When To Use ChatGPT vs. Google for Online Searches

A few months after its launch in 2022, ChatGPT already had over 100 million users testing out its interface. Since then, it’s only grown more popular as a tool, with some suggesting that it has the potential to replace Google when it comes to online searches.

But is that true? When it comes to ChatGPT vs. Google, which one is better for you to use for your online searches? We’ll answer that question on this page by going over the following topics:

• Key differences between ChatGPT and Google
• The pros and cons of using Google
• The pros and cons of using ChatGPT
• ChatGPT vs. Google: Which one should you use for search?
• Can ChatGPT replace Google?
• How does this impact marketing?

To be clear, we’re only focused on search here. We’re not looking at Gemini, Google’s AI tool. And we also won’t be considering ChatGPT’s capability for things like content creation and image generation. All we’re looking at is how Google and ChatGPT stack up when it comes to online search queries.

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Key differences between ChatGPT and Google

Here’s an overview of how ChatGPT and Google compare in a few key areas:

The pros and cons of using Google

Let’s start by walking through some of the benefits and downsides of using Google.

Pros

Some of the main pros of using Google include:

Variety of content

One of the biggest upsides to using Google is that you have access to a much bigger variety of content. While ChatGPT will return a formulaic text response to most queries you give it, Google will link to a variety of sites that all take a different approach to the content. You can quickly and easily choose between articles, videos, images, forums, and more (not to mention Google’s own AI responses).

Control over sources

Another thing about Google is that you have more control over where your information is coming from. ChatGPT will give you a single response that pulls from whatever it decides is best. But in Google, you decide which links to click on and which sources to trust.

Trust and reputability

Speaking of trust, in Google, you get access to content written by actual human beings. Of course, humans can still be wrong or misleading. But at least in Google, you can use your best judgment to determine which results are trustworthy. You’d probably put more trust in a National Geographic article than in a Reddit comment, for instance.

In ChatGPT, though, you don’t always know where the info is coming from. So even when the information is accurate, you don’t have any way of knowing that for sure. As a result, it’s difficult to trust the info it spits out.

Cons

Some of the main cons of using Google include:

Paid advertising

Something a lot of people dislike about using Google is the fact that paid ads have become more and more prevalent in search results. Originally, search ads only appeared at the top of the page, but now they can show up pretty much anywhere, and it’s becoming more and more frustrating to wade through them.

Of course, it’s worth pointing out that there are a lot of indications that ChatGPT will soon feature paid ads as well.

More required clicks

In ChatGPT, when you type in a query, that’s it — you get your answer. In Google, though, a lot more clicks are required (at least for some searches). You’ll often have to click on at least one link to get the answer you want, and sometimes you’ll have to go back and click on different links to find what you’re looking for.

Limited keyword complexity

Google can only handle a certain level of complexity when it comes to keywords. It’s good to use long-tail keywords, but if a keyword gets too long or complex, it gets harder to find relevant results. It’s better to stick with isolated phrases or simple sentences, which limits the types of queries you can search for. ChatGPT, in contrast, can deliver relevant results for queries that go on for whole paragraphs.

The pros and cons of using ChatGPT

Having seen the ups and downs of Google, let’s now perform the same analysis for ChatGPT.

Pros

Some of the main pros of using ChatGPT include:

Deep personalization

Probably the main thing people like about using ChatGPT is that its responses are highly personalized. With Google, you’re limited to whatever existing pages are out there, none of which will necessarily match your search intent perfectly. But ChatGPT will give a response directly tailored to the exact question you asked.

Back-and-forth conversation

Another pro of ChatGPT is that it allows you to have a “conversation” with the platform. When you submit a query and get a response, you can then ask follow-up questions, and ChatGPT will answer those while considering the context of your original question. If you aren’t happy with the response you get, you can ask it to revise its answer to better address your query.

Faster responses

Finally, ChatGPT typically gives responses much faster than Google. Now, if we’re just measuring how long it takes Google to pull up search results, it’s actually faster than ChatGPT. But once Google delivers search results, you then have to spend time wading through them to find the answer you want, whereas ChatGPT gives it to you right away.

