Will Artificial Intelligence Kill Authority Sites?

Making money from blogging by sharing your thoughts and your adventures has been dead for quite a while.

It is hard to get traffic when you are writing about things and thoughts nobody or a few people are searching for.

That’s why building niche or authority sites became the new thing.

People write about things they care about or didn’t care about, some site owners pay others to write for them, some publishers promote products and others make money from display ads.

I think that artificial Intelligence is about to change the game as we know it and these are some of my thoughts that keep me confident that I will be around making money online and some of the thoughts that make me wonder if it is still a good idea to build niche or authority sites.

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The Beginning of the End

I have used AI content generators such as Jasper, I consider them helpful but certainly not a threat to niche or authority sites.

Then ChatGPT came and I immediately thought that an AI chatbot was a revolutionary tool and definitely a threat to niche or authority sites.

As I write this, ChatGPT keeps growing in popularity; publishers use it to create more content, regular users save some time with it, some students use it for learning and other student use it for doing homework.

Then “You” incorporated the feature into its search engine and showed us what most Search Engines might end up doing

“You” gives you an answer and then it cites its sources in case you want to learn more or verify the information.

Microsoft thought that adding an AI chatbot to its Search Engine was also a good idea and in the new few weeks, we might see a beta version of it.

Google also has the plan to roll out an AI chatbot soon.

Main Point: We are about to see the end of something, what is gonna change? We don’t know yet but something is about to change.

Users Love ChatGPT, not Search Engines

Most users love ChatGPT, even the publishers who are whining about how Artificial Intelligence is gonna kill their niche or authority site use it every day to create content.

I am not sure if the love people have for a bot that answers your questions will move to Search Engines once Google or Bing launch their own AI chatbots.

I don’t think “You” is getting massive amounts of love for adding an AI chatbot to its search engine.

Main Point: We have to wait and see if people adopt the major search engines AI chatbots. Did anybody ask for search engines to provide AI chatbot features?

Big Search Engines Making Massive Changes

Something we know is that nobody is gonna give a crap if a small search engine adds an AI chatbot to its search engine. “You” proved that point.

Microsoft Bing wants to get a bigger piece of the pie and that’s why they are planning to add AI chat features to its search engine

Can the Microsoft Bing AI Chatbot make waves with 7% of the market share?

Not really but that is forcing Google to make some big announcements regarding AI chatbots being added to its search engine.

Main Point: I don’t think Google wants to provide quick answers to users, at least no more than they have already done.

Another Scenario: More Apps Entering the Race

Search Engines like Microsoft or Bing are introducing an AI chatbot in case another AI chatbot tries to take over.

What happens if Whatsapp or Telegram wants to answer the most common and easiest questions from the web directly from the app?

Remember that Tech companies copy any feature that works from other apps so adding an AI chatbot to a messaging app is far from being a black mirror episode.

Perhaps, the most popular search engines don’t want to screw the publishers’ way to make money but if some publishers are gonna get screwed in the end, Google and Bing think they are the ones that must do the “screwing”

Main Point: Notion is implementing AI. Sites and apps that are not search engines might challenge Bing and Google soon.

Search Engines and Their Ways to Make Money

As far as I know, Google makes money from Search Engines by:

#1	Showing ads in the search results
#2	Getting 30% of the money from the ads shown to your visitors.

If all questions are answered by an AI chatbot, they can make money from the ads shown on its page assuming someone bid for the keywords used in that question.

• If you ask the bot, What’s the best cloud hosting panel? you will see ads and Google will make some money even if the visitor doesn’t click any of the search results or sites cited.

• If you ask the future AI chatbot, who is AuronPlay? you won’t see any ads so the only way for Google to make money out of that search is by getting some cents of the ads shown to your site.

So my conclusion is that screwing publishers will screw Google Adsense.

Main Point: If adding AI Chatbots to the search engines makes Google earn less money, this will serve as an example to other search engines.

Winners and Losers

We don’t know if search engine users are ready to adopt AI Chatbots.

In case, people start using them, there will be some keywords that will lose their search volume and some keywords will keep it.

If what your blog provides can be easily provided by an AI Chatbot, your blog’s traffic will probably die.

If your blog provides something that chatbots can’t provide, your site traffic will diminish but your site will still get visitors

I still want to read an honest Perfmatters review than one created by a chatbot with no feeling or experience with the plugin

Main Point: This is not the first thing that publishers are thrown at them when it comes to SEO traffic, there will be ways to adapt, AI chatbots might be the end for some sites and the rise of others.

AI Content Generators

Expensive AI Content Generators might soon go out of business now that we know that ChatGPT will remain free to some extent and that the PRO version is 20 bucks.

If people use AI Content Generators and provide the user with what AI Chatbots can provide, you are gonna rank for terms that nobody wants to bother reading a blog post for.

Do you think that people will keep paying a monthly Jasper subscription when ChatGPT is free or cheaper?

Main Point: AI Content Generators will be cheaper or will be gone really soon.

True Publishers will Evolve

If AI Chatbots get massive adoption in the next few years, some sites’ traffic will be gone, and along with them, some publishers.

Others will be here trying to provide what AI Chats bots fail to provide.

Fortunately, AI Chatbots have limitations, they can’t provide:

#1	Great Reviews
#2	Online Tools
#3	Great Video Content
#4	Reliable Content
#5	Opinions I care about

Do you think that sites like Swim University will die when AI chatbots are massively adopted?

I don’t think so. I don’t think Matt is scared at all.

Main Point: The future of making money with sites might have its days counted for many but there will be still room for those who want to provide better content than bots.

Newsletters Platforms

If an AI chatbot is massively adopted and it can provide everything your blog provides, you are gonna lose a lot of traffic.

If people care about your thoughts on different matters, you can create a newsletter type of website or use a platform that people can subscribe to such as Substack, Medium, or Ghost

Main Point: People are attracted to good human writing so not everything is lost for good content creators.

Video Platforms

Video content has become increasingly popular on social media platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook.

We are also seeing the growing popularity of live-streaming platforms such as Twitch.

Videos are engaging, easily consumable, and offer a more dynamic form of content compared to text and images.

Now we think that a channel could complement a blog. As years pass, blogs will complement channels.

Main Point: Everyone wants to pump content but not everyone will be ready to create video content so that opens a window for well-rounded content creators.

Make Money as This Business Model Lasts

I am gonna squeeze every dollar out of my niche or authority sites for as long as this lasts.

In the worst-case scenario, I don’t think that site traffic will go down to zero overnight so I have time to figure out what I want to do.

The worst enemy for sites generated by AI is not an AI content detector, it is a bot that can replace your niche or authority site today.

Main Point: Perhaps the death of most niche and authority sites will be a good thing for good/great content creators.