I saw the first of a new breed of snake oil today.
Page optimizer to increase your site’s pickup by AI as the answer to a question.
I loved the value proposition. It just makes sense.
As we move from traditional search and SEO to agentic search, it’s natural to ask: will the agent choose my site when giving its user an answer? How do I become THE recommended one with all my wares?
Why this sells so well
In fact, I’d argue the fear-based buying mentality is even more potent in the agentic search age.
There’s no second bite at the apple. In SEO days, if you didn’t get first ranked, there was always a chance to be second… or at least above the fold… you could still be noticed.
But when AI only presents one answer, if you’re not THAT answer, you’re SOL. So hell yeah, I’m gonna buy your service to make me THAT result!!!
Except… isn’t that exactly the opposite of what agentic search is supposed to be doing?
Isn’t it supposed to return the most optimal result, not just the “shiniest” one?
The credibility problem
And also, how could you possibly believe this will work? I struggle to believe that the creators of these “proprietary” solutions know something about how every single potential agentic search model works that enables their solution to game the AI search into picking your page.
But even if you disagree with my logic, then there’s a more pragmatic way of looking at the challenge in this space.
Page A and Page B (directly competing products) both hire the same AI search enhancement solution. How can it make it so that the agentic solution will pick both of them as “THE” answer, when the agent only returns one answer?
The very virtue of the value prop falls apart!
The short-lived gold rush
But like all snake oil, there will be buyers… and I believe the “fear” and the drop in page views we’re already seeing on traditional search and web browsing will drive an early (and short-lived) gold rush here.
So if you want, hit me up - I’ll promise to wave my magic wand and get your page to be the page ChatGPT returns! (Price negotiable!)
But if you want some sage business advice: avoid this snake oil.
Use an LLM to help you craft the best way to represent your product - sure! But I promise you agentic solutions will absolutely adopt the advertising business model and let you pay to be present - at least that WILL guarantee you views as a return on your investment.
What’s your take? Have you seen these “AI search optimization” services popping up? And more importantly - are you tempted to buy?
[FYI, I am intentionally not linking any product here. Considering the views I present here, I believe doing so would be disingenuous.]
