(Don't want to read the background, and want to jump straight into the quiz?).
Back in 2016, I launched an SEO ranking skills test in partnership with Moz. We asked a couple thousand people to choose which of two pages they thought ranked better on Google for a range of keywords. The average accuracy was 46% — that’s worse than a coin toss!
Now, in 2024, we’re back with a brand new SEO quiz, a brand new opponent for you, and a brand new burning question: can you beat AI at predicting SEO rankings?
Let’s step back in time
Indulge us in a bit of time travel. It’s 2016 all over again. You unlock your brand-new iPhone 7 to publish your company’s attempt at The Mannequin Challenge on Instagram and notice the app’s logo has changed from a brown, vintage Polaroid camera to a multicolored gradient that runs from yellow to purple. It’s nestled between Snapchat, which has just launched ‘Snapchat Memories’, and Pokémon GO, the virtual reality (VR) game that has everyone you know and love in a chokehold.
The technology landscape is changing fast. But somehow, true Artificial Intelligence (AI) still feels a long way off. And while tools like Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) exist, they are still worlds away from being widely adopted. And no one is talking about AI in search.
Now fast-forward to 2024 and if your LinkedIn feed is to be believed, AI and search is all anyone is talking about.
The changing world of SEO testing
The SEO world has evolved over the past eight years. Page Speed and Core Web Vitals are now apparently ranking factors. E-E-A-T (Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) has changed how Google spokespeople talk about certain websites. Diverse media like videos and podcasts rank at the top of Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). And now, we have Generative AI tools at our fingertips.
ChatGPT reached one million users within just five days of launching. By comparison, it took Instagram 2.5 months to reach the same milestone. And it took Facebook 10 months. As AI becomes a bigger part of our daily lives, we start to wonder about its SEO prediction capabilities.
After years in the industry — or years of intelligent machine learning (ML), depending on who (or what) you are — you begin to develop an understanding of what works and what doesn’t. Right? You can look at two websites that rank for the same search term and use your SEO predicting prowess to select the one that ranks higher on Google for a specific search. Right?
Pit your wits against Google’s Gemini
We’ve built a brand new SEO quiz, ready for SEO experts in 2024 to test their skills. The premise of the quiz remains the same as it did in 2016. We’ll ask you 12 questions. Each one will present you with two different URLs, and all you have to do is tell us which one you think ranks better for a particular search term on Google. But there are some crucial changes, too. Firstly, you don’t have to beat a coin toss. Your new challenger is Google’s generative AI tool, Gemini.
We’ve asked Gemini the same questions we’ll be asking you. However, we are also providing you with some valuable data we collected from PageSpeed Insights and Ahrefs about each URL. We haven’t shared this with Gemini. So you’ll have visibility of the following data — and a head start!
- Ahrefs Domain Rating
- Ahrefs URL Rating
- Ahrefs Organic search keywords
- PageSpeed Insights' Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)
- PageSpeed Insights' First Input Delay (FID)
- PageSpeed Insights’ Cumulative Layout Shift
- PageSpeed Insights' Performance (mobile)
- PageSpeed Insights' Accessibility (mobile)
Once you’ve completed the quiz, we’ll send you a personalized report that details how you measure up against Gemini. Whether you were fast to adopt generative AI or you’re still a little skeptical, you’ll be able to get a real feel for how well you can compete.
The power of true A/B testing
No matter how good you or your chosen AI tool is at predicting SEO outcomes, it’s important to remember that it’s all guesswork. Whether it’s 2016 or 2024, the same thing rings true. Testing your website is the only way to know for sure what works (and what doesn’t).
Test your ability to predict SEO rankings to see if you can beat Gemini today.
