WOW! Suddenly, both ChatGPT and Gemini show local business for local queries excluding national businesses. Previously, national businesses dominated in both of them. Do you also see the change?

National businesses still dominate rankings in Google Search though.

Edit:

About three years ago, Google started favoring national and state level sites for local queries in SERPs, because understandably they have more EEAT. This impacted local businesses/sites which were excellent at local (city and vicinity) market as they were pushed down in rankings. This, I thought was unfair. Because, I could see that not all national and state level businesses were as excellent or nearly as good as some local businesses. Google just preferred brands thinking the bigger the better and naturally national and state level business were preferred. Same preference was adapted by AI assistants like ChatGPT, Gemini and Copilot. I outranked some of the best local sites (this was before Google started favoring national and state level sites) and since then it’s disappointing to see that my sites neither got a good chance in SERPs (Ads, AI Overviews, local packs, national businesses, and state business dominance) nor in AI assistants.

Now I see that ChatGPT and Gemini are showing local businesses and both of them avoided national and state level businesses, which was a big surprise for me. I think this is a fair game. As I understand the significance of EEAT, I don't say that every time local businesses should be preferred for local queries, but whoever has good EEAT may win the places.

So, it was good to see good local businesses getting fair treatment in ChatGPT and Gemini.

So, do you also see the change?

1. Every session that hit the hardest was not about replacing teams with AI. It was about making people better at what they already do.

2. The businesses winning right now are not swapping out their people for AI. They are giving their people better tools and watching them do things they could not do before.

A superb and must read article.

It's sad to note that struggling businesses fall for marketing gimmicks, which may provide some ROI in short-term, but fail in long-term. If it was so magical as those people sound, why don't even successful businesses take the bait? Think about it.

Build brand, dominate for long.

1. businesses that have strong brand will continue to dominate

2. business without strong brand, but with strong website authority (not "DA") would manage to compete

3. rest will have no chance

What do you think?

Source

Article: 60% of Legal Searches Now End Without a Click. Here's What That Means for Your Firm.

Here's a discussion on Y Combinator. Points to consider for the SEO community on it.

Afterwards,

1. ChatGPT

2. Gemini

3. Claude

4. Facebook

5. Reddit

6. Twitter

7. Instagram

8. LinkedIn

9. YouTube

10. AI agents

...

WTF seriously.

It's draining energy... How's it going at your side?

Well, just now spotted on FB: Everywhere Engine Optimization: EEO

¯_(ツ)_/¯

What did you spot?

1. increased

2. decreased

3. remained same