The shocking news that changes everything we thought we knew about AI search independence
Beginning: What you don’t know about ChatGPT’s search capabilities
Recent experiments have shown beyond a doubt that ChatGPT Plus, even though OpenAI says it is independent, uses Google Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) to come up with many of its answers. This groundbreaking discovery changes the way we think about AI-powered search in a big way and has huge effects on SEO professionals all over the world.
Two thorough tests done by top SEO experts have shown beyond a doubt that ChatGPT’s web search feature is basically powered by Google. This goes against OpenAI’s official documentation and raises serious concerns about how open AI search technology is.
The SEO Bazooka’s Experiment: Clear Evidence of Dependence on Google
The “Folubito Phionito” Test. SEO Bazooka’s experiment is the best proof because it used a methodical approach to show how much ChatGPT depends on Google. The experiment entailed the fabrication of the term “Folubito Phionito” and monitoring its progression across diverse search engines and AI platforms.
Step 1: Setting the Baseline
The researcher first checked that the made-up word “Folubito Phionito” didn’t show up in any of the major search engines:
- Google: No useful results
- Bing: No results that are useful
- DuckDuckGo: No results that are useful
- ChatGPT (both free and Plus): No information is available
Step 2: Making the Content
At seo-bazooka.com/folubito-phionito-effect/, a separate page was made with a definition of this made-up word. This page was very important:
- Not linked from anywhere else on the internet
- Not submitted to any search engines other than Google. It is completely cut off from other search engine indexes.
The Revelation: Phase 3
The results were amazing after Google indexed the page (which happened within two hours through Search Console):
- ChatGPT Plus: It found the page right away and quoted it word for word, giving an exact citation of the content.
- ChatGPT Free: Still no results, which means that the search engines work in different ways.
- Bing and DuckDuckGo still showed no results, which proved that they couldn’t access this content.
This SEO Bazooka experiment shows beyond a doubt that ChatGPT Plus is going straight to Google’s search index and not using any other search engines at all.
Aleyda Solis’s Complementary Research: Proof in the Real World
Aleyda Solis, an SEO expert, did a similar experiment that confirmed these results by using her LearningAISearch.com website in the real world.
The Test for the LLMS.txt Generators Page
Solis put out a new page about LLMS.txt generators and kept a close eye on how well it was being indexed on different platforms:
A Timeline of Events:
Page Publication: New content is published but not sent to search engines
First ChatGPT Test: When web search was turned on, ChatGPT couldn’t locate the page. It said it “couldn’t locate that exact page” and that the URL “didn’t seem publicly indexed.”
Gemini Comparison: Google’s Gemini had no trouble getting content directly from the page that wasn’t indexed.
Google Indexing: Page submitted and indexed through Google Search Console
Bing Status: The page was not indexed in Bing at any point during the experiment.
The Breakthrough: When the page showed up in Google SERPs (not just indexed but also visible in search results), ChatGPT suddenly started giving information about the page.
The Smoking Gun: Snippet Matching
Solis’s comparison of ChatGPT’s answer to Google’s SERP snippet was the most damning proof. The AI’s answer was almost exactly the same as Google’s search result snippet, which indicates that it relied directly on Google’s indexed content instead of going to the original page.
When asked where it got its information, ChatGPT said it had “found a cached snippet via web search that previews the page content—likely from search engine indexing” is basically an admission that it used Google’s search results.
Analysis of the Technology: How ChatGPT works with Google
The Secret Partnership
OpenAI’s official documentation only lists “Bing & Shopify” as third-party search partners, but the evidence clearly shows that Google is also a partner. This brings up a number of important questions:
Why isn’t Google listed as a search partner in the Undisclosed Partnership?
Concerns About Privacy: User queries are being sent to Google servers without telling them first. What does this mean for the AI search market? Different Search Architectures for Free and Plus.
The tests show an important difference between the different versions of ChatGPT:
ChatGPT Free:
- Uses OpenAI’s test search index
- Results don’t match up with Google or Bing very well. There isn’t much access to the web in real time.
ChatGPT Plus:
- Heavily depends on what Google Search shows
- Gives you more up-to-date and complete information
- Works like an interface powered by Google
- What This Means for Digital Marketers in Terms of SEO
- Google Rankings Are Even More Important
The fact that ChatGPT Plus relies on Google SERPs means:
Convergent SEO Strategy: AI optimization (AEO) and traditional SEO are now one and the same.
The Google-First Way: You won’t show up in ChatGPT answers if you don’t rank in Google.
Optimizing SERP Snippets: Your Google snippets have a direct effect on how AI responds.
SEO Evolution New Trends:
- Techniques for optimizing AI specifically
- Strategies for content that works on all platforms
- Monitoring search results in real time
New Measurements:
- Scores for AI search visibility
- Ranking correlation across platforms
- Analytics for snippet performance
Bottom Line: The New Reality of AI Search
The experimental evidence from SEO Bazooka’s experiment and Aleyda Solis’s research significantly alters our comprehension of AI search technology. ChatGPT’s use of Google SERP snippets is not merely a technical detail; it represents a significant shift that affects all aspects of digital marketing.
This news means that Google optimization is still essential for SEO professionals, even in the age of AI search. The merging of traditional SEO and AI optimization is no longer just a possibility for the future; it is happening right now.
As we move forward, the industry needs to ask AI companies to be more open about what they do, and we need to change how we do things to fit this new, connected search ecosystem. The SEO Bazooka experiment has shown us how AI search really works, and we can’t go back to the way things were before. The message is clear: Google’s power in the world of AI search is greater than ever, and any SEO strategy that wants to work must accept and adapt to this fact.
