ChatGPT ate my website
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Bored the other night, I asked ChatGPT if it’s trained itself on my oldest website, Become a Writer Today. Here’s what the AI model said: "Yes, Become a Writer Today is absolutely part of the training data corpus OpenAI models were trained on, via publicly available web content. That means:
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Your articles have likely been ingested (especially evergreen blog posts, guides, and tutorials).
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The tone, structure, and style of the site may have influenced how the model responds to questions about writing, productivity, or creativity.
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It’s a rare legacy site that has indirectly shaped how AI answers writing-related queries."
I don’t remember giving ChatGPT permission to eat my content! ChatGPT massaged my shoulders and told me “it’s cool”, but it didn’t say about me getting paid by OpenAI for training its corpus on content I either paid for or spent hours writing. Still, I’m pragmatic about AI training itself on my content these days. I used to write content to get traffic from search. These days, I don’t rely on SEO as much for my business. One of my main sites gets more traffic from Bing than Google. I regularly train AI on the articles and newsletters I write to gain insights and explore new angles. I treat it like a creative intern rather than the enemy. We’re entering a zero-click world where users can get what they need from an AI summary or Chat without clicking through from Google Search to a website or blog. I’ve read multiple studies, including one from AHREFS that says Google AI summaries have reduced traffic to websites by 34 percent. That’s a preview of what’s coming. A survey by Future Publishing found a quarter of Americans are using chatbots instead of Google. Although I’m in Ireland, I consider myself part of that 25%. I was researching the best “bike turbo trainers” this week. A few years ago, I’d have spent a few hours reading blog posts, reviews, and round-ups. Now, I plug a query like that into Perplexity and ask it a few follow-up questions. I only use Google these days for local search when I need to find a hardware store, restaurant, or bar. I’m hardly alone. The imminent zero-click apocalypse is hitting publishers of all sizes. Over the past few months, web 2.0 behemoths like Business Insider and The Daily Dot underwent a round of painful layoffs, resulting in writers losing their jobs. Web 2.0 media is responding by either suing AI companies for training on their data or forming partnerships. The former strikes me as too little, too late. The Sure, you can get some traffic from the citations inside of a ChatGPT or Perplexity response, but it’s a fraction of what Google sent in the glory days of informational SEO. The rest of us hardly have the financial muscle to sue a big tech company. The latter might work for larger companies, but I wouldn’t hold my breath for substantial compensation from an AI company. I’ve tried various partner programs for creators over the years, and the payouts are usually meager and unreliable. In this AI-powered web, it’s adapt or die. The glory days of SEO are over. Creating on social has merit, but you’re a slave to the algorithm. A direct relationship with readers, clients, or customers is worth far more than traffic or even a follower count. My strategy is simple. I write a daily newsletter and create content for one or two social media platforms. My primary goal is to grow my list, allowing me to establish a deeper relationship with readers. That frees me up to make offers without worrying about an algo or an AI model. If you need help with your strategy, I’ve opened up Pro Creators Only. This week, I’m accepting five clients. Here are the details​ I’ll close this offer in a few days, so if you want access, now’s the time. |