Reasoning engines are threatening to take search engines by storm, and by extension, SEO professionals.
Fortunately, there is an existing framework that could prove beneficial as reasoning engines advance and gain popularity.
However, it’s one that SEOs have set aside far too long. We’ll discuss it here.
What are Reasoning Engines?
Reasoning engines are an advanced type of AI technology. They are used to drive the generative AI models that have recently made headlines. However, their growing implementation promises a much greater impact.
This impact will be especially pervasive in SEO. Reasoning engines are simply more capable than traditional search engines.
They use advanced data collection and reasoning techniques to more deeply understand questions asked by users. They can draw conclusions and even make inferences using data and knowledge. This allows them to offer more precise and personalized answers.
They are also more capable of comprehending the data they collect. They can better gauge the meaning and accuracy of content and more closely match it to user intent.
Reasoning Engines in SEO
In the world of SEO, this means they can streamline the process of determining relevance the same way that a qualified human could but at a speed that no person could ever match. Imagine a smart, capable professional who’s capable of sorting through millions of websites per day and precisely ranking them on a host of relevant metrics.
Search engines have been trying to do this for decades. However, they’ve never been able to match the quality and precision of humans until recent advancements with reasoning engines.
But, it’s about more than just improving SERPs. Search engines offer a linear experience: enter a query and get several pages of results. Reasoning engines can offer a more conversational experience. They process and understand human language naturally, allowing them to respond just as a human would while also providing links to the most relevant sources for its answers. They can even provide context to help improve your understanding of their answers.
Current Reasoning Engines
Reasoning engines are a relatively new technology. Still, there are already several platforms built on reasoning engines, although only a few are currently adopted on a mass scale. Here’s a quick look at the current top players:
Copilot Chat Assistant: Microsoft’s Bing made headlines a couple of years ago after releasing “Bing Chat” (later renamed “Copilot Chat Assistant”). It essentially served as an upgrade to Bing search with a chat feature (powered by a reasoning engine) that interacts with users. It also provided sources with its responses (the equivalent of results in a traditional search engine) and offered settings to adjust the results. The technology was so impressive that many experts believed it may give Bing an edge over Google.
Google Gemini: However, Google released Bard (now Gemini) soon after. It uses deductive, inductive, and adductive reasoning to provide a similar experience as Bing Chat. It comes in both a basic and advanced offering.
SEarchGPT: ChatGPT uses a reasoning engine to power its generative AI. Its ability to act as a search engine is currently limited, but that will soon change with the upcoming release of its SearchGPT platform.
The Shortfall of Reasoning Engines
Most reasoning engine developers admit that they often return inaccurate results. Experts have confirmed that AI frequently returns answers that sound very convincing but are actually misleading. This currently makes it very easy for reasoning engines to misinform their audiences.
This has led to a general distrust in the results produced by AI reasoning engines. Consumers largely still consider traditional search engines more trustworthy. That perception is currently threatening AI as a whole. It’s also setting AI technologies up to fail if digital marketers and SEO professionals rely too heavily on reasoning engines (more on that later). That’s why results from reasoning engines increasingly include links to sources. However, more will need to be done in the future.
What This Means for SEO Professionals
Google has spent years claiming that E-E-A-T is not a direct ranking factor (although data and other statements released by Google dispute that). However, even if that currently the case, it will need to change if reasoning engines hope to improve their flailing reputations.
This means we are going to have to rely on E-E-A-T principles more than ever. Remember, reasoning engines can use deductive reasoning to assess websites just as well as a human could at a significantly faster rate. Consider the work it would take the convince an industry expert that your website is THE go-to source of information. That’s essentially what’s going to happen as reasoning engines continue to advance.
It also means the human touch will remain vital. Scientists have already warned that over-reliance on AI technologies is threatening to result in “model collapse.” This essentially means that as AI content floods the internet, unique nuances will get left out and eventually lead AI platforms to produce nonsense. SEOs must learn to use AI as a tool, not a replacement.
However, as we mentioned, reasoning engines, like search engines, rely on content that can be scraped from the web to provide results. This means they’ll need mechanisms to avoid model collapse – and that brings us back to the crucial importance of the human touch.
Those diverse, unique nuances that can only come from people will prove crucial. This means SEO professionals who rely on their own expertise and creativity while also using AI as a tool will begin to beat those who rely solely on AI.
To help make more sense of this, consider the tools you already use as an SEO professional: Semrush, Google Analytics, Ahrefs, etc. You rely on these tools to help improve the speed, accuracy, and precision of your work, not to actually do all of the work for you. AI should be viewed and used the same way. Use E-E-A-T as your framework and AI as a tool to implement your own creativity.
Remember, both AI and human brains essentially learn by scraping information from other sources. It is the intuition, creativity, and experiences of humans that truly set us apart.
Provide content that helps reasoning engines better understand the user’s query while providing also providing a more complete and accurate answer. This approach will help SEOs build algorithm-proof strategies in the coming years.
Also, remember to use reasoning engines regularly to better gauge how they interact with people as the technology continues to improve. They’re still experimental, and our knowledge of how we can best use and optimize for reasoning engines is currently limited.
Prompt Engineering: The “How” Behind Using AI Tools
Prompt engineering is currently the most effective way for SEOs to use AI and reasoning tools. Unfortunately, it’s not always as easy as it sounds.
Yes, you can ask AI a simple question and get a response. Often, that response seems great – when compared to the experience that we’ve become accustomed to with search engines (or humans, for that matter). We tend to summarize searches for fast results. We also often try to keep our questions short when speaking with other people to avoid boring them.
However, reasoning engines offer more opportunities to dive deeply and improve your work when you communicate with them effectively. They have an infinite level of patience and are happy to provide results in the format you prefer. This can include lists, tables, and charts. It can also include longer answers that offer more context.
This means your prompts should include more information with context about the query, your project, and your preferred results. You can even include examples and tell the reasoning engine how you want its results formatted. Reasoning engines can prove invaluable to SEOs who have mastered the art of prompt engineering.
This is where your own creativity and intuition can really shine. Just remember to practice and experiment with your prompts. You don’t have to settle for subpar results!
“Ironically, people believed AI would replace them. However, their diligence, expertise, and creativity are now more crucial than ever.”
