Meta is also planning to release similar technology across various products.

Microsoft said its search engine includes technology that identifies and removes problematic content from the chat service. However, the A.I. technologies are known for often producing toxic content, including misinformation, hate speech and biases against women and people of color.  ... ' 

Guide to Amazon SEO

Received this invitation to get and forward this offer for a PDF guide,  you do have to provide some registration information.   Via Retailwire.

Ultimate Guide to Amazon SEO  by CPC Strategy

Optimize & Update Your Product Listings to Rank Organically

The Story: Are your biggest keywords tanking on the Amazon search results page? Don’t just spend hours refining your keywords. Amazon’s ranking algorithm has gotten a lot more complex over the years, and if you don’t learn exactly how it thinks–and how that translates into listing optimizations–your products will just keep sinking.

The Guide: CPC Strategy and BigCommerce teamed up and put together this comprehensive guide to hacking Amazon SEO, from product titles to feed updates. Trust us, it’s a match made in ecommerce heaven.

Who It’s For: 3P Sellers
You’ll Get:
An inside look at Amazon’s top ranking factors
Step-by-step directions for listing optimization
An essential guide to updating your product feed  ....  " 

Comparing the Social Landscape in 2014

A one page landscape infographic view of the eight most common types of social media in 2014. Nicely done, but specifics in this space do change quickly.  Includes useful statistics about usage trends as well.  I find that people know about the 1-2 things they use, but little outside of that.  This provides a good comparative look at social effectiveness .

SEO at Tesco

An example of a technologically advanced retailer:

" ... Search engine optimization has helped Tesco grow to occupy 50% of the U.K. online grocery market, and among 2,500 online search terms, Tesco is the most visible supermarket by a significant margin, according to data from Pi Datametrics. Tesco's competitors, which include ASDA, Waitrose and Sainsbury's, have made strides in the past year to boost their SEO, but their average positions, while visible in a search, are poor and correspond to a small number of search terms, Intelligent Positioning Director Sam Silverwood-Cope writes. ... " 

Neuromarketing and SEO

Interesting claim about Search engine optimization (SEO):  " ... In the past year, Google has revolutionized the game of SEO with a series of updates known as “Penguin” and “Panda”. In the past, businesses, individuals and organizations could literally stuff their website with low quality, repetitive articles that were keyword-rich but content poor. According to Rhondalynn Korolak, author of Sales Seduction, “these new updates mean that the search results you are presented with now are much more likely to engage the part of your brain that makes decisions and takes action.” ... '