Lots of speculation (wishful thinking), alleging that OpenAI and ChatGPT is using Google for their search index. We've been fighting this rumor for several weeks now. It stems from the fact, many simply don't understand how ChatGPT is working.
If you prompt ChatGPT plus to “look up xyz” where:
1) It has no results in the LLM for "xyz"
2) And it has no results in its own extended index (Common Crawl and/or cached Bing)
3) And live Bing API query presents no results
It can send out a browser agent to look it up Google. Just like it does for any site you tell it to. In this case, it is defaulting to Google as a site of last resort.
If you do the above test on a page you host that got indexed in Google, look in your sites server logs and you find a hit from OpenAI as they come to get more data on the page before answering the prompt.
It’s not “indexed” and it is not an “API call”, it is simply a browser agent looking it up like a human would after being prompted to do so. They literally do the search, scan the results, visit any sites returned and synthesize it into a response.
We don't know if they are doing a pure html query analysis or a screen shot that is then OCR'd but it happens.
If this is all kinda deja Vu:
- CloudFlare CDN network started blocking Perplexity. While Perplexity says "it's just a browser agent".
- Anthropic cut off OpenAI last week after discovering it was querying about coding.
As the CEO and founder of Pubcon and WebmasterWorld., Brett Tabke has been instrumental in shaping the landscape of online marketing and search engine optimization. His journey in the computer industry has spanned over three decades and has made him a pioneering force behind digital evolution. Full Bio
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