So this is mostly true, but there are a couple ways where ranking in large language models is very different from ranking in traditional search results. So I want to talk about those distinctions.
First of all, web linker here. I have a lot of respect for him. He runs the SEO subreddit, really knows what he's talking about, and I think on like 90% of issues we agree.
On this one it seems like there's some disagreement, or maybe there's just miscommunication. So let me kind of lay out what I see as the differences between ranking in traditional search versus these large language models, and then you can tell me if we're on the same page.
So, as I've said many times on this channel, yes. Anything you can do to show up higher in traditional search results will also help you show up in large language models. There is some parity there, but it's not perfect parity.
So if you rank on page one of Google, you will usually be on perplexity search results? Not always, but usually. It's actually less true on like, Google's AI mode.
Ironically, there's something like 80% of the sources that AI mode uses aren't from page one of Google. So that's one of the distinctions.
When a human does a search in a traditional search engine, they might look at one to three pages before making their decision. When Google's AI mode or other large language models do searches, first of all, they'll do what's called the query fan out. They'll take your search and they'll break it into much more specific searches.
But then they'll look through multiple pages of results.
So AI mode will usually look at at least 100 pages. A lot of these large language models will look up to 300 pages. And they're gonna synthesize the information across all of those pages.
So, yes, you do need to be found on those 100 pages. But one, it doesn't need to be your website. They're just looking for information about your brand.
So as long as you're mentioned on those pages, that's enough. That's a big shift from traditional search engines, where we really cared about your website ranking and getting links. Now we just care about all the websites that are showing up mentioning your brand.
But two, it's not as important that you're in the top three results. It definitely helps, but it's more important that you're showing up frequently, that you're in as many results as possible. So there's a lot of pages that could never rank on page one of Google.
So I'm gonna go this way, cause these cicadas are very loud. A lot of websites that you didn't care about because they never show up on page one of Google. And the running joke, if you want to hide a dead body, hide it on page one of page I.
Sorry, page 2 of Google. Cause no one ever goes there, it's true. Right, but that's changed.
Large language models do go there. Large language models will look on page 2 and page 3. And so these websites that never rank on page one suddenly matter.
And it matters if your brand is mentioned there.
And the other distinction is that people search differently in large language models than they do in traditional search engines. They provide way more context. So yes, a lot of the ranking factors are the same.
What it takes to rank is the same. But these distinctions should change your strategy. You shouldn't just be focusing on the broad, short competitive terms, but think about all the long tail terms that are very specific to a given searcher or that might show up in a query fan act.
And now a lot more traffic is going to be going to pages like that. Right? So that changes your content strategy a little bit.
But also it should change your outreach strategy. You should be monitoring all the websites that these large LinkedIn models crawl, cause you want to be mentioned as much as possible. If you're mentioned more than your competitor, you will be in the results most of the time, even if you're not in the top three.
And that's a complete shift from how traditional search rankings work.
One of the biggest shifts is that social media now matters more than it ever did before in traditional Google search. It's very rare that you get traffic from social media. In large language models, they will crawl social media sites all the time and so being present there makes a big difference.
So web linker, let me know. Do we really disagree on this? Are we talking past each other?
Cause I keep seeing you say that they're exactly the same and maybe the. The ranking factors haven't changed. Of course the search engine is the same, but the strategy.
I really think it's important that people change their strategy to take advantage of the new opportunities that large language models are bringing.
