Local Memo: How AI Is Transforming Search

In this week’s update, learn about a new study that shows how AI is transforming search; find out how different social platforms treat links to external sites; and catch up with the latest Google Business Profile updates. 

How AI Is Transforming Search

The News

Semrush, in collaboration with Statista, has published a new report on the impact of generative AI in search in the post-ChatGPT era. The report finds that one in ten internet users are now choosing generative AI first when searching online, with ChatGPT and Gemini being the most popular choices. Together, these two platforms have a 78% market share within AI search.

Source: Semrush

The report projects that 90 million U.S. users will turn to AI first for search by 2027, up from 13 million in 2023. Alternative search platforms competing with Google are also growing, in particular privacy-focused Brave as well as TikTok. 

As we know, OpenAI introduced real-time search into ChatGPT recently, potentially boosting the adoption of AI for search. Ed Coles, writing for Search Engine Land, has a review of the new ChatGPT, finding that OpenAI’s introduction of a more conversational search interface represents “a major opportunity and risk for brands.” The article notes that search in ChatGPT utilizes the Bing search index as well as OpenAI’s own search bot. Anyone concerned with appearing prominently in ChatGPT searches should ensure their sites are compliant with Bing search and that they allow crawling from OAI-SearchBot.

In other ChatGPT news, Matt Southern at Search Engine Journal reports that ChatGPT has performed poorly in a study of its ability to properly attribute the sources of news content. The study, conducted by Columbia University, found that ChatGPT failed in 153 of 200 attempts to properly attribute the sources of quotes from 20 publications. Often, ChatGPT linked to syndicated or unauthorized copies of original sources such as the New York Times and MIT Technology Review. 

What This Means

AI platforms and features are in a growth phase; though their usage is still dwarfed by that of traditional search, AI is a source of innovation that is transforming the entire search landscape. Though functionality may still be bumpy, there’s little doubt that platforms will iron out early issues and that adoption will continue to grow, making it incumbent on brands to get acclimated to AI platforms and develop tactics that ensure they are properly and prominently represented.

Do Social Networks Penalize Links in Posts?

The News

Many users may think of social media posts as a good place to posts links to external sites, as a way to share news with followers or promote traffic to your own content. However, as Andrew Hutchinson at Social Media Today reminds us, many sites may penalize or restrict the visibility of posts with links, hoping to prevent users from clicking away to another website. 

Facebook hasn’t revealed whether it limits the reach of posts with links, but it may deliberately prevent them from showing up in user feeds; Facebook data shows that 95% of the content shown to users in feeds does not contain a link to an external site. Instagram is even more restrictive, preventing users from sharing links in post captions (though links can be shared in Stories). Threads claims it does not penalize links, though some users suspect otherwise. As for X, Elon Musk has stated that posts with links get automatically downgraded due to users who click a link spending less time looking at the post. 

Neither TikTok nor Snapchat prominently feature links in their interfaces, though they also don’t seem to penalize their appearance. TikTok does disallow links to Amazon, and Snapchat won’t let you link to some other social apps. 

Finally, LinkedIn also claims not to penalize links, though external studies disagree. Bluesky, the social platform that saw a significant boost in users after the election, is the only platform that actively welcomes links, a fact some users see as a key differentiator. 

What This Means

In SOCi’s Local Visibility Index, which studies the performance of multi-location brands in local channels, we have treated link posts as neutral for several years, while giving positive value to posts with natively uploaded photo or video content. This is because of the longstanding suspicion that many social platforms limit the reach of posts with links, as reinforced by Hutchinson’s post. Brands should be reluctant on most platforms to share links to external sources, at minimum limiting these posts to a small share of overall content. 

Google News Roundup

Google Profiles Continue to See Widespread Suspensions

Mike Blumenthal has published an updated catalogue of suspension complaints in the Google Business Profile help forum, suggesting that many businesses continue to see their Google profiles suspended erroneously. Google began an effort last year to clean up fake business profiles, but many legitimate businesses continue to be caught in the net, often for making minor updates to profiles. Updates in the reinstatement process have helped some businesses, but many continue to struggle, causing them to turn to the help forum. 

Google Removes Food Orders Metric

Google has removed the metric in Google Business Profiles that measures the number of food orders received via GBP by restaurants and similar businesses, according to a report from Claudia Tomina. The metric was first made available in April 2022 as part of the GBP update dubbed the New Merchant Experience. 

New Maps Form Lets Users Report “Business Conduct”

Google has introduced a new form in the Google Maps help pages that allows consumers to report businesses for fraudulent practices related to reviews. Called “Report Business Conduct,” the form states that its purpose like this: “If you believe a business is offering incentives in exchange for reviews, or pressuring people to leave reviews, you can use this form to report a concern.” The form can be found here. 

New Regulations on Sellers of Age-Restricted Products

Google has updated its GBP guidelines to specify that sellers of “products that require the customer to be a certain minimum age, like alcohol, cannabis, or weapons,” are not allowed to list themselves as service-area businesses, but must have a physical address. The change means that, for instance, a cannabis delivery service would only be allowed a Google profile if it also has a physical storefront.