Is ChatGPT Search the Future – or Just Overhyped?

Is ChatGPT’s search engine the biggest threat Google has ever faced? Or… is it just overhyped? As small business owners, staying ahead of search trends is crucial.  I’ve had a lot of clients ask me if they should be worrying about how they rank on ChatGPT or optimizing for it. In order to answer that properly, we need to ask ourselves 2 questions.

1. Are Consumers Actually Using ChatGPT to Search?

To answer this, we analyzed traffic data from one of our largest clients over the past year. Here’s how the numbers stack up:

• Google Organic Traffic: 1,074,640 visits, 86,769 leads
• Bing Traffic: 108,112 visits, 10,432 leads
• Yahoo Traffic: 36,354 visits, 4,906 leads
• ChatGPT Traffic: 1,006 visits, 50 leads
• Perplexity AI Traffic: 256 visits, 12 leads

To be clear, ChatGPT’s traffic is less than 0.1% of Google’s, and even Yahoo was 36x higher. I cannot remember the last time anyone asked me about Yahoo.

Google’s biggest competitor is Bing. Bing drove over 100x more traffic than ChatGPT. Perplexity AI, a lesser-known search tool, had about 25% of ChatGPT’s traffic.

When was the last time a business asked you to optimize for Bing? Likely never. That gives you an idea of where ChatGPT stands today.

1. Will Consumers Switch to ChatGPT?

The big question is whether consumers will switch to ChatGPT—and the answer hinges on the quality of search results. Let’s look at a real-world example.

I searched ChatGPT for “Best board game stores in Vaughan.”

On Google, the results were clear. 401 Games stood out, with 8x the reviews of competitors. Google’s algorithm emphasizes brand authority, user-generated data, and historical performance. 401 Games is one of the largest, well-known stores in the country. People I meet at conventions in the USA know about them and order from them. They definitely deserve to be first.

On ChatGPT, the results were terrible. The second result listed is not even a board game store, and I’m not even sure if the business is in operation. The driving direction request icon takes you to directions for the store listed in the first position (wrong business) and when I looked at their sources, they have an outdated MapQuest listing as their source that lists a home address on it. 

The company featured in the #1 position on Google, which is arguably the most famous one in the country, was nowhere to be found.

Why Google Has the Edge

Google’s years of user data give it a massive advantage. It prioritizes results based on real user behavior, reviews, and click-through rates. This is why it knows the board game store is popular.

ChatGPT’s results, on the other hand, rely heavily on Bing data and third-party review platforms like Facebook and Yelp. If your reviews are weak on those platforms, your visibility on ChatGPT’s search engine could be non-existent.

As it turns out, 401 Games has a pretty lackluster Facebook profile, and they do not rank well on Bing. Their Yelp profile isn’t much better. This is clearly shown on Bing’s search results. 

So if you’re a small business, and you want to know how to rank better on SearchGPT or ChaGPT, I would first look at Bing and then see how your Facebook and Yelp reviews compare to others. 

That being said, is ChatGPT really going to replace Google? Right now, the answer is no. But trends can shift quickly—businesses that adapt early will stay ahead.