Rand Fishkin Explains Why He's Not Concerned About AI Killing Clicks

I'm sure you think about this. Are are

you not if you were an SEO, would you be

concerned about like AI overviews? Yeah,

especially AI overviews. I mean, you

probably saw the 7% the 7% dip in

Alphabet stock from the announcement uh

made by it was made by uh by Apple's

Apple's EddieQ and he said this has

never happened in 22 years. It was it

was Apple Safari browser declined for

the or searches on Apple Safari browser

declined for the first time last month.

Never happened in 22 years. and that

caused and he bl he blames AI for that

and then he's like we're exploring other

options other than Google we're

exploring we don't know if Google is the

best and so Alphabet shares sank 7% it's

like very relevant that you're this just

happened so it's crazy that you're

coming on now so I'm sure you think

about this stuff um so if impressions

are going up and clicks are maybe

decreasing but you're not concerned

about you wouldn't if you were in the

SEO world you wouldn't be concerned

about

Well, depends what part of the SEO

world, right? If you if you're working

as an agency or a consultant, there's

there's tons of clients who can't be

convinced that they should care about

influence, not clicks. And that's really

tough. if I were in house uh you know

sort of running a company and and was in

you know deep in SEO space I I think I

wouldn't be worried um because

my strong belief is it doesn't it

doesn't particularly matter whether uh

visibility in AI tools becomes more

important or Bing versus Google or you

know Safari maybe Safari switches to

duck.go go I I don't know like what

whatever it doesn't matter right if

you're um inhouse you can just adjust to

the times and

um make the right KPIs for your

particular business that that's not a

big deal I guess I'm more so asking

about zeroclick searches so somebody

somebody searches they see they see

their answer they don't click into the

result they're sure the answer is

attributed but are they even paying

attention to that attribution.

Uh I yeah I don't think I don't think

the goal

becomes get traffic or even uh directly

create branding there. I think the the

real goal that you have when the answer

is provided without a click is give the

answer that is most beneficial to two

parties.

one, your audience, right? The people

who are paying attention so that you can

continue to be that answer. And two,

your business. So, for example, you

know, um there's an AI overview that

fires when you search for what is

audience research. And good news for us,

Amanda wrote a blog post that basically

Google has just taken uh that content

and put it at the top and made it the AI

overview. It doesn't it doesn't really

mention Spark Toro. That's fine. Doesn't

matter to us. What it does is it nudges

people to understand what audience

research entails. And so that if they

decide, oh, okay, I do need to do that.

I need to invest in audience research.

I've got to understand where my

customers are participating online, what

they're paying attention to, their

behaviors and demographics, that's great

because long-term that nudges them

towards Spark Toro, which is one of the

only tools on the internet that answers

that for them. So, right, like it's it's

not about getting the traffic. It's not

even about creating the brand impression

right there. It's just about being the

answer that nudges people in the

direction you're trying to nudge them.

So, you're saying if Amanda, your VP of

marketing, didn't write that, people who

are searching that wouldn't be nudged

towards Spark Toro.

I I you know what to be honest I can't

say that for sure because we do a lot of

content creation on the web and the AI

overviews doesn't just pull from one

source usually right it looks across the

web but what I can say is that uh for

years we've been talking about audience

research and one of the words most

commonly associated with audience

research that you will find across the

internet is spark Toro and so I believe

that's why Google or chat GBT or

Perplexity or any of the other tools uh

sees a question about audience research

and looks

for resources or data that is inclusive

of or comes from Spark Toro because

we've created that brand connection

through language across the internet for

the last six seven years that's really

interesting something right when Chhat

GPT came out like this was two I so It's

crazy. We we launched on product We

launched a product on Product Hunt the

same day that that chat GPT first

launched. I think it was December 2nd,

2022. They launched on Product Hunt the

same day as us. And for most of the day,

we were number one. And then through the

second, but like slowly throughout the

day, we see this like this thing with a

weird name, Chat GPT. It was just all

these random letters thrown together and

this like weird icon. It was rising up

the ranks of Product Hunt. We were

number one. And I'm like, cool,

whatever. We're number one. We're number

one. Then it's then it's number five.

Then it's number three. Then it's number

two. What's happening? Then it's number

one. And it's it just like blew everyone

away. Chachi PT. And that night, which

was the launch of our product, I ended

up staying up until 4:00 a.m. playing

around with Chachi PT being like, "This

is in this is insane. This is going to

change everything." And and then

something that I couldn't stop thought

thinking about is like doing SEO like

how does this change how does this

change publishers? What's the incentive

for people to write top offunnel content

and especially now with with everything

that we're seeing? And I don't know if

that's something that you've thought

about. I'm sure it I'm sure it is. I'm

very curious what you thought about. I

mean, I think the incentive, in my

opinion, the incentive has dropped

massively if we're talking about being a

um a publisher who makes money either on

subscription revenue or on advertising

revenue. But the incentive is still just

as strong if your goal with publishing

is to influence an audience to have a

preference for your product or service.

Right? So if you're a whatever

consulting agency in any field or you

make a product of any kind, consumer or

B2B, you have a strong incentive to

create content both on your own site but

also across the web on social media

platforms on the websites that your

audience is likely to pay attention to

which is also therefore the uh websites

that any AI tool is likely to use as the

reference resource. ource in your

field. That incentive is essentially

create the content that you would want

an LLM or a search engine to pick up and

show to people so that they will develop

a preference or for your product or a

nudge in the direction of the change

that you're trying to make.

You know what? May I I I had this

thought as you were saying that maybe

maybe like a lot of publishers or or

even just I don't know like B2B SAS

companies will be like, "Oh, there's no

incentive anymore. We're going to stop

doing top of funnel and only do bottom

ofunnel and then you come in and you

fill the gap and you do top off ofunnel

and you just write all your content.

This is what audience research is." And

the best tool for that, it's Spark Toro.

And then everyone Yeah. Everyone who

looks it up, they're like, "Oh, Spark

Spark Toro." This is why it's important,

Edward. You've got it, man. That's

exactly. Look, you know, in 2012 or

something, right? I said exactly the

same thing uh probably on stage plenty

of times or on calls where I'd be like,

"Yeah, yeah, SEO is BS. Ignore it. Don't

do it. That way I can do it and rank

number one, right?" And it's the it's

the same thing now. It's like, "Yeah,

don't sure don't invest in content.

Don't invest in social media marketing.

Don't invest in publishing. Don't invest

in, you know, visibility in Google and

AI tools. That's fine, right?