(Big Changes Online)…
If you’re building a business online, it’s important to understand how the internet works to some degree, wouldn’t you agree?
Yesterday I learned something, that seems to be, pretty big to me.
First, a bit of context.
When I started marketing online, I could write a blog post in the right way, and often, it would show up on the first page of Google for the search term I was targeting.
And even if it didn’t show up on the first page, I could search for it in a certain way and I could find it.
Recently I started to notice that
A) My new posts were not showing up on the first page of Google (which could be explained away with the highly competitive SEO landscape), but more strange was
B) I couldn’t find my post ANYWHERE regardless of how I searched for it, even though it was fully published online.
This fact, in combination with the increasing rate at which I found myself using A.I. to find answers instead of Googling for them, caused me to start to think that blogging for leads & traffic was a dying and soon to be dead strategy.
I made a note to myself that blogging would still be a good strategy for following up with my email subscribers and providing value, but dead, dead, DEAD for traffic and leads.
Yesterday I learned something BIG, that explains everything I mentioned above and may provide an interesting twist to any business owners ongoing marketing strategy.
The Betrayal
This week, I read a shocking fact, from a paid newsletter I subscribe to.
Google has betrayed us.
It used to be that Google would index all the pages on the internet. (Indexing just means that it sends out little computer spiders every day to crawl the web & find what’s out there).
Once your page was indexed by google, it could be found in the search results.
I learned that some time ago, Google STOPPED crawling all the pages.
For any search term, you’ll see about 40 pages of results and they’ll tell you there are about a million results for that search term.
If you scroll through all 40 pages, often, google will just start looping you back through what you’ve already seen.
Where is the rest of the content?
YOU CAN’T FIND IT WITH GOOGLE
This means that Google is choosing to show you what it thinks you want to see, but more importantly, is hiding a vast amount of online pages that it flat out doesn’t find or put in the search results.
This explains why some of the recent searches I’ve done for may pages are no where to be found in the search results.
Let me repeat: Google is NOT indexing all of the available online content.
This, combined with the fact that A.I. is summarizing results, in my opinion, makes “Googling” something almost worthless.
The Final Death Blow
This week, X.AI sent shockwaves around the world with the release of its new Large Language Model Grok 3.
This company started YEARS behind other A.I. ventures like OpenAI, Google’s Gemini and Claude to name a few, and none the less, Grok 3 blows them all away on all the key performance metrics.
Who cares and what does this have to do with me as a marketer?
THE BIG INSIGHT
The newsletter I mentioned above, revealed that Grok 3 has a little super power that they didn’t even mention on the reveal livestream.
It searches and analyzes ALL published pages online, as well as breaking x posts to find and bring you information.
Let me repeat for clarity.
Google does NOT search (index) all pages online, Grok 3 does.
The Test
Yesterday I updated the about page on my blog. I wrote some things into my story that I’ve written no where else online.
I asked Grok 3 “Who is Paul Hutchings” in the ‘Deep Research’ mode and it came back with a VERY comprehensive description of me.
THE KICKER
It included data from the updated page from yesterday. 🤯
Google would have taken weeks to maybe, index this update, and there’s a good chance it wouldn’t be indexed at all – and people would not be able to find this data online.
Grok 3 found it and displayed it, INSTANTLY.
But wait, there’s MORE!
It included reference links to where it found the information (including a link to the page I updated, my page).
The New Kid In Town (What This Means For Marketing)
Make no mistake about it, the trend of people using A.I. to find information is only going to increase due to the far superior information accessing experience.
The knee-jerk reaction to this fact, as a marketer, would be to concluded there is no point in creating high value content online for traffic & leads because there’s nothing in it for me.
Couple that with the fact that Google wasn’t even making an attempt to include your content in the A.I. results it was giving people.
I just gave you an example of how I updated a piece of content on my website and it was INSTANTLY found and displayed, with links to my website via Grok 3.
This means that Grok 3 is a new and BETTER search engine for both the user AND the content creator.
Publish a great piece of content, and be INSTANTLY found in Grok with links to your site.
The Profitable Conclusion
Google is dead to me, and will continue to die for others who see what’s happening with the wizard behind the curtain.
Search, however just got resurrected and transfigured into something, much, much better for the searcher and the provider of information.
Moving forward, if you and I both decide to create high quality, accurate and helpful information that serves the searcher, Grok 3 will use what we create to answer questions and give us credit, instantly.
Since Grok 3 is designed to be maximally truth seeking, all we have to do is continue to be a source of fresh, cutting edge, useful information for our audiences, and we’ll have a seat at the new search table.
Thanks for reading and hope you found this useful.
