ChatGPT gives SEO marketers more human-like responses to queries, while Gemini explains technical SEO better in generative AI test.
Retail marketers have likely tapped generative artificial intelligence tools ChatGPT and Google Gemini in the past year to help them with their tasks, including search engine optimization.
The large language models are valuable tools to help give guidance, finds B2B media agency DesignRush in a recent test. But, ChatGPT beat Gemini in providing more usable examples, while Gemini’s answers were more surface level in some strategy questions.
“From tone and teaching clarity to aligning content to user intent, ChatGPT edged out Gemini in most content-focused areas, especially where it needed to ‘think like an SEO expert,’ not just recite facts,” according to the report.
DesignRush asked each generative AI tool 30 SEO questions relating to keyword strategy, technical SEO, content strategy, large language model integration and future readiness. DesignRush’s SEO team judged each response for accuracy, clarity and usefulness.
Out of 30 prompts, the LLMs tied 19 times. ChatGPT had seven “strong wins” and four of its responses needed improvement. Gemini had the inverse: four strong winning responses and seven that needed improvement.
Here’s which generative AI tool DesignRush recommends for various SEO tasks:
- Explaining SEO to a client: ChatGPT
- Creating content briefs: ChatGPT
- Writing how-to articles: Either
- FAQs and schema markup: Gemini
- Reviewing sitemap/robots.txt: Gemini
- Brainstorming blog ideas: ChatGPT
- Comparing ranking factors: Gemini
Details and goals of the generative AI SEO test
Today, retail marketers need to think about how to show up in AI summary results, not just at the top of Google’s results. Both tools can provide helpful tips to questions related to, “How can my business show up in ChatGPT or Gemini answers?” But Gemini (owned by Google) leaned more into Google’s view with its repose, while ChatGPT gave better real-world tips, according to the report.
Example questions from the SEO test included:
- What’s link building?
- What is keyword proximity?
- How does content fit into the funnel?
- What is robots meta tag?
- How do we prove SEO’s value with all these AI tools around?
The goal for the test was to ask the tools foundational and repeatable SEO tasks, which are often the ones employees delegate to AI tools or use to train junior team members.
“The goal was to test how useful the models are in real SEO workflows, not how well they solve a unique ranking problem, which still requires human strategy,” said Anonta Khan, digital public relations manager at DesignRush.
Neither tool can catch what a marketing strategist can, such as broken schema, misused tags, or content gaps that matter, said Robin Fishley, SEO director at DesignRush. The tools were just tools, and retailers still need human marketers to connect the dots.
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