Have you considered the thought experiment of receiving a good chunk of your traffic from an answer engine? Yes, thats a possibility if you rank high on one such answer engine that could potentially send you tens of thousands of new visitors and traffic. Lets dive deep..
Have you used Perplexity AI and noticed something very unique and different from the others? Perplexity is one of the top 3 answer engines as of now and is capable of using multiple LLMs as needed.
How Information is presented to users?
The key difference between Perplexity AI when compared to the other answer engines are is the behaviour of sharing credit, citing sources and opening up the potential of sharing onward referral traffic.
Below is how Perplexity gives you an answer, it also lists the best source at the top and also includes other sources that have been used by Perplexity to arrive at the answer given to the user.
This is awesome, not only because it lets the user validate the answer, confirm that the AI model is not hallucinating, but also gives the user a choice to explore the actual source.
Its interesting to see that the Perplexity search results field (sources) kind of look strikingly similar to Google’s traditional search results page.
Look at how the top 10 sources are listed down with their title and excerpt allowing users to click through and start a parallel discovery journey.
It is also interesting how the order of these sources can be influenced using traditional on page SEO type of changes. We just call it on-page AEO changes to improve this AERP page rankings.
These “source rankings” could be the next AEO optimization opportunity. Especially when Answer Engines become the new normal and getting on this list could convert to organic traffic from this new found source.
But its all a wait and watch. There is a possibility that the “sources” ranking may not even matter and might vanish under the hood. We may just get to see the resulting answers. But then the incentive for these content creators is yet to be understood.
Another hypothesis is that there will be new power brokers to the equation that will manage licensing content between creators (or platforms) and the answer engines. This could be a great balance that will continue to encourage and foster content creation as well.
Promising New Frontiers?
Below are two promising areas I would like to explore further in detail (in another post), that content creators could expect as the next frontier where there may be some action:
Content Licensing and Rights Management
Automated Licensing Solutions: AI can simplify the complexities of content licensing by analyzing and managing rights associated with various media types. This opens up new avenues for creators to license their work efficiently, generating additional income.
Integrated Commerce Solutions
Shoppable Content: As AI enhances the ability to integrate commerce into content (e.g., through shoppable videos or posts), creators can earn commissions through affiliate marketing or direct sales linked within their content.
What are your thoughts on optimizing content for answering engines and the potential that i could become another new source of organic traffic. OR do you think it will take away the traffic without replacing what was lost? only time will tell.
