Interest in the answer engine, as opposed to the well-known search engine, is rapidly gaining traction since Perplexity.ai decided to define its product as such. In practice, however, all new generative assistants can be considered answer engines to varying degrees.
The definition is straightforward enough: while a search engine such as Google, Bing or DuckDuckGo returns a list of possible pages where the answer to your query might be found, an answer engine does exactly what its name suggests. It provides a direct answer in the form of a complete paragraph, synthesized from relevant sources. Some answer engines, like Perplexity.ai, include citations, which is one of their main differentiating factors.
WolframAlpha, created in May 2009, is often considered the first true answer engine, and which offered a response to questions immediately without sending users to multiple sources. However, the definition is broad, and many types of sites and services could fall under this category. Google itself has been progressively including direct answers in its results pages, aiming to offer users more immediate and presumably attractive services. After all, results pages or SERPs require additional work from the user, who must click on them and choose the one they find most interesting to answer their question, while the answer engine responds directly and immediately.
This immediacy is both the virtue and potential drawback of answer engines. By providing a definitive answer, they may inhibit critical reasoning in users, who might consider themselves satisfied without verifying or expanding on the information. With this in mind, Perplexity.ai lists its sources and suggests related questions, encouraging users to delve deeper if they wish.
As the answer engine concept developed, a related idea emerged: Answer Engine Optimization (AEO). Considered a subset of search engine optimization (SEO), AEO focuses on optimizing content to appear in generative assistants, answer boxes, and featured snippets. While AEO shares many features with traditional SEO, it often addresses specific questions and recommends providing concise, upfront answers that generative algorithms can easily utilize.
That said, AEO can lead to questionable practices. Some simple-minded content creators may resort to artificial structures, such as starting all headlines with “how to,” “what is,” or “why does,” placing answers at the top of pages, and overusing FAQs all in pursuit of increasing the number of visitors to their content. It’s important to understand these techniques to avoid working against oneself, but becoming obsessed with optimization can lead to unnatural, user-unfriendly content, along the lines of the pathetic messages I receive each week from SEOs “warning” me that my page is not fully “optimized”.
What changes are we going to see in the era of answer engines? It seems unlikely they will become, as happened with search engines, home pages where users even type the addresses they intend to go to (many people still believe that Google is the internet: I am amazed when I look at my statistics and see how many people access my page by typing enriquedans.com in Google). But it does seem more likely that many will no longer use search engines for many things, specifically, “informational” queries (answering a question or learning about something). For “navigational” (going to a certain page) or “transactional” (I want to make a decision to buy something) queries, many of us will continue using the search engine because of its immediacy.
If search engines lose a good part of “informational” queries, they will lose advertising revenue, while retaining “navigational” queries, which are basically useless — the user types the name of the page and goes to it without having to click on any advertising at all — as well as the more profitable “transactional” queries, which can be truncated with ads and offers to make the user click and generate juicy referral commissions. But if a significant percentage of users switch to answer engines instead of search engines, advertisers could lose out, and it would take time to adapt and create new business models.
We’re only at the beginning of this potential paradigm shift, but its consequences could be far-reaching. As answer engines continue to evolve, they may reshape how we interact with and consume information online, presenting both challenges and opportunities for content creators, search engines, and users alike.
(En español, aquí)
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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.
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