ChatGPT search is here. Let’s check it out!

*This article is in progress.

ChatGPT search is available to all ChatGPT Plus and Team users, as well as SearchGPT waitlist users, and will be available to ChatGPT Edu and Enterprise users in the coming weeks. It will roll out to all Free users over the coming months.

ChatGPT search

It will roll out to all free users in the coming months? That’s big news.

I recently used ChatGPT search to find a pair of replacement shoes. It nailed the right answer on the first try.

There will be a lot of testing of ChatGPT search in the coming weeks, as SEOs want to understand how it works.

From what I’ve heard so far, the concern is around links and getting referral traffic.

That certainly applied in my situation shopping for shoes — I needed to find the product to purchase outside of ChatGPT.

But what about for informational searches? Do users still want links, or do they just want an answer.

My opinion of Perplexity is that citations are there more for credibility than traffic referral. I believe the same is largely true of ChatGPT search.

When it comes to assessing the performance of SEO content, this dynamic upends traditional metrics around clicks and rankings; we’ll want to focus more on business metrics like engagement and conversions.

You can certainly explore ChatGPT search for yourself, but let’s start a thread of searches for random queries and simplify identify …

Would you click a link or not?

Let’s play a game where we look for information and determine if we’d be tempted to click a search result or not.

First query: how much is an opened Darth Vader Pez dispenser worth?

I have this Pez dispenser on my desk (which I opened to play with, like in Seinfeld) and I’m curious how much it’s worth being opened.

Let’s turn to ChatGPT search to find out … if we’d click a link or not …

In this case, yes, I would click a link, because I want to know if my Pez dispenser looks like the ones referenced on eBay.

I started by clicking the Sources tab:

It’s a bit overwhelming. Personally, I don’t see myself using that feature often.

But then I decided to instead check the EBAY citation.

Interestingly, it took me to the Canadian search results …

Let’s try following up asking for USD prices.

Interestingly, it maintains the prices are in USD, even as it gives me the same link to the Canadian page.

So for this query, I’d say our search is a bit hit or miss. It correctly identified the Pez but not the pricing.

Either way, that’s 1/1 clicking a link.

I’ll return periodically to try some fresh searches and continue our game.

Stay tuned for more!

Thanks for reading. Happy marketing! 🤗

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