Cons

Now that we’ve covered the good aspects of ChatGPT, let’s look at the downsides.

Biased responses

One of the most significant issues with ChatGPT is that it often exhibits bias in its responses. This happens because ChatGPT is trained on human content, much of which is heavily biased. But whereas human bias is easier to identify (based on what you know about the human in question), it’s harder to pick up on it in ChatGPT because you don’t know what sources might be influencing its responses.

Limited variety

Another problem with ChatGPT is that it has a lot less variety than Google does. In Google search results, you can find a lot of different page types, all with different tones and formats. In ChatGPT, though, unless you specifically request that it use a particular tone (or format its answer in a particular way), you’ll probably get the same type of formulaic response every time.

Untrustworthy information

In ChatGPT, you don’t always know where your information is coming from. ChatGPT will confidently give you an answer that could have come from any number of sources, but you don’t know if those sources are legitimate. And even if you ask ChatGPT to provide you with links to sources, it doesn’t always do it correctly — it often provides fake or incorrect links, or else misquotes or misrepresents the information from real links.

Because it’s so difficult to trust the information that ChatGPT gives you, it’s often wise to double-check all of the info in Google. But as many people have pointed out, if you’re just going to end up doing a Google search anyway, it’s worth questioning the value of using ChatGPT in the first place.

ChatGPT vs. Google: Which one should you use for search?

We’ve gone over the differences between ChatGPT and Google, but what do those differences mean? Which platform is better for conducting online searches?

There are a handful of situations where you might want to choose ChatGPT over Google. A ChatGPT search might be advantageous if it meets the following criteria:

• You’re searching for something extremely niche and specific, to the point that none of the Google search results are especially relevant
• You need the answer quickly (and don’t want to spend time looking through search results)
• It’s low-priority enough that you’re willing to accept the risk of the information being inaccurate

Outside of that specific set of circumstances, though, Google (or another traditional search engine) remains the superior choice for online search. We’ll explore why that is in the next section.

Can ChatGPT replace Google?

No.

Google retains an edge over ChatGPT when it comes to searching for information online, and that edge mostly comes down to a concept called E-E-A-T. That stands for Experience, Expertise, Authority, and Trust.

Google uses an advanced set of algorithms to determine which websites and pages are the most reputable and helpful for users. That means the top pages in search results are generally quite trustworthy. Even when that’s in doubt, though, you can see what the source of the information is, meaning you can make informed decisions about which sites to trust.

Furthermore, the content delivered by Google is (mostly) created by humans — humans who have legitimate experience and expertise in the subjects they’re writing about.

ChatGPT, however, has none of those things. It has no experience, expertise, or authority, which means its responses also lack trustworthiness. It frequently hallucinates false information — in fact, its newer models actually hallucinate more than the older ones, with one study by OpenAI itself revealing a hallucination rate of 33%. That means every time you use ChatGPT, you’re basically playing “two truths and a lie,” except it won’t tell you if you guess wrong.

In short, ChatGPT might offer increased speed and personalization — and you might enjoy the conversational tone it uses — but those benefits become irrelevant if you can’t even trust the accuracy of the information you’re getting. That means Google (and traditional search engines in general) remain irreplaceable by ChatGPT, at least for the time being.

How does this impact marketing?

If you’re a marketer trying to figure out how to approach search engine optimization (SEO), you might be unsure how your strategy should adapt to the ChatGPT vs. Google situation. Which one should your SEO focus on?

The answer is, both. With many people relying on ChatGPT as a search engine, you need to be optimizing your content for AI responses so you have a chance of reaching them there. But it’s not like people aren’t still using Google — tons of people are, and you need to keep optimizing for traditional search results as well.

That’s where OmniSEO™ comes in. OmniSEO™ is a strategy that focuses on increasing your search visibility across multiple channels. In addition to traditional search results, it can help you optimize for AI responses, forums, social media, and more.

Get ahead of the curve in Google and ChatGPT with OmniSEO™

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When you partner with us, you’ll get help optimizing your website to appear across the web, driving more traffic and revenue. You’ll also receive a dedicated account representative to keep you in the loop about everything we do for your SEO strategy.

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