Would love to hear your thoughts below.
All the best,
Paul
PS: Shout out to Brian Roemmele for tipping me off to this huge insight via his newsletter over at https://readmultiplex.com.
PPS: As of this writing, Grok 3 is FREE to use for a limited time. I recommend giving it a whirl.
Amazing piece of content, Paul Hutchings. They lost me as a potential blogger when I searched several long tail keywords and hardly any of the results were bloggers… mainly commercialized and big time companies. I think google is a place for those bigger companies and local businesses. Thank God the local businesses still come up in search. Don’t know how I would find Mexican restaurants lol. I loved the insight on your blog you found about AI too… Pretty cool.
Thanks so much Robin Williams!
Ya, I hear you 100%.
If it doesn’t look like there’s a shot of success, it’s hard to get motivated to begin a strategy. ha ha..
lol on the restaurant. Amen to that. Freedom Crusader’s gotta eat, right!? ;-).
Thanks for stopping by and so happy you got some value from the post.
GREAT post Paul and Awesome information! As a long time digital marketer and SEO specialist I can attest to everything you described here.
The competition for the latest/greatest AI answer engines is (and will be for the foreseeable future) a very fierce and constantly changing battle.
Every single week seems to reveal several new and staggering advances in this field and even brand new players that seem to come from nowhere.
Although I do personally believe that Google is taking some gigantic and negative hits along the way, I think they are simply too big with massively ongoing continual income revenue streams-primarily from Google Ads that will keep them afloat and alive for some time.
But here is the “kicker”!
Some of these AI Answer Engines are already beginning to incorporate their own paid ads platforms (on a very small scale so far) where advertisers are starting to shift from paying Google to where they see (and are betting) the online search traffic is going to.
Since Google currently still dominates the online “paid ads” platform, they may be bleeding but certainly are not dead yet. This gives them some time to elevate their game and make continual improvements on Gemini and whatever else they may be working on that none of us know about yet.
Although Grok certainly has enough financial backing to beat all of their competition, it does not guarantee they will as almost every single day there are new releases and new (never seen before) capabilities being released around the world related to AI answer/ask engines.
Google may be the only one that has such substantial ongoing guaranteed incoming revenue streams i.e. Google Ads until they are potentially/probably/eventually lost to other AI platforms (unless Google pulls out a few surprises in time that nobody knows about yet) 🙂
I do not disagree with anything you have said Paul! I simply would not count Google “out” or “dead” yet and Grok king yet as some people are doing now. As I said earlier it seems now that every few days that passes and there are brand new releases that proclaim a new “front runner” as the “best” AI answer engine.
Regardless, it IS a completely incredible time we are living in as almost every single day is like waking up on Christmas day to see what are the latest and greatest presents now available regarding AI ask.answer engines!
The things that now can be done on these new AI platforms is simply Amazing!
Hey Mike!
Man, I appreciate you taking the time to leave such a thoughtful and insightful comment! It’s always great to hear from a digital marketer and SEO specialist like you who’s deep in the trenches and seeing these changes unfold firsthand.
You’re absolutely right—this space is moving at breakneck speed. Every week, we’re hit with new innovations, new players, and new capabilities that make what was “cutting-edge” last month feel outdated. It’s wild!
And I totally agree with you on Google. They’re definitely taking some hits right now, but calling them “dead” would be a massive stretch.
With their ad revenue machine still running strong, they have the resources and the time to adapt—though whether they’ll do so effectively is another question.
The way I see it, they’re in a fight for relevance in a landscape that’s shifting under their feet. Gemini is solid, but as you said, we have no idea what they’re cooking up behind the scenes.
The ad piece you brought up is huge! If AI answer engines start successfully monetizing search traffic with their own ad platforms (which is already happening in small pockets), that could create a major exodus from Google Ads over time. Google’s strength has always been controlling the gateway to the internet, but if people start bypassing traditional search in favor of AI-driven results, the whole game changes.
It’s kind of exciting to think about more ad options as the choices diversify a bit.
And man, I love how you described this as waking up on Christmas morning every day—that’s exactly how it feels! The pace of AI innovation is unlike anything we’ve ever seen. It’s exciting and a slight bit unsettling because things are moving and changing so fast and there’s never been a need for greater adaptability than now.
No one can say for sure who the long-term “winner” will be, but one thing is certain: search as we knew it is never going back to the old way.
Thanks again for sharing your thoughts, Mike!
It’s an exciting time to be in this space, and I appreciate the conversation!
Paul
Thanks for the info Paul!
my pleasure! thanks for stopping by and dropping some gratitude! 🙂